The March 2015 Second Selected Writer is Chris Castle
Please feel free to email Chris at chriscastle76@hotmail.com
THE BOAT
by Chris Castle
She was the lighthouse keeper, and she stared out to the horizon. The boat appeared at dawn. Her heart hammered, and her hands shook.
The week before, her lover had returned. She woke before dawn and thought how everything in their small world was perfect. Even then, in that moment, something in her, something deep in the marrow and the bones of her, told her that it would not last…could never last.
That feeling filled her now as she stared out to the sea.
The small boat was perfectly still, which was, in itself, strange. There was no rocking motion at all, as if the boat had silenced the waters around it. She knew the waters, knew how reckless and brutal they could be and knew they could never, ever be made to obey, like some small weak pup. It was more than the stillness, though. The boat seemed drenched in utter darkness.
Her lover woke and was suddenly standing beside her. “We have to go out there,” he said. “We can’t leave the people abandoned or the boat adrift.”
“It is not close enough yet,” she said and watched him break into a smile. There was nothing more infuriating, or enjoyable, that a lover’s smile during an argument, she thought. “It is not our territory yet.”
“Place be damned. It is the right thing to do,” he said and moved towards her. His hands ran to her hips but the smile fell. “What if it were me, stranded in that boat, all adrift?”
“But it is not you. It is a strange thing, an unknown thing,” she said, making sure her voice kept level and true. No female hysterics, no weakness. She prided herself in being his equal, not his toy. “Something isn’t right about it.”
“It needs to be attended,” he said, his own delivery firm. Releasing her body, he held her eye. Then, he turned and began to dress. Despite it all, she watched him, then turned away and back to face the open water. Still, the boat remained lifeless, as if taunting her. For a moment, something flickered on its hull, making her flinch.
“I’m coming with you,” she said, turning to him. The look in her told him she did not require an answer to the statement. “We’ll bring some of your crew.”
The two of them, along with three crew, set out for the stranded boat. The other three, the rest of the outpost, remained on land, manning the lighthouse. They were good men, unfazed by the request.
As they moved through the water, the boat loomed in the horizon. It seemed to come upon them abruptly, as if a hint one moment and right on top of them the next, rising like some unwanted smear. She recoiled and saw a similar reaction in the crew. She looked to her lover; he had not flinched. Instead, his actions worried her more. He seemed to be inert in some way, or crippled, by what went before them. It was the first time she had ever seen him in such a state of paralysis.
“Ahoy!” he shouted, his voice true and hiding whatever concerns he nursed. “Ahoy there, I say!”
“Keep her steady,” she said, as they drew to the bow. The boat was truly an inky vessel; black paint, dirty sails, even the ropes seemed run through with grease. However, it was more than that. It was as if the whole vestige of the boat was cloaked; that perhaps it was not even a boat but a shell, a husk for some lower, rotting notion. Stale, the way the abandoned are, but more; fetid or corrupt. Damned, even.
“Ahoy—”
“Yes,” a voice came from the ribs of the boat. A man rose up, wrapped in a tar coat, his dark hair shaggy. Despite all this, his skin was pale, moonlit even, jarring with the rest of the ship. He possessed the bluest eyes she had ever seen.
“I’m glad to see you,” the man said. His voice was soft but clear, as if he whispered in the way the rest of the world bellowed. She felt the stranger’s blue eyes on her and tightened. Suddenly, the lighthouse seemed a distance away, too far. “My boat is run down, and the internal workings are shot through. I was adrift. In truth, I saw the lighthouse by chance alone.”
“Come in with us,” her lover replied. “You can repair and refresh until your boat is seaworthy.”
“Aye,” the crew muttered, one by one. She gazed at them. The stranger seemed to have distracted them from the decayed boat around his frame.
“My lady?” the stranger said, drawing her back. The blue eyes were incandescent amongst the sunken cheeks and pallid skin. It was as if everything of him were channeled through his gaze alone.
“The crew and captain decide what to do with you, not me,” she said, guarding her words and feelings. She hid the spark of anger she felt towards the crew; they lived united and mistrusted opposition. “We’ll see to your vessel and your well being, for a time.”
“A short time is all I ask,” the stranger said. He climbed aboard, light and agile. As he made his spot in the boat a perfect, cool fear began to course through her body.
“From where do you come?” her lover asked.
“I am well traveled,” the man said, and she thought he avoided the question. “Yet not finished on my journey yet.”
“You can stay as long as you need,” her lover said. The point of authority was made in the way his voice tightened. It was one of the few things she disliked in him; the captain’s air of formality and adherence to the rules. To her, it was nothing more than pomposity and hot air.
“A day and a night will suffice,” the man replied.
“So certain of the time?” she asked, if only to see her lover bristle.
“A day and a night, only and always,” the man said, so utterly ambiguously that she felt any following words die in her throat.
“A day and a night it is, then,” her lover said, as they headed towards the outpost.
Each of them went about their work, securing the boats and toiling until everything was done. As they reached the shore they disembarked one by one. She followed the crew and turned to watch the two of them. The sight chilled her; the stranger, under the pretense of grace, engineered her lover to disengage from the boat before him. Her lover, seemingly mesmerized, did so willingly, setting foot on dry land and only then, by almost stumbling, did he realize his action. He steadied but something in him was clearly shaken.
The stranger stepped off and looked from the boat to her. She could not shake the feeling of dread that washed over her. It was, somehow, as if he had claimed what was theirs for himself.
