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The Night Ferryman's Lantern Toll · Bedtime Sleep Stories For Grownups

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome. Come in, make yourself comfortable, and let
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the evening settle around you like a blanket tucked in
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: just right. Sink into your pillow and Pull the covers
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: up warm and breathe out one long, slow breath, letting
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the whole day drift away downstream. I am your narrator,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and I am glad you are here. Whatever today held
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: is finished now. The hurry is over. The noise is over.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: There is only this quiet moment and this quiet story
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: and you resting exactly where you should be. Thank you
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: to everyone who gathers here each night, our regulars who
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: know every bend of the river, and our newcomers who
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: are about to learn them. Thank you to those who
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: fall asleep before the middle, and those who make it
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: nobly to the end. Both are perfect. Both are welcome.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Sleep is never rude here. It is the whole purpose
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: of the gathering. Let this story be a slow boat
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you can ride for a while. Let the words rock
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: gently beneath you while your thoughts unmoor and drift. If
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: you sleep before the far bank, the far bank will
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: keep Rivers are patient. If these stories ease your nights,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: you might subscribe so each one arrives without any fuss
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: at all. And if someone you love flies awake counting worry,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Consider sharing a story with them, the way you would
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: share a warm seat by the fire. Thank you for that.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Now let us rest. Take a slow breath in, cool
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: and easy, like night air off slow water. Let it
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: out slowly, feeling your shoulders drop and your hands grow still.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: one more. Breathe in smooth and deep the way a
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: boat draws water along its hull. Breathe out soft and
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: long the way ripples spread and fade behind it. Good.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Tonight's tale is called The Night Ferryman's Lantern Toll. If
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: these bedtime stories ease your nights, you can support them
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: through the Supporter Club. in your podcast app, or on Patreon,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: where every episode arrives early alongside exclusive tales from all
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: our shows. You will find the links in the show notes.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Now settle deeper and let the river run and the
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: lantern swing whenever they are ready. Right at the bottom
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: of Church Lane, where the cobbles give way to mud
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: and the mud gives way to water, there is a
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: small wooden jetty reaching out into the river like a
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: hand extended in greeting. And tied to that jetty rocking
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: gently in the current is the ferry boat wide, flat,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: painted green, though the paint has gone soft with years.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Big enough for six passengers, or four passengers and a dog,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: or two passengers and the apprentice, who counts by long
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: tradition as three. The ferry belongs to Old Tom, who
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: has pulled it across the river for fifty years. in
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: sun and rain and snow, by day and, when needed,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: by night. Tom is tall and thin and weathered like driftwood,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: with hands like rope and eyes the color of deep water.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: He speaks rarely, He smiles often. He knows every eddy
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: and sandbar between the willows and the falls, and he
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: charges a toll for every crossing, as ferrymen have since
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: boats were vented, though Tom's toll is not what you
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: might expect. By day, the toll is a penny, a
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: plain copper penny, dropped into the tin box nailed to
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: the jetty post. But by night, when the lantern is
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: lit and the river runs black and the stars come
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: out over a sleepy town, the toll changes. By night,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Tom charges something else. Something no mint has ever coined.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: By night, the toll is a story. It began decades ago.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: On a night much like this one, when a traveler
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: arrived at the jetty with no penny to his name,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: he had walked all day. He was cold. He needed
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the crossing. And Tom, who had never yet turned anyone
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: away from his boat, looked at the traveler for a
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: long moment and then said, in his slow river voice.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Tell me something I don't know. The traveler thought, and
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: then he told Tom about the town he came from,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: where the church bells rang underwater when the tide was high.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: And Tom pulled him across, nodding all the way, and
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: the story became the toll, and the toll became the tradition.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: From that night on, the rule was set. Day crossings
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: cost a penny. Night crossings cost a story. A song.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: A riddle. A memory. Anything true. Anything yours. Tom collected
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: them the way other men collect stamps. He kept them
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: nowhere written down. He kept them in his head. In
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: the deep water of his memory. Hundreds of crossings, hundreds
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: of stories, ferried across and kept forever. the lantern hangs
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: from a pole at the front of the ferry boat
