YOUR NARRATOR:  

What a lovely evening it is, right now.

I'm not sure what your evening looks like, at this moment - or even if it is evening for you right now, perhaps it isn't -  but if you're somewhere quiet enough to listen to my voice and be calm for the next twenty, thirty minutes or so, then I'm sure it must be at least a little lovely. I hope it is.

I have not left my little tree cottage very much at all, over the last week. Since I discovered it, I have been basking in the webbed patchwork of shadows caused by these vines and roots. I have been allowing the sun and the moon and the rain to reach me only through these little tiny gaps in that patchwork. And it is really, somehow, more sweet than when I was out in the open. I can see animals, I can see birds, I can even see people sometimes, walking by. Travelers pass through these woods that I've claimed as my home, and they pass through often. I love it, truly. I love seeing visitors go by, not even knowing I'm so close. I love seeing them find evidence of my existence, and feeling afraid, even if only briefly before moving on.

I wish that I had the courage to reach out and touch them. To speak to them. To say, "I am here, and I am something completely unimaginable to you." I wish that I could show myself to them and say, "See! See my mossy green skin, see my muddy hair, see my bright, yellow eyes. I am part of this place. Do you love this place? Then certainly, you must love me. How can I help you, today?"

But I can't.

I think it's because I am afraid.

I had to hide, before. I remember. I hid in the shadows, not in the earth, but I hid because I didn't want to frighten you. Now, I think I am hiding because...because you frighten me.

I'm not certain. But I don't love it.

Perhaps I will find my courage again. At the moment, I am...without it. Can courage grow back, just like the little leafy sprouts all over my body? Perhaps if I cultivate it, if I speak gently to myself, get plenty of water and lie in some soft, fertile soil...maybe I can grow strong and courageous again. I think I must be gentle with myself. I am still recovering. Still growing. Just a fragile, delicate growing thing that needs time and care.

That is most likely why I drew the Ace of Cups this week. Well, I drew the Ace of Cups, but it was reversed.

The Ace of Cups, at the best of times, is a single cup that is full to the point of overflowing.

Reversed, however, the cup is emptying itself. It is...without. Without love, without fortune, without health, without everything.

So, it suggests being unfulfilled, being blocked, being repressed.

Empty. Bereft. Without.

As I said last week, do not fear.

It can be refilled.

We simply need to treat ourselves with grace and gentleness and love.

We know we must do this with others, but it's a little more difficult to try it with ourselves. I think.

So, that is what the Ace of Cups is here to remind us to do, I believe.

There it is again.

That voice.

I swear, it's getting closer and closer. It must know where I am.

At first, there were several voices. But now, I hear one, more clearly than the others, and more often, too. And it is usually accompanied by the smell of fire.

Very strange. I've gone to investigate, time and time again, because I know that fire has no place here. But then, I cannot find the source of the smell.

I shouldn't find it pleasant, that smell. The idea of fire, especially in this place with growing things, with trees, with plants, with leaves, a veritable cornucopia of firewood, kindling and tinder, should be a terrifying prospect. And, to speak truth, it is terrifying. I am terrified.

And yet, I can't help but be drawn towards it.

Paired with that voice...that voice that feels like a distant lullabye from long ago...

It may be the ruin of me, but I feel myself longing to find it.

It's a good thing that I'm staying in here.

I don't know if that voice can find me here.

Best to stay in here.

I have a story for you. This story is about someone else who, were I to draw a card for them this week, would have drawn the empty, spent, unfulfilled Ace of Cups.

He was on a long voyage at sea.

A very long voyage at sea.

Barely an adult, he was far too young indeed to be quite so hopeless as he was. So very...tired of the world. It was the very reason he'd signed on to a life at sea with complete strangers; after being on land for so long without any sense of direction or achievement, he grew tired of having no options available to him. He grew tired of working his fingers to the bone every day on a new job, only to need to find new gainful employment the next day. He grew tired of labouring for those who kept telling him that his labour wasn't worth as much as he needed to live. In short, he grew tired.

At sea, there would be no luxury or advancement but there would be a hammock and two decent meals for him. He didn't really know how to sail, but he would learn, and in the meantime he could certainly wash the windows and easily swab the deck. Easy enough to be a cabin boy, compared to all the other tasks he'd been forced to try his hand at on land. 

