India Rose & The Eternals - The Fountain Of Youth Chronicles Vol. 1

Chapter 3 - The Great Sending

Somewhere on the Irish Sea, 1907, 5:40 P.M, 62nd Day of Spring

Finnegan stepped out onto the deck of the great ferry boat and took a long look at the choppy, green-blue Irish Sea. The sun was low on the western horizon, and as evening advanced, Finn felt safe enough to risk leaving the confined quarters below and stepping out into the open for just a minute. He gripped the deck's railing with two hands and took a deep breath, enjoying every particle of sea air. He had been away from the ocean for far too long, living these many years in the dry, arid mountains of Spain. It could not have been helped; it had been the best place to go after the great separation, the time when all he had known had vanished in a thick plume of smoke and ash.

As he looked back on the trail that day, seeing the members of his village, the baker Thomas, the artist Pieta, each carrying their worldly possessions in carts and wagons, their families following them in the muddy track with the ocean at their back, Finnegan felt a different kind of loneliness in his heart. Though he did not know where he was going, he knew that most likely there would not be an ocean there. The village now burning in the background, had been his home, but in truth, the sea was always his true "home," the place that always felt familiar.

With his newsboy's cap pulled low over his eyes, Finn looked like just another boy his age, one of the many on the ferry, making their way home from working the factories of England during the week. Boys as young as thirteen had been lured from their homes in the Irish countryside, or from the alleys and byways of the crowded cities of Dublin and Belfast, to work making shoes or belts in the large factories on England's coast. Many of them were taking their earnings back home to feed starving families of multiple brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, and cousins.

But even if this heavy errand were the mission of many of the boys crowded around the upper deck of the ferry, you would not know it by the way the boys acted. They wrestled (some even made an attempt to scare a comrade by pretending to throw him over the side of the ferry), talked about girls, and going to America someday, and about where was the best place to get books and music in Dublin. They showed that common adage that people everywhere are the same, young boys will talk about girls and wrestle with each other, be it in in Ireland, Russia, Argentina or China.

Finn smiled to himself as he overheard the boys talk, saw their sparring with each other and the look of hope on their faces. They were happy to be out in the wind on the ocean at sunset. He remembered being that carefree once. He remembered swimming with his friends during the short summers of his homeland, splashing around and trying to pull each other under. He remembered daring each other to jump off a high ledge into the sea. He remembered the simple joy of fishing on a homemade float out in the water, with his friends beside him.

How long ago had that all been? He was starting to lose track. All those years were starting to blend together, like the churning water behind the propeller of the ferry. It was just like all those old folks had always said; those same older men whom he had once laughed at, now seemed strangely prophetic.

As the ferry neared the port of Dublin, Finn sighed a deep sigh and willed himself to turn his back on the beautiful ocean in front of him, and return to the inside of the vessel to retrieve his belongings and to plan his course of action upon returning to dry land.

When he reached the storage locker that he had rented for the half-day trip across the Irish Sea, he retrieved his knapsack and leather travel bags. As he picked up the heavy pack, he heard the clink of multiple water bottles knocking together, and noted that he had probably over-packed water. But he was never going to forget what he had recently gone through in Segovia. It had taken all his strength to cross that room and send the telegram. After that he had passed out again and woke up in the hospital. He was told that several days had passed since he had been found behind the cracked ticket counter. He had been dehydrated in the extreme, and had been fortunate to have been found in the morning by a startled customer. Finn had been questioned thoroughly by the police about the disappearance of The Station Master and the cracked counter and ransacked ticket office. He told the truth as best he could about the confrontation of the two men, and his attempt to intervene. He always tried to tell the truth. Even as fantastical as it might sound to the ears of a police inspector, the truth needed to be told. If not, Finn had been instructed for many years, we slide down the hill to becoming like those who seek us out.