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: and it is after Tom himself the most important thing
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: on the river at night it is a brass lantern
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: dented and blackened with glass gone wavy with age Tom
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: lights it at dusk every evening striking the match on
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  Speaker 1: the jetty post, shielding the flame with his cupped hand,
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  Speaker 1: the way he has done it ten thousand times. The
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: lantern swings as the boat moves, casting its gold circle
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: on the black water. And that swinging light is what
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: night passengers steer by, walking down Church Lane in the dark,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: looking for the glow through the trees. The lantern has
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: its own stories. It was Tom's father's lantern before it
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: was Tom's, and his grandfather's before that. Three generations of
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: ferrymen lighting the same brass lamp. The dent in the
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: side came from the night the boat hit the sandbar
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: in fog, forty years ago, when Tom was an apprentice
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: ferryman himself, young and overly confident. The blackening on the
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: top came from a thousand nights of burning, The wavy
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: glass came from nowhere and everywhere. From age itself. From
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: years of heat and cold and river mist. Tom tends
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: the lantern the way Agnes tends her ovens. Daily. Fondly.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: With mothered encouragement. He trims the wick each evening. He
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: polishes the brass each Sunday. He carries spare oil, spare matches,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: a spare wick, and in the pocket of his greatcoat,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: a spare story, in case he ever needs to pay
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: his own toll to someone, somewhere. Which has never happened.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: But Tom believes in being prepared. The way the river
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: believes in flowing. Constantly. Without fuss. Passengers love. the lantern.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Children stare into it the whole crossing, hypnotized by the
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: swinging gold. Lovers sit closest to it as though its
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: warmth were part of the evening. Old passengers nod at
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: it like an old friend, and new passengers Stepping aboard
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: in the dark with their penny useless and their story unready.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Take comfort from it. Because a lit lantern on black
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: water says what Tom himself would say if he used
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: more words. You are safe. You are welcome. The crossing
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: is short. The far bank is certain. On foggy nights,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: when the river disappears entirely, and the boat seems to
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: float through white nothing, the lantern becomes the whole world,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: a gold globe in the gray. Tom holds by memory then,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: by counting strokes, by feeling the current change under the hull.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Twenty strokes to the middle, thirty more to the far bank.
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  Speaker 1: He has pulled the crossing blind a hundred times and
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: never missed. The lantern swings. The fog glows and parts.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: The jetty appears exactly where it should be. The lantern swings.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: The fog glows and parts. The jetty appears exactly where
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: it should be. And The passengers exhale, not realizing they
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: have been holding their breath and pay their stories gladly
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: because a crossing like that deserves a good one. For
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: over fifty years of night crossings, Tom has collected thousands
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: of tolls. And though he never repeats them without permission,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: he has shared with the long table at number twelve
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: the shapes of them, the kinds of stories people pay,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: the small change of memory, the currency of crossings. There
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: are childhood tolls, paid most often. The treehouse, the lost dog, found.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: The grandmother's kitchen, always with a smell attached. Bread or
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: soup or lavender. The first snow remembered. The last day
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: of school. Childhood tolls are paid quickly, almost shyly, and
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: they are always, Tom says, pure gold. People apologize for them.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: No need, Tom tells them, no need at all. There
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: are love tolls, paid softly. usually mid-river, where the water
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: covers the voice. How we met. The dance, the letter,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the proposal, botched and perfect. Love tolls are paid looking
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: at the water, not at Tom, which Tom understands completely.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: And he pulls a little slower during love tolls to
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: give them room. The way the river gives room everything.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: There are grief tolls. Paid rarely. Paid slowly. Paid all
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: the way across and sometimes past the landing. Because some
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: stories cannot be finished in fifty strokes. Tom never hurries
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: at grief toll. He ships the pole. He lets the
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: boat drift. The lantern swings. The water laughs. and the
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  Speaker 1: story finishes when it finishes on the far bank or
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: beside the jetty or not at all because some tolls
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: are paid by the telling not the ending And Tom
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: knows the difference. There are funny tolls which make Tom
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: laugh his slow, silent laugh. Shoulders shaking. Eyes watering. The
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Runaway Pig. The Wedding Cake Disaster. The Apprentice Stories. which
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: form their own category, paid by the apprentice himself whenever
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  Speaker 1: he crosses, each one funnier and less believable than the last.
