4
4
I spread my stance wider on the rickety wooden bottom of the skiff and try not to think about the power of the water rippling along the sides of the vessel. Tears singe a path down my cheeks as the boat drifts away from the now empty dock. As instructed, I stretch out my trembling hand and drop the obol into the depths.
The murky water begins to churn and froth, bubbling up into angry whirlpools as a portal opens beneath the surface of the Styx. The skiff starts its descent into the gateway, but I remain dry. Not a single drop of the Styx breaches the invisible barrier surrounding me. I glance back for one final view, and my breath stalls in my lungs.
Charon is poised at the edge of the dock, his shadowy cloak churning around him like it always does. His bony hand is outstretched as if he’s reaching out for me. His skeletal features somehow morph into an expression of relief when I reach back for him.
He knows I recognize him.
My last view is of him smiling, if skeletons can smile.
“Remember me,” I call out to him as I sink beneath the waves and the portal takes hold. Persephone wasn’t wrong when she said it wasn’t a pleasant journey. The pressure around me is almost unbearable, and it feels like my lungs are about to burst and my skin is being flayed from the bone. I screw my eyes shut and grip the edge of the boat as my memory envelopes me, taking away one pain only to replace it with another.
The scorching air around me and the coarse sand beneath my cheek are the first things I notice before I even open my eyes. My head throbs like I took a tractor trailer to the skull, and even with my eyes clenched shut, I can still see the light. The sound of water rippling pulls me from my disoriented stupor.
I sit up and wipe the sand, still sticking to my sweaty cheek. The harsh light is nearly blinding as I blink my surroundings into focus. They’re both unfamiliar and unforgiving. A barren expanse of beach and dark water stretch until they disappear over the horizon. The air is hot and dry, and a sense of dread creeps into my chest as I stand and take a few steps toward the water’s edge.
My lips are dry and cracked, and my throat is burning with a thirst so great, I’m slightly worried that I’ve been turned into a vampire. The water, although murky, beckons me forward, and the possibility of quenching my thirst has my feet shuffling forward. Before I can drop to my knees and dunk my head into the water, a swirl of shadows emerges out of thin air.
“The Styx is not meant for consumption,” a deep voice curls around my senses, but I can’t bring myself to tear my eyes from the river. “Just a few drops will disintegrate a vessel, and the soul will not be allowed into Elysium.”
I turn on my heels, ready to bombard the man beside me with questions, but they all dissolve on my tongue as I take in the foreboding figure before me.
The creature is tall and shrouded in a cloak of darkness. Within the shadow of his hood, a bare skull with gleaming, sharp teeth is the only thing visible. Despite the heat, a chill snakes through my body as his hollow eye sockets bore into me.
He is truly terrifying, and I know I should quake in his presence, but fear isn’t the only emotion rushing through my system.
Curiosity.
Anxiety.
And something deeper.
I feel myself being drawn to him despite his ominous appearance.
It’s like there’s something deep within my being that knows him and isn’t put off by his appearance.
He glides closer to me as if a tether is pulling him and places himself between me and the River Styx. “You are a new arrival,” he says matter-of-factly. “Sometimes the Queen is here to greet new souls as they begin their journey, but she is preoccupied. I will be tending to your crossing.” The shadows part, revealing a skeletal hand as it extends towards me, palm up.
I stare blankly at the hand, trying to wrap my brain around what is happening. “Where am I? Who are you?” He doesn’t answer but continues to hold his hand out to me. I place my hand delicately into his and am instantly jolted by an electric shock.
His bony fingers curl around my hand, and his teeth somehow part into a smile. “No, little one,” he says, holding up our hands. “Do you have payment?”
“Payment?” I repeat, still confused. It hits me then, like a grand piano falling from the sky.
Styx.
Shadows.
Heat.
Payment.
Crossing.
I’m in the Underworld. I’m standing on the bank of the River Styx talking to the Ferryman of Souls.
And I have no payment.
