Have no fear! Here are a few more guests, arriving on the dot. They are rather shy, I fear, not to mention armed, but I do believe it will be a jolly party, once they come around.
Picknick on the Green.
There was an island, and there was a ship.
The Island looked, at a distance, akin to a titanic tree stump sticking out of the sea, weathered by unfathomable ages, covered in moss and lichen, its core long rotted away but still looming a jagged wall of petrified splintwood.
Sheltered there was a dense and gnarled forest, shrouded in a mist it seemed to produce on its own. It stretched down through the stone teeth, and smothered the very edge of the Island's one and only beach.
The Ship, a schooner, was steady at anchor at the edge of the reefs. It did not enjoy much shelter from the Island, but the sea was eerily calm. The waves seemed to lap around the ship with a certain respect for the Island and its business with the Ship. It was not their place, and they knew it. The winds, too, seemed to abide by this.
The ship was named The Flying Scud. It was an unassuming vessel, and set before the granite splendour of the Island, it looked particularly puny, although its many scrapes and cuts proved its pluck.
They had travelled far to reach this place, Ship and Island alike.
The ship's master and commander was captain Badin, at present standing in front of a looking glass in his quarters, combing his hair. He had dug out his best dress-coat, for the occasion. Although he was a man that greatly enjoyed fine dining and lively parties, he felt a cold, hard lump in his chest. The voyage here had been the simple part.
Captain Badin contemplated putting the island's position down on his charts, but decided against it. A waste of ink, and the Island would no doubt consider it quite rude, if it came to hear of it. It no doubt would.
There was a man in the chair behind him. He was leisurely dressed for the occasion. He was looking at his pocket watch. Captain Badin glanced at him in the looking glass, while he was struggling with his cuff-links.
-”We are on time”, said Captain Badin.
-”Oh, no doubt. We could hardly not be. Not here”, said the Man.
Captain Badin chose an understated neck-tie with a floral pattern. It had served him well before, in other circumstances where he did not know what one could expect.
-”I'll have the men draw straws to decide who gets to guard the ship.”
-”No. That would be worse. Don't do that to them.”
Captain Badin looked at the Man.
-”Why?”
-'It'd be worse to be left out. Think of it. You won't come back unchanged. And anyone left behind will know it, but all they can do is guess.”
-”As long as they must resort to guessing, they can hope that they are wrong.”
-”There will be no hope in their case. They won't thank you for it.”
Captain Badin nodded, and returned to the grooming.
-”They would have no reason to”, said the Man. “Further, they're cordially invited, too. They're coming, and it's not your place to stop them, my friend.”
Badin picked up the invitation card. It was as ordinary as they came; black ink on stiff, white paper. A familiarity of his previous life, before he set to sea. The typeface was simple, elegant and the letters were well-mannered. They pretended to sit still, and did a fine job at it, too.
Cordially invited to a luncheon. Himself, their Passenger... The Crew, too. And someone else.
The directions to the Island had been at the bottom of the card. They had gone away, now that they were of no further use.
The time for the picknick, however, was still there. The little hour-glass, drawn at the bottom, had almost run out.
-”Then who?”, said Badin, “I am not abandoning the ship, not even here.”
-”Your... Last officer, perhaps? He could do it. He's sleeping in the galley. Karlsson, is it?”
Badin paused for a moment. Mr. Karlsson was the ship's cat. He was of limited use, beside catching the occasional insect and warming his feet.
Mr. Karlsson would usually hold court here, draped fat and resplendent across the bunk. This voyage, however, he had ceded it. He took exception of the Man.
-”That is an idea.”
-”He'll watch the ship. He won't be harmed by not going.”
-”Fortunate creature...”
Badin shook his head.
-”Well, I doubt he will have to fend off pirates out here... Mr. Karlsson it is.”
-”Further, he isn't on the card, now is he?”
-”Indeed.”
Badin looked himself over, and considered himself tolerable for company. He went for the door.
-”Aren't you forgetting something?”
Badin nodded, and went back to his cupboard. He produced a plaster fish mounted on a board. It certainly looked like it was plaster, at least. It was too emphasised to be a real fish. Its long, grinning jaw went beyond the comical into the eerie. He wrapped it in a pillow-case, and took it under his arm.