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  Speaker 1: Tom accepts them all gravely, nods, pulls on, and laughs
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  Speaker 1: for the rest of the evening. Alone on the river,
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  Speaker 1: Which is, he says, the best audience a funny story
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  Speaker 1: can have. Water. Stars. No interruptions. And there are riddle tolls.
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  Speaker 1: And song tolls. And silence tolls. paid by those who
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  Speaker 1: have no words, who sit quietly all the way across
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  Speaker 1: and squeeze Tom's hand at the landing, which Tom accepts
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  Speaker 1: as full payment every time. Because silence, held kindly, is
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  Speaker 1: also a story. and everyone knows it. Now, dear listener,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: before the boat pushes off again, let me rest the
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: pole for just a moment Keeping these stories coming is simple.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: The Supporter Club brings you the premium editions right where
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: you listen, and Patreon brings early episodes plus exclusives from
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: each of our shows. Links to both rest in the
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: show notes. This episode is brought to you by Upbeat,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: the music library for creators. If you make things, films, videos, podcasts,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: stories of your own, Upbeat gives you properly licensed music
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: without the worry so your work can sound the way
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: it deserves. You will find their link in the show notes.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: And by Willow, the writing partner that helps you get
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: the words right. Every story you hear in Sleepy Town
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: starts as words on a page, drafted and re-rafted until
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: they flow like water, Willow helps writers find the sentence
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: they meant, gently, without fuss. There is a link in
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: the show notes if you would like to try it. Now,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: back to the river, where the lantern swings and the
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: water runs black and gold, and the night crossing waits
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: for its story. The greatest crossing of Tom's fifty years
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: happened on a night of fog so thick that the
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  Speaker 1: lantern light stopped three feet from the boat, swallowed whole
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: by the white. Tom should not have crossed. Everyone agreed afterward.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: The river was invisible. The banks were rumors. The fog
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: horn at the falls, miles away, sounded like it was
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: inside his coat. But a passenger waited on the jetty.
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  Speaker 1: A young mother with a sleeping baby. kneading the far bank,
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  Speaker 1: kneading it that night. And Tom had never yet turned
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: anyone away from his boat. He lit the lantern. He
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: helped her aboard. He wrapped his own greatcoat around them both.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: and he pushed off into the white, pulling by memory,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: by counting, by feel. Twenty strokes to the middle, he
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: counted aloud, softly, so the mother could hear the progress. One, two, three.
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  Speaker 1: The pull found water, Found bottom. Found water. Again. The
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: current tugged. Tom corrected. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. The baby slept
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: through it all. Which Tom took as a good omen.
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  Speaker 1: Because babies... he always said, can smell safety. In the
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: middle of the river, Tom shipped the pole and listened.
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  Speaker 1: This was the navigator's trick his father had taught him.
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  Speaker 1: In fog, stop, listen. The river tells you where you are.
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  Speaker 1: The falls base to the left means the willows are
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  Speaker 1: to the right. The owl upstream means the jetty downstream.
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  Speaker 1: The silence between sounds means the middle. The deep water.
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  Speaker 1: The safe channel. Tom listened for a full minute. The
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: boat drifting. The lantern swinging in the white. The mother
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: holding her breath. Then he nodded. took up the pole
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  Speaker 1: and said, Halfway home. And the mother exhaled, and the
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: baby sighed in its sleep, and the crossing continued. Thirty
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  Speaker 1: strokes to the far bank. Tom counted them all. Steady
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: as a clock, the fog glowed faintly gold around the lantern.
