Apparition

She stepped around the broken glass that littered the abandoned street way. The pull of the cathedral ripped at the core of her soul. It was certainly nothing spectacular, but it’s lack of beauty had no effect on her desire to rest within it’s sacred walls. The red and blue stain glass window was shattered in several pieces, although most of it remained intact, and the wreckage on the ground was now the only color that illuminated the gray sidewalk. A slight drop of rain paraded on her head as she stared up at the peaks of the massive building. Dark clouds rolled away the sliver of remaining blue and the downpour momentarily increased. As she lingered by the ancient cathedral, singing began.
         The voice was that of a child’s, a small girl, less then ten years old perhaps. The song was sung in a soft whisper that seemed to float directly into her ears. Her breathy tone adding a sinister sensation into the marrow of her bones. Chills raced down her spine and goose bumps arose on her arms. Pausing in the middle of her step she intently listened, attempting to pick out a word or two.
         “Leader of the spirits aboard shall receive her downfall at the will of a sword.” The lyrics rang clearly through her mind, sticking their like a staple. More words were repeated after that, but her focus remained on that one solo line. It seemed to hold little to no meaning, but she interpreted it as a warning.
         When she no longer could hear the silent call she found shelter in the nearly abandoned chapel. The dark and omnipresent mood weighted her body down, being in such a holy place made her trodden with guilt, but her chances of disclosing any personal information about herself were slim. She had only ever been Catholic Church once before when she was a little girl, but she remembered enough to realize that the layout of the building was unusually strange.
         A bowl of holy water was placed on a high table a few feet away from the entrance, she had never been openly religious, nothing they preached seemed probable to her, but she had cared enough to research each religion carefully before making any judgments. She recognized the holy water as a force for repelling evil and moved cautiously towards the opposite wall. By no means did she consider herself a force of evil, but she had also never been that good of a person. Immediately after that was the Confessional room.
         The remorse she felt deepened the closer she came to the curtained black box. The energy around it almost repelled her to flee from its presence, but the need for safety drove her forward. The simple song lingered in the back of her mind, but she thought no more on it. She had always considered herself partially insane and this wasn’t any different. In any other situation she might have been tempted to spend hours obsessing over the incident, but the aura around each object had her living from moment to moment.
         The knob of a door clicked open and several quiet voices carried to where she stood. One of the unknown beings spoke quickly in a low and tender manor. The farther his words carried the more jumbled they became and by the time they reached her listening ears they were incomprehensible. Although she could not make out their mumbled message the way they were spoken gave her an overwhelming sensation of peace and comfort.
         The sobbing mother turned the corner of the despair-filled hallway. She clutched the thin paper in her iron-locked grasp; the edges cutting into the crevices of her palms. Among a scene of twinkling lights and distant flashes posed a beautiful young woman. Her dark hair twisted down her shoulders in thick ringlets and her bangs were pinned back with a silver butterfly clip. The shimmer of her white teeth shined against her olive skin tone and her dark eyes pierced the soul of any observer.
         A dark navy dress that was doused in glitter framed her body in a deep V cut, exposing the majority of her bareback. Charlie was drawn back to memories of her own prom; the broken limo, the smashed corsage and the less then perfect date. The night had been a disappointment at the time, but looking back she couldn’t help but smile at her exhausted high school fairytale.
         The portrait shook in the holder’s hands and Charlie’s attention was dragged to the hysterical parent. Her eyes were bloodshot from the constant stream of tears and they seemed much more distant then with any other person. Her grieving husband pushed her gently onward from behind, his masculine hands caressing her shivering arms.
         Although Charlie had only seen a brief glimpse of their lost daughter the image was permanently branded in the back of her mind. The couple speedily departed and she was left with several other humbled converts. She eyed the Confessional hesitantly before dragging herself deeper into the belly of the beast. Relief filled the marrow of her bones as she retreated into the confinements of safety.
         Releasing a weighted sigh she said a silent prayer to whoever might have been listening, thanking them for her granted wish. The more she thought about her worshiping action the more foolish she began to feel, after all she was participating in something she didn’t believe in. She blushed with a solitude embarrassment and seated herself on the very backbench of the lonesome chamber. Bowing her head with insincere faith as she pretended to count herself among the believers, acting the way she know they did.
