The Ferryman

by Krista Farmer

in Issue 160, May 2025

Ben had hardly finished stringing up the last of the day’s catch when a man, striding down the boardwalk, came calling out to him, “Fisherman! Fisherman, here! I’ve a proposition for you!”

Ben looked out from underneath his low-roofed stall. He could still feel the dull ache in his shoulder from having hauled in his nets at the end of the day. His calloused hands felt heavy and numb against the rising cold, although the rest of his body, clad in only his hoary old fisherman’s clothes, certainly felt the chill.

The only thought the fisherman had had in his mind, up until that busy man had come striding down the boardwalk, was of retreating out of the naked cold and back to his tumble-down shelter by the edge of the docks; of roasting the few sardines he’d set aside for his late-evening dinner and of falling asleep over the slow process of untangling his nets; to the low flicker of a tallow candle set against his slowly darkening sill, a mug of cloudy brown ale to mark the gradually misting-together passage of time.

“You must be the gentleman Bentley,” the man said, shoving a folded umbrella beneath his arm so that he could take the fisherman’s hand. 

“Ben,” the fisherman replied, quickly breaking the man’s hold. “No gentleman—fisherman.”

“Well, of course that’s what you are,” the man laughed, gesturing behind Ben at his swiftly darkening stall. “It’s not like I’d mistaken you for anything else.”

The man reached into an inner pocket of his coat and brought out a fat metal watch, with which he proceeded to examine the time. Ben noted that the man was well-dressed, with not a salt or sweat stain on him, only the white collar beneath his dark coat being mildly wind-ruffled. There was a slight splash of mud over the side of one of his dully gleaming shoes, likely having splashed there while having ridden the carriage he must’ve handsomely had to bribe to have driven him down one of these dangerous, old harbor roads. The man’s nose was red and raw from the cold, but the rest of his face had a loose-seeming, sallow appearance. Ben was not slow to notice that the watch the man was now almost impatiently shoving back into his coat pocket was worth more than a whole year’s worth of whatever he could drag up from this reluctant sea. 

“Chilly out here, isn’t it,” the man said, rubbing his hands together. “I’m Terry, by the way. Doctor Terry Schultz, but you may call me Doctor. I’ve been waiting for you to show up now for some time. It seems like you were one of the last to row in.”

Ben noted that there were lines of strain around the doctor’s mouth, only faintly visible in the gloom. The man’s eyes were hollowed from long fatigue yet gleamed with a certain shrewdness. 

“I’ve not caught much today,” Ben told him. “A storm’s coming.”

The doctor laughed this comment off.     

“A storm? But there’s hardly a cloud in the sky.”

“Not yet.”

“Well, there won’t be for some time, in any case. Listen to me, young man, I’ve come here to ask a favor of you. All I need right now is a ride across the channel, and all the fellows I’ve asked here say you’re the man to do it. The best for rowing out of the whole bunch,” the doctor said, some of the nervous strain he was evidently striving to conceal flashing like a coiled snake beneath his otherwise cheery demeanor.

“I’m afraid those other fellows must’ve been telling you stories,” Ben said, hoping his calm tone would help to mask some of his growing irritation. “I’m no ferryman.”

“But listen to me, Ben,” the doctor said, ducking beneath Ben’s stall just enough to be out of the cold, yet maintain a careful separation between himself and Bentley. “I can make it more than worth your while. And, you know, it’s scarcely a paddle from here to there. All’s I need’s a boat, really, and an extra set of hands.”

The doctor pulled from his coat pocket a crisp fold of bills; their deep purple designs seeming to swim in the clammy darkness of the stall.

“There—that’s the first half. You can count that out yourself and see if it’s not worth twice what you’d earn in a regular month, working yourself to the bone out here in the freezing cold.”

Ben made no move to take the proffered bills.

“A month’s worth of anything’s not worth risking the boat,” he said flatly, turning to gather his nets from where he’d let them partially stiffen over a stale-smelling barrel of brine. “A storm’s coming.”

“Yes, yes, a storm, you needn’t repeat yourself to me. But look, here’s the first half,” the man said, tossing a billfold on top of the fisherman’s nets, “And the second half,” he pulled out a second billfold and tossed it next to the first, “And a third,” he said, retrieving another and proffering it to Ben, “That’s three parts—that’s more than a whole. And if that doesn’t sway you, well, then, I suppose I’ll just have to take my chances with whoever that last fellow is they say always comes in—they say there’s a starving fellow if anyone’s ever met one. Surely, he might be more positively inclined.”

