Now and Forevermore

What was it about these creatures and their eyeballs? Why did that big eyeball need rings of eyes surrounding it? Granted, one large eyeball didn't exactly mean it could see all around itself, but did the orbiting rings of blinking eyes really give it better vision? Kamiko tried to imagine what kind of stitched together reality ole' Eyeballs was actually seeing.

Even the Ferrywoman's eyes were strange. They were black marbles like the eyes of an animal. The deeper into her eyes Kamiko looked the more opaque and black they became. And inside that blackness were pinpricks of light like stars in space. At the periphery where the black touched the glassy membrane that surrounded it, there were smoky tendrils. She thought of the smoke like waves rushing up against a glass wall, a terrarium for a universe.

Kamiko thought of the line, 'When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back,' but she sensed no monster behind the Ferrywoman's eyes. There was a sadness to them, a heaviness. What was she staring at? What did those glassy black orbs see?

The wind whipped a strong gust through her hair sending masses of it fluttering all about her.

"What's the plan?" Kamiko asked. "How are we gonna fight 'em?"

"Dost thou trust me?" The Ferrywoman asked.

"Yeah, one hunny p, lady," Kamiko replied.

"We have only met. Thou hast no reason to give thyself over to me." The tone of her voice was measured, quiet, and clear.

"True," Kamiko said after a prolonged moment of silence. She was the opposite. Her voice was loud and soft, tinged with a quaver of uncertainty. But, what did she have to be certain about? Everything here was new to her. She tried to pluck her thoughts out of the air and put words to them. "But, clearly you're not like those guys. So, I feel... I can trust you on that alone. Plus you were gonna give me some cookies." When she couldn't come up with anything, a joke, no matter how dumb, was easy to crack. "And, they don't seem like the type that would give you a wafer."

It didn't land. They never did. The Ferrywoman didn't look at her, nor away. Her expression remained blank. At least she didn't cringe.

So, Kamiko tried another approach, "And... you're a powerful god, right?" That seemed obvious. She controlled her life and death, and probably everyone else's. She tore up her contract and gave her immortality, power, and all that other jazz. But, it angered a great deal of multi-eyed creatures.

"Hmm," The Ferrywoman said as she narrowed her eyes. She still didn't look in her direction. A small smile formed on her lips. "Are we to mete blood with blood?"

So the lady loved a dumb pun too.

Kamiko built off of it: "An eye for an eye. He wouldn't come with backup if he wasn't gonna throw hands."

The Ferrywoman tilted her head forward. Her cloak, windswept hair, and height enveloped Kamiko. She spoke in a slow and measured voice, her words distant sounding. "Then shall we pluck the jellies from the wing'ed ring, and rent the feathers from his flock of wren? And once we have deplumed them, hmm? Wouldst not the Dictator send another feast for my reaper? More bountiful and opulent. Shall we, rather, I, churn them through the thresher? To what end will they throw their murder into mine? Until every cage in the Kingdom twists and swings like free nooses."

Jellies? Kamiko tried to place the image. Like the eyes? Dictator? Who was the dictator? She spoke the title as if Kamiko should have known who it was. Well, if the dictator sent the big ringed eyeball and those other birds... no.

Wait.

They weren't birds. She knew the answer already. Kamiko faced the oncoming flock of creatures surrounding the giant ringed eye. She squinted and acknowledged them for what they were:

Angels.

"They will never surrender the notion," the Ferrywoman's voice now sounded even more distant, as if were trying to flee the moment. "Thou shall be pecked and henned until thy bones are hollowed of its marrow."

"And that's why we gotta..." Kamiko tried to interject.

The Ferrywoman continued on. "I have..." she paused, a stutter. "I have in my zeal condemned thy immortal soul to a fate worse than death, have I not?"

Kamiko stared at the fabric of the taller woman's cloak and stole a glance upwards through her bangs. Her wafting golden hair surrounded her in a weak embrace. Her black cloak fluttered about. She tipped her head, downcast as if in prayer. The words she had spoken were solemn and filled with regret. Kamiko hadn't even gotten a chance to think about her newfound immortality or any of that stuff, but she felt that somehow the Ferrywoman who stood around and towered over her was now trying to slide back into the shadows.

