‘Pretty Lies: Fly Away’ by Mel Anastasiou

Frances set up her deck chairs side by side. She gave Jenny a cup of coffee and lectured her, at length and at volume, on boat safety. Jenny took the opportunity to do some logical thinking about seeing ghosts. 

She set her coffee on Frances’s deck rail, leaned forward in her chair, and rested her chin on her fists. The sky over Corner Bay gleamed delft blue. The nine o’clock ferry to Langdale chugged by, white against Gambier’s coniferous coast. 

Frances elaborated on her theme. “You don’t just stand up in a rowboat. One hand for the ship, one hand for yourself. How could you be so careless?”

“I have no idea.” Jenny was hard-pressed to keep a neutral expression on her face, because a balloon of excitement was expanding in her head. The impossible had flown from the realm of her imagination and landed squarely in reality, because she hadn’t imagined nearly being drowned. She had truly nearly drowned. And the blame lay with Moira, the young woman who walked across the water.

Moira, the ghost. Who rose up dry out of the water, and whose weight had rocked the rowboat. Whose foot had even bumped hers — a small thing, so small that Jenny couldn’t overlook it. The solid pressure of that strappy shoe against her runner was a sort of physical memory, like the pain of a fall or the heat of a kiss.

Set aside the fact that most people thought that believing in ghosts was for nutjobs. Instead, remember that a minority believed, and had always believed, in ghosts and a ghost world. Take for example the story of Orpheus pursuing his Eurydice into Hades to get her back. That enduring tale showed that the ancient Greeks believed in ghosts. And the ancient Greeks were not fools. They were bright, and right, about mathematics and logical thought. What if they were right about a ghost world, too? 

If the ancients were right, then Moira had come from the ghost world. Come from it, and returned to it. What else, and who else, might be found there? 

Together forever. 

Frances was saying, “And you may not drive my Galaxie, either. It’s a ton of deadly metal.”

“I have a question,” Jenny said.

“About safety? About staying alive while you’re visiting me?”

“About the beliefs of the ancient Greeks and Romans.”

“For heaven’s sake, have you heard a word I’ve said?”

“Every word you’ve spoken is indexed in my brain for quick reference. But I want to leave the subject of boat safety for a moment. You know everything about ancient Greece.”

“There’s an eight-hundred-year span of that history, pre-Homer, about which nobody knows a damn thing. But go ahead.”

“Exactly how did Orpheus get into the ghost world to try to bring Eurydice back? Does anybody know?”

“Everybody knows. He crossed the River Styx.”

“On foot?” 

“On death’s ferryboat. And he took a coin to pay the ferryman.”

“Like BC Ferries, then.”

“What a comic parallel,” Frances said coldly.

“But what if Orpheus could have walked over the water into the ghost world?”

“Walk across the River Styx? He couldn’t. Anyway, he didn’t.” Frances blinked. 

“That we know of.” Jenny rose from the deck chair, set her coffee cup down on the porch rail, and stepped off the deck onto the mossy rocks between the house and the bay. “I’ve got to go and try something. Thank you for caring about my safety.”

“I’m not finished caring,” Frances said. “I have lots more caring things to say. Like, can I trust you with kitchen knives?”