THE ISLAND OF CHARON
a novel in the series
"PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY"
CHAPTER 7. THE MOON BOOK
7.2. THE PIER
I opened my eyes in the same hut as if someone had woken me up. I looked out the window, it was still night. I listened to the silence — the cicadas, as in Greece, enjoyed the absence of Mr. Wind and tropical rain.
And yet…
“What interesting dreams I have here! — not dreams, but memories! Stop!” I cut myself off. “Memories are good, of course, but they can last a lifetime. Meanwhile Yanis…”
He hinted sarcastically that I should clarify the ferry schedule. And he also said something about the importance of the Moon Book and went on with nonsense about lanterns, vampires, magicians…
“Apparently, here, on the Island of Magicians and Stargazers, everyone is slowly losing his mind. And he looked like an ideal boy, Yanis, the grandson of a wizard: a swarthy handsome man with a Greek profile, a real Hellenic, black-eyed, tall, too skinny, but for the cafe business during its low season…”
I threw on my shawl, left the hut, took a torch from the reception and headed for the pier.
***
The pier, located in the bay between the Abandoned Lighthouse and the Wish Tree, was… flooded with people…
“My God! At night? Why are there so many people waiting for the ferry that there’s nowhere to step? Moreover, it wouldn’t take a ferry to transport them all in such numbers to Cebu, but a big, big ship!”
I drifted slowly among the people, trying to find the schedule, but at the same time I couldn’t help but looking at their faces… tired or exhausted? Sad or doomed? Why did they seem to me so?
Some people were waiting for the ferry alone, others — with their families. Some of them were rocking the children, sitting on the sand, some were dozing, some were smoking tobacco, nervously pacing back and forth, measuring the distance between the palm trees.
However, all these people, in my opinion, were united not so much by waiting for the ferry, but by the fact that they looked excessively gloomy in the darkness…
“Excuse me, do you speak English?” I tried to find someone to talk.
“He won’t come… again…” a toothless old woman mumbled back to me.
“Isn’t there a schedule?” I asked her, and the old woman smiled.
“Of course, there is not!”
“Why so?” I was surprised.
“Everyone has their own.”
“Schedule?!”
“No,” she whispered in my ear and… laughed ominously, “the Ferry, baby! It may never come for you! Ne-e-ever!”
It seemed as if I had completely lost my mind. Maybe like Yanis. And like everyone else on the Island. Perhaps to regain one’s mind, one must get off the devil’s Island first. Why had I dreamt of coming back to Camotes?
“I beg your pardon,” I decided to finish the talk with the old woman, “what or who does it depend on? I mean, will the ferry come for me or not?”
The old woman tilted her head to one side so strongly and unnaturally that it seemed to exist by itself.
“On you, of course!” and again, I heard a sinister laughter and no less sinister words, “What a foolish girl!”
The circle got closed. I tried to get my split consciousness back together.
“What should I do to…” I asked the old woman.
“To make it come for you?”
“Yes!” I nodded. “I need to get out of here!”
“You wouldn’t be talking to me now if I knew!”
Suddenly, I remembered the Stargazer and decided to chat with him.