Ben continued gathering his nets, letting the two large billfolds drop with a thump to the grime-stiffened boards. He knew exactly what starving old fellow the doctor was referring to, always one of the last of the fishermen to ply his oars up to the docks, his nets never more than half-full. His was the future Ben knew he himself drearily awaited—a future full of cold and tireless misery. He did not suppose a man in such a condition would refuse the doctor’s offer, even if the doctor were only to offer half of what he was currently offering to Ben. The fisherman bit the inside of his cheek, as he continued to gather in his nets. 

“I can see you’re unwilling,” the doctor said, bending, with a slight unsteadiness, to gather his fallen billfolds. 

“And what makes you so keen on getting across the channel, anyway? At this hour?” 

“I haven’t come here to be questioned,” the doctor said, shoving the billfolds rather irritably back into his coat pocket. “I need a ride, right this minute, across the channel. And if you aren’t willing to oblige, well, then, I suppose—”

“The money and the watch. I’ll give you a ride for both.”

“The money and the—”

The doctor’s pale cheeks fairly quivered. He seemed on the verge of storming out Ben’s stall when, all at once, he seemed to force himself to relax. The anger on his face abruptly faded, replaced by a milder seeming train of thought.   

“Of course. The money and the watch, you’ll have both,” he said, handing two of the three billfolds over. “The watch and the remaining money will be yours as soon as we’ve landed—as safe and as sound as you can most assuredly guarantee. I assume the boat’s ready?”

Ben nodded tersely. He tucked the two billfolds into a pocket of his tunic before motioning at the doctor to follow him. There was no point in wasting anymore time now. The terms had already been set and agreed to, and that storm was still on its way. Ben could feel it rising in the air, an ominously mounting pressure. The sky stood unusually free of all the seabirds who normally flocked around the fishermen’s stalls until well after sundown, pecking at all the hastily discarded spoils. The sea itself was unusually placid, the sky forlorn and empty, all signs of the unusually stunned calm before a storm. Although a ride across the channel would likely prove a short one—as the doctor had mentioned before—Ben did not cherish the idea of being caught out in the open for any longer than strictly necessary.

They boarded his small craft, the doctor tottering briefly to one side before steadying himself enough to sit across from Bentley. The two pushed off from the docks, the doctor slumping over in his seat slightly, gripping both hat and coat tightly to himself. He lapsed into what seemed an ill-natured silence. Ben, not much inclined to make small talk anyway, let alone with a man he so casually disliked, was perfectly content to row on in silence, with only the faint plash of the oars and the subtle churn of the waves to fill in the long gaps of silence between them. They appeared to be making good headway, at first, until somewhere around a quarter of the way mark, when Ben spotted the first of what appeared to be several ill omens: a black bird, soaring overhead as it called some unseen mate, while the mist began to cloud and thicken all around them, touching along his weathered hands and arms like the soft probes of some blindly groping creature. In all his years as a fisherman Ben had never seen such a dense mist descend so rapidly. He was on the verge of commenting on it when the man suddenly lurched forward, grabbing one of Ben’s wrists.  

“Faster,” he hissed. “We’re being pursued.”

Ben slackened his grip on the oars. The mist was still rising thickly, although he could still make out the grayness of the sea underneath, placid and untroubled. 

“I don’t see anything,” Ben said, despite the slight prickling he’d felt at the base of his spine.   

The doctor leaned forward, his lips quivering. 

“Row, now. Faster.”

“Listen,” Ben said. “If you’re in any sort of trouble I should know about—” 

The doctor laughed. It was an appalling, mirthless sort of laughter. He pulled out from the middle of his umbrella a long, narrow pistol, which he pointed at Ben. 

“Row, I said. Faster. That’s the only trouble you need worry about for now. Both our lives are now dependent on it.”

