Safe Harbour

By Katie Kotulak

The boat slows as it approaches the bridge and, for a moment, Percy worries the sails won’t clear the underside. But of course, they fit; they’d have come out this way. Except Percy doesn’t remember it, the harbour known but unfamiliar. The front of the boat slips into the shadow of the bridge, disappearing into darkness. 

She shakes her head, smiling at the woman sitting across from her. “Apologies. Too much champagne, I fear.” She places her glass down and focuses on the chessboard in front of her. It’s terribly important she win and fogging her mind won’t do. She’s played The Bird’s Opening, a favourite but perhaps a bit elementary considering the stakes which are… strange, she doesn’t remember. Best not let on. It’s bloody humiliating when she over imbibes like this. 

Percy looks up again, and her stomach flutters as darkness swallows the boat bite by bite. The wall of shadow envelopes her in cold. She tenses, waiting for them to pass under the bridge, slip out from the unnatural chill. The boat stills. Stops. Nothing moves except the woman across from her placing a rook.

Percy forces a smile. “Forgive me, it’s Karen, right?” 

“Charon,” the woman replies. 

Percy shivers. She feels soaked through, despite the warm day. Details catch in her mind then unravel like yarn. She’d been standing on deck, dancing the highland fling with a glass of champagne while Carl and Stephanie laughed. It doesn’t explain her damp clothes. They wouldn’t have gone swimming; the swells had been too tall. 

She worries she’s done something foolish again and looks around for Carl to reassure her, but he isn’t visible in the shadow. She starts to stand, but the woman touches her arm. “Your move.” 

Percy must have stared at the sun for too long because she can barely make out the details of the boat around her, sees little more than the white and black shapes on the chessboard and the face of the woman across from her. Charon’s skin is weathered like paper that’s been crumpled and smoothed out again. 

“I do wish we’d move on.” Percy giggles nervously. Strange how the water in the harbour is black and glassy, the docked yachts that must be there, obscured in fog. Yet behind them, the sun sparkles off the waves. They’d hit a series of waves earlier, the boat lurching to one side. The memory stutters, stops. 

Percy moves her rook without thinking. Charon captures it. Percy cringes. The game is important. She knows she must win, but can’t make the reason take shape. It sits on the tip of her tongue, but like water, it swirls away. 

“I’m sorry. Did we make a wager?” She sips her champagne. The bubbles feel dry on her tongue.

“Yes.” The woman smiles, revealing crooked teeth. Percy really ought to talk to Carl about his help. 

She knows she shouldn’t let on how little she remembers — people do love to gossip — but the words slip from her lips. “Are you the captain?”

“Not the captain.” Charon moves a pawn. “The ferryman.”

Laughter dies in Percy’s throat as she looks around. The boat seems to warp and distort, taking a more meager shape, more like a small wooden scull than Carl’s yacht. Percy’s stomach sinks like an anchor dropping to the bottom of the ocean.

There must be sails. She remembers them swinging towards her. She’d raised her hands as if she could stop the force of the boom with her forearms, brittle bones as thin as sticks. 

Percy tastes salt in the back of her nose. 

She reaches for the handrail and splinters scratch the pads of her fingers. She remembers a shock of cold, pressure in her ears. An impossible figure floating towards her. 

She looks to the grey gloom of the harbour then to the shining waves behind her. Separating them is a river of darkness under the bridge where the scull rocks gently. Bile rises in her throat, acrid and salty. Champagne and seawater. She tries to focus. The game is bloody important. 

Charon’s moves are immaculate. When Percy is bored, she plays against computers and that’s how the woman plays. Like an amalgamation of the proven wins. Charon moves her queen, captures a pawn. Percy’s heart sinks. Charon will take another pawn then a knight. It’s a game of attrition and there are finite pieces. To best her, Percy must be bloody clever.

But Percy is bloody clever. Charon moves her knight into a vulnerable position, baiting, but Percy ignores the trap meant to lure her queen. Her eyes tracking invisible moves until a risky thought forms.

Percy moves a bishop, letting very real tears well in her eyes. Best not to let the spark of hope shine bright enough to see. Chess is not so dissimilar from poker. Confident people often forget to look for threats.

Charon’s orbital bones push against the skin of her face. She is more skeleton than human as she considers the board. Her hand hovers, and Percy glances over her shoulder at the open ocean. A bird circles in the sky. A fish jumps. The water churns with life. Charon moves her king, resignation in her shoulders. She sees now. There are fixed options. Charon’s king is trapped.

 A laugh bubbles from Percy’s lips. “I’ve won. I’ve beat death.”

“You won the game.” Charon concedes, a wry smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “A good game.”

The boat begins to glide forward toward the lifeless harbour. The tip of the scull moving toward the dusk. 

“Where are we going? I won the game.” Percy looks back at the sparkling waves. “Turn around.

“You won the game.” Charon nods. “But we didn’t wager for your life. I am no god, merely the ferryman who takes the dead across. You lacked the coin for the ride. We played for your fare to the other side.”

About the Author

Katie Kotulak is a speech language pathologist by day and a writer of speculative fiction also by day because she’s pretty useless after 7:00pm.

Her work has been published in Flash Fiction Online and she’s the winner of the 2026 Gritlit festival short story contest.