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  Speaker 1: The water lapped black and unseen. And then, exactly on
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: the thirtieth stroke, the jetty post emerged. The mother laughed,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: suddenly with relief, and the baby woke and blinked at
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: the lantern and laughed too. A small, surprised baby laugh,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: the first sound of the far bank. The mother's toll
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  Speaker 1: was the baby's name told there on the jetty in
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: the fog with the lantern gold around them. She had
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: not told a soul yet she said. Not her own mother.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Tom was the first. And Tom nodded, slowly, the way
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: he nodded at things that mattered. And he said the
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: name back once, carefully, to get it right. And the
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: mother cried a little, happily, and the baby gurgled, and
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: the fog glowed, and Tom pulled home alone, through the white,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: counting his strokes, carrying the name like a second lantern.
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  Speaker 1: He never told the name to anyone. It was paid
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: as a toll. It was held in trust. But every year,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: on the anniversary of the fog crossing, a parcel arrives
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: at the jetty. Always the same. A jar of honey.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: A loaf of bread. a drawing from a child who
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: grows taller in every picture, and Tom eats the bread
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: on the boat and sweetens his tea with the honey
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: and pins the drawing inside the fairy's shelter, where now
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: a dozen drawings flutter in the river wind. The toll
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: that keeps paying The crossing that never ends. The apprentice's
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: first night crossing is a legend at the long table,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: told and retold. growing slightly with each telling, the way
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: legends do. The apprentice was twelve. He needed the far
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: bank after dark, on an errand for the clockmaker. A
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: spring delivered to a farmhouse, urgent, or so the clockmaker claimed.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: though everyone suspected the errand was invented to teach the
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: boy the river. The apprentice arrived at the jetty with
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: his penny ready, proud and nervous, and Tom looked at
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: the penny and looked at the boy and shook his
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: head slowly. Night toll, said Tom, a story. The apprentice
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: had no story ready. He stammered. He stalled. He offered
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: two pennies, then three, then his dinner, then his best marble.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Tom waited, patient as water, while the lantern swung. and
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the river ran black. And finally, in desperation, the apprentice
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: told the story of his day. The spring, the errand,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: the pie he had eaten at noon described an enormous detail.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: The cat he had seen also described an enormous detail
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: The whole ordinary day poured out in a rush, while
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Tom pulled steadily across, nodding. Ray took the whole crossing,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: fifty strokes. The apprentice talked without stopping, from jetty to jetty.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: And when the boat kissed the far bank, he stopped mid-sentence, amazed,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: and said, Are we across already? And Tom smiled his
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: slow smile. and said, best toll I've had all month.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: And the apprentice glowed all the way to the farmhouse
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: and all the way back when he paid the return
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: crossing with the story of the delivery. which took another
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: 50 strokes because the farmer's dog had joined in, and
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: the dog's part of the story could not be hurried.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: From that night on, the apprentice crossed by night whenever
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: he could invent a reason. and his tolls grew longer
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: and funnier and less believable, until they became their own category,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: as noted. But Tom always said the first one was
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: the best. The ordinary day, the pie at noon, the cat,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: because the first toll teaches the lesson of all tolls.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: That your own day, told truly, is payment enough for
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: any crossing. That the river accepts exact change and attention.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: That everyone carries a story worth the fare, and everyone
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: knows it. Dear listener, the lantern burns brighter because of you.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: The Supporter Club carries our premium nights inside your podcast app,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: and Patreon carries early access and exclusive stories across every
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: show we lovingly make. Find both links in the show
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: notes whenever morning comes. Now let the boat drift on,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: and the lantern swing, and the river carry us gently
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: toward the far bank of sleep. In winter, the river changes.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: and Tom changes with it. The current slows. The edges freeze.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Mist rises off the black water in the mornings and
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: hangs in the willows like held breath. The crossings grow quieter.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: The tolls grow longer because winter stories need more telling.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Tom wears his great coat. He wraps his hands around
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: a jar of Agnes's soup, delivered to the jetty each