Ben looked first at the pistol, and then at the doctor, his mind, for a moment, a blank roar of disbelief. For a moment, he could’ve sworn he was back in his dingy shelter by the edge of the docks, reasonably sheltered from the cold, huddled next to the thin light of his graying lantern. It was staring down into the long, dark barrel of that pistol which brought him swiftly back to the present. He began to strain his arms against his oars, grateful for the wind which had just then, seemingly, begun to pick up, driving skirls of mist before them. The wind flung the dark hat from the doctor’s head, although he made no move to retrieve it, keeping his pistol aimed at Ben. Sweat began to pour off Ben’s temples, despite the chill. He glanced above the doctor’s shoulder, and finally caught sight of what must’ve been their pursuers—the skeletal outline of an enormous ship rising out of the mist. Distracted as he was, what he saw approaching nearly caused him to drop his oars in astonishment. It seemed that an impossibly large galleon was steadily parting the mist behind them, its enormous bowsprit rocking forward in the driving gale, charging at them like some monstrously sized bayonet. Ben felt the doctor’s pistol dig suddenly into his chest. 

“Stop gawking at it. Hurry! Hurry now! Row! Before I shoot you and take the oars myself.”

Ben did not suppose the doctor was in any way capable of handling a boat himself over these growing choppy waters but was not now in much of a position to argue with him. He had no idea how a ship of that size had managed to draw up so stealthily behind them, without a splash of its oars or creak of its timbers to have given it away. The whole thing gave Ben the impression of being stalked by some immense but silent predator. He was rowing now harder than he ever had in his life, but that ship remained close behind. 

“There! There,” the doctor said, pointing with his free hand, “I think I see something. To the left!”  

Ben contemplated, briefly, how much of his remaining energy it would take for him to whip up one of his oars up and slam into the side of the man’s head. In his current, taxed state, however, he could not be entirely sure of knocking the man out on the first try and was not entirely sure that he could win in a struggle at this point. 

“That’s not a safe place to land,” Ben told him, seeing that the doctor was referring to the faint outline of an island rising in the distance. “No sane man would ever choose to land there.”

“No safe place,” the doctor said, sounding almost astounded. “You think we’re safe as it is? If that ship catches up with us, we’ll both wish we were anywhere but here. Take us to that island. Hurry!”

The thought of smashing the man across the face again flashed through Ben’s mind, as richly textured as his own inspired fear. The doctor must’ve read some of this by the look on his face, as he saw him tighten his grip on his pistol. The doctor’s face looked even ghastlier now; the color of wet ashes. Ben understood by this that his time was growing short. That he needed to act quickly, using whatever free will remained to him to either make a decision now, or else give way entirely to the negative forces currently converging on him. 

Time was up; a decision had to be made.

Gripping his oars tighter, he braced his tired legs against the sides of his boat as he attempted to redirect them toward the island the doctor had pointed out. 

Within moments they were within sight of a desolate stretch of beach. The current slackened, gliding their little boat along like a morsel of food being gently coaxed toward some waiting giant’s mouth. Ben felt that knot of tension in his belly grow tighter, as the doctor—his boating skills evidently bolstered by an overmastering fear for his own survival—leapt from the boat and struggled in water nearly up to his chest before wading onto dry land, careful to keep his pistol held dry above his head. Ben landed the boat just behind him, drawing it quickly up over the wet sand.   

“Hurry now. I don’t believe they’ve been able to follow as quickly, but we’ll need to hide the boat. Hurry now. Don’t just stand there, do as I say.” 

“First,” Ben told him, “It seems rather more important you tell me what’s chasing us.”

The doctor flashed him a look of impatient contempt. He pointed first, with his pistol, at Ben, then to what appeared to be a stunted row of trees, growing only a few feet up the shore from where they’d landed. These trees were all covered in some twisted sort of blackened vine, reminding Ben of some immense, organic mourning shroud. 

“There. We’ll get the boat tucked up safely under those vines. Hurry now. Move it.”

“Why not leave it here,” Ben told him. “And come back for it once they’ve given up the chase for us?”

“You idiot—the first thing they’ll do is try to destroy our only means of escape. Hurry now. Do as I say.”

“I’m telling you, if we stay here even a moment longer, you’ll begin to wish we’d never set eyes on this island.”

“Don’t you start arguing with me again. Do as I say. Do it now.”

