Bottled Abyss (46 page)

CHAPTER VI

The Dancers

They were as beautiful as they were mysterious to onlookers. Only the Ferrywoman and Nyx realized they were empty energy, bouncing here and there, with about as many profound thoughts as a bursting firework in the night sky. Those poor ghosts, colliding into each other with no memories and no possible way to lead any meaningful existence now, they had reached a place of eternal life, as spiritual vegetables.

It was a worse fate, the Ferrywoman supposed, than the terminus death in the interim between the God’s destruction and Nyx’s resurrection. At least those parting spirits might have had one final look at their existence before thinning out into the ether. The end result would have been cessation from the terrible agony of trying to derive who you are out of nothing, a soul cheapened to dust.

The denizens of the Underworld were valueless.

And the Ferrywoman understood their plight all too well. How had she gotten here? When did Nyx give her life? Why didn’t Nyx have any other children? Was there an end to this job? Would the River always crave new tragedies from these pathetic things that walked the planet? Would Nyx’s appetite ever become satiated on these delicacies? How could the River stay the same length and yet feel so much deeper with every passing soul?

More questions came with every boatload of passengers, although the Ferrywoman never asked the God for answers. She knew enough about Nyx to know that she would be asking in vain. It was impossible to ask for guidance from a being that spent its time submerged under the River, laughing and orgasming at all the anguish surging around her. No, the Ferrywoman knew better than to approach Nyx with these startlingly mortal-like emotions.

She began to wonder then, even how unlikely, if she had once been mortal. It was another question never to find an answer, but an important one, so she decided to let it be the only question she addressed to Nyx in this vein.

“The mortals have the same bone structure as I do—I wondered if I’d been born of mortal parents?”

“Nonsense, little one.” Nyx wiped fresh tears from her reddened eyes and a hearty laugh burst from her cavernous mouth. “You are above these creatures. I shaped you in their image so that they would approach the Ferry with less reluctance. Make no mistake, you are born of the River and nowhere else.”

 
At one point that answer might have satisfied the Ferrywoman, but it simply made her wallow in more unspoken questions. The only comfort came in the daily deposits of coin. But such a shallow comfort that was... She would have had to be an extremely fanatical miser to revel in the coins for very long.

Still, she had nowhere else to go but on and on. This was her existence. It wasn’t about being content or malcontent. It was only about being.

CHAPTER VII

The Dark Shore

It was a day like all others, and the Ferrywoman had gone about it, laboring ever on, as she always had. She wouldn’t have suspected how different everything could become in one single moment.

She rowed steadily toward the dark shore where the shifting masses waited for passage. The Ferry bumped against the shoreline as it always did. She dropped the ropes, as she always did. The first spirit reached out, coin in hand, as always…

The woman standing there held a little girl by her pale, flickering hand. She proffered two coins for passage. The Ferrywoman normally would have taken them swiftly and moved the rest aboard.

But Janet could only stare at Faye and tremble at her presence.

Faye pressed her hand farther out with the two coins.

Janet looked at the little girl…it was a smaller version of Faye, only she wore glasses. This was how Faye saw the daughter who never came to be. But they were together now. Hand in hand. But not forever; they were focused on crossing the river to complete nullification, where neither would conceive of each other again.

Why have you stopped, child?

“You know, don’t you mother?” the Ferrywoman asked.

Nyx’s voice grew suddenly harsher than she’d ever heard it before.
You are delaying the deposit. Take the coins.

As though on cue, Faye forced her hand forward, her eyes steady on the silvery sliding promises across the River.

“Babe?” said Janet.

Faye still had her eyes on the Underworld. The conception of her daughter hunkered closer to her.

“I can’t let you do this,” Janet told her. “I love you.”

Faye numbly turned her head, no recognition in her eyes.

Janet placed the oar in the water and pushed off.

What are you doing, you foul thing? Return. Return, I say!

The spirits rioted as the ferry drifted farther away from the shore. Over the swaying masses, Janet could no longer see Faye and her daughter, but she imagined them there, still together, holding hands.

Nyx called out for the Fury, which had become lost in a big city yet again.

When Janet reached the center of the River Hythia, she hurled the oar out as far as she could. It absorbed into water rather than splashing, gone in a blink.

Of course it would, thought Janet. It’s of the River, just as I am now.

You will retrieve that at once!
Nyx thundered.

“I won’t,” Janet replied softly, “I’m not coming back here.”

You will listen to me!

The Fury appeared on the ferry and ungainly scrambled for Janet, opening its large black and white arms flaring with fur. As it rushed forward, a buck-toothed grin caught in its rat face.

Janet stepped off the ferry and dropped into the River.

CHAPTER VIII

The God

Nyx scoured the River for thousands of years. The God had no idea why she couldn’t find the woman—she could sense Janet, like somebody senses a loathsome skin tag on her body, but when Nyx groped there, she found nothing. From the River’s abuse, the suffering alone should have had Janet frantic to return to the surface. She was only down there with her grief. All her past pain would be exposed to her, like so much flayed open muscle and nerve, infected with her tears and mumbling madness of asking the question, “Why?” “Why has this been done?” “Why has this been done
to me?
” And clawing at her best intentions and intellect in a cruel world, she would arrive at the unfairness of it all and question the lack of balance. She was good person. Herman was good person. Melody wasn’t only good, but also pure and new. How could this be taken away? Why couldn’t it finally be rectified?

Janet’s mortal anguish should have been torturing her to unbelievable depths. Losing everything. Wanting the pain to end.

It never would.

And still Nyx hunted for this woman, Janet Erikson, the greatest single mistake of the God’s resurrected life.

Oh how she searched, starving and desperate for an answer…

CHAPTER IX

The Bottle

The shards of bottle glass would occasionally drift by and cut Janet’s thin presence in the River. The ache might have triggered a scream at one time, but Janet knew that alarming Nyx would undo her and awaken her newly forged immortal mind.

She didn’t want that.

She had her awful memories back again and couldn’t lose them.

She had Melody, she had Herman, she had Faye and Evan. It was often blood-soaked, haunted and disturbed, but the memories were all there for her, an incurable sickness with benefits.

Now that the richness of life was gone, the good parts were only drips from a once full bottle, but in between the madness and despair, they tasted divine.

CHAPTER X

The End

As the River could no longer be fed, the souls crowded the shore and overpopulated the world. It was surprising the waters never receded completely. Without mortal tragedy to fill it, how could the River still thrive? The idea that it would dry up sooner or later faded with those who lived in this place of mass haunting. In time, it was assumed the River would always be there. Just as the miserable dead would forever stare across the waters to the shores of the Underworld, marveling at the exhibition of dancing lies, waiting and hoping for something they’d never truly come to have.