Thin Water on the Canal

Book 7 of the TowPath Tales

By: Ken Jolly

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

When the water drops, everything shows.
After weeks without rain, the canal begins to shrink beneath the hulls of the liveaboard boats that call it home. Mud banks rise where water once held steady. Mooring lines hang slack. Tempers grow short.
For Ivy, the strain is more than practical. The canal has always been her measure of steadiness — of rhythm, of breath, of belonging. But as levels fall and assisted passages begin, the fragile balance between boaters begins to crack. Small mistakes carry real consequences. Pride runs aground faster than steel.
Theo tries to hold music between them like a bridge — something solid when the water won’t be. But even melody thins under pressure.
When a single misjudgment at Bosley sends ripples downstream, two couples are forced to leave their boats and wait it out on land — tired, uncertain, and questioning what “finishing the journey” really means. At first it’s just a whisper of concern. A lock gate slow to open. A cill closer than it should be. Then the canal begins to shrink in earnest. Water levels fall below markers no one has seen in years. Assisted passages are announced. Movements are rationed.
And one mistake changes everything.
When a poorly timed descent at Bosley visibly lowers the upper pound, boats grind in silt where they should be floating free. Accusations ripple faster than current. Pride hardens. The cut grows tense.
Ivy has always trusted the canal’s rhythm — trusted that patience and community would see them through. But thin water exposes more than mud banks. It reveals fractures in friendships. Fault lines between couples. The quiet question of who is responsible when shared water disappears.

Because sometimes survival isn’t about pushing through.
Sometimes it’s about knowing when to step ashore.
As storms gather on the horizon and the first distant thunder rolls across the cut, Ivy must decide what matters more — reaching the end of the canal, or protecting the life she’s built along it.
In the thinnest water, love either deepens…
or runs dry.