legends · 6 min read ·
Last Crossing
A ferry deckhand reads a name from a ledger line that has been open since 1994.
**Hennock Ferry Company — Timetable, Winter Service**
**Route:** Hennock Quay — Seal Island — Hennock Quay
**Departures:** 06:20 · 10:40 · 15:05 · 19:30
**Last crossing:** 19:30 (returns 21:15)
*Passengers are reminded that the island is open to visitors Tuesdays to Sundays. Please remain with your group. The ferry will not wait.*
· · ·
Marta Holm had worked as a deckhand for the Hennock Ferry Company for twenty-six years and had made the crossing to Seal Island more than four thousand times. She knew the swell by the way it lifted the hull. She knew which gulls would follow the boat and which would stop at the buoy. She knew the island's single jetty, its boathouse, and the lighthouse with its lamp always half-lit, even in daylight.
She also knew that the purser's book had one line the company had never cleared.
It was on the last page of the winter ledger, in the purser's handwriting from 1994. *Last crossing, 19:30. One passenger not returned.* Under it, in a different ink, somebody had written *Please keep the ledger open.*
Marta had asked her supervisor about it once. He had said it was an old joke, from the days when the ferry was run by a family who liked to tease the new boys.
· · ·
On the first Tuesday of December, a woman with a wicker basket boarded the 19:30 at Hennock Quay. She was tall and wore a long grey coat that was too thin for the weather, and her shoes were wet through.
"One for the island," she said at the gangway, and handed over a ticket that had no date printed on it.
Marta checked the ticket. It had the right route, and a seat number, and the words *Last crossing*.
"You're on the list," Marta said, and didn't know why she'd said it.
The woman smiled. "I know. I've been on it since 1994."
· · ·
**Purser's log, 19:30 — Hennock Ferry**
Vessel: MV *Gannet*. Crossing: Hennock to Seal Island. Weather: rough, wind SW force 6, swell 2 metres.
Passengers: 14 (including one not on manifest). Crew: 3.
Departed on time. Visibility poor. The unlisted passenger remained on deck, facing the island, and declined the cabin.
Marta reports the passenger looked at the lighthouse for the entire crossing. The lamp was lit and turning. Marta says she did not see the lamp turn at all. The passenger said, "It only turns when someone's coming home."
· · ·
They reached the island at 20:05. The jetty was empty. The boathouse was dark. The lighthouse stood above the cliffs with its lamp steady. Marta lowered the ramp, and the passengers filed off in their coats, and the woman with the basket went last.
At the bottom of the ramp, the woman stopped. She looked up the path toward the lighthouse, and then back at the boat, where Marta stood at the rail.
"I'm not going up," she said. "I'm meeting the other one."
"What other one?"
"The passenger who didn't get off in 1994," the woman said. "It's been fifteen minutes past the time she should have. She's always late. She stays on the boat, and then she gets off at the wrong stop, and walks all the way round the island in the wind, looking for the light."
She set her basket down on the wet planks, and took out a folded letter, very old, the paper gone soft at the creases.
"Would you post this for me?" she said. "It's going to the purser. I think he might want to read it."
Marta took the letter. It had no stamp. It had no name on the front, only the words *Last crossing* written in faded ink.
· · ·
**Letter (found inside the purser's ledger, 1994, undated):**
*Dear Purser,*
*I missed the boat. I was on the jetty at 19:25 and the gangway was already up and you were looking at your watch. I could have waved. I didn't. I thought there would be another crossing.*
*There isn't. I can see the island from my window. Every evening the light turns three times, and then it stops, and I know that somebody on the boat has decided not to come back.*
*If you are reading this, I would like you to know it was not you who left me. It was the ferry. It doesn't wait, and it keeps a list of the people who didn't come home, and it reads the names out at the last crossing so the rest of us know who to wait for.*
*Please keep the ledger open. I'm still on the island. I'm the one looking at the light.*
· · ·
**Purser's log, 21:15 — Hennock Ferry (return)**
Passengers: 13 on return. Manifest reconciled. The unlisted passenger was not on board.
Marta reports the ledger had a new entry on the last page, below the 1994 line, in her own handwriting, though she has no memory of making it.
*Last crossing, 19:30. One passenger not returned. Name: the woman with the basket. Destination: the island. Please keep the ledger open.*
· · ·
**Hennock Ferry Company — Timetable, Winter Service (revised)**
**Departures:** 06:20 · 10:40 · 15:05 · 19:30 · 19:45 (*additional, for the one who is late*)
*Passengers are reminded that the island is open to visitors Tuesdays to Sundays. Please remain with your group. The ferry will wait for the last passenger, and then the last passenger will wait for it.*
· · ·
Marta still works the 19:30. She no longer stands at the rail. She stands at the gangway, with the list in her hand, and reads the names out loud as each passenger boards. Most of them have never heard of the island. A few look at her as if she's said something they've known all their lives.
In the first week of February, a man came up the gangway with a briefcase and a ticket for the 19:45. He stopped when he heard his name.
"You're not on the list," Marta said kindly.
"I think I am," said the man. "My father left on this boat in 1994."
Marta turned the page of the ledger. Under the line in her own handwriting, a new name had been added, in a careful hand, in the space where she was supposed to write the next one.
*Holm, M.*
She shut the book. She put her hand on the rail. Out over the water the lighthouse on Seal Island turned once, and stayed lit, and kept watch for the boat to bring her home.