by T F Lince
Chapter 21 – Don’t Pay the Ferryman
Dean woke up in Room 119 of Welnetham Hall, his head a little delicate. It wasn’t every day he got to have a drink with his parents before he had even been born, so going to bed early the previous night had not been an option. His mind was frantically trying to put all the pieces of the last two weeks together, but it was like doing a jigsaw with no picture on the box. Dean more or less had all the sides done, but he didn’t know where to start with the middle.
It was a sunny summer’s day, so after a shower and a shave, he got ready to go out for a walk. He gave Mrs McCauley a smile as he went past reception. She was the only receptionist he had seen, so she must work every hour of the day.
He left the hotel and took a right turn out of the gates. He’d not been this way yet, so he thought he would have an explore and see where he ended up. He might find a town or village to get a bite to eat as he’d missed breakfast at the hotel.
It was a good day for thinking, and Dean was thinking it was going to be a good day. Well at least he was still here. He had visions of the tall man in black with his silver-topped cane raised above his head, ready to strike Dean. He also thought how the man with the cane had looked confused. The man’s mood had changed just before he consulted his old book, resetting whatever was inside it, then tilting his hat to Dean and walking out. Dean’s thoughts rattled around his head, bouncing off each other one after the other, none of them confirming or denying anything. Nothing and at the same time everything seemed connected, but the angular pieces were still refusing to form into a picture.
Dean ambled along, not really paying attention to anything but his thoughts, until his concentration was broken by the sound of a river flowing ahead. The air was getting colder as a damp mist started to form, pushed towards him by the flowing water. He could feel wetness on his brow and his arms. It felt similar to a fret rolling in from the North Sea in Whitby Harbour, but different too. He was nowhere near the sea, and this mist felt warmer and more welcoming. Dean was drawn to it.
He went over a stile in a wooden fence and made his way into a wooded area which ran along the riverbank. The sound of the water got louder and the mist seemed to get thicker and hotter, as if the river itself was giving off steam like a hot spring. He could see the riverbank through the trees, and the path he was following was more of a downtrodden track in the undergrowth.
It was darker now, although it must have only been 1pm at the latest. The mist had dampened out most of the light and there was a dusk-like feeling to the surroundings. Dean could hear a dog barking and snarling ahead, but he kept walking.
In an opening in the trees ahead, an old lady was attempting to restrain her dog, put him back on the lead and keep him quiet. She gave him a treat out of a belt bag she had around her waist which seemed to do the trick, but although the dog was now silent, he still looked disturbed by something across the river.
“Is he OK? He seems a bit angry.”
The old lady looked at Dean.
“What are you doing down here? You shouldn’t have come down here!”
“I thought I’d come for a walk. It was a nice day, and…”
“Dean, we can only guide you and try to point you in the right direction. The more you know and the deeper you get, the harder it will be to get you back.”
Dean looked at her; she had tears forming in her eyes. Dean did not even know her, so why was she so bothered about him? He thought better of saying, “How the fuck do you know I’m called Dean?” Far too much weird stuff had passed under the bridge now for him to pick up on small details like that.
Instead, he settled on, “What do you mean, guide me?” while trying to sneak a peek through the gap in the trees. The dog was still looking agitated and uncomfortable; Dean got the impression that he was only keeping quiet out of loyalty to the old lady. If he had been on his own, he would be going berserk.
“You don’t need to see this, Dean. If you know too much, he won’t allow you to go back.”
Dean had had enough of being told what to do. There were too many missing pieces in his jigsaw; if he could get a few more pieces in the middle and attach them to the border, the whole thing might click into place. He respectfully moved the lady to one side and looked through the gap in the trees.
The tall man was on the other side of the river, his silver-topped stick sparkling in what little light it could find to sparkle in, and there was a group of about twenty people with him. Men and women, all the men dressed in black suits and the ladies in black dresses, stood in a line. None of them were talking; their eyes were trained on the river upstream.
