Speaker 1: Hm, I am the fairy man.
Speaker 2: The human spirit is my business. Their madness, their passion,
Speaker 2: the wonderful and monstrous ways they burn out their brief candle.
Speaker 3: I regret to tell you that very many American lives
Speaker 3: in love.
Speaker 1: What's heard to shut from the car, he's dead. Whether
Speaker 1: he rebird to president.
Speaker 3: Or four hours, people must get up and google identification.
Speaker 2: I am here in the in between, to collect their
Speaker 2: spirits and carry them to what comes next. This road
Speaker 2: is not on any map. It spans the thresholds between
Speaker 2: their most forbidden desires and their greatest fear. All I
Speaker 2: ask for in payment is a tale and accounting of
Speaker 2: their lives and the great temporary that is the land
Speaker 2: of the living. These are their stories. This is the
Speaker 2: passage north brother Island. I visited this place often over
Speaker 2: the years. This tiny little stone beside a hellgate, the
Speaker 2: strait that's sunk a thousand ships. I've fished out many
Speaker 2: a sailor from its depths, just as I have plucked
Speaker 2: souls by the handful from this parcel of land. Just
Speaker 2: up on the hill here sits Riverside Hospital, the place
Speaker 2: of the very last resort for the plague ridden castaways
Speaker 2: from the great Island of Manhattan, amidst the small pox
Speaker 2: and consumption that spout a little bright, pinned prick, a
Speaker 2: soul burning hotter than most eves. Picked up there at
Speaker 2: the entrance to the hospital. She has risen from her
Speaker 2: sick bed and has moved down the stairs and into
Speaker 2: the pale November sunlight. Mary Mallin, But the world will
Speaker 2: come to know her by a different name. Born so
Speaker 2: far from here, in a land so much greener, she
Speaker 2: made her first passage decades ago across the cold North
Speaker 2: Atlantic into New York City, at a time when the
Speaker 2: Irish were viewed as no better than the body lies
Speaker 2: they picked up in steerage. She was fifteen and alone
Speaker 2: in the hard, scrabble filth of New York City. Many
Speaker 2: did not survive those first hard years, but she did.
Speaker 2: She fought and scraped, and when she was told that
Speaker 2: she carried Salmonella typhe which had killed so many before her,
Speaker 2: she forged ahead anyway, taking the disease with her from
Speaker 2: house to house, and finally earned the name Typhoid Mary.
Speaker 4: Hello, Jesus Mary, and Joseph You Mary, Ah, I sensed
Speaker 4: you before I even closed my eyes.
Speaker 3: I knew You're a common far me, and somehow you
Speaker 3: surprise me.
Speaker 2: That is never my intention. And yet and yet it
Speaker 2: is time walking me to the shore.
Speaker 3: Ef I must.
Speaker 4: It's not cold.
Speaker 3: I always expected the cold.
Speaker 2: None of that here.
Speaker 3: Do you have a name?
Speaker 2: You can call me the Ferryman if you wish.
Speaker 3: Nah, sure, Ferryman. Feels like the whole of my life
Speaker 3: has been packed to the gills with fairy man of
Speaker 3: one sort or another. Whether I wanted to go with
Speaker 3: him or not, I went. I don't suppose I have
Speaker 3: a choice in this matter either.
Speaker 2: Everyone must go eventually.
Speaker 3: Sure, just another wheel turning. Eh, the great wheel of
Speaker 3: life carries it to the great wheel of death, and
Speaker 3: still it turns. What's next on the other shore?
Speaker 2: That will all depend.
Speaker 3: On what my accents in life, my morrows or your morals.
Speaker 3: Who's fucking marls? Am I beholding to the churches? They
Speaker 3: can all drain in now rever as far as I'm concerned. Nay,
Speaker 3: I'll not be accepting their ATTARTI anymore. Jesus Christ himself
Speaker 3: can get an air for from me on that account.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the church has very little to do with the afterlife.
Speaker 3: Ah, God's a comforted least where I'll be. It's an
Speaker 3: actual boat.
Speaker 2: Well you surprised. I'm a I'm a ferryman.
Speaker 3: I thought it'd be more of a what's this metaphor?
Speaker 3: But here I am getting an honest to God bite
Speaker 3: to carry me on. Oh you know, I didn't want
Speaker 3: to make that first voyage. I loved my home, I'd
Speaker 3: loved my mother, even my father drunkard. He was was
Speaker 3: a good man. He just couldn't ever quite get it right.
