Up There: Voyage 6—The Marsh
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Voyage 6—The Marsh
“So,” thought John, “We’re visiting Jack’s home, here in Rye.”
It was harder for John, because he could remember just five summers of his life here. (This would be the sixth.) The sisters had lived most of their lives here. He went to the library and asked Mrs Carter and Mrs Bush if they had any books about Rye. There was very little in the library. They told him where to find the Rye Historical Society and Town Museum. There was even a Rye History Trolley Tour on the Fourth of July, so he went on that.
One of the stops on the trolley tour was Rye Harbor. John often rode his bike down to the harbor to sit and read. But the tour guide pointed out something John had not noticed: the marsh. A salt water channel crossed Ocean Boulevard from the harbor. It led to the thirty acre Awcomin Marsh.
With a story idea in mind, John went back to explore the marsh. It was not easy on foot. John asked his parents if they might explore the marsh in a canoe, and they spent a day together doing that.
The Sea Devil sailed into Rye Harbor. Jack tied up at his mooring near the harbor entrance. With his canoe He fetched a dinghy from the shore, just big enough for the four of them.
“My home is a ten minute walk,” Jack told the Rodriguez family.
It was a small cottage with three rooms: Jack’s bedroom, a kitchen area, and a spare bedroom. The four of them had been living in the Sea Devil for months, and Jack’s cottage seemed a palace.
From Jack’s cottage it was a short walk to the ocean and the stony beaches of Rye. There they met Ananta. They could swim there. Jack warned them that, even in the summer, the water was cold.
“Don’t stay in the water longer than an hour. If your lips turn blue, come out and warm up.”
“You’re joking!” Anita said.
“I am not,” Jack said.
He really was not. The water was so cold that it was difficult even to enter the ocean. Ananta warned Anita when her lips turned blue.
One morning Jack told Felipe, “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
“Can we come, too?” asked Anita.
“Better not this time,” said Jack. “This man lives alone in the marsh. If all four of us visit him together, I’m afraid he will vanish. But I hope he won’t be spooked by just two of us, since he and I are old friends.”
Jack and Felipe walked to the harbor. They rowed Jack’s dinghy out to the Devil. Jack took a brown paper bag from one of the cabinets. He and Felipe took the dinghy to the edge of the harbor, where a channel flowed into the harbor through a culvert under the road. They carried the dinghy across the road.
A sign there announced that they were entering the Awcomin Marsh. Jack knew that salt water flowed from the harbor into the marsh when the tide rose, and from the marsh to the harbor when the tide ebbed. He had chosen to come at high tide. The channel, perhaps twenty feet wide, was quiet. The banks were firm, held in place by the saltgrass that grew on them.
Jack rowed deep into the intricate network of channels.
“Where are we going, Jack,” asked Felipe. “How do you know the way?”
“We’re going to my friend’s home. When I was a kid I explored the marsh in my canoe, and I came upon him. He was kind to me, and we became friends.”
“You friend lives in the marsh?”
“You’ll see.”
“Is that safe, or even legal?”
“There’s nothing dangerous in the marsh, and Fred’s been here forever. I don’t even know how long. I found him twenty years ago. Legal? Probably not. But no one wants to make trouble for him.”
They approached the edge of the marsh, and a small saltgrass meadow. There stood a small garden shed of the kind sold in hardware stores. In front of the shed sat a man in a folding beach chair.
He stood up, and they saw that he was tall and lanky—all arms and legs, he appeared. He wore plain black clothes and a broad-brimmed black hat.
“Fred!” called Jack.
“Jack,” he replied. “It’s been a while. I heared tell that the Devil has not been seen in the harbor more than a year. I feared the worst.”
“No cause,” Jack answered. “The Devil and I have been around the world. She’s back at her mooring now. I made a new friend or two. Fred Paxford, this is Señor Doctor Felipe Rodriguez, whose family I met in Argentina.”
