One of the birds took a particular liking to the man. He did not fear the human intruder--did not move skittishly on the grass when the boat came too close to the shore, or fly up among the leaves to hide from the man's gaze. No, this bird just cocked his head and looked at the human with an expression resembling curiosity.
Simon Ferryman was puzzled by the peculiar behavior of the bird and began talking to him when they met. He threw pieces of fruit to the black-winged hunter and complimented the luster of his feathers in a calm and gentle voice.
"What a lovely thing you are," he said, "your feathers are as black as tar and kissed by the god of the rainbow..."
The bird seemed to respond to his kindness. He cocked his head, jumped a little closer, spread and lifted his wings high up in the air, as if to show them off and let the sunlight play in them. This amused the ferryman and he fed the dancing bird many of his juicy fruits. He laughed when the raven swallowed it down and swept the grass with his wings, bowed his head like a man, as if to thank the kind man in the boat. Simon thought he saw a mind in there, in the bird's eye. Thoughts forming and dissolving, like water or vapor on the stream.
He was taken with the bird. This one was so different from the other birds, the blind-eyed ravens that watched him from the treetops, that he soon felt a particular bond forming. As if he was a brother, this bird. As strange among his own kind as the man was among his people. For the raven was surely playing with him, jumping around in circles, cocking his head coyly when he came, hiding behind the trunks and peeking at him with a glittering gaze. He made the ferryman laugh out loud and he started to bring crumbs and apples from home to give him. Almost every day he went, even if there was no dead to row, he had to visit the bird. And the man only saw his raven among them all, who usually sat by the river's edge, as if waiting for him. The raven never responded to the other birds while he was there, but kept his gaze and his attention on man. He soon trusted the man so much he ate the pieces of fruit from his fingers and soon moved into his boat, sat in it as it cut through the water, his claws safely crooked around the worn wood, his sharp gaze keeping watch over the dead. Every time the ferryman came to the plum grove on his way to church, he stopped so that the raven could fly onboard. And the bird never departed again before they were at the same spot, on the ferryman's way back home.
It was nice, Simon thought, to have a living thing onboard with him. A pair of eyes but his own, watching the oars dip into the water, someone listening to his low humming. The bird cocked his head then, when he hummed, and narrowed his eyes. It led him to believe he enjoyed the sounds. Simon, on his side, got to study the bird closely as the weeks passed: the blue shine in his feathers, the size and sharpness of his claws, the ridges on his feet, and he found it beautiful. He told the bird that. He appreciated the company. Told him that too. The bird's eyes stared at him, unreadable and clever. Playful, almost. Simon felt a stir in his heart. Being looked at like that...he enjoyed it.
When they were by the church and Simon was busy with the coffins, speaking with the priest, the raven flew up in a birch nearby and sat there watching, waiting, until Simon once again was in his boat and water separated it from shore. Then the bird came back, landing in the boat by the ferryman's feet.
The old priest did not like what he saw. He called it an omen of ill-fate. He said that the bird was attracted by the smell of fresh meat from the coffins. It was a bird of death, he said, and they both knew that it was the ferryman's death he silently predicted.
"Nah," Simon shrugged at the priest, who stood silently by the boat, coffin by his feet and stared up at the treetops, at the silent bird. "My raven is a clever one. He is funny; he makes me laugh. He is much brighter than many men I know of," he joked, but the priest was in no mood for laughing. His grey skin wrinkled concerned above his nose.
"He would not be the Devil's if he was not clever," he said. "Mark my words, Simon Ferryman, your trade is to evil what sugar is to ants. It is a world of shadows, the world of the dead. And you are easy prey to demonic powers".
Simon, already thinking himself rather demonic, due to those insistent urges of his flesh that made him do and picture things that he really shouldn't, did not get frightened by the priest's speech. He had already faced the possibility of going to Hell, and had accepted it as, if not fate, then a consequence. He was done fighting. He had at a young age raged against his own mind, his dreams and his hunger, and he had lost to the power of it. And if his friend was truly a demon of Hell, then Hell didn't seem such a bad place to be to Simon... He didn't tell the priest that. The ferryman rarely spoke his mind about such things.
"I cannot believe him to be evil," he said instead. "He does me no harm, but keeps me company. The river can be a lonely place for a man with only dead for company," he said calmly, while watching the water lick the river stones smooth.
"Maybe he has come to accompany you? Collect the soul for his master," the priest would not let the topic go. "It is a bad omen having our dead arriving at church with birds of prey in the boat..." He turned on his heel and left the shore, leaving it to his men and the ferryman to carry the coffin up the slope to the church. "The bird never enters church grounds," the priest said over his shoulder. "I think that is proof to my words!"
***
As autumn drew to an end, all the plums had fallen from the branches and the leaves withered and followed them down. The birds became fewer by the day as they sought more available food inland. The remaining few, hungry and cold, stood on the yellowing grass, by the river's edge, watching the ferryman with expressionless eyes. Their feathers were puffed up, and their claws were clutching at summer's decay, wine-colored leaves under their feet. What Simon had come to think of as his raven was still faithful to him, accompanying him up and down the stream. Not even after all his brothers had gone, the plum trees lifted their naked, dark branches toward a white sky and shards of ice drifted down the river, did he leave, but waited patiently every day for the man to come.