The silver-topped cane man glanced over to Dean’s side of the river and looked surprised to see Dean there. He opened his book and had a quick look, as if checking his diary for an appointment he had pencilled in for later. Then he closed his book and placed it back into his pocket. He was no longer wearing his customary hat; he had more of a black cloak with a hood on. He nodded at Dean in acknowledgement.
“Who are they?” Dean looked at the old lady, who was bribing her dog with another keep-quiet biscuit. She had a resigned look on her face.
“I told you, Dean, there will be no way back now he knows what you’ve seen. It will make things harder for you.”
“Won’t let me back where?” Dean enquired. The lady ignored the question.
“Dean, all the pieces are there for you. We have chosen you because we believe in you, and we don’t get to choose many. You are one of the lucky ones who earn the right for a second chance, but you’re in too deep now you’ve seen this much. I think you may now be beyond our guidance.”
The lady turned and started to walk away, but the dog forced her back by looking upstream and growling. There was the sound of oars disturbing the water as if a team of rowers were speeding through it. This was not a team, though; it was one set of oars slicing and thumping through the river, creating a powerful bow wave before another rhythmic plunging carried through the dense fog.
The lady looked over to the group on the far side of the river. The people in black lined up as the ferry became visible through the fog. It was a long boat with a flattened space in the middle to carry twenty or thirty people at a time. A large muscular man with long blond hair dressed in a red toga was at the back, powering the boat forward, punching the oar into the river and pulling it through before effortlessly dismissing the water. The bow lifted out of the water with each row, then crashed down again, creating waves either side of the keel.
As the boat got nearer to the far bank, the people in the line walked past the cloaked man, who had put down his silver cane. Each presented a coin to him as he brought their heads into his chest and hugged them, lightly tilting their heads backward, putting his hand onto their jaws and opening up their mouths. Inside each mouth, he placed the coin on their tongues as payment for the journey they were embarking upon, gesturing for them to wait for the ferry which was nearing the jetty.
“What’s going on?” Dean whispered to the old lady. Her dog had stopped barking; he had lost all of his courage and was letting out a frightened whimper, moving behind his owner’s legs for cover.
The Ferryman made a final adjusting oar stroke on the port side of the ferry. The boat turned back upstream to order and settled broadside of the riverbank, adjacent to the jetty.
“Not now, Dean, keep quiet. If you think the man you have already met is scary, I promise you don’t want to meet the guy on the boat anytime soon. Even your friend over there is wary of him.”
Dean looked on; he thought being quiet was probably a good idea right now. The air felt like it could be cut with a knife. There was a smell of nothingness and emptiness, as if evil was all around. Everyone was respectfully still and silent.
The Ferryman looked over to Dean and the old lady. She bowed.
“Dean, get down now! Bow!”
Dean bowed as commanded. He lifted his head slightly to see the Ferryman’s piercing blue eyes aime
d straight at him.
Everyone in the queue was also bowing. They had their payment in their mouths ready for the Ferryman and were waiting to be beckoned forward onto the boat.
The Ferryman pointed to Dean and spoke in an ancient language that Dean had never heard before. He was talking to the cloaked man, who had now picked up his customary silver cane. He took his book out of his cloak and seemed to be bargaining with the Ferryman in a tongue that was as old as the planet itself. The words had edges to them and echoed with great power; the ground shook and the river rippled as the words were exchanged between them.
Dean felt cold as the Ferryman looked over to him. The Ferryman’s blue eyes gazed deep into his soul; he wasn’t looking at Dean, he was looking inside him, and Dean knew it. He could feel his brain burning. His heart was thumping as if to escape from his numb body.
The Ferryman raised his open hand at Dean and slowly closed it into a fist. Dean could feel his neck getting tighter and tighter as the Ferryman’s hand closed in. He was on all fours, struggling for air, contorting his head upwards to try and find some much needed oxygen.