         She used the prolonged time for a period of meditation and found that a deep sense of fatigue began to overpower her will to stay awake. Mere minutes had passed when a light rap on her shoulder startled her from her lazy disposition on the firm cushion of the seats. Secretly she wondered whether or not they did that to keep their audience from drifting away while they spoke.
         Looking up she saw the expectant Father waiting for her to make an introduction. “Hi, I’m Charlotte, you can call me Charlie.” The awkward acquaintance put her in a shy demeanor and she instantly regretted ever-stepping foot into the nearly obsolete work of architecture.
         He grabbed one of her hands and buried it gently beneath both of his, looking her straightway in the eyes to catch her most abysmal attention. “Welcome my child, I’m Father Marks.” He gestured to the Confessional expectantly, but as she caught his train of thought she crinkled her nose in disgust and looked in the opposite direction.
         “That’s not exactly what I’m here for…” she explained, he seemed to understand and his face light with awareness.
         “Let me guess, you’re not sure why you’re here.” She shrugged sheepishly, waiting for his assistance. “Come with me.” Tension filled her body and anxiety flooded her mind. He seated her in a quaint corner office and pulled a yellow file out of the bottom drawer of his desk. Opening it he placed it on the empty space before her and gestured for her to take it.
         “I feel I must apologize to you Charlie, I was far from being prepared for your arrival.” The preacher repented. Charlie inwardly inquired concerning his sanity, wondering if some mental deficiency had confused her previous elucidations.
         “Um, my arrival?” She clarified, narrowing her eyes into deep squints.
         “Well you certainly didn’t think that you showed up here on accident did you?” he laughed, settling into his giant mahogany armchair. “Now, I’d ask you to stay, but unfortunately I have another appointment.” His eyes moved to the door, obviously asking her to leave with the language of his body instead of his words.
         “And you want me to do what exactly?” The conversation had moved from unpleasant to obnoxiously unnatural and his riddles rubbed raw against her nerves.
         “Follow your heart, it’ll take you to where you belong.” Several fast taps against the wood of the door startled her from her seat. Glancing back at Father Marks she shook her head, disappointed in his lack of answers then slipped out of the tense confinements.
         When she reached the solitary of her car she slumped over in the leather cushion of her seat, tossing her purse and the packet in the back before massaging her temples to clear her stress induced headache. Her eyes zoned in on the time and she jammed the key into the ignition, riding off to the port market before it closed for the day. Every several seconds she received a slight glimpse of the taunting packet sitting next to her purse. She refused to acknowledge her desire to open it, but like to opposite magnets she felt herself being pulled towards the secrets it was destined to hold.
~
         Moving through the sea of people that encroached on the boardwalk she tied an elastic around her thick ponytail, functioning on autopilot. She zoned in on a street vender selling the most delectable looking oranges and pushed her way in that direction. Various hips and shoulders jostled her toward the center of the chaos, but she managed to escape into a more breathable section of air. She smiled timidly at the student working behind the baskets, but he jumped back into what he was doing, ignoring her presence completely.
         An inward sigh of relief brightened her spirits considerably to be devoid of all public attention. She wasn’t one to take credit or acknowledgement, so whenever it was possible to avoid any such situations she took full advantage of the opportunity. Checking several of the fruits for noticeable bruises her eyes flashed across the scene of blank individuals and in there midst presided one who stood out like a shooting star in the dead of night.
         There eyes connected, but neither of the women could break free from the chains that bonded them together. The pallet of her face was drained to a bleak gray; sucking the life straight from her blood. If Charlie had looked again she would have thought the woman to be nothing more then a cardboard cut-out, two-dimensional and fake, but the emotion she saw trapped behind her eyes convinced her otherwise. It was a disordered concoction of deep sorrow, pain, remorse, guilt and rage. The assorted feelings lit a fire in her soul that pierced through Charlie’s heart like an arrow, rearranging her most basic life fundamentals as it passed through.