He took one last look through the room. He had everything he needed. There was no man there.
Captain Badin coughed, put on his least-stained hat, and went out to the crew quarters.
The crew had gone through their wardrobes and made themselves as presentable as could be expected. Llynn and Smeede were hurriedly blacking boots, and Sirius was polishing the ship's complement of guns to a high sheen. Pom-pom had finished painting a cheery and affable skull-mask on his face, and was tying strings of sea-shells to his tailcoat.
-”Skipper”, said Sirius, and set the bottle of polish aside.
-”We're about ready”, said Axelsson, climbing down from the deck to fetch more cargo.
Mrs. Stone emerged from the galley, wearing what resembled a sturdy tea-cosy on her head, studded with wax fruit. If her hat looked comical, however, her purse looked formidable. Captain Badin decided that they had passed inspection, and had them assemble on the deck, along with the cargo.
It was decided not to stir Mr. Karlsson from his sleep. Badin reckoned that they stood a good chance to return before he would wake up and miss them.
Arranged on the deck in the day light, the crew of the Flying Scud were truly dressed in their best, and they would no doubt pass for respectable diners, although people rarely embark on a formal picknick clutching rifles and machine pistols. The sight did make Badin feel oddly proud.
Mrs. Stone and Pom-Pom had prepared a few hampers. Some were open and contained common, respectable food and drinks. Others were carefully locked.
There was also the tea-chest, labelled 'Passenger'. A collapsed wheel-chair stood next to it.
-”Right, boss”, said Mrs. Stone, “You've got all the guff we need?”
-”Yes, that would be all. Get the boat loaded.”
With the cargo stowed, they lowered the ship's boat and left the cat in command as they set off for the Island. The waves were gentle, and they had no trouble passing the reefs. Captain Badin held the rudder in the back of the boat, and looked over his crew. No pipes were lit, no songs were sung. He had never heard them this quiet.
-”Nervous, boys?”
-”Never done much fine dining is all, boss”, said Smeede.
For a while, all was quiet but the sculling and the lapping waves. The air was cool, but heavy as if thunder was near. They approached the shore, and Axelsson and Llynn crouched at the nose of the boat, guns raised to keep the tree-line in their sights. Badin felt uneasy, as it hit him that there were neither fish nor bird in sight. Their absence produced a silence that was quite oppressive once he had noticed it, but he decided not to talk of the matter. It was clear that his boys were thinking the same thing.
They reached the surf, and stepped onto the peculiar grey sands of the beach. With combined strength, they hauled the boat out of the water, and began to unload it. The dense, gnarled woods began precisely where the beach ended, like a cliff in greens and greys.
They looked back at the Flying Scud. It was not far, but set before the clouds in the distance, it looked more like an old picture on a wall.
-”Well. Here we are”, said Captain Badin. “Get the passenger ready.”
They opened the tea-chest. A little swarm of insects flew out, and fell dead to the sands. The crew muttered, and Mrs. Stone hissed an oath. They had not seen the Passenger before. Badin, regrettably, had. They had met in port, and exchanged invitation cards.
The Passenger was a dessicated corpse, missing both legs, one arm as well as their eyes. Their cracked and knotty visage defied recognition as a human face.
They unfolded the wheel-chair, and Pom-Pom sat the Passenger down. The corpse looked at the woods with its lost eyes, and suddenly croaked something that none of the Flying Scud's crew understood. The Passenger raised their arm, and pointed blindly into the bracken and the tangle. Badin took the gesture to be one of approval, and nodded.
Axelsson looked at the dense woods, and shook his head.
-”We'll have to carry him, won't we? It'll be a...”
Captain Badin shook his head.
-”We have ways”, whispered the voice of the Man from the pillow-case.
Meanwhile, Sirius was prodding a few shards of china in the sand with the tip of his rifle. They were bleached and worn, and mixed with shards of old pottery. Beside them, there was an empty bottle that had once contained fine wine.
If they had landed to find smashed skulls, gnawed femurs and broken swords in the sands, he would have felt calmer than he did now, and he did not know why.
-”Now, then, boys. Close your eyes”, said Badin.
-”What? Why?”, said Llynn.
-”Trust me. Just for an instant.”