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: evening by the Akrentis, who has strict instructions to wait
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: until Tom drinks it, and to report back that he did.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: The winter river has its own sounds. ice ticking at
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: the banks, ducks muttering in the reeds. The pole breaking
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: thin ice with a sound like distant bells. Tom loves
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: these sounds, the way the conductor loves train sounds, the
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: way Agnes loves kitchen sounds. They are the sounds of
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: his room, his work, his year turning. He pulls slower
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: in winter, listening more, counting less. letting the boat find
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: its own pace through the cold. They're on the coldest
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: nights when the stars snap sharp overhead and the river steams.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Tom sometimes ferries no one at all. He crosses anyway,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: once across, once back. An empty boat, a lit lantern,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: a ferryman keeping the channel open, keeping the tradition warm.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: He says it is for practice. The long table says
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: it is for love. Tom says nothing, which everyone takes
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: as agreement because Tom's silences are famous for meaning exactly
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: what you hope they mean. And on those empty crossings,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: Tom pays his own toll. He tells a story to
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: the river, One of the thousands he holds in trust.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Chosen carefully. Told aloud to the water and the stars.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: With permission long granted. The river listens. The way rivers listen.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Flowing on. Holding everything. The lantern swings. The boat drifts,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: and Tom, alone on the black water under the white stars, is,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: by his own quiet accounting, the richest man in Sleepy Town.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: Thousands of stories, fifty years of crossing, A lantern that
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: never goes out. Tom keeps no written ledger of his tolls.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: No book, no list. no chalk marks on the shelter wall.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: When the clockmaker once offered to make him a proper
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: log book, bound in leather with brass corners, Tom smiled
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: his slow smile and tapped his temple. Capped here, he sat,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: every one, And the clockmaker, who trusted mechanisms of all kinds,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: nodded and made him a pencil instead, for general purposes,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: which Tom keeps behind his ear and never uses, out
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: of respect. But though nothing is written, everything is capitalized.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Tom can tell you the toll paid on any crossing
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: you name. The wedding party, midsummer, 10 years back, who
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: paid in song all six verses harmonized. The professor Autumn,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: who paid in Latin plant names, which Tom learned by
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: heart and still recites when polling alone. The child who
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: paid in a joke about a duck, which Tom laughed
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: at for a week. The old sailor who paid in silence,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: a full crossing of it, golden and complete, and a
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: handshake at the landing. The Tom still feels... The long
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: table has tested him. Over the years, the way you
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: test anything, beloved. Name the toll. Third Tuesday of last winter.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: And Tom closes his eyes, and the lantern swings in
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: his memory. And he tells them. The knitter. The mitten pattern.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: The thumb gusset explained mid-river. The table applauds. Another. The twins.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: The swapped names. The riddle neither would answer. More applause.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Tom has never failed a test. His memory is the
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: river's memory. Deep. Dark. Asked how he does it, Tom
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: gives the same answer every time. I listen, he says.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: That is all. I listen the way the river listens.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: All the way, without deciding. And the story stays. Because
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: it was heard completely. The way a boat stays afloat.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Because the water holds it completely. Listening. Tom says. Is
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: the whole. Ferrying. The pole is minor. The boat is borrowed.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: The listening is the work, and the table nods slowly,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: the way tables nod at truths that cannot be improved upon.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: The strangest passenger Tom ever ferried was not a person
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: at all. It was the heron, the great gray heron
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: that fishes the shallows below the willows, standing motionless for hours,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: striking like weather. One still evening at dusk, As Tom
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: was tying up after the last crossing, the heron landed
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: on the front of the ferry boat, folded its wings
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: with enormous dignity, and stared at Tom with one yellow eye.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Tom stared back. The heron did not move. Tom untied
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: the boat. The heron settled its feathers. Tom pushed off,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: pulled across to the far bank. The heron riding the
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: bow like a figurehead, motionless, regal. At the far jetty,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: the heron stepped ashore, looked back once, and stopped into
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: the reeds without a sound. Tom pulled home, alone, thoughtful.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: The toll he decided was the trust of it, a