Instead of being scared of this, thinking in another ill omen of impending death, like the priest would, the ferryman worried for the bird.
"The riverbank is much too cold for you," he said. "You cannot stay there day after day, waiting for me. Some days I cannot come, you know that. And when the ice covers the water, I will not come at all! Not before spring." He lifted the oars off the water. "Go somewhere you can find food," he bid the bird. "Near a farm or in a forest." He swallowed hard after speaking. It was not easy to let his new friend go, winter was long and he worried for its safety. "Promise me you will go somewhere warmer when the ice covers the stream," he said in conclusion, but did not look at the bird while he spoke. He wanted to think the raven had understood and would indeed find a warmer place to stay during the harsh season, and so the man would not have to worry for him. "Good, then." He was looking at the shore, the thin crust of ice covering the fields. "You will do as I say. It is a promise!"
When water was just rippling coils of black in all the white covering the river, Simon pulled his boat on shore and stored it for winter. Often, during those first days of snow and cold, he would walk by the river’s edge, looking at the thick, smooth ice while carefully stepping on the slippery, black stones lining the frozen stream. He already missed the river and he missed the bird. As it was for him every winter, the world suddenly became too small around him. The family and the house, the chores and the mundane rituals of everyday life. He missed the running water, and this year also, the flight of raven wings.
On the dark, long nights he sat by the fire and listened to his mother's humming while she cleaned the plates and the wooden spoons from their meals. He drew patterns in the ashes, ravens’ beaks and feathered angles resembling wings. The raven became all that he longed for: the drifting on the river, the scent of ripe plums and fresh water.
He would dream of it at night, see the world from up there as if he was the raven, gliding through the fresh, cold air. He saw the green of the forest, the wh
ite of the fields. He saw the snow-covered river, curling like a white serpent through the landscape and crowned with a silvery waterfall, frozen stiff, as if caught and bewitched in motion, glittering in the sun's brilliant light.
It was beautiful from up there, the white world, and he did not freeze, although a coat of feathers had seemed to the man but a joke when faced with winter's cold. The bird was warm though, and steered them both safely through the landscape, between treetops and over houses. The ferryman thought he could smell the fresh scent of pine needles and the smoke from the chimneys when they flew by. Feel the fine drift of powdery snow when they landed in the white dunes. His dreams were so vivid he could taste cold water on his tongue and count the ridges on his clawed foot. Vivid, yet strange and alien to him. He did not recall those dreams as he usually remembered his dreams. His nights flying with the bird was remembered as a bird would--glimpses and fragments, feelings of necessity, like hunger or thirst. Their world wasn't as linear and bound by rules as the human world was. As a bird, one was free from the knowledge of time. As a bird, one was free from gravity. That was how the ferryman remembered those dreams: as a taste of something else, somewhere without guilt and the pressure of his responsibilities. When he flew in the bird's flesh, felt the little heart beat and the pulse race, when he felt the mighty rise and fall of heavy wings and the air around his body, a feeling of love for this creature overcame him, and because in those dreams the bird was indeed him, he did, for the first time in his life, truly love himself.
***
Winter was particularly hard that year, and many a day, the snow whipped the woodwork of the house with mighty force. The wind howled and the treetops of the forest swayed, bent, kissed the ground. People got lost, surprised by storms and buried in white, falling prey to hungry beasts. Sometimes the door to Simon's house was barricaded by the white dunes and he and his family were trapped inside. Then, more than ever, on days when he fought his way through the heavy snow, watched his fingers turn red and felt his muscles aching, did the ferryman think of his haven on the stream, about his peculiar and faithful companion. He wondered if the bird could find food now, when the fields were buried under snow and ice, if he found shelter during the storms. He thought about going looking for it, but knew it was folly. The raven could be anywhere. And he did not recall having ever seen the places he'd dreamed of while awake. He never doubted that those dreams were somehow true. Never did he reject them. He kept them in his heart like treasures. Jewels to be polished and enjoyed for their beauty, for the happiness they created inside.
Winter was indeed harsh. Although the ferryman was usually a man of many and merry words, he now fought with his family over small things. He complained about his brothers and hardly spoke to his mother when the days were at their darkest, and the sun was just a brief guest and not a steady companion for mankind. He grew tired of dried meat and hard bread, hot liquor and stale beer. He grew tired of it all: salt fish and his mother's humming, the color of the soot-stained timber walls and the scent of too many people in one room. Sometimes it felt as if spring would never come. But it did... Of course it did! Slowly the snow turned to water and was drunk up by the earth and swallowed by the river. Bits and pieces of ice broke loose and were caught by the stream that grew broader by the day, breaking free from its icy prison. Pale and exhausted people tumbled from their houses to greet the harsh, brilliant sun of spring and look at the newborn flowers, awe and relief in their eyes.