Ben reached back for his boat, hauling it toward that line of trees, fully expecting to feel the bite of a bullet in his back as he passed the doctor, who stood urging him on with his pistol. Even with the sand seeming to drag him backward at every step and the awkwardness of his tired shoulders, he managed to pull the boat up to a place just before the tangle of vines. Here, he saw that they were too densely interwoven for him to be able to push the boat through. They resisted even his most desperate attempts, the heavy sand sucking at his boots, refusing to give him anything like a stable purchase. He began to curse the whole endeavor, thorns prodding the backs of his hands and arms, drawing fresh gouts of blood. He could feel the doctor eyeing him from behind; on the verge, it seemed, of a fine, repellent fury.  

“You get in there,” the doctor shouted at him, “And shove those vines aside. Move them aside bodily if you have to. Do it now. Before I make this horrible place your grave.”

Ben felt inclined to argue, but one look at the doctor’s face, with that pistol still aimed at him, told him that his life and future hung precariously on how quickly he could manage to conceal this boat. Bracing himself, he shouldered his way into the dense thicket, feeling the bite of bitter thorns against his exposed skin. It felt largely like trying to move against some solid object, studded all over with thousands of tiny, heated dagger points. By sheer force of will, he began to make some progress against it. With one hand still gripping the front of his boat, he managed to tear at the tangle of vines with the other, still expecting, at any moment, to feel the sudden bite of a bullet in his back. 

Just when it seemed he’d gotten most of the way through—his hands, his livelihood already shredded raw from his efforts—he spotted something hanging there in the branches, just above him; a massy, twisted thing, like an ashen-grey Medusa’s head. Ben recognized what it was at once, despite never in his life dreaming he’d actually come face to face with one. It was the shape of the thing which immediately gave it away, as well as the deep, thrumming drone he could hear buzzing from deep within it. It was a shreever’s nest and, judging by the size of it, he thought there ought to be at least a dozen of the fat, fleshy, creatures burrowed deep within; a few barbed stings from which were enough to kill any fully grown man. He felt a wave of nausea come over him, even as his heart leapt with a growing possibility of salvation. 

“Hurry—she’s coming. I know she’s coming. I can feel she’s coming,” the doctor gibbered behind him.

Ben reached up and, in one swift motion, tugged the nest free from its stem. The thing buzzed powerfully against his palm, thrumming and alive despite the surprising pulpiness of its outer walls. His fingers threatened to sink into its sides as he maneuvered himself out of the vines and—hesitating only long enough to line up a decent shot—flung the nest squarely at the doctor. In an instant the soft, spongy, gray thing exploded in a cloud around him. Ben did not pause for a moment to see what damage it had done. He ran, as fast as he could away from the escalating sound of the shreevers, now rising to a maddening crescendo behind him.  

He was running on pure adrenaline now, although the heavy sand sucked at his boots, threatening to pull him downward. He felt something land on his shoulder and immediately began to swat at it, recognizing at once the shreever’s devilish hum. The nerves along the side of his neck prickled, as the creature suddenly drove its sharp barb directly into the soft patch of skin below his ear. Ben fell shrieking, swatting at the sting. The pain was unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. It grew rapidly, spreading all along the sides of his face and neck like lines of consuming fire. He grabbed the fat body of the creature and squeezed it until he saw the reddish-blue guts ooze between his fingers, wiping the rest of its body off onto the sand. He felt for the offending barb then drew it out of his neck. Once freed, the barb still twisted in his palm, alive seeming despite being coated in a tangle of its own blue-red viscera. 

Ben rubbed his face against the sand, groaning, vaguely aware of more of those terrible creatures after him, but in too much pain now to care. Some remaining, somewhat still lucid part of him warned that this was just another way the shreever’s poison acted upon its victim, inducing a sort of helplessness which made it easier for the rest of the hive to swarm and subdue its prey. The pain blotted out nearly every other thought in his mind except the need for immediate relief. He shoveled palmfuls of wet sand over the wound, hoping to create a sort of poultice, and was on the verge of losing consciousness, when he began to hear a low, dragging noise over the sand.

The poison lost some of its immediate potency, as he remembered the dim shape of their pursuers rising through the mist. He struggled to his feet, still hoping to find some sort of help, and perhaps even a way off this island. He could explain—surely he still could!—his mistaken relationship with the doctor, and perhaps even gain some favor with these pursuers if they found he was responsible for the man’s ultimate demise. Surely the doctor had not survived his encounter with the shreevers, as Ben still hoped to do. He kept a hand pressed over the wound on his neck, hoping to somehow keep the venom from spreading, and felt something spurt against his palm. He pulled his hand away to find a slick, greenish fluid coating it. 

