The Ferryman Institute (24 page)

“Hold on now, I've got ye, I've got ye!” Crowley yelled as he held on to Charles's left wrist with one hand. His other hand, wrenched around the back of a nearby cannon, was the only thing keeping the two from barreling into the sea. From between the banisters in the rail, Charles could make out Stevens and another man, Dawkins, racing up from below deck.

Charles said nothing—his feet pawed at the side of the ship as he tried to find some sort of purchase to propel himself back up. He looked up desperately into Crowley's eyes, each one standing out against the vivid darkness of the storm. Stevens wrapped his arms around Crowley's waist and tried to pull him back, bringing Charles up as well, but with no surface to steady him and the ship rolling to and fro, Stevens only managed to stabilize the first mate. Dawkins raced to an errant rope that was dangling over the side and worked to rein it in.

The feeling had left Charles's hand long ago. His strength was already gone. Unless someone could pull him up, he realized, he was done for.

“Don't you dare let go, Dawson! For the love of God almighty,
don't you dare let go
!” Crowley bellowed down at him. Dawkins was rushing back with the rope, preparing to fling it overboard.

The wave smashed into the side of the ship and plucked Charles from his dangling position in midair. His body receded with the wave, back into the ocean. The sheer intensity of the freezing water stole the air from his lungs and ripped like knives at his skin. A newfound instinct to survive coursed through Charles's body, and he kicked with all his might until he breached the surface. He whirled around, looking for the giant whaler fighting
through the sea. The oppressive rain made it difficult to see anything. After a few seconds, he spotted its hulking shape behind him, perhaps a hundred yards away—the current must have whisked him off. A half dozen or so small lights emerged across the deck, the lanterns flitting like fireflies as ship hands searched for Charles in the sea.

Despite the burning in his arms, he rallied his limbs, and with stroke after well-practiced stroke, he powered toward the ship. He wasn't the best swimmer on the crew, but he was no slouch, either. The fire in his muscles was slowly being replaced by a deadly numbness, but still Charles drove on.

He swam without stopping, his mind only daring to think of his next stroke. After what felt like five minutes, he moved to tread water, hoping that he wouldn't have to go much farther to get into range of the
Canterbury
's ropes. He looked up.

The ship was a fraction of its size, the lantern lights now floating like distant embers as Charles found himself even farther away than he had been only moments ago.

He knew it now in his heart: he was a dead man. It wouldn't be long before his limbs would lose what remaining strength they had in the frigid water. His head would sink below the waves, his last breath fighting to last endlessly. He would drown soon after, another sacrifice to Davy Jones.

He was utterly alone. Inside his head, his teeth chattered uncontrollably.

A glint of bright white light flashed in his periphery. His stiff limbs struggled to turn his body in its direction within the violent current. With a final effort, he managed to swing his body around to find the source, hoping it might be an unseen ship nearby. But as he finally came around, Charles gasped, inhaling a mouth of seawater instead.

Sitting in front of him, floating in midair above the waves, was a door. The entrance opened to an almost blindingly white hallway beyond, and what looked to be another door far off in the distance. A grinning man was perched in the entrance, his legs dangling just beyond the tips of the waves. He sat, absentmindedly stroking the Vandyke beard below his slightly curved mustache. He seemed like a man borne out of the past, but given the circumstances of his appearance, it was hardly the least peculiar aspect of the situation.

I'm either dead already or I've swallowed too much water
, Charles thought.

He was so stunned that, for a moment, he forgot to speak. Almost immediately, though, he regained his senses and yelled, “Help me! Please!”

The man's eyebrows arched dramatically at the sound of Charles's voice. “What ho, good fellow! Can you truly see me?”

“Yes!” Charles's head was plunged under a wave. His clothes were getting heavier by the second. He popped back up sputtering. “I don't know who you are, but for the love of God, please, help me!”

The man clapped in delight. “Marvelous! I suspected you had something special about you, and it would appear my suspicion has been proved correct. Unfortunately, I must ask in the name of complete diligence: You are not presently deceased just yet, are you?”

Another rough wave rolled over Charles's head, but he fought against it. “No, but if you don't do something, I will be!”

The man checked a pocket watch, then laughed quietly, or at least it looked that way—it was tough for Charles to hear over the roar of the ocean. Yet much to his surprise, he had no trouble discerning the man's next words. “Very well. My name is William
Henry Taylor Cartwright the Fourth, though Cartwright will do well enough, and I am a Ferryman—an attendant to the souls of the departed. It is entirely possible for me to preserve your life, Charles Ronald Dawson, but it will not come without a price.”

“Help—!” Charles began, but his words were cut off as water poured into his mouth, the rest of his statement reduced to a fit of coughing and sputtering.

The man stood up in the doorway. Despite Charles's struggles, he continued his explanation unabated. “Immortality for your service to the Ferryman Institute. That is the covenant I offer. But I warn you, sir. This gift should not be accepted if you possess even the slightest of doubts about this opportunity. You will work until the Institute deems it sufficient. Nevertheless, I proffer you this choice, to guide the spirits of this world to their next life. Do you accept?”

Charles tried to answer, but couldn't get his mouth above the waves. His arms lethargically pushed through the water as he willed them for one last thrust. He didn't want to die—he couldn't. He was so young, his life was so promising, there was so much to do . . .

“Do you accept?!” roared Cartwright, his eyes glittering with excitement.

Charles's head sank below the water. There, swallowed as he was by the ocean, he saw Elizabeth. Her smile. Her eyes. Heard her laugh, whispering like traces of moonlight. Felt her lips, teasing his neck. Saw her as no one had or would ever see her, as only a man on the brink of death can.