The stranger rested in the small hamlet. She returned to the lighthouse and her chores, unable to shake her unease; something unwanted had been brought into her small world. Her stomach roiled, as if she’d swallowed a mass of brackish water. The lighthouse door unlatched and she listened to her lover’s footsteps, pounding and stomping to match the pain she felt in her head and her closed eyes. Just a while ago, his feet padded gently, with love and grace. Now everything had changed. The door opened.
“I don’t want to argue,” she said, opening her eyes. She was greeted with his face, set in thunder.
“Neither do I,” he said, his voice strained, clearly fighting his impulses, “but I want to know why you are so suspicious of our guest.”
“Guest?” she said, almost gasping. She took a moment, not wanting to play the role of shrill woman. “He is a stranger and nothing more. We know nothing of him and he has revealed nothing. He is certainly not our guest.”
“Why? Why do you doubt a tired boat and still waters? Come, this is the stuff of housewives’ warnings and children’s tales. He is a straggler, lost and loose, nothing more and nothing less.”
“You lie to me if you claim to have felt at ease upon reaching that vessel. You lie more if you say you were satisfied with either his demeanor or his answers. You felt it…that boat is possessed! I saw it in your pose and in your posture. Do not lie to me now.”
“I…” she listened as his voice faltered. She felt no pride in her victory, no petty joy. Instead, she only felt a heightened sense of terror, now that the man was positioned in their world.
“I felt something, I admit.” He came to her and took her hand. He drew up his free hand and put it to her lip; not with hostility but with love. “I felt it, yes. The boat held more like a carcass. Yet, I am unwilling to leave anyone adrift. It is not our right to do so.”
“But you have brought him in now,” she said. “He is inside now, in our haven…our world.”
*****
She worked in the lighthouse and busied herself with the charts, ignoring the faraway sounds of the men on the boat. There were sounds of sawing, lathing and hammering. Fix it then, she thought, and saw her fists were screwed tight into fists. When she opened them, her nails had drawn blood.
The day fell to dusk as her duties dwindled with time. She locked what was required and took a deep breath, thinking of the approaching meal. She steeled herself, thinking only of the next day’s fresh dawn light, as she followed the steps to the door.
A scream rang out.
She swung round to face the walkway that led to the harbor. There was another noise, muffled, to the left. She lit the candle and moved forward across open ground. In the distance, the two boats were still. No other torches burned. Everything was in darkness. The door to the stranger’s room was wide open. The small dagger felt cool against her calf. Crouching, she withdrew it.
The chef’s lifeless face stared back at her.
Stumbling, she backed away. The chef’s body rested among the hay. It faced upward, as if he were merely napping or stargazing before supper. The candle flickered in her trembling hand and she forced herself to steady, to breathe. The quietness unnerved her more than the scream from moments before. The blade was in her right palm, the candle in her left. She headed back towards the lighthouse.
She unlocked the door, sprinted up the stairs and reached for the pistol in the drawer. After she had tucked it in her belt, she made her way out to the viewing point and down to the harbor. The boats sat, unmoved, even as the sea whipped and rocked all around. She squinted down to the bow.
She screamed.
The stranger stood among the bodies. She could not see her lover and was afraid for him.
Even from that distance, the stranger looked straight at her. Even in her stupor, she wondered if she could make out the blue glint in his eyes. He raised a hand and beckoned her with a single wave, as if summoning her. Even amongst the shock and the fear, she hated the gesture. It was something offered to a slave dog.
The world, as she knew it, was over. Yet, even in her state, she would not cower and she would not bow.
She walked down to the docks, gun drawn. She took solace in how the candle did not waver in her hand: her body did not tremble. The moon appeared, ripe in the sky, and it lit the scene before her.
Her lover sat on top of the pile, his arms wide, as if waiting for her. She would not look at the expression on his face. She would not take the last image of him as a wrecked, ruined thing. Instead, she looked up, keeping an internal image of him, smiling, in their last kiss, in her mind. That was what she would take of him. The stranger stood before her, still as the boat behind, waiting for her.
“What are you?” she said. Her voice held, her pistol held. Everything in her remained defiant, besides her heart.
“I am the end of things,” the stranger said. There was no boast in it, no pride. It was, to her ears, the saddest voice she had ever heard.
“Why?” she said and for the first time, her words, her resolve, faltered.
“It was not my choice but merely circumstance,” he said. “What I have cannot be stopped. If you shoot me now, it won’t make any difference. I can’t die.”
“Evil is a choice,” she stammered. The moon shone brighter, making her eyes ache. He seemed closer. She squeezed the trigger but his hand was already on her wrist, and the gun fell to the ground. He was on her now. The air tightened, as if they stood inside a pocket of polluted air.
“I am not evil,” he said gently, “I do not act, I merely…envelope.”
She reached for the dagger but she was no longer on her feet. On the floor, he seemed to spread all around her, as if he were dispersing under, her skin and into the very fibers of her being.
“I—” she began to say but her head lolled to the side. Her eyes crawled up past the bodies of her friends, until she reached to her lover. She peered at his hands, rough but somehow smooth. She reached for them and groped for his hands, brushing the very edges of his fingertips.
The stranger leaned over and gently drank the tears that fell from her eyes. He titled back, letting each tear roll along the tongue, down the throat and into his body.
Sated, he stepped away, unmooring the boat and pushing away from the dock. He looked back once to the bodies, to the fallen woman and then turned to the open seas. The ocean was midnight ink and the sky full of stars. He pushed on, emboldened, to search for his next port of call.
Chris Castle is an English teacher in Greece. He has been published over 300 times, most recently with the children’s fairy tale book Circus Solace. He is currently completing his next novel, a crime thriller set in Greece.