The silver cane was lightly brought down onto the Ferryman’s arm as if to remind him of the rules and who did what job around here. The Ferryman looked at the silver cane and lowered it before staring over at Dean. There was a seat for Dean on his boat, but maybe not today. Dean felt as if he had just wriggled off the hook like fish sometimes did when he used to go fishing with his dad.
The Ferryman made a parting comment which shook the ground more than anything that had been said before. He then kicked the wooden walkway which extended from the centre of the boat to the jetty for the waiting people to get on board.
Dean was lying on the ground, panting and trying to catch his breath. The old lady had stood up and was watching the people walking onto the ferry like robots, one after the other, taking their seats until the boat was full.
Dean managed to stand up next to her.
“You’re right, I wish I hadn’t seen that. Who is he?”
With one powerful stroke of the oar, the Ferryman started back upstream, disappearing into the mist with the passengers looking straight ahead, not talking. Far from looking scared, they seemed content with the fate that had been bestowed upon them.
“He is Charon, the Ferryman. For your sake, I hope you won’t see him for a while. But that’s up to you, Dean. You need to find your own way.” She paused. “If you do see him soon, you’ll need this.” The old lady held out an ancient coin with a gargoyle on one side.
“What is it?” Dean asked, taking the coin into the palm of his hand.
“It’s a danake.”
Dean looked at the coin, turning it over to show an anchor on the other side.
“A danake? Am I going on that boat?” The old lady looked away. “Am I?” he asked again.
“Dean, we have all been trying to guide you, but at some point you have to help yourself.” She turned, pulling the lead of her dog. “Come on, Oscar.”
“Thank you. I mean it, thank you. I didn’t even get your name.”
“Molly. I’m called Molly. How much do you want to change, Dean? If you do, you’d better start proving it. There are lots of people who love you, but you have to give him a sign that you love them back. Otherwise what’s the point? I fear you’ve seen far too much. Nobody has ever seen this much and been allowed back.”
“Back to where?” Dean asked again.
“Keep the coin safe, Dean, you may need it very soon. God be with you.” Molly put her hand on his arm as she moved past him before disappearing into the woods.
The fog lifted as quickly as it had descended in the first place, and the river looked tranquil and calm as if nature was pretending the last hour had not happened. Unfortunately for Dean, it had.
Chapter 22 – Time and Pressure
Jodie was tucking into her late breakfast. Her mum was sitting opposite, looking over the top of her skinny latte and trying not to think too much. They had more or less agreed last night that today would be a day off from thinking and sulking. Today was about healing and moving on together.
“Mum, I’m going out for a ride on my bike.”
Sarah looked at her daughter and laughed.
“Your bike? Do you even know where your bike is?” Jodie had hardly ridden her bike since she got it last Christmas.
“Yes, of course I do. I might go for a ride with Kyle.” Jodie looked down at her food, not wanting to engage in a conversation about the whys and wherefores of her sudden interest in cycling.
“You really like Kyle, don’t you, Jodie?” Sarah smiled a ‘my daughter is growing up’ smile.
“Mum, he’s just a mate!” Jodie looked up from her food and gave Sarah a full on stare of the ‘whatever’ variety. Sarah saw this and backed off.
“Enjoy your bike ride then, Jodie, but I need you back here for four o’clock.”
“OK, Mum, I will be.”
Jodie finished her breakfast and ran upstairs to her room. She texted Kyle, I’ll be at yours in an hour. BE IN with an emoji pointing at the reader, indicating the BE IN part of the sentence was an order, not a request. She then put on some black cycling shorts and a Castelli top with its trademark scorpion which had hardly seen the light of day, grabbed a rucksack from the wardrobe, and looked into a storage container under the bed.
“It’s here somewhere,” she said as she rummaged around the boxes inside the storage container. In the third box, she found a chess clock with a rocking paddle on either side for the players to stop their clock and start their opponent’s. Jodie tried to turn it on, but the batteries were dead.