“Doctor Rodriguez,” said Fred and shook his hand.
“Just call me Rodriguez,” answered Felipe.
“Fred,” said Jack, “I came here to ask your help on a small matter.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Our last landfall was in Ireland. I visited a liquor store there, and I asked the owner to give me a bottle of Irish whiskey that would be suitable as a gift for a person who appreciated the good stuff.” Jack took the brown paper bag he had brought out of the dinghy, pulled out a bottle, and handed it to Fred. “Would you be so kind as to sample it and tell me if it’s safe to drink?”
Fred looked dubiously at the bottle. He unfolded two more chairs and set them down next to his, then retrieved two glass jars from behind his own chair.
“I know you don’t partake, Jack. Señor Rodriguez, will you risk a glass?”
“Certainly,” answered Felipe. “In the interests of science!”
“For science,” said Fred, splashing a measure of whiskey into each of the two jars.
“¡Salud!” responded Felipe, taking a swallow from his glass.
Twenty minutes later, Jack asked, “Well, what do you think?”
“Nothing wrong with it that I can tell,” Fred answered. “Course, it only been a few minutes. Who knows? Perhaps, we turn into frogs tonight.”
“Tell you what,” Jack said. “I’ll leave the bottle for you to finish. You can let me know if it’s OK.”
Felipe’s eyes laughed at this exchange, but he kept his face solemn.
Fred answered, “I will do that thing for you… WHAT IS THAT?”
All three of them jumped, as Ananta’s head rose from the channel.
“Ananta,” said Jack. “You were not invited here.”
“Jack!” screeched Ananta. “That person is not human!”
Like lightning, she drove her head at Fred’s chest with the speed of a striking spear. Quicker than thought Seph and Angie appeared in front of Fred, tall and commanding. Ananta bounced off them as if they were steel. Fred was unharmed. Ananta sank back into the water, her nose bruised.
Fred spoke sternly to Jack. “No friend would lead that thing here. Leave me. You ain’t welcome here any more.”
“Fred…” said Jack.
But Fred closed the door of his shed behind him.
“You seem sad,” Felipe said to Jack, back in his home. “Is it because of Fred?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think it’s true what Ananta said, that Fred is not human?”
“I’ve always known it,” Jack answered. “His hands and feet are like the feet of a frog—green and webbed. He can swim in the coldest of water.”
“It is sad to lose a friend,” Felipe answered. “Although I know that Ananta is older than you in years, she often seems child-like. It’s a problem, because she’s so big.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Jack answered.
“No harm done this time, though,” answered Felipe. “Did you protect him?”
“My friends did,” Jack said.
“Are they here?” Steph asked John. “Here in Rye?”
“Yes,” answered John. “I gave Jack a small home down near Rye Harbor. The Rodriguez family is there with him.”
“Did anything fun happen to them?” Alice asked.
“Not so much fun, as sad,” John said. “Jack had an argument with an old friend who lives in the marsh. Do you know the marsh?”
“The Awcomin Marsh, down by the harbor?” Alice answered. “I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never been there. I didn’t think anyone lived there.”
“Well, in the story, Jack’s friend does. He’s a Marsh-wiggle.”
“What’s that?” Alice asked.
“Aha!” said Steph. “I know that. It’s a kind of person in Narnia. There’s one named Puddleglum in one of them.”
Alice made a face. “Puddleglum? What kind of name is that?”
“Well, Puddleglum is a very gloomy person,” said Steph. “I guess that’s why Lewis gave him such a gloomy name. Which book is he in, Jack?”
“The Silver Chair,” John said. “It’s the one where Eustace and Jill and Puddleglum rescue Prince Rillian from a witch.”
“Is that the fourth book?”
“Well,” said John, suddenly pedantic, “there are two ways of numbering the series. The Silver Chair is number four in publication order, but number six in internal chronology.”
Steph waved her hand as if to fan herself. “Whew!”