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: wild thing choosing his boat. He logged it in memory
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: under miracles, minor, recurring. because it recurred. Every few weeks,
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: at dusk, the heron would be waiting on the jetty,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: and Tom would ferry it across, there, and sometimes back.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: No pole rushed, no word spoken. The heron always rode
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: the bow. The heron always stared ahead. The heron never
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: once acknowledged Tom, which Tom respected completely. Because herons, he said,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: are the ferrymen of the bird world. Silent and patient
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: and exact. And the two professionals understood each other perfectly.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: The long table was enchanted by the heron passenger and
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: demanded details Tom could not give. What passes through its
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: mind mid-river, Tom did not know. Why does it cross
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: instead of flying? Tom had never asked. Does it pay
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: a return toll? Tom smiled his slow smile. It pays,
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: he said. by letting me watch it fish afterward, standing
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: in the shallows, motionless, perfect. That is the toll. Beauty witnessed.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: And the table accepted this, because beauty witnessed is, as
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: everyone knows, payment in full for anything. On full moon nights,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: when the moon lays its silver road down the middle
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: of the river, Tom runs moonlight crossings And they are
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: the most beloved crossings of the month. No errand needed.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: No far bank business required. Passengers come simply to ride
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: the silver road. To sit in the boat while Tom
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: pulls up the moon's reflection and back. Slow as dreaming.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: The conductor never misses a moonlight crossing. He sits in
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: the bow with his pocket watch put away, which is
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: how you know the occasion is sacred. And he tells
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: no stories, which is how you know it is profound.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: The bookseller brings no book. The seamstress brings no sewing.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: Even the apprentice sits still on moonlight crossings, which Agnes
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: calls the eighth wonder of sleepy town, ranking just below
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: pudding and just above the heron. the moonlight toll is
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: special not a story not a song on moonlight crossings
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: the toll is a wish spoken aloud mid river where
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: the moon can hear it where the water carries it
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: Tom collects wishes the way he collects stories, in trust,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: in silence, never repeated. He has carried thousands of wishes
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: up the silver road. Wishes for health, for love, for snow.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: for spring, for lost things found, for kept things kept,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: small wishes whispered, great wishes breathed, all heard, all held,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: Asked whether the wishes come true, Tom gives his river answer.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: The river carries them, he says. That is what I know.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: The river carries everything, eventually, to wherever everything goes. And
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: the passengers nod. watching the silver road ripple and reform
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: around the pole, feeling their wish travel outward in rings, widening, fading. Carried.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: Whether the wishes come true is, Tom says, the moon's department.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: His department is the carrying. And his department, everyone agrees,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: has never failed. This spring, Tom's father retired. The river flooded.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: Rain for a fortnight. The meadows drowned. The jetty stood
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: in three feet of brown rushing water. The town held
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: its breath. And Tong, young then, newly the ferryman, pulled
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: through it all. Because floods are when ferrymen matter most.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: Carrying stranded lambs. carrying medicine, carrying the midwife at midnight,
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: carrying everything the town needed across water that wanted nothing crossed.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: For six days, Tom barely slept. He ate standing up,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: soup from Agnes' mother, bread in his pocket, He pulled
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: by daylight and lamplight. He memorized the new currents, the
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: drowned fences, the hidden dangers. He sang to keep his rhythm,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: old river songs his grandfather taught him. And the town,
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: watching from the banks, sang back the way towns sing
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: to ferrymen in floods, encouragement, gratitude, proof that the banks
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: still hold even when the river forgets them. on the
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: seventh day the water dropped leaving mud and miracles not
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: a single loss everything lamb, every errand, every midnight passenger safe.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: The town threw Tom a supper at number twelve that
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: lasted until dawn. and the conductor made a speech that
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: lasted nearly as long, and Agnes's mother served a pudding
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: so magnificent that it entered legend as the flood pudding,
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: served once a year ever since, on the anniversary, with
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: Tom in the place of honor, eating slowly, saying nothing,
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: smiling slightly, which was and remains his speech, and everyone
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: loves it. Tom never speaks of the flood week, except