He caught himself occasionally admiring the glint of the sun off the blue, blue water while he was supposed to be cleaning. He sometimes realized he had been staring at the stars for over a minute while on night watch. And every now and then he gasped when he saw a porpoise dive through the waves formed in the ship's wake. But whenever he stopped, he remembered how tired he was, and how that had got him here. He remembered how he hated cleaning floors and windows. He remembered how the world had hurt him. And he remembered, therefore, that he should be angry. What right did he have to enjoy the sea? The sea was, after all, the only option left to him. And so he taught himself to despise it, because sometimes we are so close to being empty that we fill ourselves up with the closest thing at our disposal. Bitterness was so close to his young heart, that he clung close to it and vowed to never betray it. 

He worked for years on the ship, and even as he outgrew the title of "Cabin Boy", he maintained it, for no one on board had any intention of raising him to a higher rank, or taking the time to teach him to be a sailor himself. And he had no hope to aspire to be anything more, so he remained the Cabin Boy. 

[A rolling, rumbling theme is heard on piano, with misty vocals on top]

One evening, there was a very terrible storm. Though the sun was still setting, the skies were dark and grey; and it felt as though there was almost as much water coming from the clouds as there was roaring up from the sea. He tried to help, but the captain and the sailors insisted he stay below deck. He didn't have the experience to fight a storm such as this. He stayed below and tried to keep everything in its place, though the vessel was roiling and bucking and rocking so violently that tidiness became a Sisyphian task. All he could do was brace himself against the galley's huge, sturdy wooden table, as the floor was becoming steadily more flooded. He wasn't even sure that the boat hadn't completely turned itself over and back up again, the evening was so turbulent.

Hours passed, and eventually, the boat became still once more. Somehow, he figured, they had weathered the storm. And though he remembered being up to his waist in water, it was somehow now gone. Thank heavens they hadn't sunk. For the first time in a long, long time, he felt gratitude for this.

He found his way above deck, and it was not quite as he expected it would be....it was organized, it was clean, and not nearly as damaged as he'd guessed. The crew had done an excellent job after all.

But where were they?

He looked everywhere. Of course, at first this was only in the areas above and below deck that he was usually allowed. But as his concern grew, he mustered his courage and approached the Captain's quarters. He knocked against the door and muttered a quiet apology. No answer. He knocked again, louder, and shouted for the Captain. No answer. He opened the door. No Captain.

They seemed to be gone without a trace. Every last one of them.

He couldn't remember if the ship was equipped with lifeboats, before, but he couldn't find any now, and so he came to the terrible assumption but likely conclusion that they had abandoned the ship. Even the Captain. They had either forgotten that the insignificant cabin boy was still below, or...

or they just didn't care.

He felt a painful lump in his throat, and he recognized it as Despair.

He pushed that lump down. He fought it. He fought it hard and pushed it down with a white-hot energy that came from his head and spread down into his chest. He recognized that pain as Hatred.

He hated them for leaving him.

He hated himself for being so easy to be left behind.

He hated this ship.

He hated this day.

He hated his own life.

He paced the deck all day. He found a barrel of apples and a storage of salted fish, but he was too angry to eat. All he could do was walk one end of the ship to the other, back and forth, staring at his feet, wondering at what he could possibly do to get himself off this boat, or to at least steer it somewhere else. He didn't know how to work the sails. He didn't know how to read the stars. He had no idea how to man a ship of this size. He had no idea how to man a ship of any size.

He did this for the entire day, and into the evening, beyond the sunset and past the rise of the moon.

Finally, he let his eyes lift to the horizon.

Don't fall under its spell, he told himself. You are miserable.

But he didn't feel miserable when he saw the stars reflected against the sea. 

But he did just that. He felt suddenly quite calm. Perhaps, even, happy. Even for a little moment such as this. 

And on the horizon, he saw a ship approaching. 

It was a huge, grand ship; decorated and gorgeous, ornate, and graceful. It had several lanterns lit all along its sides, but those lanterns seemed to glow an eerie blue, rather than the warm gold of his own lamplight. 

The light from the little windows on this wealthy passenger ship also shone blue. 

In fact, the whole ship seemed to be glowing with a soft, hazy, misty blue.

Our Cabin Boy ran to the bow, and began waving his hands wildly, and shouting. 

He thought, at first, that this would be his salvation.

He didn't realize that his ship was pointed directly towards the other. 

But the other ship didn't make a sound. No one shouted towards him. 

So now, he was no longer waving at them to save him from his floating prison, but rather, to save each other from certain disaster. 

No one seemed to see him. 

Except for one. 

[Just the voices from the music before, distant, slow, and ghostly, are heard]

There was a young man on the other ship, right at the bow, looking him in the eye. 