Pulling himself along, calling weakly into the mist, he gradually became vaguely aware of something lying crumpled on the shore just ahead of him. At first, he assumed it was just the body of some large, dead mammal but, as he drew closer, he saw that it was actually the corpse of a man.

The doctor’s face, sallow as it’d been before, was now completely devoid of color. The skin looked deflated somehow, as if it’d been melted partially away from the underlying bone and muscle structure. The eyes bulged from the hollowed sockets; the teeth shone dully. The man was covered in large welts, at the center of each of which was a stark, withered barb, surrounded by tallow-like fingers of pus. Littering the corpse, and strewn all along the beach, were the lifeless bodies of the shreevers, each bereft of their weapons yet still vaguely menacing in their curled, inert states.       

Ben was forced to look away from the scene, although he knew his revulsion couldn’t last long. He was just now recalling his unfinished business with the doctor. 

He stooped, bracing himself against his rising nausea to rifle the dead man’s pockets. He ignored the occasional touch of bloody or pus-mired fabric, knowing that he needed to find the rest of the money he was owed if he ever wished to make it off this island alive, and to seek medical treatment for himself afterward. 

His hand closed around a smooth, round metal object. The doctor’s pocket watch! He pocketed this treasure, ignoring the few other legal-seeming documents he found stuffed into the pocket along with it. Ben was illiterate, and these papers only seemed like a way of possibly implicating himself along with the doctor. 

He found the third billfold, lying bundled next to a length of surprisingly cool, soft fabric. He unwound this fabric slowly, realizing that it was of no ordinary quality. It shimmered in the vague light as he held it. He thought it likely to be a bolt of Queen’s shroud, or perhaps even a bolt of pure, raw silk, and was still caught up in the process of marveling over it when he began to feel eyes upon him.     

He rose unsteadily to his feet, turning now to meet the gaze of a woman standing only a few feet down the shore from him. The woman was clad in only a few, slender wisps of clothing. She appeared to be at least a foot and a half taller than himself, although Ben was, by no means, considered short. He took an involuntary step backward, nearly stumbling over his own feet as he felt the flesh on his arms and neck begin to creep.   

What struck Ben most immediately about this woman were the obvious similarities between herself and the piece of fabric he held. The resemblance seemed to lie in the woman’s own coloring, as well as in her own subtle seeming iridescence. Parts of her body were covered in not only similar bolts of fabric but in layers of sea-brine, forming delicately wrapped patterns around her exposed, pale skin. She stared evenly back at Ben, her chin curiously uplifted. She did not seem at all concerned by his own bloodied state, nor by the state of the corpse now lying almost in-between them. Her pale hair hung nearly down to her waist, also dried lightly over with similar encrustations of sea-brine. There were no markings in the sand to indicate the direction from which she’d come.  

“You,” the woman said, in such a low voice that he was not entirely sure she’d spoken at first. “Will you give that back to me?”

Ben stared at her for a moment, dazed. Unsure of his own agency in this, he began to approach her slowly. He handed over the piece of fabric. She seemed pleased by this. She took it from him and quickly wrapped the fabric around her shoulders. It quickly molded itself to her form like seafoam settling naturally over the rounded slopes of boulders.   

“What’s happened to this man,” she asked, not once glancing down at the corpse between them. 

Ben cleared his throat. It was as if he hadn’t spoken in years; the muscles of his neck having likely stiffened from the shreever’s poison. 

“Nothing I hadn’t needed to,” he rasped. 

“Do you know who this man was?” 

Ben shook his head. 

“He was my husband.”

Ben’s mind drew a blank. He felt a sudden, ridiculous urge to apologize, but all that came out was a surprised choke.

“He was a doctor,” she continued, “turned merchant. That was how I first met him. By the docks, one day, as he was overseeing the unloading of one of his many ships. I’d slowly contrived to meet him, over the course of several weeks, by changing my form to subtly suit whatever I thought were his present and ever-changing desires. He began to court me, and soon asked for my hand in marriage. I said that I would marry him, upon one condition—so long as he promised never to spy on me while I was in the bath, nor allow any of the other attendants to enter while I was in it, as had been my habit since childhood.