"Wait..." the word escaped her mouth even before she could stop herself from saying it, but she had to hear the words for herself. Someone had to say it. She had to acknowledge it. The thought traveled faster than her lips could move and she gasped. "You're gonna let them... take me."

The silence lingered between the two of them. The Ferrywoman was a bent tree hunkering over top of her, a tower of melancholy. Her eyes closed, those twin universes unavailable for Kamiko's gaze.

"But I..." Kamiko's voice now quavered. Abandoned. A pulse of anger rushed through her, but a slower and much more steady wave powered through that anger. A wave that reminded her of the last thing she saw as a mortal being. A wave that struck her like a wall and pushed through her, all around her, engulfing her. But this time there was no water, nothing physical at all, just a heaviness that pulled at her heart.

"Oh," she mumbled. "Okay."

Abandoned was a good way of putting it. Why did the tall lady even bother tearing up her contract? Did she know this would happen and did it anyway? The tears welled up in Kamiko's eyes. So this is how it felt. She was used to being the curt one. She was used to being the first to leave a bad situation. This was her comeuppance for all those times. A bite back on the ass, as it were.

The tears were sliding down her cheeks, her eyes were hot. She had even said she trusted her. How embarrassing. With a cracked voice, Kamiko said: "Can you at least give me a head start? A couple of minutes so I can, you know..."

What?

All of her thoughts sounded like dumb jokes to her.

"Run..." what good would running do? She didn't even know where she was. There was some dense forest that she saw as they landed on the beach. There was a towering cliff, but the woods, the beach, and the surroundings were covered in a mist. Where would she run too?

"Hide..." She could do that! She could hide. Maybe she was small enough to hide in the mist. In the shadow, but big ole' cyclops would probably find her before she could even do that.

"Or..." The last thought remain unsaid, but it took her by surprise. She had never thought that. Ever. She had never wanted that for herself. It was so easy to let the thought slip into her mind, like a knife cutting through soft butter. And, it was moot anyway. She had already died once to get here. Dying again... oh right, wouldn't work if she was immortal, but was she really? She certainly didn't want to find out.

The Ferrywoman stood before her unmoved by her bargaining.

A shadow from above loomed over them like an eclipse sweeping the land. The eye was here. The rings of eyes blinked in a wave pattern. The angels circled like vultures.

"My child," the Ferrywoman's voice was quiet. Kamiko balled her hands into fists. She hated the word 'child.' They weren't family.

"Thou art mine."

Those three words broke down Kamiko's negative notions. She held her breath and felt the tears moving in rivulets down her cheeks.

The Ferrywoman spoke louder for her and their interlopers to hear. "And I am thine? Yes?"

"Am I?" Kamiko asked, her voice a hoarse whisper.

"I shall form a new compact with thee." The Ferrywoman's voice brimmed with bright tones and color. There was a tremble, but not one of sadness, rather, one of excitement. As if she had never spoke such words before. Maybe, if Kamiko looked up at that moment and saw her face, she would see her smiling. "I shall not cast thee to the whims of the wind, nor grant the wishes of a misanthrope."

The Ferrywoman placed her hand on Kamiko's head and brushed her slender fingers through her locks with a gentle tenderness. The touch stirred memories in Natsumi's mind. She was six again and her mother's hand combed through her hair, petting her before drawing her close for a hug. Her mother smelled of meat and oil, but she had been cooking dinner at the time. The scents recreated the family kitchen and wafted outwards giving shape to her house, her home.

But that was the past and this was now. The Ferrywoman smelled of the sea and the salt. Her long unkempt hair fluttered like gentle reeds that surrounded Kamiko in a bed of warmth.

And the Ferrywoman spoke once again, to ensure the clarity of her intentions: "Thou art my charge, now and forevermore."