I’M SAVED BY A DARK HAND with a grip like a steel vice. It hauls me bodily from the water and spills me unceremoniously onto a wooden floor. I lie shaking on the floor of the boatman’s skiff.
He chews thoughtfully on a length of crabgrass above me. “Little dickybird’s flown away,” he muses. “Lucky to escape the weir.”
“Y-you’re n-not—” No good. My lips are blue with cold. The words won’t form.
The boatman seems to understand. He stokes the fire in the centre of his raft, then picks up his paddle and moves us closer to the shore—close enough that grey sand crunches beneath the wooden planks.
We rest on a river bank in the shadow of a long bridge made of glass and red steel. Across the bridge, on the far side of the river, I can still see the city shining.
Though the sky still spits rain on us, the fire chases the worst of my chills away. It’s not enough to dry my soaking clothes, but at least my shivering subsides. All the while, I’m disconcerted by the boatman’s stare. He sits across from me, skinny knees pulled up beneath his chin, and watches me. He doesn’t seem to feel the rain. And he doesn’t blink, not once.
“Thank you,” I say to him, when I recover my voice. “The Min—something was after me.”
The boatman nods.
I point at the shore we’re beached on. “You’re just letting me go?”
The boatman nods again.
“Why?”
He looks contemplative for a second, then answers in the same gap-toothed sing-songy voice he had on our first crossing, “If the river gets you wet, don’t forget to shiver. If you see a little mouse, listen to it squeak. If you catch a little fish, let it off the hook. Plus,” he adds with a rueful grin. “You overpaid.”
“I don’t suppose you want to be my guide, hey?”
“I never set foot on the far shore, doodle doo.”
“Right. Then ... I don’t suppose you’ve seen Willow?”
The boatman looks sad. He shakes his head slightly, then spits his grass into the water and watches it spin away on the current.
“I’ll be going then. Thanks again.”
“Wait,” the boatman says. “A parting gift: cold and raw, the north wind blows, bleak in the morning early. The hills and knolls are covered with snows, and winter, she comes fairly. So don’t fret little dicky bird. Don’t fret.”
I don’t know what that means, but I do feel a little better. “Thanks,” I say, “but I think we passed that part already.”
After leaving the boatman, I climb a steep hill to reach the bridge above me. The wind up here is bracing and I shiver into my damp clothing, hungry for whatever scrap of warmth I can find. I suddenly miss my scarf and windbreaker.
When I reach the bridge, the curved glass plates overhead protect me. Unfortunately, the relief is short-lived—the bridge is open to both sides and gusts of wind still whip cold water at me.
The bridge is eerie. It’s too narrow for cars, but bicycles lie abandoned down its length, as if cyclists and pedestrians were whisked away mid-commute. Ferrari-red steel beams rib the bridge’s sides and knit the glass together—and lend it the appearance of a distended caterpillar.
Wet hands in wet pockets, I trudge forward. I curse the weather, but thank god for the caterpillar bridge, especially when hail begins to fleck the rain and batter the glass.
The river flows beneath me, white ridges on a belt of black, moving too fast to reflect the night sky. The water beneath the city reflects the streets and buildings’ lights as an abstract blur of colour—red, yellow, white—swirling together, dripping away with the current. In the distance, I see the boatman’s fire bobbing downstream.
By the bridge’s far end, my black pants are once again soaked through and I wear my white shirt like a second skin. My shoes, completely waterlogged, refrigerate my feet. The hail falls harder now, bunching up in small snowbanks along drains and gutters, and the cold rain rakes down my back.
I race for the safety of a nearby bus shelter. Like the bridge, the city streets are empty, but I keep my eyes peeled for any of the shades Willow and I saw from our last bridge. Either the street is truly bare or else I cannot see them amidst the rain. I seem to be alone.
Lightning starts stabbing the sky in the distance. The thunder that chases it is almost instantaneous. I haven’t heard any sound of pursuit since falling afoul of the river, but I suppose even a Minotaur could sneak up on me in this squall.
Still, I can’t brave the world. Not until the storm dies down. I lie on a bench in the bus shelter, listening to hail and thunder punish the world around me. The tarmac outside my little hovel glistens beneath a thin sheen of rainwater, rushing miniature icebergs towards nearby storm drains.
And as the storm lifts a little and I begin drifting into sleep, I think I see the caterpillar bridge lift itself from the far bank. It curls its body into itself to avoid the rain and begins wrapping long threads along its body. Then I close my eyes. I think I sleep.