         Charlie longed to walk next to the broken child and place comfort in her; the new sensation she experienced was comparable to that of a mother’s with her child. It was maternal in some sense. Her desires pushed her forward, back into the fountain of people, although she now lacked control over her body and the things it made her do. The oranges rolled off the tip of her fingers and splattered against the cement ground. From the perception of her peripheral vision she became aware of the alarm set inside the observers around her.
         Embracing the stares of curious shoppers she accelerated off the toe of her front foot and jogged to where she stood. The closer Charlie became the farther away she drifted, her eyes always locked to her soul as she slipped beneath her grasp. She increased her speed, running in a flat out sprint towards the edge of the docks. She navigated her way to a nearly vacant pier too find she had stopped just mere feet away from a watery grave. Her hair billowed in the wind and her navy blue dress fluttered behind her.
         A strong resemblance to a prior image overturned her attention briefly, but she shook the remembrance from her mind and rested a few feet behind her. “We’ve been waiting for you, Captain.” Her voice thrust Charlie into a compressed pit of depression, depriving her of any escape or plausible assistance.
         “Captain?” Charlie’s voice shook as she asked the question she dreaded most, bracing herself for some twisted answer.
         “Captain,” she confirmed, releasing no further information to shed some light on the “we” of the situation. Silence echoed between the space of their bodies and just as Charlie opened her mouth to interrogate the women she twirled around, enabling Charlie to memorize the detailing of her face.
         Heavy bags darkened the cheerfulness of her eyes and a long crescent scar was gashed into the side of her face. It began at her brow-bone then ended in the center of her cheekbone. Charlie gasped in consternation and she stumbled back several feet before regaining her balance. Reaching her hand out in front of her she tiptoed over to the woman and brushed her fingers against the deep gash in her forehead. Her fingers fell through the skin and swiped at the nothingness of the air. Her first instinct was to flee from the hideous monster, never to look back, but an awakened curiosity stapled her feet to the wood, assuming a demanding position.
         An unnerving sensitivity to her apparent control over the spirit placed her in the unfamiliar territory of a leadership position, but being an avid learner she immediately coerced her subject to the truth with her silence. “Your anger empowers you Charlotte, but be warned, it will also be the cause of your destruction.”
         “I don’t believe I need to be reminded of my faults, it’s yours I’m more interested in.” The usage of her name surprised Charlie, but she felt perfectly at ease, more so then she had with any other living person. Charlie had always favored the belief of spirits and the afterlife and had grown up wishing of their appearance to her. Although they had come later in her years she was still observant of her youthful wish and was willing to accept their presence in her world. 
         Her lifeless arm rose in a gust of wind and her index finger was directed toward a rustic tugboat tied by a thick rope to a nearby harbor. Charlie considered the ghost to be mistaken in her direction, but minutes passed without any sort of correction. “I don’t see what that has to do with…” As Charlie prepared for another round of Q & A the girl blinked away, disappearing from her line of sight.
         Charlie spiraled around, momentarily shocked by her vanishing act. She quickly recovered and added a mental note of the experience to remind her in the future. Looking out over the endless mass of ocean she noticed a lingering spiral of black smoke rise up towards the heavens. Turning, she discovered the rustic tugboat jumping away from it’s docking spot and straight towards her. Her feet compelled herself closer to the edge until she found herself tumbling over the low rails. A small scream rose from her throat before being swallowed within the bitterly cold salt water.
         Ice filled her ears and the rawness of the water stung her eyes, but it was soothing, almost peaceful. Flapping her arms and legs to the surface her head broke free and she soaked in the cool breeze and crisp air. Her clothes were drenched and her bag was missing, but strangely she hadn’t felt this relaxed in weeks and refusing to give up the freedom she arched her back and floated farther away from the rescue of society. With her eyes closed the night began to darken as she remained out on sea, the usual smooth waves of the water was interrupted by a string of choppy cuts before her right side brushed against the mossy metal of the tank.
         She swam the opposite direction to inspect the eerie scene before concluding that the boat had no captain or crewmember aboard its limited space. It beaconed her forward, luring her into it’s warm confinements and solid standing ground. Glancing back at the city she saw no other choice and lifted herself onto the floor of her unoccupied savior. Breathing heavily she rolled over on her back and softened all of her tense muscles. Her thighs and calves burned with the exertion and she wearied away with starvation. At least several hours had passed since her fall, but with no sense of time it was difficult to guess how long had truly gone by.
