The Last Ferry to Kettle Harbor

The fluorescent lights of the Toronto airport hummed like a trapped insect, casting a sickly glow over the departure board. Lucy stared at the list of flights, her finger tracing the thin line of red text that read ‘DELAYED’ next to her connection to Vancouver. She had left the cruise ships behind two years ago, trading the endless blue of the Pacific for the grey of a Canadian winter, and now she was trading that for the even deeper grey of a Newfoundland fog. Her grandfather was failing, the emails from her mother growing more frantic with each passing day. The last one had said, ‘He asks for you, Lucy. He calls your name in his sleep.’ The guilt was a physical weight in her chest. She had been so reckless, so bold, chasing horizons, and now she was stranded in an airport terminal, a thousand miles from the only place that mattered.

She finally landed in St. John’s, the small plane bouncing through clouds thick as cotton wool. The air smelled of salt and diesel. She rented a car, a rusted sedan that groaned as she turned the key, and began the drive north. The map said three hours to Kettle Harbor, a fishing village so small it barely made the road atlas. The road wound through black spruce and granite outcrops, the sky a low, bruised purple. Rain began to fall, then turned to sleet, then to a hard, stinging snow. She could barely see the headlights. She pulled over at a crossroads, a single signpost pointing north: ‘KETTLE HARBOR 112 KM’. The other way pointed to ‘PORT AUX BASQUES 320 KM’.

She was about to continue when she saw a figure standing at the side of the road. An old woman in a black raincoat, hood pulled low. Lucy rolled down the window, the cold biting her cheeks. ‘You need a ride?’ She asked, her voice hollow in the empty landscape. The woman didn’t speak, just opened the passenger door and slid in. Her hands were gnarled, her nails yellowed. She smelled of brine and old fish. As Lucy drove, the woman began to speak, her voice a dry whisper like dead leaves. ‘You’re going to Kettle Harbor.’ It was a statement, not a question.

‘Yes, my grandfather,’ Lucy said, her eyes fixed on the road.

‘Old Tom. He was a good man. A good fisherman.’ The woman paused. ‘But he’s not there anymore.’

Lucy’s heart lurched. ‘What do you mean? He’s in the hospital in St. John’s.’

The woman laughed, a rasping sound. ‘He was. But he came back. They all come back. They wait for the ferry.’

Lucy’s grip on the wheel tightened. ‘There’s no ferry to Kettle Harbor. The causeway was built in eighty-five.’

‘Oh, there’s a ferry. Always a ferry. The last one. It comes at night, when the fog rolls in. You’ll see.’

The road ahead dissolved into a wall of white. Lucy slowed to a crawl. She could feel the woman’s eyes on her, though she couldn’t see them beneath the hood. ‘You don’t belong here, girl. You left. You should have stayed away.’

‘I had to come. He’s my grandfather.’

‘Blood calls blood,’ the woman said. ‘But blood can be a chain. And chains drag you down.’

Suddenly, the car sputtered and died. The engine coughed once, then fell silent. Lucy turned the key, but nothing. The woman opened the door and stepped out into the snow, which was now falling so thickly it was like a white curtain. ‘This is as far as I go,’ she said. ‘You’re on your own now.’ And she walked away, disappearing into the storm.

Lucy got out, her boots sinking into the drifts. She couldn’t see more than a few feet. She yelled for help, but the wind swallowed her voice. She pulled her jacket tight and started walking, following the road she knew led north. After what felt like hours, she saw a light ahead. A small, single bulb glowing from a window. She stumbled toward it, pounding on the door. An old man with a face like dried leather opened it. ‘Come in, come in,’ he said, pulling her inside. ‘The storm’s a bad one.’

The room was warm, a wood stove crackling. The man, who introduced himself as Ezra, gave her a cup of tea. ‘You’re heading to Kettle Harbor?’ he asked, not looking at her.

‘Yes,’ she said, her hands shaking. ‘My grandfather is sick.’

‘He’s already dead,’ Ezra said flatly. ‘Died two days ago. But you know that, don’t you?’

Lucy stared at him. ‘No. My mother said he was getting better.’

Ezra shook his head. ‘Your mother’s been dead ten years, child. You know that too.’

Lucy felt the floor tilt. ‘No, that’s not true. I talked to her… she emailed me.’

‘Email,’ Ezra said with a bitter laugh. ‘That’s the Devil’s telephone. It brings messages from the dead. I’ve seen it.’ He leaned closer, his eyes sad. ‘You’ve been talking to the other side for weeks. They’ve been reeling you in.’

Lucy’s mind raced. The emails had stopped coming when she was in Canada. She had been sending replies into the void, receiving nothing. But then her mother started writing again, telling her to come home. But her mother was dead. How could that be? She remembered the funeral, the casket being lowered. She had been there. Hadn’t she?

Ezra put a hand on her arm. ‘You need to leave, girl. Now, before the ferry comes. If you get on that ferry, you never come back.’

‘What ferry?’

‘The one that takes the dead to Kettle Harbor. The one that takes the living to join them. It only comes out in fog, and it’s thinning now. Run.’

Lucy didn’t wait. She burst out the door and ran into the storm. The snow was easing, the fog rolling in thick and gray off the sea. She could hear water lapping. She was near the shore. She saw a dock, and at the end of it, a boat. An old wooden boat, like a coffin with a mast. A lantern glowed on its deck. And she saw her grandfather standing at the bow, his face pale, his hands reaching out to her.

‘Lucy,’ he called, his voice like gravel in a drain. ‘Come home.’

She wanted to run to him. She hadn’t seen him in years. But something held her back. The woman’s words echoed: ‘Blood can be a chain.’ And Ezra’s: ‘You never come back.’ She looked down. Her feet were not on the dock. They were stepping onto a plank. She was already being pulled. But she stopped herself. She screamed, ‘No! You’re dead! You’re all dead!’ And she turned and ran back into the fog.

She ran until she collapsed on the side of the road, sobbing. When she looked up, the fog was gone. The sun was rising over the Atlantic, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold. She was lying on gravel, her hands scratched, her coat torn. A truck rumbled toward her. The driver stopped. ‘You alright, miss? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

She laughed, a broken sound. ‘Something like that.’ He gave her a ride to St. John’s, and she never went to Kettle Harbor again. The emails stopped. She never found out what happened to her grandfather’s body. But sometimes, when the fog rolls in off the sea, she hears a fiddle playing a slow air, and the sound of waves against a wooden hull. And she knows that the last ferry still sails, and that it will always be waiting for her.