The Crossing

The dead came to him at the river bank, and he took them across, and he returned, and they came again. He had been doing it since before the river had a name. The light came and went. He had stopped noting which.

Wolves had come to him. Eagles. Animals so small he could not name them. He took them all the same way, with the same pole, to the same dark shore. There had been a time when he watched them reach the far bank. When he waited to see them step ashore before he turned back. He did not do that anymore.

He stood tall in the water, grey and still, his neck curved into a posture worn into him by time. He did not look at his own reflection. He had learned, long ago, that the river gave nothing back worth seeing.

The fox arrived at the bank the same way they all did — without ceremony. The heron took her aboard, her dead weight falling into the boat with a gentle thud. He began to pole out onto the water. He knew every pull of this current. Every eddy, every stillness. The river did not surprise him. Nothing on it ever had.

A small, unremarkable wave hit the bow. The fox slid against the hull and made a sound. Not the sound of the dead. The sound of something trying very hard not to be alive.

He didn't finish the stroke. The pole drifted in the water. He turned. The fox lay curled at the bow, eyes closed.

"You are breathing," the heron said plainly.

"I am breathing, but not living,” replied the fox.

"The living bank and the dark bank. Everything that breathes moves from one to the other. That is all this river is. The circle does not bend for grief.”

"Everything ends. I know this. I watched my mother end. I did not follow her here. But she was finished with the living bank. My cubs are not finished with me.”

"Every creature that has ever grieved eventually returned to the water to drink. Not because the pain ended. Because the body continued."

The fox considered that before continuing. “My cubs are gone. They took this very journey. To continue without them is to eat without tasting."

The heron said nothing. His next stroke was slower than the last one.

"Among the living they say the young ones wait at the dark’s edge before they move on. That there is a window. A period only afforded to those taken before their time. I don't know if it's true,” said the fox.

"Neither do I,” replied the heron. His gaze moved to the dark shore on the horizon. He pictured her cubs huddled together at the edge of the bank, their small bodies sharing warmth, reassuring each other in low voices.

The fox broke the silence. “I always imagined my cubs when they got older. What they would have looked like. My nose. Dad's tail. I hope, if there is a window, they aren't frightened.”

"Does your mate know you are here?” asked the heron.

"I left my scent at the entrance to the den. He will know I am not coming back,” the fox said. "He is stronger than me.”

"Your mate did not board this boat. He is on the living bank. Breathing. Waiting for something that will not return.”

The fox turned and faced the living shore, a thin line receding on the horizon. The silence carried on the river. Only the gentle waves breaking against the bow were heard.

The fox, over her shoulder, spoke first.

“The spot on his tail. Just above the white tip. I used to find it in the dark without looking. I fell in love with him the moment I saw it.”

The heron stopped poling. The boat drifted for longer than he realized. He tightened his grip.

The pole broke the water with a stronger resistance. The boat began to slow and lean, the stern shifting, the bow coming around toward the living shore.

He had never turned the boat. In all the crossings, in all the years before the years had names, the boat had only ever moved one direction once it set.

The fox, once again, faced towards the dark bank. The edge where the rumour lived. She looked for shapes in the dark. For movement. For something that told her the window was real.

There was nothing. Only dark water and the sound of the pole breaking it.

She looked a moment longer. Then she turned and sat down in the bow, facing the living shore.

The breeze off the river moved over her nose, pressing her ears back. She took a long, deep breath.

"The living bank always smells different on the return," said the heron.

Neither of them spoke for the rest of the crossing.

As the bow struck the living bank, she stepped away without hesitation. The heron watched her move into the reeds and disappear. He did not call after her. He stood in the water, grey and still, the pole resting across his wings.

He did not look at his reflection.

For the first time in a very long time, he turned to look at the far bank before pushing back out onto the water.

It was dark. Still. The way it always was.

***

On the dark bank, at the very edge of the water, three small cubs sat pressed together. They had been sitting there since they arrived. They watched the boat grow smaller against the living shore.

They tried calling out.

They waited a little longer. Then the window closed. Their time came.

***

The heron had barely stilled the boat before the next animal arrived.

A fox. Male. His weight completely settling into the bow the way the dead settle. The heron took his position at the stern.

Then he paused.

There was a spot just above the white tip of the tail.

The heron reached for the pole. His wings knew the motion before his mind did — they had made it ten thousand times, a hundred thousand times, more times than the river had stones. He gripped it. He planted it in the water.

He did not push. Not yet.

The current moved the boat gently sideways. The dead fox shifted with it. The spot above the white tip of the tail caught what little light the river held.

The heron stood in the water a long time.

Then he pushed off from the bank and took him across.