          The compartment she rested in was no more then five feet wide, four feet long and six feet tall. It held no visible charm, but the hidden history it surely had seen caught her interest. To the left of her was a massive steering wheel partnered with a complex dashboard containing a numerous amount of buttons, levers and switches. On the opposite end was a dull gray bench with an undetectable storage unit underneath it. She dragged herself from her elbows onto the springy cushion and collapsed in exhaustion. While her body gave out her mind raced ahead and the compulsion to explore beat in her blood like a drum.
         Her drive overpowered her physical needs and she leaned against the support of the metal backboards. Flipping around she settled as comfortably as could be managed and gazed out of the empty porthole that took up most of the back. Chinese lanterns were strung up across the ports, their subtle glow dazzling across the nighttime sky. The background lights of the city created an illusion of scenes from a movie and she felt herself strut into the burning spotlight.
         As her eyes remained connected to the city’s shimmering intensity she stretched out her stiff muscles and a strange paper rustled under her back. She slipped her fingers behind her and pulled it out, a unanimous groan echoing through her body. In her hands lay the haunting yellow packet that had taunted her from the back of the vehicle. Violently shaking she slipped her fingers under the flap and lifted out a newspaper clipping and another half sheet of printer paper. Setting the white paper aside she brought the article into her line of vision and attentively scanned through the aged printing.
         Underneath a large black and white photo of a cruise ship with the caption “SS Destiny” over it and a relatively short exposition pertaining to that picture. “New York City’s most famous cruise ship of this decade found broken to pieces twelve miles off the shore of San Francisco, California. The cruise line released a statement late last night stating that, ‘The tragedy pertaining to the people aboard the ship was caused by nothing more then a patch of ice bergs along their course.’ Although rumors of a faulty gas leakage have begun to surface among the victim’s families. No further comments have been made to deny these stories.” The date in the bottom right corner read, “June 23, 1956.”
         The distinct words “gas leakage” poisoned her mind ad brought a small tear to the corner of her mind. Brushing off the perplexing tunnel of emotions she snatched up the other little paper and read a small riddle scrawled in the top left corner. “To receive the enlightenment you search for, spill your blood from a hand sore.” She turned her palm face up and set it in her lap, then rubbed her neck while eyeing the packet questioningly. Churning the packet upside down a small dagger stabbed into the couch, landing right between her thighs. Twirling the idea around in her head she revolved the blade on the pad of her fingers, a prick of blood rising on her right index finger.
         Inquisitiveness boiled in her bones and she sliced a quick, shallow gash diagonally across her palm. The pain was hardly severe and faded briskly; she cradled her injured hand for several moments then smeared the gore from left to right across the card.
         Not a speck of white was visible on the note, but shortly after her decoration was done the blood was soaked away to the center where it formed one sentence of dialogue. “Welcome to the SS Destiny, Destination Unknown.” The horror of the event startled her fragile nerves and in a state of panic she flung the cardstock out the back window and into the bottomless ocean. Watching the paper soak with water and sink into the dark abyss had a peculiarly therapeutic over-view to it, momentarily satisfying her hysteria.
         A flicker of green luminosity made her glance up and she beheld a translucent image of a giant distorted vessel sailing shortly behind her scrappy metal craft. She rubbed her eyes with balled fists and ran her fingers through her hair to dispel her obvious lethargy and viewed the landscape once more. Another inspection attended to the clear verification that the ship steadily vacillated as the miniscule waves crashed up upon the hull. Leaning over the open hole into the ocean breeze she stretched herself for a closer peek until nothing but her legs clung to the supports of the alloy.
         The white noise of the water drained out all other sounds for several minutes until she felt an unusual presence enter into her humble water carriage. The woman cleared her throat and patiently waited for Charlie’s acknowledgement of her. She gradually lowered herself back into the meager shelter. Turning her head she feared of what she would find, but relief overpowered her fear as she saw the previous girl sitting on the top of the wheel.