He, too, was waving his arms wildly. He was also looking behind him and shouting and trying to signal whoever must have been steering and controlling the ship. There was shouting in return; the low, angry, annoyed, and confused response of other older, more seasoned sailors. They seemed to be shouting from a distant fog, and our Cabin Boy couldn't understand them. But they were obviously refusing to change course, for some completely incomprehensible reason. 

The two young men kept shouting, desperately trying to find a way to thwart their impending doom. 

But, when the ships made contact, which of course they were on track to do, there was no collision.

They glided easily through each other.

The Cabin Boy stood on deck, and it seemed that the two ships were almost becoming one.

Gliding wood through solid wood, the very floor he stood on seemed to be moving him towards the other young man. 

The other young man was surrounded by that same blue glow. 

A ghost, the Cabin Boy thought to himself. He is a ghost. This is a ghost ship. 

He had heard of ghost ships; ships that met their end on the sea, and continued to sail on and on through the night, destined to be adrift forever. He must have stumbled upon one.

He trembled as he continued to glide towards the other young sailor. 

But he looked healthy. 

He looked alive and well. 

He was just...in a different world, it seemed. 

He, too, was trembling. But he lifted his hand up, showing his palm to our Cabin Boy.

Our Cabin Boy raised his hand in a similar way, too, so that as the two boys passed each other, their hands might meet. 

His hand, he noticed, was discoloured, and wet. It didn't look like his hand. 

He opened his mouth to gasp, but instead, salt water poured forth from his lips. 

The other young sailor's eyes went wide as he saw this. Tears fell down his cheeks in a fear that the Cabin Boy now began to understand. But he didn't lower his hand.

As they passed each other, our lonely young sailor realized that it was his hand that passed through the solid bones and flesh of the boy on the other ship. 

But he still felt its warmth.

He didn't realize that the other boy saw a ghostly figure, cloaked in glowing blue, too. But he saw a drowned Cabin Boy, with blue skin and pale, milky blue eyes and soaked hair that continued to float, despite the fact that he was above the sea. He breathed in air, but breathed out water. 

And the boys each let their ship pass through each other. Their heads turned so that their eyes could stay fixed on each other, even as their ships began to separate. 

"Wait!" The Living Boy on the Living Ship cried out, and he ran to the Stern, desperate not to lose the sad, young Cabin Boy who had apparently been lost for who knows how long. It was the sadness in his eyes, you see, and the renewed glimmer of light and hope in them when those eyes met his. 

And our Cabin Boy, seeing that recognition in the other boy's face, suddenly grew hopeful, too. Even as he understood that he was dead. He was lost from the world. He was lost on the sea. 

But he had been found by this one person.

This one person, just like him. 

Even though all had been lost, he still saw hope. 

So he ran to the front of his Ghost Ship. He tried to grab a rope, to swing over. He tried to climb up on the bow, where the wood grew thin, but they were moving away from each other too quickly. He would never make it in time. 

Their eyes stayed on each other as the ships separated. Their eyes stayed on each other until the ships were only small specks on the surface of the water. 

Two worlds passed each other on the sea that night.

The Cabin Boy stood still, drifting on the water. 

He looked at his clothes. Indeed, they hadn't dried in over a day. They would always be soaked and smelling of the sea. 

He looked at his hands. They would always be as blue as the water was in the daylight. 

He felt, for a moment, a very brief moment, a deep despair. That despair he shoved down and replaced with bitterness and hatred, everytime it surfaced before. But now, he let the despair overtake him, and he wept openly in the moonlight. He mourned. He mourned himself. He mourned the world's loss of him. For hours and hours, he wept and screamed and pleaded with the moon. And the moon, unfaltering, allowed it. 

When the sun rose, however, he was spent. He had cried all his tears for himself. 

And he finally allowed himself to watch the sunrise and admire it. 

For, what was the use in denying that to him?

He knew that he was not hungry. He did not feel hunger. He did not have to be concerned with that anymore. 

He did not feel pain or exhaustion. 

Why not, then, enjoy the sunrise? 

By the time the sun was up, he took a deep breath in (and exhaled lungfuls of water, as he always would). 

That other boy had seen him. That other boy had touched him. He had tried to save him.

Our Cabin Boy smiled, for he allowed himself the small, gentle, loving gift of Hope. 

And he climbed up to the crowsnest, where he waited.

He waited for years. He didn't know how many years, for it could have been one, it could have been one hundred. Ghosts feel time differently, just as animals feel time differently. Time is a construct of living people - a construct that I'm not certain is entirely useful, anyway. But, that is to say, he didn't feel the time, and he didn't allow it to frustrate him. He had the sea and the sky, after all, and why should he allow time to ruin that? 

