A Diary's House: Where True Love Endures
The Inaugural Journey Into Danger and Fear
The trees were whistling a spell, as a short and mighty gust resonated by while we crept to those launching shores. The groping arms of those trees bent about and swayed to pick out the currents in the air, and then release their leaves in a deluge and a rush. Boone grunted a weary snort, though he continued by my command.
The wagon came to a stop and suddenly the coarse night fell into its desolate measures around us. The atmosphere felt weighty and heavy with caution and its secrets. We moved The Nemesis from the wagon perch and we took it down to a small, but convenient opening between the trunks of several offshore trees. The waters close by were mostly calm and strangely settled. Even a ripple didn’t show evidence to us that anything below here was of doom and potential harm. But the off-echo of its downstream intentions made a most ghostly impression upon me. I shuddered in a fear I had not known before. Like the spirit and soul which resided within me, was it letting loose itself and frightening me to my core. What have I done to come this far? The question swirled and haunted my thoughts. The profanity of this sound; the gasping horror of such horrendous thrashings nearly leveled me where I stood.
“It’s time,” Montague took a view over the side embankment.
“I don’t think this is a very good idea,” Thomas suggested.
“Nonsense,” Leon Montague spat, “You are here, and come this far.”
“I won’t turn back,” Jonathan said with determination.
“Neither will I…” I spoke as I jumped from Boone and assisted moving The Nemesis just to the waterline. I felt it was like a wasteland and a canyon where these oceans bashed the shores, and the tidal waves heaved a roll themselves. The unholy convergence of liquid souls banished into this river, made the heathen rage all the more imminent. The western tribe and Captain Finnegan’s men rustling their tormented spirits in so a wretched way, moaning like the waters of a full-empowered hurricane, or the top-spinning speeds of a tornado; could only be matched by the collective howls of a thousand clannish wolves.
“Tie yourselves in boys and never let loose until the time we spoke of. Remember what I’ve spoken to you. Remember the words of a man who has experienced the travels of the Randola, and survived,” he grabbed my wrist. Then with a tight and firm grasp, he shook me from my roots to affirm what he was saying. I could see the catalogues of his relevant knowledge in his eyes as they met with mine and locked into a stare. My memory flashed back and recalled all that he had spoken of most importance before.
“Remember Landon!” He urged especial to me.
“I remember,” as I took one more glimpse to Old Man Montague and I could not look away. He was telling me something so profound in his stare that I could not interpret its translation. The expression of something known by him and me alone, and his thoughts were urging me to recall it, though I didn’t know what matters that would be. I sent back a confused impression.
“You will remember,” his face so cut with lines, freed him briefly into a smile.
The lanterns glowed and made our single shadows into a perverse dancing of silhouettes off in the distance. To the watery plains, the silhouette grew and expanded beyond the reaches of our domain; playing as if they too were vacant souls walking on this watery bridge. I felt the heavy moon’s glow settle all color into black and white, but for the small arena we were working in. The rumbles from downstream and the tempest howling of those blasting waters played all in our minds. Our focus was now bent on that domain as we calmly drew The Nemesis into a wade. Leon Montague held the Nemesis while we all tied our feet into these half-round harnesses, and we clutched to the oars and mid pole as if life-giving life was there.
“Take care of Boone, will you?” I asked Old Man Montague. He pushed us out into the harbor. Shanta stood by the shoreline and Boone was watching with his eyes dead-set on me.
“We will be back in a few hours…”
The currents, though subtle, were pulling us into a locking prison of water and currents, and into the water’s furious hold. We watched Old Man Montague go back to the shoreline beside of Boone, his single mule, and Shanta. The lantern lights looked more as a speck firefly in the distance.
I could feel the fear rising in all of us; the waters now beginning to lick at our feet and ankles.
It was then, that in a moment, it hit us all. “Leon Montague,” Jonathan yelled out,
“How are we to get off the island?”
There was a droll and leery calm of silence, as if his thoughts held him from answering in reply, and then it came.
“You don’t…”
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