They closed their eyes, and waited. Just as it began to feel quite silly, a damp, heaving sigh rolled out from the forest and onto their faces, setting the leaves in motion, and vanished in the surf. They opened their eyes again.
The Pathway was there before them. It had always been there.
There was a loud click, and all eyes turned to Smeede, who had readied his machine pistol. In the din of silence, it had sounded as loud as a shot when he cycled the mechanism. Badin waved to him to lower it.
-”It's alright, boys, it's quite alright... We are were we need to be.”
The Path, while it was certainly practical, was not inviting. Slabs of mossy stone snaked its way into the suffocating green, and the shadow of the formidable archway stung their bare skin where it touched.
Captain Badin took a deep breath, pushed the wheel-chair before him, and went under the arch, and his crew followed one by one. No one dared to linger, and become lost.
-”Come on, fellows. This will be a lovely day out”, said Badin.
-”Oh, I bet...”, said Axelsson.
It did not take long for the Path to close in. The beach and the sea vanished from view, and there was not a sound, beside their steps on the stones, and the creaking of the wheel-chair. The crew kept close, and endlessly stepped on each other's feet to avoid being last.
The Passenger croaked again, a strange little sound so full of relief and cheer that it seemed impossible when set to its source. Badin knew that he would forget many, many things tonight, but he determined to remember that sound. He and the crew of the Flying Scud had done good, after all.
Far away, they could glimpse a clearing in the heart of the woods. Fires glittered, and shapes flickered. Now, they could hear flutes. Distant but shrilling flutes, foreboding but beckoning. Before they knew it, they Crossed over.
The Woods did not grow sparse and clear. They simply stopped. They stepped onto the Green. Emerald grass, jagged and soft, spread before them, and the woods towered high around. Their feet were now swift, and they no longer skulked and crept, guns raised, but marched beneath the final Archway, beaming and grinning. And all the terrors and wonders of the seas and beyond flew upon them, and all the impressions came crashing down at once. Badin and the Crew and the Passenger let go, and drank it all in.
The sound. The music. The heaving Black Organ was playing. The droning and buzzing of endless legions of flies rung before and within them. The flutes were shrill and maddening and wonderful, the fiddles and the fiddlers irresistible. Cymbals crashed and trombones roared and drums thundered and throat-song and horns and -
The food. The table. They could see the large stone table; huge and packed and utterly overflowing, crowded with bottles of every size, colour and shape their eyes would admit. Pillars, towering pillars, of heaving and rising pastry swayed precariously, while fruit of all possible and impossible types laid piled and hoarded, spilling from the table into the grass. Cuts and slabs of dripping, smoking meat were everywhere, and so were fish, shellfish and great, twitching insects; and the raw, heaving and dripping carcasses of impossible and irresistibly choice beasts were splayed on the granite, and blood and juice ran red with the pouring, streaming wine and -
The guests. The company. Through the droning haze, they could see the Other Diners, their Fellow Guests. Here, some where playing croquet with grapes of wrath; there, they were sat together, reciting an epic that could only be expressed in colours. Flesh and thoughts were torn by grinding teeth and goblets drained and thrown to the skies. They were of all stations and occupations and races and species known and unknown; some familiar figures to the Crew, others wild and strange creatures that they could only see allegorically. The Drowned danced with the Burned, the Spurned played with the Exalted and -
All were Masked. The vessel who had up until recently condescended to the name Badin also had a mask now, as did the splendid and pitiful and glorious and terrifying creatures who had been his crew.
Far away, in its rightful place at the end of the table, was the Host. They could scarcely look at it, for the writhing maggots and shimmering eyes savaged the sight in their splendour. And yet, the Host called them close, its honoured guests, and doubt was an anchor they had forgotten. They approached, swift to answer the Host upon jubilant feet.
As the Passenger sang a shrieking hymn, they came before the Host, who bowed its heads to them. The Scented Dream rolled over them like a wave and a scream and a beat and a fanfare, and the Captain and the Passenger and the Crew forgot themselves, and they joined the feast and they were gone.
Aboard the ship, still by the shore but worlds away, the cat turned over in troubled sleep.
Later, much too early and far too late, when the twilight had given way to moonlit night, the boat set sculls on the waters of the Island again and it returned to the Ship, and the Flying Scud silently set sails and raised the anchor and was gone in the dark.
