Padrig has a weather-browned face, a broad, blunt nose, and a beard kept short enough not to catch in rope. His hair is the grey-brown of river silt, cut unevenly with a knife. He moves with a ferry worker's practiced economy, knees loose and weight always prepared to shift with an imagined swell. Within a minute, most people notice him touching the small brass bell at his belt, checking its clasp as if expecting it to come loose. Against his rough, work-worn bearing, he keeps a folded scrap of bright yellow ribbon tucked beneath his collar, carefully protected from rain.

Padrig is dutiful but resentful, practical yet quietly superstitious about the river. With passengers he is brisk and protective; with family he can be gentle until they question his judgment, when he turns hard and evasive. He dislikes Skaidra's influence, but takes her warnings seriously because he knows what it cost him to ignore one.

Padrig learned the ferry trade from his mother, who taught him to read water by its sound against pilings. Years ago, he took a night crossing during a sudden fog after Skaidra warned him that the river was behaving strangely. He dismissed her warning as another of her uncanny cautions. A hidden snag tore the ferry open. Padrig's wife and two children survived by clinging to a broken section of deck until a fishing boat found them; a passenger drowned. Padrig still carries the blame, and resentment toward Skaidra for having been right does not stop him from passing along her warnings. He does so indirectly, through notes, altered crossing schedules, and quiet messages left at the landing. His wife, Dena, knows he is in contact with Skaidra but does not know how often. His son, Tavi, wants to take over the ferry and believes Padrig's caution has made the family small. Now a new pier is being built upstream, changing the current, and Padrig suspects another dangerous crossing is coming.