Seven Skirts and Silver Fish

On the third day Polly rode down to the town instead of flying. A little funicular has been climbing up and down this cliff for more than one hundred and thirty years, carrying passengers between the beach town below and the clifftop village above. Polly perched on the rail inside the wooden carriage and watched the red rooftops rise past the window, feeling very much like a proper passenger.

The town beach was covered with low wooden racks, and on the racks, under thin nets, lay hundreds of small silver fish drying in the sun. This is one of the oldest traditions of Nazaré. Long before refrigerators, the people of this coast learned to salt their fish and let the sun and the wind preserve it, and they simply never stopped.

The racks were tended by gull ladies in wide, bright, layered skirts, seven skirts each, one on top of another, with scarves knotted under their chins. They turned each fish with great care, like gardeners turning leaves toward the light. Some say the seven skirts stand for the seven days of the week. Others say they stand for the seven waves of a set. When Polly asked which story was true, the oldest gull only laughed and straightened her scarf.

In the late afternoon Polly rode the funicular back up and returned to her lantern. Polly notices things. What she noticed now was the sea. The lines of swell were taller than yesterday, and they had begun, very quietly, to boom.