Once Upon a River

by Diane Setterfield

It’s bitter, they complain, so bitter it bites you back, and besides, who wants to eat leaves nourished by ghosts?

It was rumored she even slept on her feet, but she had given birth to thirteen children, so clearly she must have lain down sometimes.

Rita Sunday was not afraid of corpses. She was used to them from childhood—had even been born from one.

Her quiet and kindly listening had made it possible to speak his thoughts aloud, and sometimes it was only when he spoke his thoughts that he knew he had them.

No, no, he said—except that the words failed to sound in his ears and he realized that it was because they had not reached his lips.

“Good Lord, no!” he exclaimed, and his hand came to his eyes as though it were not too late to unsee it.

There are stories that may be told aloud, and stories that must be told in whispers, and there are stories that are never told at all. The story of the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong was one of these latter ones, known only to the two parties to whom it belonged and the river. But as secret visitors to this world, as border crossers between one world and another, there is nothing to prevent us sitting by the river and opening our ears; then we will know it too.

In his bed, in the little room that was as far from the river as it was possible to get and still be in the Swan, Joe was drowning. Between spells of gasping for breath, he muttered sounds. His lips moved ceaselessly, but the underwater noises did not resolve themselves into words anyone could understand. His face grimaced and his eyebrows twitched expressively. It was a gripping story, but one that no one but he could hear.

the corner, Armstrong shook his head in quiet wonderment. He’d seen her too. Sitting behind her ferryman father as he propelled the punt so powerfully between the worlds of the living and the dead, between reality and a story.

The thing is, the world seemed complete before she came. And then she was here. And now she’s gone, there’s something missing.”