The Ferryman
By Julia Wright
Artwork © Lyndon Polan
The ferryman stood at the edge of the ramp, glowing like an oracle in his safety vest, his beard
thick with frozen breath. His feet burned. He waited for more cars to board the Peninsula
Princess—the only boat running tonight.
A car’s high beams pinned him in place. He raised a hand to shield his eyes. It never changed. Every ten minutes: leave one side, cross to the other. Some smile and wave. Some cry. Some are from away. They roll down their windows and holler, “Does this cost anything?”
No.
The last thing in life that doesn’t cost a buck. He could clock those ones – their uncertainty
creeping ahead of them towards the ramp. If you let people do what they wanted, they’d drive
on and park right in the middle, like they’re the only people in the world. Once, a man backed
right off the boat while it was already moving. The job was to make it foolproof: point to the left, right, and centre. It was so much harder than it looked.
Drums thudded from the stereo behind the lights. He sliced his hand horizontally. Cut it out.
Still – the light.
He walked to the end of the ramp, like an astronaut. The headlights held their gaze. He stepped off, the asphalt strangely unyielding under his steel-toed boots.
Little flakes hung suspended in the air, lit by the headlights like dust in an abandoned house. The ferryman knocked. The window tint was dark as welder’s glass. Iggy Pop on the stereo:
What does he see?
He sees the sign and hollow sky
He see the stars come out tonight
He pulled out his walkie-talkie. Clicked the button. Nothing.
He grabbed both railings of the steep metal stairway with his gloved hands and heaved himself up to the cockpit, a hollow tonk of his work boots on each step. The boat was encrusted with frost, like an artefact dug from the riverbank. A field of ice bobbed in the moonlight, filling in the lane the ferry had crushed through the frozen Kennebecasis River. He pushed on the door, expecting to see Mike.
Mike was rock solid, a Belleisle Bay boy. He’d been captain since the ferryman was in high
school. The night a man drove off the ferry, Mike grabbed the line and dove in, wrenching the
door open.
He’d handle this.
Empty.
The ferryman tried the door: locked. He cupped his hands to the glass and peered in. Mike’s
coat was still there, but no captain.
He was breathing hard now, cold surges of panic rising in him. If Mike wasn’t up there – what
had been running the ferry this whole time?
The silver moon, framed in the window, seemed to sit at the empty helm.
He ran down the stairs below deck, to the icy chamber where the cable spooled around its
massive spindle. No one. Just the mechanical whine of the idling engine. He went back up and
was hit again by the headlights, steam rising from his breath. He banged once more on the
window.
No answer. He grabbed the handle. The door creaked open, releasing distorted guitar riffs from
the stereo. The interior was a deep-red leather, like the inside of a mouth. There was a smell
inside he couldn’t place – a heavy perfume, roses and lilies, artificial and cloying. Heat exhaled
from the cabin, sudden and overwhelming.
But there was no one in the car.
He thought of Mike steering the boat back and forth across the river. His steady hand on the
controls. Then he slid into the driver’s seat and shut the door. He was shaking as he pulled off
his gloves and rubbed the ice in his beard with his red, raw hands. The nauseating warmth
spread through his body, almost as painful as the deadly cold.
He shifted into drive.
The moon loomed at the end of the highway like a destination – if he kept driving, he would
reach its silvery surface and knock, and perhaps a door would open. The ice in his beard was
melting. His back ached, releasing the pain of a day spent standing in boots on the steel deck.
The glittering green highway sign for the ferry landing was ahead of him now. He pulled an
illegal left and saw the empty boat he’d left behind still docked on the other side. Red lights from a police car flickered against the ice, as if the river were on fire.
Someone had got the second boat running again. It was halfway across the lane that had been crushed through the ice, pushing aside an expanse of tiny icebergs. He watched it approach to unload its cars. Another ferryman stood on the deck in a fluorescent vest and steel-toed boots, waiting to usher him on.
The moon’s wide eye watched as the ferryman turned on the high beams and waited.
© 2026 Julia Wright
AFTERIMAGE
The river and the moon keep their secrets.
Julia Wright
is a writer and editor based in Saint John, New Brunswick. Her work has appeared in CBC News, VICE, BuzzFeed, Billie: Visual Culture Atlantic, and the Telegraph-Journal. She is the founding editor of the literary zine It’s Burning Off and is at work on a collection of stories set along the Atlantic coast.