“He agreed to this, and we were soon married. It was not long afterward that his jealous nature began to show itself. He began to accuse me of all sorts of irrational infidelities—of keeping secret lovers while he was away. All the servants in our household were spies for him, even the ones I thought I’d kept in closest confidence. I thought I could tolerate all this, even the occasional flares and flashes of temper, so long as he kept that original promise he’d made me.

“But of course, I had a feeling things were meant to come to an end. Just yesterday morning I spotted a foaming cross-tide making its slow way beneath our bedroom window and knew that a time for change had come. I readied my nightly bath, and in the steaming mist heard the door to my bathroom slowly creak open. I realized then that he’d stolen my key.

“He saw the real me then and, of course, couldn’t stand the sight of it. He drove me from our house then, and, in my confusion, I found I’d left my marriage shroud behind me on the bathroom sink.

“The shroud was one my mother had given me—spun of the sheerest salt-spume and sea-crest, so that its color would never fade, and its softness would always endure. I could have forgiven him for driving me from our house, and even for the breaking of our marriage pact, but I could not forgive him for this keeping of my marriage shroud. He must’ve known its value, merchant that he was, and probably thought it was his due. What he was owed for my having tricked him into marriage in the first place. I was almost afraid you’d make it with him across the channel. Our kind hardly ever crosses this channel.”

Ben thought the woman’s voice had begun to fade, but quickly realized that it was his own hearing which had begun to give out. His legs suddenly gave way, and he was surprised to find himself being suddenly held upright, his face between the woman’s cool palms. He hadn’t realized he’d been running a fever until he felt her cool hands pressed on either side of his face. She was looking directly into his eyes now, and hers were the color of silt flecked with tiny chips of mica—gray, silver, and gold.

“Listen to me,” she said. “There’ll be men searching for you because of this man, but I have a gift for you, for giving me back my marriage shroud—something to help you escape. There’s a point midway between this island and the next, where the waters are gradually calmer. You can reach this point easily by rowing east of here. There, you’ll find my gift waiting for you—but only if you remember. East of here—between this island and the next.”

Ben tried to question her further, but, staring into those muddy, silt-flecked eyes, his mind gradually became unmoored. He sank down into quiet unconsciousness. 

He woke sometime late into the next morning, his head still reeling as he attempted to sit upright there on the shore. The events of the previous evening came back to him all in a sickening rush, aided by the surrounding evidence. The doctor was still lying nearby, his condition appearing to have worsened overnight. By the look of things, something had already discovered the corpse and begun to feed on it, even bloated by poison as it still was. Ben quickly looked away from this, scanning the horizon. The sun had just begun to crest over the waves. Judging by the clear quality of its light, Ben thought it’d prove a largely mild and cloudless day.  

But where had the woman gone? Perhaps he’d dreamt it all—one of those wild, fever-induced dreams. He didn’t feel feverish at all now, only slightly clammy, like he’d been wrung out and left to dry all night. He wondered how he’d survived in this place at all, unconscious, and completely at the mercy of this island’s known terrors.  

He stood up, his head still throbbing, but beginning to clear. The wound on his neck was still painful, although it no longer wept any of that seeming foul fluid. It seemed to have hardened, in fact, overnight, into a pithy sort of boil, pushing tent-like up under the skin. He was feeling much better. Great, in fact, considering the ordeal he’d just overcome. But how was this even possible? How was he even still alive? 

He scanned the shore again and found it empty of any signs of life, save for a slight impression in the sand, leading away from the spot he’d lain in overnight; what appeared to be a long and deliberate parting, made perhaps by a long, serpentine body. Not far away from this trail lay his own boat, partially buried in the sand, but just out of reach of the waves. He noticed deep score marks along its sides from where it’d been obviously dug out from the tangle of vines.     

He found the doctor’s pistol lying nearby and quickly stowed it in his boat, before pulling the craft down to the water. His head swam as he boarded. He could tell by this reaction alone that he was still very much weakened by the shreever’s poison. He did not think himself capable of a very long journey after all but was still unsure of where to turn next. Part of him still longed to be back in his familiar shelter by the edge of the docks, sleeping like the dead for at least another full day. Another part of him still wondered about that strange woman’s parting words. 

