The Ferryman - Book 1

Chapter 38:

Two – A Hellish Fasciation

There was a bathroom in the empty mansion, out of the way and undisturbed, and Agate filled its copper tub full of water from the bathhouse, and had Lander submerged inside.

Moth came to check on her every few hours the next day, whenever she took a break from working in the greenhouse.

“Don’t be alarmed when you see her body go,” warned Agate.

Moth was alarmed when she saw it.

Hour by hour, Lander’s body eroded away like chalk, first her limbs and head, then slowly her torso, filling the water with foggy green clouds so that Moth had no clue what was left beneath the surface – until Agate changed out the murky water for fresh and took out her empty clothes.

All that was left at the bottom of the tub was what looked like a snail shell with an umbilical cord, or strange seed that had failed to grow a proper stem. It did not sink to the bottom, nor float to the top, but hovered in the water.

It was a spiral shape, something like an ammonite, with the end tapering into a tail. It was dark green, and the surface was deeply grooved like a walnut, and the whole strange thing was the size of a fist.

“Lander?” Moth whispered.

Agate poured more water into the tub. “Now you know what a soul looks like, which is not something many living people can say. It looks solid enough, but…” she reached into the tub to grab Lander, and her hand passed through her. “Well, it’s hard to grab. Takes concentration.”

Moth spent most of the day after that laying in her bed.

She touched at her stomach and wondered if that’s what her soul looked like as well – a fragile, grooved spiral, looking like nothing more than a twisted seed. Everyone she knew was just that spiral. Her parents, her sisters and brothers, her grandfather.

When Grandpa Clem died, would that be all the ferrymen would see of him – a spiral. Were all the little details about someone so superficial – their hair and freckles, their skin, sex, voices, and talents, was it nothing but a shape and noise around a misshapen green walnut.

Moth dug her face into her pillow and tried not to think about it.

With the final few hours, she had in the day, she made herself work in the greenhouse until her forearms were scratched up from fighting back the vining rose, and then returned to the gatehouse in the evening to bathe.

Afterwards, she made herself a small meal of bread and eggs. As she burnt her hastily made pan-bread, she thought about the lamb roast on the table at the guiles mansion and wondered what they were eating for dinner.

Moth turned to go to Lander’s room to ask her if she wanted to eat with her – then she remembered, and so sat by the stove to feel the warmth while she ate.

There was little else to do. The days were going by so slow until the ferryman returned, yet every morning she woke up she felt as if she was running out of time.

Unsettled, Moth crawled into her bed again and wrapped her mother’s shawl around her, smelling the crocheted wool, and decided to go over Juho’s journals again to see if there was any information on the vining rose.

The sun hadn’t set yet, and there was good light from the window facing the forest. Moth touched the protective tin bars for reassurance and began to read.

She found a small, hastily scribbled note.

Been learning old cauldish just to read those ancient journals. Turns out the vining rose is also a gift from Adavidan – no wonder it wants to take over everything. Perhaps the passerine birch water will work for it as well. The hag mentioned that Correb is fond of their scent, but I don’t trust a word out of her mouth. Why she’s not on Welclose I don’t understand.

Moth didn’t want to kill the vining rose, but perhaps eradicating it from more corners of the greenhouse would be alright. She did find it puzzling though; she had not noticed the roses having any scent – then remembered that none of the buds were open. They were tightly closed, with only a hint of color at the top suggesting a rose lay inside to bloom.

She kept reading any notes she could find on the roses.

At first I was not fond of the roses, the ‘walking roses’. Turns out they have an ability to accept commands, simple commands, like ‘grow here’, or ‘don’t touch this pot’. They don’t always wish to obey. It’s like a cat. Their semi-sentience is a property given to them by Adavidan’s ferrier, a ferrymaid named Davida. I should like to meet her one day – I’m told she is exquisite to look at. I wish I had died in Adavidan and not Korraban, serving a beautiful ferrier sounds better.

Moth turned the page.

Have taught the roses to scratch Agate if she enters the greenhouse. That’ll keep her out of my belongings.

As she turned the pages, it got to the more erratic part of the journal, where notes were hastily written, and pages were torn out, and there were one-line sentences that ended suddenly.

The only thing that stuck out was a normally written note in the corner of the last page, unattached to anything, simply saying.

Kukielli - Cyclamen means ‘liar.’

Moth squinted at the definition. She had always been taught it meant ‘secret’ by the elderly in Hiren. Perhaps its meaning overlapped; a liar could be concealing a secret.

She was about to close the book, but it nagged at her. She looked back at the note and then recalled how in the envelope flap at the back of the book, there was a dried cyclamen.

She turned the last page to the envelope – which was secured with pins onto the back cover – and opened it, giving it a small shake to get the pressed flower out.

Moth picked it up. It was a pressed cyclamen.

She reached her fingers into the envelope and felt around for anything – a note, a scrap of lint, another dried flower – but there was nothing else.

Well that’s nice, she thought, annoyed. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting.

Still, it nagged at her. She picked up the book, squeezed the envelope open, and looked inside.

On the inside of the envelope was writing.

She choked on her breath. She pried the tacks that affixed the envelope to the leather cover out, bending her fingernails to yank them off, one by one, until the envelope came free.

She was afraid to tear the envelope. She warmed it next to the stove to heat up the glue, and carefully unfolded it.

Inside, in very fine handwriting, was a hidden message from Juho.

My days here are coming to an end, soon Correb will take me through the gate. Agate has been looking for my journals, she knows I wrote out all of her dirty past, all the things she wants to keep hidden in this place.

Still, I want my journals to be read.

Perhaps I think so low of her, that I believe she would censor my journal after I go. If she doesn’t, good – but if she does, I leave this last message hidden here for the next gardener.

First, Agate was – is – a noblewoman from the house of Coewylle, a cousin of his majesty. Lara Agate of Coe. You need only do small research into her name to know her many cruelties against her servants, myself included – I was her gardener.

Second, a confession – I let my father, Aberand, loose from The House of Drowning. Correb has forgiven me, but the guilt weighs on me heavy, as Correb has not been able to find my father’s murderous, wandering soul. His shamanic skills keep him hidden from the eyes of Correb.

And Third. I disagree with the secret Correb has been keeping, not just from most of the guiles, but from Korraban. I believe he is wrong for keeping this secret, so to whoever who discovered this, know;

He has been cursed. I do not know how, or by who – but he has been cursed into an enormous, monstrous form. No semblance of human is left to him, and he hides this hellish fasciation from everyone. to ’protect them’. Agate – and Dueluck – are helping him conceal this form from everyone by acting as his go-between, saying his is only sick. For my own part, I also helped him disguise it, and never told another guile, but I feel everyone should have a right to know the distorted appearance of the creature they serve.