“Batteries, batteries,” she muttered. Surveying the room for likely candidates, she spied the clock on the wall, took it down and pilfered the batteries from the back, leaving the clock on her bed.
“Bingo!” she said as she put them in the chess clock and it lit up.
If getting ready was an Olympic event, Jodie would be a gold medal contender. As she whizzed past her mother in the kitchen and straight into the adjoining garage, Sarah shouted, “If your dad was here, he’d be saying, ‘All the gear and no idea’, Jodie. When was the last time you rode that bike?”
Jodie popped her head back into the kitchen with all the attitude of a stroppy teenager.
“Well, he’s not here, is he?” she said, giving her mum a silent stare that spoke volumes.
Jodie’s bike was behind her dad’s. They used to go cycling together when she first got her bike, but not so much anymore. She took a deep breath before moving her dad’s bike to one side with great care to reveal her racer. It was not a normal girl’s bike; it was a ladies’ Cannondale SuperSix EVO Carbon all in black, thanks to Dean’s failed attempt to push his daughter into becoming a keen cyclist. Jodie needed it today as Kyle lived about five miles away.
Her phone buzzed in the pocket in the back of her cycling top. The text read, OK, Miss Pushy Pants, I’ll be in, x LOL. His emoji of choice was of a cross-armed gangster with shades on. Jodie smiled.
She put on her cycling cleats and put her trainers into her rucksack before going inside to see her mother, her feet clicking on the kitchen tiles, walking like she was on ice skates.
“Love you, Mum. Off to Kyle’s. I’ll be back before four, promise.”
Her mother looked her up and down. “OK, Jodie, love you too.”
Jodie put the rucksack on her back and fastened her helmet before pressing the button to open the garage door. Once the door was up enough to allow her through, she set off. Within two strokes, she’d hooked her cleats into the pedals and shot away. She was on a mission and it showed.
Jodie got to the bottom of Kyle’s road, rode up to his door out of breath and rang the bell. He opened the door and laughed as he let her and her bike in.
“What on earth are you wearing, Jodie?”
“Back off, Kyle. I told my mum that I was going out for a bike ride with you, so I had to make an effort to convince her. She’s sick
of the chess thing.” Jodie placed her bike against the hallway wall.
“I’m sick of this chess thing, too. I know it’s for your dad, but we’ve tried everything and failed. What more can we do?” Kyle took Jodie’s helmet from her and put it in the cloakroom.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Kyle,” she said, peeling off her cycling gloves.
“Try me! I’m all ears.”
Jodie looked at him once before kneeling down to tear off the Velcro strap on her cycling shoes. As she stood back up, she gave him a second look before kicking off both of her shoes. Here goes nothing, she thought.
“I had a dream last night. And in the dream, someone told me how whites can win. It was actually something you said to me.”
Kyle took Jodie’s shoes and placed them in the cloakroom with the helmet.
“How, Jodie? We know it’s not possible, we’ve tried. A dream isn’t going to help. I think you have issues.” He gave her a big smile, then continued, having got no response to the ‘you have issues’ comment. “OK, so let’s recap. You were told in a dream – let’s pretend for one second that is true. What’s your masterplan? And what was it I said? And who told you in your dream?” Kyle looked at her, cutting her some slack. “I’m still all ears.” The smile that followed this was award-winning.
Jodie took a deep breath. She was going to need it to answer all three questions that Kyle had just lined up for her.
“One, I can’t really tell you my masterplan, I’ve got to show you. Two, if it works, I’ll tell you who told me, and three, I’ll tell you what you said after I’ve beaten you.”
She took his award-winning smile and raised it. This smile did not require a response; they both knew she’d won the persuasive smiling competition.
“OK, you have got me intrigued, Jodie. Let’s see what you’ve got, then.” Kyle headed into the kitchen and Jodie followed. His chessboard was ready, the pieces set up in the position where Jodie and her dad had left the game.