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: when asked directly and then briefly. The river rose, he says.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: The town needed crossing. I crossed it. That is the
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: whole story. But the long table knows the longer version,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: assembled over decades from passenger tolls, from witnesses, from the
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: midwife's own account. Told once, mid-river, paid as a night
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: toll years later. The ferryman who did not sleep, the
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: lantern that never went out, the pole that never missed,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: six days. Every crossing. Every soul. And the table keeps
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: that story the way Tom keeps his tolls. In trust.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: In memory. Forever. Each autumn, when the leaves turn and
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: the river runs low and clear, Tom beaches the ferry
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: boat for its annual repairs. He chooses a still day.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: He pulls to the gravel bank below the willows. He
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: waits for low water And then, with the help of
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: whoever the long table sends, usually the clockmaker for precision,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: the apprentice for enthusiasm, and the conductor for supervision, which
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: means standing with his hands behind his back, making encouraging noises.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: Tom hauls the book out and tends it. The repairs
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: are ritual. Every plank sounded, tapped with a small hammer,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: listening for soft spots. Every seam inspected. Every nail checked.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: The green paint touched up where the water has worried it.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: The shelter detached. The jetty ropes spliced. The lantern, always
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: the lantern, dismantled completely. every part cleaned, the wick replaced,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: the glass polished until the brass shines like a small sun.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: Tom works slowly, methodically, humming old river songs under his breath,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: and the helpers work around him, learning, The apprentice's first
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: boat repair day is nearly as legendary as his first
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: night crossing. He arrived with his own hammer, bought specially,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: far too big. He tapped every plank twice, solemnly. and
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: declared them all excellent, including one Tom had already marked
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: for replacement, which everyone pretended not to notice. He painted
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: his initials on the inside of the shelter, small, in
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: the corner, and Tom let them stay, and they are
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: still there, under a dozen years of touch-ups. the boy's
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: mark on the boat, kept like a toll. No speeches,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: no champagne, just Tom, alone, pulling out into the low,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: clear water, making one slow circle, testing every plank listening
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: to the hall. Then he raises the pole once, vertically,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: the ferryman's signal, and the watchers on the bank cheer,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: and the boat is back, and the river has its
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: ferry again, and the year can turn safely toward winter,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: because the crossing is sound, Tom rests one day each year,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: one single day, midsummer day, when the river runs low
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: and slow and the crossings can wait When the town
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: picnics in the meadows and nobody needs the far bank
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: for anything urgent. On that day, Tom hangs a small
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: sign on the jetty post. Ferryman resting, river open, swim
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: if you must. and he spends the day doing what
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: he does every other day, except slower, which is to
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: sit by the river and watch it. He sits on
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: the jetty with his boots off and his feet in
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: the water. He eats bread and cheese from a cloth.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: Agnes packs specially with a slice of seed cake because
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: midsummer deserves seed cake he watches the ducks He watches
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: the dragonflies. He watches the clouds on the hurry across
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: the sky. And in the evening, when the light goes
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: gold on the water, he lights the lantern anyway, out
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: of habit. Out of love. And he pulls one slow
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: circle in the middle of the river. Alone. The lantern
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: gold on the water. The town picnicking on the banks.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: And everyone waves and Tom waves back. with a pole
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: once vertically the ferryman's signal which on midsummer day means
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: all's well and rest is good and the river keeps
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: I don't tell one who wants love. The long table
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: once tried to give Tom a longer rest. A whole
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: week they proposed. A holiday. The conductor offered train tickets
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: to the seaside. The bookseller offered novels. The seamstress offered
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: to pack his bag. Tom listened to all of this
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: with his slow smile, and then he shook his head.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: Who would pull the crossings? he asked. The apprentice volunteered immediately, loudly,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: with his spoon raised. Tom looked at the apprentice for
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: a long moment. And then he laughed his silent laugh,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: shoulders shaking. And the table laughed too, because the Akrentis
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: pulling the ferry for a week was a picture none
