DEAD SONG

I

"Consider your movements. The thread. It is delicate."

"I shall, mother."

I place the cloth over his eyes. Wrought lattice woven into the silk, an overlay of spindle silver pushed deep into midnight blue. Features fall away. I am forced to wonder if memory will be a mercy, or a most particular misery.

"Leave me with him."

"Yes mother."

A dutiful retreat. This goodbye is theirs. Only the betrayal of his passing is shared. She was his welcome into this world, and she shall usher him unto the next, as form dictates. This follows that, life turns to death, what grew shall wither. As causal as the next breath taken.

Until, of course, it is not.

Why then, does my fist shake, my eyes redden as if stung by wildfire?

I lower my head in burning focus. Dig my heels into thick moss. The laboured beauty of this cliff-side vigil blurs with overriding anger.

Mother tends to the remaining grief sacrament. Her recital does not falter, nary a waver nor crack from her stalwart tone. Poetry that soothed his childhood tantrums, philosophy that guided him to adolescence. Cresting to a final reflection all her own, an outpouring of wounds ever open, honest and raw in their grief. "You were to bury me, instead, I am resigned to a life that should not exist. May it be short, my sweet."

She weeps.

The sea air bites at the uncovered. Skin. Heart. Soul.

Rising from buried chest, she turns, strident.

"Follow. Our work begins at once."

We leave him lifeless atop the piled stone, halved by earth and sky.

I am to find his murderers. Pay them in kind. Blood for blood. Fair, when the world itself, is not.

II

He was sweet on some working girl. Mother knew. Of course she knew. Resolutely incapable of bestowing them any sort of approval, but this was true for any of the souls he bedded, regardless of status. Her golden boy, fit solely for her. Will she hold onto this grief, as dearly as she did him? Let it pull her to the grave before her due time?

Could I be all that is left..?

Naturally she had her watched, something at least this one was accustomed to. I have a description, scrawled and stained. Worryingly effusive in detail. With this fine an eye so readily given she'll have no problem finding devoted suitors. May she become some other fool's damned obsession.

Stop.

I shouldn't do that. We were not the only ones to lose him.

If their dalliances prove as regular as initially observed, she should, through midnight's grace, have shepherded him to his final of all days.

I will start there. Constable Beauregard has already removed her from their suspicions. My investigation, is expanded beyond the rigidity of their remit. May this house of ill repute be home to ample charities.

With measured persuasion, I convince my escort to remain outside. Their visits to this bordello stand unsponsored, instead they are to smooth the cobblestones with their listless patter.

The brothel is... lively. Songs of merriment coaxed from tongues loosened by potent spirits and moral laxity. Mourning, in its depths, is ill-suited. Blushing light pours from windows draped in finery, rudimentary attempts at discretion. Amidst the drunken revelry, a young woman tends to tables. It is frankly, obsessive. Entirely removed from the scene in its staunch dourness. She piles plates, tankards, and coin with equal indifference, avoided by the patrons in gaze and touch. Despite her shrinking withdrawal, she is inescapably flagrant in her forming. He was always so predictable in his fancies. Yet, this clearly mutated beyond candlelit trysts and animal lusts. He maintained this relationship... for years. Outside of us, his very blood, I dare say no one else knew him more intimately. Something beneath her perfumed skin spoke vividly, loudly, with enough force to captivate. I pray it was more than overly sweetened affections.

"A room please, if it's no trouble." She doesn't even look up. I place a copper atop her hand. "Please." Before she can counter with a rehearsed dismissal, she is overcome by the pain of recognition. I don't suppose I look much like Torger, but it is evidently, enough.

III

We fall into the lurid backroom, its walls lined with faded caricatures of intimacy, a space barely able to hold the plump bed.

"You're Mari."

"..."

'He said you cut your hair short. It suits you."

"You must be..." Of all the pet names I've read, I can't suppose to know what to call her.

"Torger's? In another life." Fed through a wistful sigh. "Call me Helene. Only he knew that. You should too."

"Helene, I will not waste words. I am here readily, for vengeance. I know he met you, that night, as was custom. What happened next, who held the knife, is torturously unclear."

"This is the first we've ever spoken...Tragedy is a powerful unifier." Melancholic sways as she billows across the room.

"For me, it will suffice as motivation."

She hovers over the memory, unsure whether to wade into the red waters. "We argued... Said he wouldn't introduce me to the family. Ever. It hurt. Words were thrown, careless in their aiming. Spat with cruel venom. Now... they are cradled with shame." She turns away, blanketed by guilt's revulsion. I cannot rightly direct the confrontations of her despair, but a taut silence is encouragement enough. Let it be over, girl. "He left, for business... Some ongoing dockland dispute I was to distract him from. If he had just remained by my side, he would be so forever."

We have no interests in the docks... Besides, he was found mere streets away from our home. Could he have crawled all that way? I must entertain the notion no matter how much I wish otherwise. "The shipyard, did he ever mention who he had dealings with?"

"Never, like I said, my distinction from that side of Tor's life was, deliberate."

Tor...

"No details of import? A location, or product of trade? Merrit runs the docks, but there's an undercurrent of opportunist thievery, any number of gangs. Give me something. Someone. Confessions of debt or drug use. Any shred. I need..." My breath falters. I am reduced to a strangled whimper. She wants to comfort me, on lifted heels and outstretched hands. I do not permit the kindness.

"Perhaps... He gave me this, months prior." She clutches at her neck. "Said it was the first commitment to a fortune we'd share. It's a Mercy gem, from my homeland. It could have only come from the docks, and there is but one hauler fit for the journey. It... also transports people. Hopes and cargo alike. The Ferryman's Song."

"Hmm. May it carry yet more." I attend my person, straightening my coat.

"Careful, they are coarse men."

"They all have soft bits that trigger a squeal. No doubt you're familiar." I shouldn't have said that. But the blade cannot be rescinded, no matter how much an undoing is willed. "I apologize. These days I am tested. I fear my countenance will be found, lacking. As such, my temper compensates. I am grateful, for this, and for what you gave him." Here, in private, she is an awkward thing, slowly unraveling.

"Did he... ever mention me?"

"...No. " She sinks. "He did... love you. That much is known. I can arrange the delivery of a small lock box of keepsakes, if you so wish."

"I... would like that, very much. Thank you..."

I move to exit, suspended in the doorframe. Did they meet here? This very bed... "Was it beautiful? The ceremony?" She pines, hoping to salvage some measure of closeness.

"It was as all meaningful goodbyes are... Painful."

IV

Through the curl of acrid smoke, the apathetic drudge of men in the vice of manual labour. A uniform pattern, belied by errant strands. Frayed figures and their brandished brutality. Overseers flanked by performative muscle, shipments hastily diverted to seclusion, the bolstered swell of irreproachable ownership.

Torger was much too naive to consort with traffickers such as these.

The price of his fool's business? Merely a life.

Mine to remember.

Again, the froth of waves.

Where the heedless do drown.

May The Ferryman's Song be a tune of truth.