Mataya had always dreamt of the her departure from St. Chastity. She envisioned throngs of her sisters, gathered on the shore, all taking turns hugging and kissing her, tears flowing, noses-blowing, and the wave of hands in the air of those wishing her well as she stepped off from the dock and onto the ferry. Instead, in the early hours of the morning, there wasn’t a single sole in sight other than the handful of staff assigned to help Mataya and Mistress Duenna with their bags. Even he wasn’t her sweet pet who, to her guilt and dismay, had been demoted to shoveling hay and hog-feces in the stables as punishment for his role in their indiscretion.
Mataya should have been bursting with excitement. Instead, she felt melancholy and a nagging sense of foreboding as if a voice whispered into her ear a her a dire warning.
Do not to board the ferry. Do not go. Do not flea sanctuary. It will be your undoing.
A part of her believed these words to be true, but if there was a time when she could have refused the invitation, it had long since passed. There was nowhere to go but forward and onward. And with that thought, she summoned her courage and embraced adventure and the need to satisfy her curiosity of the unknown world. And then there was Father. The thought of their reunion was both terrifying and exhilarating. The thought of never seeing him again was perhaps the most terrifying thing of all.
Mistress Duenna was visibly agitated. Even more so then usual. It had been days now sense she last imbued herself with liquid calm and confidence. With her attention focused inward, she spoke aloud, not to others, but to her own inner demons. Since the moment she and Mataya arrived at the rocky shore and stepped up and onto the dock that jetted far out to the depths of Chastity Bay, she had grown visibly ill, cursing, stumbling, barely able to keep her legs beneath her. The sky had been clear the night before promising a beautiful morning sunrise and calm seas. However, just as the sun made a brief appearance, a battalion of dense, spherical clouds marched up and over the mountain cliffs down towards the bay. The sky had grown dark. Powerful gusts of wind pushed, and pulled, periodically lifting the Mistress off her feat and sprawled across the wooden dock. The surface of the morning sea, typically calm and opaque, churned violently. A phalanx of sharp waves topped with gray crests and white foam crashed against the edges of the docks that twisted and turned from one direction to the next. Crashing waves rose up and showered her with salty rain.
Contrary to her Mistress Duenna’s prayers, their voyage across the great lake would be a most unpleasant one indeed.
As Mataya, Mistress Duenna, and the other passengers moved farther away from the shore, the wooden platform lifted their bodies higher up into the air, and just as the platform suddenly receded far enough that they began to freely fall, it reached back up to the bottoms of their feet, catching and lowering them back down. Again, and again, they rose, and fell. Up, then down. The platform twisted to one side, then suddenly rotated back. As one wave surged and receded, another wave appeared taking its place. Each time, just as they felt that they would surely fall, the dock lifted them back up. Each time, before they could catch their breath, another wave would crash against the edge of the dock, lifting them back up and dropping them back down. Finally, the water stilled long enough for their stomachs to settle. Then, they were struck by the the largest wave of all.
It was then that the Mistress’ complexion turned a most sickly shade of greenish yellow.
When the morning ferry finally arrived, a wheeled chair, powered by a trio of young, lanky, sea-swains, sat the Mistress down and rolled her up the gangplank and onto the ferry’s deck, which they found preferable to the dock, but just barely. The deck was filthy, covered in slippery slime, and emitted the hideous stench of rotting seaweed, fish entrails, and the soil of chickens, goats, and other four-legged cargo. Mistress Duenna cupped her mouth and nose, lowered her head, and heaved. Then, she lowered her hands, took a deep breath, and again lowered herself, coughing, and retching.
They had not yet cast off and already they felt as if they had endured a grueling journey.
The ferry was wide with a flat hull in order to access the shallow waters of the boy inaccessible to ships designed for traveling across deep bodies of water. But the necessity of this design came with disadvantages. Although vastly more stable than the platform of the dock, the wind and the surf toyed with the craft as if it were a child’s toy floating in a bathtub. To those onboard, the horizon appeared to rise, fall, and rotate in a random fashion. Worse still, the bumpers slammed abruptly against the dock creating a frightful shock. Worst of all, the ferry did not appear to be sea-worthy, for if struck by a single large wave, the entire boat would be reduced to a floating pile of splintered wood, floating detritus, and flailing human bodies waiting to die from hypothermia or be consumed by the carnivorous denizens of the lake.
Mistress Duenna, insisting that she be allowed to exit, had to be restrained by order of the captain.
It felt like they had been at sea for hours when Mataya circled around the deck only to realize that the ship had not yet left the docks. Finally, with the gates secured and the cargo and passengers safely aboard, the vessel launched and slowly navigated along a curvilinear course across the lake to its next destination, Port Megalopolis. The nautical horn, audible within a radius of a dozen nautical miles, was so loud that Mistress Duenna to coverer her ears and shouted. It was, in fact, quite possibly the loudest noise that Mataya had ever heard. Frightful, ominous, it was meant to warn. It was the sound of danger, clear, and present.
For Mataya, it was a symbolic report that the option of changing her mind lie as far away from her as the distant shore.
Most of the slow trip across the great lake was spent beside Mistress Duenna, her head and shoulders sagging over the ship’s rusty metal rail. The captain, a mere wight of a man with a bald bespeckled head, thick dark hands, and a scruffy gray beard, insisted that the Mistress be fitted with an inflatable jacket and tethered to the rail lest she fall overboard. He barked as the pipe dangling from his lips bounced up and down with each syllable.
We aren’t going to lose any passengers on MY watch. It would be my bloody hide!
He exclaimed with gravelly words and gentile vulgarity. He shook his misshapen right hand, his fingers curled into the shape of a claw.
Dead passengers gen’rate more bloody paperwork than me poor ‘thritis can tol’rate!
Finding a jacket with sufficient girth to accommodate Mistress Duenna’s rotund waist took time as did attaching it to her stubborn body. Mataya suppressed a smile and diverted her eyes, as Mistress Duenna, donned in her orange jacket, spooky eyes, and jagged mouth, resembled a giant curved pumpkin.
Mealtime, which included a large glass of wine, provided a brief respite from the hardship of travel. The passengers, otherwise treated by the crew as if they were nothing more than cattle, were offered the chance to sit and relax while the kitchen staff served them food and drink. However, the complimentary meal and beverage served to Mistress Duenna was hastily re-gifted back to the fishes. By the time the ferry docked on the shore of Megalopolis, Mistress Duenna’s face had turned from yellow to green to blue. The young swains once again placed Mistress Duenna into a wheeled chair and rolled her down the ramp, onto the dock, and all the way to the shore where they promptly tipped it over sending her sprawling face first into the sand. As they retreated back to the vessel, their tone revealed the essence of their unrecognizable jargon spoken with a thick provincial drawl.
Good riddance to ‘ya, ‘ya fattened cow!
They laughed as narrow streams of dark tobacco juice squirted from their mouths onto the ground beneath their feet.