The Supply Boat – Part 1: Fog Bell

The fog bell was ringing when the supply boat nosed out of the white.

Noah stood on the island dock with his suitcase, six crates of books and a nervous stomach. He was thirty-one, a teacher from Boston, newly hired for a school of seven children on a rock with forty residents. The boat bumped against the pilings. A man in an orange oilskin jumped down and tied it off with a quick, practised hitch.

"You're the teacher," he said.

"Noah."

"Eli. I bring the mail and the milk and whatever you forgot." He was thirty-four, lean and weather-beaten, with a close-cropped beard and amused blue eyes. "I brought you bread."

He held out a warm loaf wrapped in a tea towel. Noah took it, startled.

"From my sister's bakery on the mainland. She says teachers need carbohydrates."

"She's right."

"She generally is."

Eli carried the crates up the hill without being asked. The island was all grey rock and spruce and wild roses, with white cottages clustered around a small harbour. The school was a single red room with a bell. Noah's cottage stood at the end of the lane, looking over the sea, with a woodstove, a creaky bed and a view of nothing but fog.

"It lifts at noon," said Eli. "You'll like it."

"Will I?"

"Everyone does, in the end. The ones who stay."

He came every Tuesday and Friday. Noah began to wait for the sound of the engine. They drank coffee on the dock. Eli told him about the island: the old fishermen, the seals on the ledge, the winter storm that took the roof off the meeting hall. Noah told him about his students and the book he was trying to write.

"Can I ask you something?" said Noah, one grey afternoon.

"Yes."

"Why do you do this? The supply run?"

"Because someone should arrive," said Eli. "Every time."

"Green?" said Noah, shyly, a word from his sister.

"Green," said Eli, smiling slowly. "Very green. Come out on the boat Saturday."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Open Water.