He needed to see her again. If that meant following this stranger into something Charles still didn't quite believe, then so be it. Whatever it took.

With one last agonizing push, Charles threw his body above the churning sea.

“
Yes!
” he cried before his body sank again below the surface.

He had lost all of his strength. The ocean had stolen it, replacing it with a paralyzing cold that seeped into every pore of his body. The surface slowly floated away from him, the cacophony of the storm muted beneath the calm water. He drifted downward, slowly, slowly downward toward the bottom of the sea.

Without warning, a strange sensation rippled through his body. The iciness disappeared from his limbs. His lungs, which moments ago had burned with the agony of a man on his last breath, suddenly ceased to ache. Energy flooded back into his arms and legs.

He was alive.

With a few powerful strokes, he rose above the surface again, cresting it with ease. The water no longer bothered him, nor did the wayward gulps of seawater send him into coughing fits. The look on Charles's face must have betrayed his thoughts, as Cartwright unexpectedly burst into laughter.

“Surprised?” said the man.

Charles's stunned silence spoke for him.

“Come,” Cartwright said, offering his hand to the still treading sailor. “A whole new world has just been opened to you.”

Charles grabbed it and was pulled up beyond the threshold of the floating door. Cartwright closed the door to the violent ocean, and with a small click, the roaring noise disappeared. The pair stood in a perfectly blank hallway, its walls and ceilings so devoid of anything that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. Across from the entranceway Charles had just been pulled through—the one that had moments ago been suspended above the Atlantic—was another door, squat in shape and dull
brown in color with a surface marred by scratches and nicks. A small plaque sat affixed to the center of it.

Charles surveyed his new surroundings, and came to the rational conclusion that absolutely nothing going on made any sense whatsoever. “I don't understand,” he said.

There was a faint air of amusement to Cartwright's expression, or at least that's what Charles thought. “Shall we start with a question in particular, then, and proceed from there?” Cartwright asked.

“I'm alive,” Charles replied.

Cartwright laughed. “So you are, even if that wasn't a question in the literal sense.”

His heart raced at the idea that somehow, in the most unbelievable circumstances, he'd cheated death. Or had he? Was this all a dream, or perhaps the beginning of the afterlife in its own right? Charles rubbed his face. He could feel his fingers kneading into his flesh, yet as he pressed harder and harder, he experienced no discomfort. With two fingers, he pinched the skin on the back of his hand. Nothing.

“I don't feel any pain,” he said. The thought was both exhilarating and terrifying.

“Nor should you,” Cartwright said as he took a step toward the far door. “You're a Ferryman now. That is one of the many benefactions granted to us, immortality being another, as you can clearly see. Now, if you'll follow me to—”

But before he could take another step, Charles grabbed him by the arm. “My wife. I need to see her.”

As the words reached Cartwright's ears, the vague glow of humor disappeared from his face. “Your wife?” he asked.

“Yes! Elizabeth Dawson. I have to let her know I'm alive. When can I see her? It has to be soon—if we wait too long, she'll assume the worst. I can't do that to her.”

“I'm afraid . . .” Cartwright paused, deliberately averting his gaze. “I'm afraid I have some bad news for you.”

“You have . . . bad news? What of it? Is she hurt? Sick?”

“Good heavens, no. At least, not so far as I know. Now, where to start . . . You see, Charles—may I call you Charles?—a Ferryman is rather special. We are neither living nor dead—not completely man, not completely spirit. Ferrymen exist between worlds, acting as guides to show the recently passed to their next life. Do you understand?”

“No,” Charles said, “not at all.”

Cartwright ran his fingers through his mustache. “Well, I certainly appreciate the honesty. What it means, my good man, is that this life—this new life—is no extension of your past one. There are rules, I'm afraid—rules we must abide lest we bring about the end of mankind.”

“What are you saying, sir?”

Cartwright hesitated, and as the silence stretched from one beat, to two, then three, Charles loosened his grip. He sensed what was coming next, before Cartwright even said it.

A pained expression lurched across Cartwright's face. “I'm saying you cannot go back to her, Charles. I'm truly sorry.”

“No . . . ,” Charles said, his hand falling to his side. “I thought . . . No, but you saved me. Why am I still here if not to see Elizabeth?” He shook his head. “You're mistaken, sir. This place you speak of will understand my cause. I'm sure of it.”

Cartwright put his hands on both of Charles's shoulders, grasping them tight. “They may very well—love is indeed our noblest and purest pursuit. And I do not mean to suggest you will never see your wife again. Do not lose that hope. However, that you are here evinces that you have been called to serve a higher cause.” Slowly, he released his grip, turning one hand behind
Charles's back to better lead him toward the battered brown door.

“Do you say true?” Charles asked.

“Humility aside for a moment, I am skilled at many things, Charles. I do not place lying on that list. But there will be time to discuss everything. For now, let me say this . . .” As they arrived at the door at the far end of the hall, Cartwright slowly wrapped his fingers around the handle. The fascinating glimmer in his eyes had returned, his gaze fixed on Charles.

“Welcome to the Ferryman Institute.” Cartwright swung the door open.

Though Charles certainly felt overwhelmed not only by what but also by how fast everything was happening, he couldn't deny that there was something that felt incredibly
right
just then. It was as if his previous life had been a droning chord hampered by one note faintly out of key, but now—now, with the door open—it was finally ringing true. For that moment, his sense of loss melted away, replaced by something entirely unlike anything he'd ever felt before—like this door had been waiting for him, and him alone, to arrive.

Without a word, Charles followed Cartwright's footsteps, and the two of them entered the Ferryman Institute.