The Ferry of Souls

At the tail of the county, the Gourd River bends into a dead hook, and in that hook hides a wild ferry with no name—the villagers call it the Death Ferry. Thirty years ago its ferryman was Old Ge: short, bandy-legged, a knife-scar running from brow to chin down his left cheek. Ge ferried no living soul, only the dead. When a household had a funeral, the coffin was carried to the bank; he would punt it across without a word and bury the body in the paupers' ground on the far shore, taking no pay, only a jug of liquor on the return.

Ge said the living cross to travel, the dead to be reborn; the two must not be mixed. His boat bore a white lotus carved at the prow and three blue stones ballasted in the hold, to weigh down whatever swam beneath and keep it from capsizing. In his youth his only daughter, Xiaohe, had fallen into the river; he punted out to save her and retrieved but a single embroidered shoe. From then he kept this ferry and carried only the dead, saying the things in the water knew him, and he dared not ferry the living lest he mistake one.

Last winter's twelfth month, Ge died in his own boat, the punt-pole still clutched in his hand. The village ferried him across too, to lie among those he had delivered. After the rites, no one would take the boat; it was moored to the old willow at the bank and left to drift.

The strangeness began at spring's opening. Blind Granny, who keeps the landing, first spoke of it: her ears were keen, and at midnight she always heard the pole tap the water—tok, tok—slow and even, exactly Ge's old rhythm. Someone took courage and went by night to look; beneath the moon the boat had slipped its mooring and was crossing alone, the white lotus at its prow gleaming cold through the mist, the boat empty, yet the pole dipped into the water of its own accord, as if an unseen hand steered.

Yan, a young man of the village, had just lost his grandfather; by old custom the boat should carry him across. Yan would not believe in ghosts, and meant to find out. He crouched by the willow that night and indeed, at the hour of the rat, the cable loosed itself, the prow turned, and the boat drifted toward the far shore. He steeled his heart, leapt aboard, and crouched at the stern.

Mist rose on the river, a white shroud around the hull. The pole dipped, the boat did not rock, steady as if held. Yan looked down and saw, in the seam of the planking, a fingernail scraping the wood, again and again, a tiny creak-creak, as if someone crawled beneath. His scalp prickled; he looked to the prow—and there in the mist sat a black shape, bandy-legged, hunched, working the scull for him. The build, the glint of that scar—it was plainly Ge. Yet Ge's chin was hollow, no jaw, only a smear of dark; when it turned, the mouth held no tongue, only smiled at Yan.

The boat reached the far shore. The shape rested the scull and pointed toward the burial ground, then at the urn of his grandfather's ashes in Yan's arms, meaning for him to set it down. Yan, half-dazed, stepped off and lowered the urn into its new-dug pit. He turned to thank them, but boat and shape were gone; in the mist he stood alone, with the black press of the graveyard and the clinging smell of burnt paper-money in the air.

He crouched on the far shore till dawn, calling, no answer. By daylight the ferry's boat rested on its old bank—yet there he plainly was, across the river. The villagers rowed over to fetch him, and said he looked half-witted, lips repeating "pole on water, tok-tok-tok." Beneath his pillow from then on lay a sliver of lotus-wood pried from the prow; he said its smell alone kept his heart steady.

Since then, on the Gourd River's Death Ferry, every other night the boat crosses empty and rests at the old place by dawn. And in the far graveyard a nameless wet mound has appeared, its stone carved with the four characters The Seat of Yan. Yan still lives, yet from that night on he always hears, from the seam of his bedboards, the river's sculling and that slow, even tok-tok, as if someone beneath the water worked the pole, waiting for him to come down.

After his return Yan shrank a size and spoke little. By day he worked the fields as ever, but at dusk he would run to the river and crouch by the old willow, staring at the empty mooring-post. The village said he was possessed; his mother strewed stove-ash on the threshold, but he took no heed. Once she rose at midnight to find his bed empty, and at the ferry saw him sit barefoot on the bank, the water lapping up to his feet and retreating, again and again, as if someone in the waves tapped the pole, beat by beat, waiting for him to come down. She hauled him home by force; he woke as from a dream and said, 'Mother, I heard my grandfather call me across'—and in his voice was the river's fishy reek, not his own.

After that none in the village dared approach the Death Ferry at the hour of the rat—only Yan, whose lotus-wood sliver had worn to powder yet he smelled it still each day, saying its smell kept him as if still seated in Old Ge's boat. On the far shore the wet mound carved with his name turns damp with every rain; moss creeps the stone as if it soaked in water, never drying.

Ge had kept this ferry in his life for Xiaohe, drowned in the river—fearing other folk's children would fall too, he ferried only the dead, saying once the dead crossed, the things below were fed and would drag no living soul. Now he too is dead, and has ferried himself into one of those below, plying the pole day and night. All those he delivered through the years are now his companions beneath the hull; and it may be Yan is not the only one he waits for.

The Midnight Record notes: a ferry takes no living passenger; the living ferry themselves. Step aboard, and you are already half a ghost.