“You should read them,” John told Alice. “They’re really good!”
“So Jack had an argument with Puddleglum—”
“—Fred,” Jack interrupted. “The Marsh-wiggle in the story is named Fred Paxford.”
“Fred?” said Steph. “What kind of name is that for a Marsh-wiggle?”
“Fred Paxford was CS Lewis’s gardener, and is the person he based Puddleglum’s personality on. Since the Marsh-wiggle in the story is living among people, I thought he should have a more ordinary-sounding name than Puddleglum.”
“OK, that makes sense.”
“So,” asked Alice. “Is Puddleglum/Fred joining our company of adventurers?”
“Well, there’s a problem with that. Fred is angry with Jack and told him to stay away.”
“Maybe we can think of a way to reconcile them?” said Alice.
“That would be great, if you can make it believable without weakening Fred’s character.”
“Are you Mr Paxford?” the girl asked Fred.
“I be,” Fred answered. “Who might you be?”
“Me llamo Anita Rodriguez,” Anita said. “I’m sorry, I should speak English. I am Anita Rodriguez. You met my father two days ago.”
“Did Jack send you?” Fred asked.
“Jack doesn’t know I’m here.”
“Your father, then?”
“No one else knows I’m here.”
“How’d you find me?”
“You know that Jack is hechicero, ¿No?”
“I’m sorry, young lady. Don’t know that word.”
“He is a kind of a magic man. He has a friend who is a talking snake, and he has friends who are spirits. And he has a friend who lives alone in a marsh.”
“Don’t know nuthin about no spirit friends.”
“Their names are Seph and Angie. They’re invisible to most people.”
“Most people?”
“Jack can see them. I can see them a little, when they let me.”
“Sounds like a fairy tale to me. But it’s true that serpent who came here spoke, and Jack spoke back to it.”
“Seph and Angie were there, too. They stood before you when Ananta struck and protected you from her.”
“Jack led two people to me in secret?” Fred asked, alarmed.
“No,” said Anita. “I don’t think that’s exactly right. Seph and Angie are parts of Jack’s spirit. Wherever he is, they are. It’s the same as saying that wherever you go, your spirit goes.”
Jack gave her a hard look, and nodded. “True enough. But my spirit don’t show itself to other people.”
“That’s why I say he is a magic man, a hechicero.”
“And that’s how you come here? These spirits led you here?”
“Yes. They want me to tell you that Jack didn’t want Ananta to come here. Jack is sad because you’re angry with him.”
“Well, it’s true. I was angry with him,” said Fred. “But if you tell me true, maybe I was unfair to Jack.”
“¡Sí, sí!” said Anita. “Jack didn’t know Ananta followed, and Jack's spirit friends protected you.”
“Ananta is the serpent?”
“Sí, Señor. She is my friend, too, but she doesn’t know I’m here. I talked to her about attacking you, and she is sorry. Even though she is so big, she is really still a little girl. A little girl snake. You smelled funny to her, and that scared her.”
“Well, you know, I’m kind of a fairy tale myself,” Fred said. “Those spirits, are they here?”
“Seph, Angie! ¿Están aquí?” Pop! Pop! Anita saw them appear. “Yes, they are here.”
“I don’t see ‘em…” Fred said, then “Ow!” when Angie kissed his cheek, and Seph tapped the tip of his nose. “That’s creepy.”
The next morning, Jack found an empty Irish whiskey bottle just inside his bedroom window. Inside the bottle was a note, reading, “No ill effects yet. Jack, please come by. Need your help with something.”
Afterword
The cover image is a phase portrait of f(z) :
A phase portrait is a visualization of a complex function introduced by Elias Wegert in Visual Complex Functions: An Introduction with Phase Portraits.
Fred was great haha. I loved how this went from two guys quietly drinking whiskey in the marsh to a giant serpent launching herself at him. Anita sneaking back to smooth everything over was a really sweet way to wrap it up.