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: of them could hold steadily. Tom never took the holiday.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: He takes his midsummer day and it is enough. Enough river,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: enough lantern light on slow water, fifty years of crossings,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: and one day a year of sitting still, feet in
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: the water, seed cake in a hand, watching the river
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: he knows better than anyone go about its business without
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: him for a few hours. The river manages, he says,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: It always manages. It was here before me. It will
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: be hereafter. I am only the fairy man. And then
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: he lights the lantern and pulls his slow circle and
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: the town wave and all's well. On midsummer evening, when
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: the picnic blankets are folded and the town drifts home
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: through the long gold light, Tom remains on the river
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: a while longer, alone with the lantern and the low sun.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: He ships the pole. He lets the boat drift. He
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: listens to the river sounds he knows better than his
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: own breathing. The riffle at the bend, the ducklings in
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: the reeds, the fish rising, the willows whispering. And he
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: holds the whole year in his mind. The way he
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: holds his tolls. Gently. Completely. Fifty strokes at a time.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: The crossings made. The stories paid. The river kept. All's well.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: Always well. The ferryman rests, and the river carries on,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: and both, in their own way, are exactly where they
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: should be. And so our story ends. where every crossing ends,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: on the far bank, with the boat kissed to the jetty,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: and the lantern gold on the black water, and the
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: town asleep behind us, the penny paid, the story told,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: the river crossed, the far bank reached, certain as ever,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: quiet as ever, waiting, with its path up through the
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: trees and its lights winking between the branches. Step ashore now,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: dear listener, for Tom's hand is steady and the jetty
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: is solid and the path is short and there is
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: nothing left to do because the crossing is done and
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: the river is yours. let your breathing slow now the
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: way the river slows in the deep middle breathe in
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: cool and easy like night air off black water hold
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: it for a moment the way the boat holds still
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: when tom ships the pole to listen And breathe out,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: long and soft, like ripples spreading from the hull, widening, fading, gone, kent. Again,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: breathe in the smell of river water, clean and dark.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: the smell of lantern oil, faint and warm, the smell
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: of willows and mist and night. Hold it gently and
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: breathe out. Let your shoulders drop. Let your jaw unclench.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: Let your hands lie open. And still, the way passengers'
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: hands lie open in their laps, mid-river. One last breath.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: The slowest yet. Breathe in. And picture the lantern swinging
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: gold over black water, Tom at the pole, the boat
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: gliding shore through the dark. Hold it there, glowing in
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: your mind, and breathe out and let it go. Let
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: it drift on without you to the far bank, into
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: the quiet. into the part of the night that belongs
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: to no one. Good. You are doing beautifully. There is
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: nothing to get right. There is nowhere to be. The
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: crossing is complete. The town is asleep. Tom keeps the
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: lantern lit on the river so you don't have to.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: Rest now. Really rest. The night holds you like the
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: back boat holds its passengers. Gently, completely, all the way
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: across to morning. Drift with the boat a while longer.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: Feel the whole rock softly beneath you. Hear the water
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: lap against the wood, steady as breathing. See the lantern.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: gold trembling on the black ripples. There is no hurry
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: to land. The jetty will wake. The path will wake.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: Everything wakes, patient as Tom. while you float here between
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: the banks, held by the river, rocked by the night,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: carried gently toward the far bank of sleep. We are
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: so sleeply to vary similar the nace the night. If
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: you are still awake, just barely, here is a gentle
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: word before you go. Tomorrow night brings a new standard tale.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: The orchard keeper's last apple picking. Where ladders and baskets
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: and one very wise orchard keeper wait to meet you.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: And our supporters will find the next premium night waiting early.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: The lighthouse beam across the frozen bay. Thank you for
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: spending this one with us. Follow the show if you
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: have not. Share it with someone who needs a rest.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: And sleep now. Deeply. Softly. The lantern swings. The river runs.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: The river keeps you. Sleep deep and long. Good night.