         The familiarity of the being put her at ease, but then she recalled her earlier departure she became distant and cold again. “Back so soon? And here I was enjoying the quiet.” Charlie announced, making apparent her discontent with the woman.
         The woman simply laughed, crossing her legs around the reel; she appeared to be more open and civil towards Charlie, but her mood swing just pushed Charlie more and more towards the brink of  ferocity. “Charlie, for someone as special as yourself I would think you’d be more of a people-person.”
         “Well, what can I say? We all have our weaknesses.” Charlie shrugged, folding her arms across her chest as she leaned into the wall.
         “Lighten up! You can’t be so defensive if you wish to be successful in your promotion.”
         “My promotion? Since when was a dead girl more aware of my life then I am?”
         “A dead girl? Is that all I am to you?” A spark of anger kindled inside her bosom and surfaced in her eyes, but she swiftly expelled the excess emotion with deep breaths.
         “I have nothing else to call you.” Charlie prodded, searching for her name.
         “Kierra, call me Kierra.”
         “Kierra.” The word sounded strange as it rolled around in her mouth, but it fit with her dark, flawless skin. “Well then, now that we’re on a first name basis, care to share anything else? Maybe we could paint our toes? Have a pillow fight? Swap gossip?” Charlie taunted, insisting that Kierra was there for nothing more then to bore her into insanity.          
         “Funny,” Kierra responded dryly, “I come to you now as a favor, say the word and I’ll leave, but realize this is the last help you’ll receive.”
         “Help? What help have you been to me?”
         “Be patient and I’ll tell you,” she demanded. “The night of prom my date and I, along with two other couples came out to the harbor on an ocean picnic and decided to take a little swim. The night had been special, so our underwater diving was spontaneous. We jumped in with our clothes on and I guess my dress got hitched to the bottom of a buoy or something weighted. When I couldn’t breath anymore I tried to take it off, but it was on so tight, I had no room to wiggle. I knew what was happening, but there was nothing more I could do; it was kind of peaceful in some sense.” She finished her story and cocked her head to the side in contempt, waiting for Charlie’s reaction.
         She looked down, her heart aching for the child and her shortened life. “Don’t feel bad for me, you have enough to worry about.” She reassured her, washing away the self-pity that had accompanied her story.
         “Me? What do I have to worry about?”
         “You’re the captain now, they need you and that’s not an easy job,” Kierra explained.
         “Captain of what?” Charlie clarified.
         “Of that,” Kierra pointed out the window towards the ghost ship that moved wherever they did.
         “The living can’t rule over the dead.”
         “Exactly. Join us.” Kierra offered. Charlie recognized her proposal immediately, breathing in her bewilderment of the moment.
         “Join you?” Charlie mused to herself, thinking aloud.
         “You know as well as I what I mean.”
         “But… suicide? I don’t support that. I can’t support that.”
         “But you can support self maiming? That’s what that was back there right? You passed the first test, why stop now?”
         Her accusations stung Charlie viciously, but as much as she wished to believe that Kierra was wrong she felt that she was right. “I… I…” she begun her sentence, but nothing seemed to stick.
         “Charlie, every person had a calling, and yours isn’t among the living, it’s with us.”
         “When I do join you what am I supposed to do?”
         “When? Does that mean you’ll come with us?” Kierra’s face lit up with anticipation, ignoring her question.
         “What am I supposed to do after?” Charlie said again.
         Kierra changed from a free spirit to a rehearsed saleswoman, relying her speech to Charlie. “Like Charon with the Greeks of old you shall ferry the lost souls out to their place of departure, without you every spirit shall walk upon the earth, trapped forever with no peace.” Her word weighed on Charlie, but the idea of taking her own life completely repulsed her.
         “What happens now?” Charlie whispered quietly, ashamed at her retreat.
Loosening up Kierra prepared to comfort Charlie before she accepted her position “Think of it more this way, this vessel will now be your ferry and this is how you will transport the beings. To do this you must be living, it will be nothing more then a contract. Like… selling your soul, for a good cause of course.”
         With her new knowledge Charlie leaned forward intently, starring intently at Kierra. “Where do I sign?”