“An obol,” he supplies gently. “To cross the River Styx, a soul must pay the Ferryman.”
My heart sinks as I look around helplessly. I don’t have anything with me except the clothes on my back. For fuck’s sake, I don’t even have shoes. “We don’t, uhm, we don’t use obols anymore. I’m sorry. I don’t have anything.”
“If no payment is supplied, the soul must attempt to cross through the Maze and into the Grove.” He drops my hand and motions toward the water’s edge, where a small skiff materializes in a swirl of dark shadows. “You are not destined for the Elysium Fields, but you are in Limbo for a time.”
I follow him onto the rickety boat, clutching the tall pillar of wood at the stern in a white-knuckled grip. “What does that mean?”
He pushes from the shore with his oar and guides the vessel down the waterway with the ease of someone intimately familiar with the passage. “It means that your soul will remain here until your body decides if it wants to heal or die.”
“I’m dead?” I croak out and drop to my knees, rocking the boat ever so slightly. My limbs tingle with numbness as my mind races to remember anything that happened to me within the last twenty-four hours, but I can’t remember anything before I woke up on the beach.
The skeletal creature drops down beside me and pulls me into the swirling darkness of his cloak. “You are not, little one.” The energy around us changes as I tremble in his embrace. The charge has my hair standing on end and my skin prickling. His arms tighten around me as he pulls me deeper into his cloak.
My body automatically relaxes into the embrace, the sense of familiarity stronger now that I’m in his arms. I can’t explain the sensation, but it’s like my soul knows this creature. Like I’ve known him for centuries and being with him is like finally coming home.
He stands so abruptly that he almost capsizes the skiff. “My apologies,” he grumbles and adjusts his cloak so that only his skull is visible again. “You just feel… familiar.”
“I know,” I respond breathlessly, trying to regain my balance after the sudden loss of his magnetic pull. “It feels like I know you. Or my soul knows you, at least.” I turn away from him, letting my eyes wander across the desolate landscape of the Underworld as the River guides us toward the Maze. “It feels like the dream of a dream,” I mutter and wrap my arms around myself, feeling vulnerable all of a sudden. “One that I desperately want to remember but can’t quite reach.”
I blink rapidly against the bright, fluorescent lights, tears blurring my vision as I regain my bearings. The constant beeping of a heart monitor pounds into my skull with each mechanical beep. I draw in a deep breath, and my lungs burn like I’m pulling in oxygen for the first time after nearly drowning. My mind reels, and I hear the beeping escalate as the room around me spins out of control, and black spots dance across my vision.
“Helena,” a clinical voice calls, but it sounds distorted and far away. “Helena, relax. You’re okay. You’re okay. Breathe.” The voice becomes clearer, and I feel a pressure on my shoulders, guiding me back until I’m lying against the pillow in the hospital bed.
A marble vault appears in my mind’s eye, taunting me with the secrets I know are hidden inside, but all I can unlock are fragmented images of skulls and rivers and unquenchable heat. I let the calmness wash over me as the doctors push a sedative through my IV line, trying to piece together the dreams. Knowing that there is something important hidden there.
“You were in an accident, Ms Trotter,” a medical voice says softly. “You sustained multiple injuries, but we believe the worst of it has passed. We’re confident that you should make a full recovery.”
I nod weakly, not really listening to the voices around me. I’m too focused on the one that keeps echoing through my mind like a whisper on the faintest wind. The words coil around the vault until small fissures begin to form in the stone. Three words that I have no memory of ever learning, but know all the same.
Thymísou me.
Parakaló.
Remember me.
Please.
This is an excerpt from a work in progress that will be published in October of 2025. The Title is Finding the Ferryman and it is a Charon love story featuring some big name characters from Greek Mythology. Thank you for reading. If you are interested in finding out the history between Helena and Charon, and want to see if Helena makes it back to the Underworld and finds Charon, please consider pre-ordering the full, standalone novel here .