The truth was that he waited for ten of our - or, I should say, your - years. He still appeared to be a young man - he remembered being twenty-two when the ship had sunk, he did remember that; and he remembered that the young man on the other boat appeared to be the same age as him. 

So, when a small boat came by ten years later and carried a gentleman who appeared to be in his prime, somewhere in his thirties, a newly comfortable adult, perhaps, the Cabin Boy did not recognize him immediately.

At sunset, he came. For, that is the time, isn't it, to find a ghost ship? He held a notebook in his hands, and kept referring to a compass and to the stars. He had tracked down the coordinates of this place, even after all these years.  

The Cabin Boy saw the ship, and he didn't wave immediately. No one saw him when they passed him by day, anyway. And no one had seen him by night, ever since that boy had seen him ten years ago. It was rare that anyone saw him, for no one really looked for him.

[The song, with piano and vocals again, is heard]

But this young gentleman was looking for something. 

And when the sky turned black and lit up with thousands of stars, and that same moon that had listened to the cabin Boy's cries all those years ago, suddenly, the gentleman's ship was cloaked in that glowing blue mist. 

And the gentleman, too, saw the ghost ship. 

The worlds had met once more. 

The gentleman smiled and dropped his anchor. 

The Cabin Boy smiled and waved, and leaped into the sea. 

He swam through water that he couldn't even feel. He climbed up wood that he couldn't really touch. He stood on deck of a ship that had come here with the sole purpose of finding him again.

The young gentleman and the lost cabin boy stared at each other with incredulous, grateful eyes. 

The young gentleman opened his mouth and cried out with joy.

And the lost cabin boy laughed heartily, salt water pouring from his mouth.

Their reunion was interrupted by the sound of cracking wood; they turned, and they saw the Cabin Boy's ghost ship splitting, rotting, and falling into the sea. He may have never become a Sailor or a Captain, but without him, that Ghost Ship was nothing. So it left. 

As they watched it happen, the two boys jumped, they danced, they hollered with glee. They roared their triumph at the ever-listening moon. 

If ever a ghost had received an invitation to haunt a vessel, it was never received quite so joyously as this Cabin Boy's invitation to haunt this ship was. 

In his worst despair, after losing everything - including his own life - this young man had found the smallest flicker of hope. And to keep it alive, he nurtured it with love, kindness, and generosity towards himself. Then, when he was finally saved from an eternity of haunting no one but himself, he was able to accept it. He was able to believe that he deserved it. He deserved the beauty of the sea at night. He deserved the warmth of the sun by day. And he deserved the generous laughter of someone who cared for him. 

The Ace of Cups, if it is reversed, can be turned back up. 

And then, it can be refilled. 

I don't travel by sea very much at all anymore. I'm sure I will, some day. 

But the last time I did, I did so alone. Because I could fly, remember? 

Flying over the sea brought me a peace like nothing else. I remember it well. 

Anyhow. One night. 

I saw a Ghost Ship. 

Cloaked in blue. 

I saw a young man who was soaked through to the skin, who breathed in air and breathed out salt water.

And I saw a young man, the same age as him, who seemed to be dry and comfortable, who breathed only air. 

They were both phantoms from a different time. Phantoms from that moment where they met each other. 

Wherever life took the gentleman after our story was all well and good, but the snapshot in time that he and his ever-present ghostly companion chose to keep was the one where they met and realized that there was always hope. That's what they gave to each other, and that's what they wanted to keep for the rest of their lives. 

They both climbed up with energy that only the young have, and swung gleefully from the crowsnest to get a better look at me. 

They waved their hands in greeting. 

And I waved back. 

I am tired this week. I feel a little empty, myself. 

But when I smell that fire and hear that voice...despite knowing the danger, despite my better judgment, despite myself...I feel myself filling up just a little bit more with excitement. With joy. With hope. 

I hope a grateful ghost haunts your dreams in the most gentle way tonight. If you wish it, of course. In that place where one world passes briefly through a different one. In that no-man's land, that hinterland, of body and spirit. 

Goodnight, my friends. 

Take care of yourselves.  

[Eerie theme music]

(Host speaks out of character, as Kristen:)

Hello my friends, and thanks so much for listening to Episode 103 of On a Dark, Cold Night. This is Kristen Zaza here, as always; I'm the writer, creator, podcaster, performer, behind the show. I hope you're staying well out there