One sunny day early in spring, the ferryman dragged his boat ashore again.
There was freedom in the flexing muscles, the ache in his arms after their long slumber, freedom in the water, in the furious flow. In cold liquid and drifting ice. Simon had to fight a bit to steer the boat on the playful river. Not that he minded, oh no! This was what he had been longing for and he drew his breath in deep gasps and felt as if his chest was too tight for the tremendous joy that he felt.
The plum trees were still naked though. There was no sign of life among the branches.
***
Simon Ferryman was busy all spring. He collected the dead and brought them home to holy soil. Some of the coffins had been stored all winter, as the earth had been frozen through. They had watermarks on them, and the wood had darkened from time.
Some diseases spread quickly in warm weather and they often had a bit of a plague after the winter. This year was no exception. The ferryman found it hard that so many children often died from these fevers. Their little coffins were a heavy burden, but it was the price to pay, he figured, to see the flowers of spring bloom again. It was all a part of nature's order, like the little leaves on the plum trees. A bright, lovely green! Thin, fragile life unfolded from brown shields and stretched toward the sun. The ferryman scanned the fruit grove for black wings, but saw none. He knew it was too early, still he wished they would appear.
Summer was, as spring before it, unusually warm. The ferryman shed his shirt while rowing but his skin was still covered in sweat. His curly, blond hair slicked to his scalp and he had to drench himself in water from the river to stay cool and focused on his tasks. The coffins often smelled, as the heat made the bodies rot faster than usual. On certain days the ferryman had to fight sickness as well as the warmth. His mother gave him strong-smelling flowers to sniff, should the sickness overcome him or the smell of the bodies become too much.
The plum trees blossomed fiercely for a couple of weeks. The pink petals, so delicate and small, drifted down the river.
Still there were no ravens about, and, though the ferryman knew it was early, he was already tired of waiting and his hopes were fading. He fought a growing feeling of disappointment. No, it was more than disappointment, much more grave. It was despair. It was a feeling of grief, for he missed a loved one, and of betrayal because he was not there. He worried too, for the raven's welfare, and had to remind himself that there were no other ravens by the trees either. There was no apparent reason to worry. And then he realized he expected to bird to think like a man, for that was how he thought of him in many respects. Like a thinking, reasoning creature. His peculiar friend with the lustrous feathers had convinced him with his way of acting. The intelligent spark in his eyes.
But if the bird was not there, and did not come back. If he was but a bird and forever gone, never again thinking of the man in the boat... Had it all been just dreams then? His flights of freedom at night...
***
Simon went to the dance on Midsummer. The summer night sky held a pale blue light and the air itself was intoxicated with the wild, bewitching power of the night. The earth hummed with budding life, the slowly ripening harvest to come. The young folk built a giant fire by the river's edge and danced barefoot on the cool grass. Liquor floated in their veins and want stirred in their loins. Simon drank as well--emptied the cup in his hand more than once. He watched the young men move around the fire, their limbs stretching and muscles flexing in rhythmical ecstasy. He felt hot and it made him feel embarrassed, so he drank even more, became much too drunk in no time and fell asleep under a birch.
One of the young girls there lay down beside him during the night and set to kiss him awake. She was whispering softly and playfully in his ear, told him how gentle and pretty he was, told him about how she was not afraid of his dealings with the dead. The ferryman shrugged and turned over to his side, snoring happily all night.
***
Small green plums formed, created themselves from flowers and dust on the plum trees' branches, like eggs in nests of glossy leaves. They grew and ripened, slowly, day by day. The ferryman watched them eagerly, noticed the changes and anticipated the tasteful fruit, the fragrant juice. He watched the fruits grow from babies to adults, change color and taste, from sour to sweet, as did his confused grieving over the bird cease and become a gentle longing. Nostalgic melancholia and warm feelings replaced those of sorrow and anger. Every time he came to the fruit grove, he lifted the oars from the water and let his boat glide though the mirror
image of the trees, sometimes closing his eyes while he let the branches, heavy now with leaves and fruit, gently brush the top of his head.
It wouldn't be long now, he could tell, before the plums were ripe and ready.
One day, as summer prepared for its final crescendo, blooming hot and passionately in the brightest of colors and painting the harvest with sun's gold, Simon Ferryman passed under the plum trees when his eyes suddenly caught sight of something peculiar up among the green. Just for a moment, brief and swift, he saw a face there: pale skin and dark eyes, hair the color of coal, a slick coil of it, over a white shoulder. It was a man, the ferryman felt sure of it. A young man with a burning gaze and slender arms, high cheekbones and sharp-angled eyebrows. The ferryman startled and almost lost an oar. When he looked up again after saving the wooden pole from the water, the thing in the tree was gone. Simon's skin was suddenly slick with cold sweat despite the warmth, for it had not been human that thing he saw. He could not say why it was that he knew that, but he did. Something about the face had been so strange to his senses; it was as if he was warned by his own humanity that this one was not a brother.
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