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This one seems different from the rest. The moment they got into the boat they launched themselves at him, clutching, pulling, but though they were strong, he easily threw them off. They landed at the other end of the punt with more of a thump than a soul should make.
He pushes away from the bank, mud and spirits sucking at the pole. Lift, hand over hand, drop, push.
He can feel them seething at the other end of the boat. Well, anger isn’t too unusual for the dead, but this one... almost as if...
He wonders what their soul looks like. He imagines bared teeth.
“I’ve been watching you, from the bank.” It’s a low voice. It’s cracking with anger. “What have they done to you? Are you... Are you still alive?”
Souls usually have questions, about before, about after. This is a new question. He doesn’t know the answer.
“I can’t see you,” he says instead. It is true. The hood. The mask.
The boat moves on steadily, almost regardless of his strokes, towards the far bank.
“Why are you doing this?”
“He told me I have a debt. A destiny. I ferry the souls.”
The punt slides forward, the river parting before it and closing up after, like oil slick, like darkness. The water, if that’s what it is, doesn’t seem to touch the boat’s planks. Still they drip slowly, as though with tears.
He hears soft, slow feet on the ancient wood - bare feet, he thinks, from the sound. Crossing from prow to stern. And... the weight of a body. Not a soul.
“Do you ever want to...” The voice pauses. “... come back? Ben? To come back to me?”
He thinks, I don’t know what you mean, I don’t know who you are, I don’t know where back is. But somehow he says,
“All the time. I don’t know how.”
He feels his hood pushed back on to his shoulders, then warm, real hands lifting the mask from his face. There is a thunk as it is dropped it into the bottom of the boat, and a thump in the heart he thought had stopped beating.
“Rey.”
Who is not just a soul. Who has a body, is a person, whole and alive. Who is not damp with the gloom of Styx, but shines like the sun has got lost beneath the earth.
Who kisses him.
“I can teach you.”
iʌversion
“And this is important. If the pole gets stuck, you should twist. Then if it’s stuck, let go. Don’t hold on. That’s how most people— Rey!’
She grins and raises the pole she had tilted to drip water on to his feet. “You said you’d teach me even if I was terrible.”
“Yes, but you aren’t trying, you’re just— oh. That’s... yes. Try to drop it straight down. That’s good.”
“I watched you.”
Rey lets the cold metal pole slide through her hands and into the water, where it crunches against the riverbed. She braces her bare feet against the flat boards and leans forward to push.
Ben is facing the wrong way to see where they’re going, watches what he can see of her instead. With the sun low across the water at their stern, she’s a bright silhouette.
“So you punt people about for a living?”
He looks embarrassed. “Well, not for a living.” He tucks his knees up, feels too long for the punt, which is absurd. “But I like it. No one else here over long vac. Good summer job.”
“Don’t people want to do it themselves?”
“Some want to but can’t. Some could but don’t.”
The blunt-nosed punt slips upriver, slowing at the end of every stroke. A soft wake spreads behind them, bumping lazily against watermint and willow branches.
“Are you ever tempted to...” she pauses, bares her teeth in an impish smile. “... you know. Tip people in.”
Ben looks at the rivulets running down her strong bare arms as she draws the pole up again. She’s good for a beginner but she’s still covered herself in river water.
“Yes. Some of them.”
She laughs. “Me too.”
In a flash, she has dropped the pole, chucked her sunglasses into the bottom of the boat and thrown herself at Ben and them both over the side and into the cool, slow, green river.
He’s treading water next to the rocking punt before he’s realised what’s happened, brushing wet hair from his face, staring in disbelief and amusement and love at Rey.
Who is laughing as she swims after the pole that’s drifting downstream. Who has sunlight and river weeds in her hair.
Who splashes him.
“I think I need more lessons.”