The Ferryman

The ferryman looked over his shoulder at me, feral eyes glowing red. Then, as if in answer to my question, his gaze returned to the horizon. A dark line of cliffs barely visible there in the dim twilight. His long-fingered hands gripped a set of oars, his skin a dark grayish blue like the murky ocean water we were to cross.

I hesitated, standing there on the dock. His grip on the oars tightened, muscular arms tensing with purpose.

“Wait!” I called, my voice sounding small in the vast blackness. I climbed aboard the tiny rowboat, clutching the sides of the boat as the ferryman began to paddle with smooth, swift strokes. The darkness weighed heavy around us. Like the sky would fall into the ocean, smothering us.

I thought of my mother then. How I used to lay in bed as kid while she spread the sheet, letting it slowly sink down over my body. She would tuck it around the mattress, pretending she had not seen me as she made the bed. Hotel style. Then I would pop out from beneath the covers, giggling.

Those memories had not surfaced in a very long time. She died when I was only a teenager. Ashes buried under an oak tree. I patted a numb hand against my pocket, searching for the bump of an acorn. I always kept one with me, like a worry stone I’d pull it out whenever things got too hard.

Scared I might drop it, I kept it in my pocket, pressing my legs together against the cold blackness as the ferryman continued rowing. I wanted to ask him where he was taking me, but I kept my mouth shut. Partly out of fear, partly due to the coiling in my gut. Deep down I already knew the answer.

The ferryman’s hair is long and thick, like a wool blanket draped over his body. A ratty tunic barely visible beneath. He unsettled me but it was better to stare at his back rather than letting my eyes wander to the water sloshing against the sides of the boat. There in the water, lost souls drifted about, doomed to remain in the frigid salt waters. Never to reach their true destination.

It felt like an eternity but eventually I spotted a dot of light on the land ahead of us, just over the ferryman’s shoulder.

“What is that?” I asked.

The ferryman’s only response was a brief pause between strokes which made me lapse back into silence. I ignored the reaching hands of the lost souls from the water, focusing on that light on the horizon. My new home? Perhaps my mother to greet me? Or would she be waiting at all?

Perhaps she had been reincarnated, sent to some other place, some other universe where she could spread sheets over her other children. Better children. Maybe when you die, you forget everything. Maybe I would forget my past as I reached the light and get sent to some other place too. I felt for the acorn again, a red oak. Quercus rubra. It had been mother’s favourite tree. I didn’t want to forget about that.

When we reached the shoreline, the ferryman beckoned to me with those hands the colour of murky water. I didn’t know his intention, only that the boat was now drifting off course. The light dimmed, and my heart clenched, “What do you want?”

His hand came closer, palm up. All I had was the acorn.

I pulled it out now, feelings it’s smooth surface. The ferryman snatched it from me, one glowing eye studying the seed coldly as the boat veered ever further off course, the light dimming further. I could barely see it now.

“Please, we have to hurry!” I wanted to say it with force, but my voice came out strained and squeaky. The ferryman seemed ready to cast the seed into the waters, an icy hand reaching from the darkness for it. Then, in a sudden flurry that nearly knocked me into the waters the ferryman stowed the acorn in a heavy purse by his side. He snatched up the oars, forcefully casting off the reaching spirits as strong strokes carried the boat to a waiting stairwell.

I hurried up those steps, terrified that I would be left in this place. Now breathless, lungs burning, I climbed into the waiting light. My thoughts returned to that red oak seed. Such a small thing, yet it was just enough to settle the ferryman’s toll.

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Written by Kelsey Reich on November 1/2021 in Ontario, Canada.