His memory of their meeting was fragmented, but what he could recall made him think of other stories he’d heard before. Stories he’d either been told or had overheard in conversations between other fishermen in bars and taverns. Tales about brides from the sea, and the terrible curses they were said to carry with them. Women who forsook their husband’s beds on moonless nights to glide, unobserved, through the witching hours, down to the ocean in their ever-changing forms—having donned their original shapes to ride the currents at night as sea serpents, or as water-borne divinities; as sirens, sweet-faced, yet deadly-voiced, and scaled or taloned beneath.

Ben’s thoughts gradually ran on to other concerns. It must’ve been well-known, by then—if the doctor had spoken truly about having gone from fisherman to fisherman begging a ride—that Ben had been the last one to be seen ferrying him out to sea on that fateful evening. There would, doubtless, be questions waiting for him back at home. He thought he could count on someone like the doctor as having been well-connected, and having known people who, if not necessarily concerned with the man’s continued wellbeing, would nevertheless be interested to know exactly where and in what condition he’d ended up. And, especially, who’d been the last to have seen him alive.

Ben was also aware of the impression he would make. Clad in only his hoary, old fisherman’s clothes, and in possession of not a small amount of the deceased man’s money, pocket watch, and pistol. None of this would prove easy for him to explain. He had a sure feeling that justice was unlikely to take his side, or to even hear his side of the story fully out, when all evidence seemed to point strongly in a certain direction. He decided it would be best for him now to flee and, considering the unexpected wealth he was now in possession of, did not find this such a grueling decision to make. There was also his gift still waiting for him, if such a gift had ever even existed. 

Rowing across the channel, reenergized by this latest, though perhaps fleeting, sense of purpose, he steered his craft toward a point he thought reasonably midway between the two islands, wherein the waters were, as mentioned before, agreeably calmer; the tide stemmed by two massive land bodies. The sunrise added a hint of color to the sky, making Ben think of blood slowly dissipating in a pool of salt-water. He rowed meditatively for a while, until he came to a place he thought reasonably decent enough to cast his line. He’d sat there for scarcely a moment before he felt something take. There was a sharp tug on his line as it began to drift. He tested the line gently, cautious of it snapping, and could tell at once, by its return pull, that he’d snagged something large. Bracing his tired legs against the sides of his boat, he prepared himself for what he assumed would be a long and arduous struggle. 

Despite the heavy drag on the line, however, whatever he’d hooked made not much of an effort to escape him. The line continued to tack a little to one side, but stayed in roughly the same position, allowing Ben to steadily, although with great care and effort, reel it in. He figured it was not any living thing he’d just snagged, but a large and relatively solid object. 

At last, he could see the thing glimmering palely beneath the surface of the waves; what did appear to be the very pale broadside of an exceptionally large fish. It took all his remaining energy to finally reel it up and into the boat.

What he’d caught astonished him. It was the largest fish he’d ever seen, its tail nearly touching the surface of the water, while the weight of it threatened to dip his boat beneath the surface of the waves. It was certainly the largest fish he’d ever caught. And although it was no longer alive, the fish didn’t appear to have been dead for very long. Its shimmery scales flashed in the rising sun like heaps of spilled coinage, the stiffened gills still suffused with a faint blush of oxygen. There were no visible signs of predation or decay, except, perhaps, along the belly, where there were some odd signs of distention, like something was pushing up against the fish’s underbelly in a strange, pebble-like pattern. Running his fingers along it, it felt almost to Ben as if the fish’s innards had been transformed into hardened, knubby kernels. 

Ben brought out his knife and deftly cut along the fish’s belly. A mass of circular objects began to rain out of the wound, each suffused a different shade of red by the fish’s innards. Although Ben at first assumed these to be the fish’s eggs, they struck the bottom of his boat with a hollow noise, like marbles striking across a wooden floor. He saw that some of these objects were as small as teardrops, others as large as acorns. Some were onyx-colored, and others were as pale as freshly strained curds. They were pearls, Ben realized, as he held a handful of them up to the early morning light. Each of them was of exceeding value. Altogether, they would likely be worth a fortune.

 © May 2025, Krista Farmer

Krista Farmer is a writer who lives and works in Washington State. Her work has appeared in Aphelion Webzine. This is her first appearance in Swords & Sorcery Magazine.