Speaker 3: Every opportunity dead in his hands. But that was almost
Speaker 3: everyone in the Old Country in those days, struggle and
Speaker 3: toile and come up short. There wasn't enough work, and
Speaker 3: the work when it came didn't pay enough. So men drank,
Speaker 3: women drank. Everyone drank. A shadow over everything, a shadow
Speaker 3: that I would come to recognize. I was sent away
Speaker 3: because my mother taught i'd follow in his path if
Speaker 3: I stayed, And who knows, Sometimes I think I'd have
Speaker 3: made a spectacular drunkard. I've the temperament for it, to
Speaker 3: be sure. So they sent me to my aunt and uncle,
Speaker 3: who made a go of it in New York. I
Speaker 3: remember saying goodbye to my mother. She wept. She said
Speaker 3: that one day she'd join me. Last I saw of her,
Speaker 3: she was standing on the docks as me ship pulled off.
Speaker 3: She didn't wave, she just stood there. Han Coultie's held
Speaker 3: hip over her mind, as if she were trying to
Speaker 3: stafle a scream. Ah. That was the last time I
Speaker 3: saw her. The voyage was long and difficult, the carter's
Speaker 3: stank up, shetting, vomiting, the sour stench of fear that
Speaker 3: grew all the more potent when the seeds were rough,
Speaker 3: which they were often, every face grain, everybody carrying a
Speaker 3: shadow above it. I would often spend days walking the decks,
Speaker 3: flirting with the sailors, just to avoid the animal felt below,
Speaker 3: which permeated everything. Despite the conditions, though in every eye
Speaker 3: there was hope, even in the oldest, the most din trodden,
Speaker 3: there's perfoos clearly marked for death. That hope it trumped
Speaker 3: through the storms and stench, beat out even the heart
Speaker 3: sickness that comes with leaving home forever. Even I fell
Speaker 3: prey to what, young and terrified as I was, it
Speaker 3: is the vilest thing. Hope it survives until the better
Speaker 3: end and is passed on to strangle the next generation.
Speaker 3: Hell I carry it with me, even I, although I
Speaker 3: think I know what waits for me on the other shore.
Speaker 3: It was in the belly of that ship, on the
Speaker 3: Great Voyage, that I first saw hem and illness had
Speaker 3: passed through steerage, a fever, people emptying their guts into
Speaker 3: the latrine's buckets, whatever was at hand. I had secured
Speaker 3: a bunk in the corner, and there I lay, young
Speaker 3: and a line sucker than i'd ever been believe in
Speaker 3: that you were coming far me, And I thought, ferry Man,
Speaker 3: that it was you, yourself, elf, that I saw standing
Speaker 3: amidst the sick and dying on the voyage one night,
Speaker 3: with hollow eyes gazing at me across the wedd of
Speaker 3: the room. My eyes too blurred with exhaustion to see clearly.
Speaker 3: But it wasn't, was it. It was a different specter
Speaker 3: with different purposes. I blent to clear my vision and
Speaker 3: he was gone, And after a few days Daonus left me.
Speaker 3: We made it across, I remember saying it for the
Speaker 3: first time, The skyline so vast, oh, so great. I
Speaker 3: was terrified, the star of the rest of my life.
Speaker 3: My aunt and uncle were kind, dacent people, but they
Speaker 3: couldn't afford to keep me on their meager wages, and
Speaker 3: so I was sent to work immediately in the immense
Speaker 3: filth of New York City. It was the laundry first,
Speaker 3: so many park girls boiling the flesh on their arms,
Speaker 3: so many growing tain and frail, with too much labor
Speaker 3: and too little food. It was hot, wet, miserable. We
Speaker 3: worked in the closest of quarters. When the last girl
Speaker 3: was in each morning, they locked the doors from the
Speaker 3: outside to make sure we didn't walk out before the
Speaker 3: day's labor was done. At the time, I was concerned
Speaker 3: mostly with the state in my hands, which were chopped
Speaker 3: and sore, hot water and harsh soap, and the state
Speaker 3: of my back, which protested even when I lay down
Speaker 3: at night. I was concerned with the little rest I
Speaker 3: got on the small cot in my aunt's catching. And
Speaker 3: I was concerned with the shadow that I caught following
Speaker 3: me all the way from the boat, who I caught
Speaker 3: occasionally in the corner of my eyes, but you eluded
Speaker 3: me when I turned to look him straight on. Somewhere
Speaker 3: in my bones, I had a sense of what he was,
Speaker 3: but I was young. I did not know its name,
Speaker 3: but I saw him head on soon enough. It was
Speaker 3: seven months and to my work at the laundry late
Speaker 3: end of the afternoon. It was July, and we opened
Speaker 3: the windows. There was no relief from the swelter and
Speaker 3: hate that consumed us. In that sort of heat. It
Speaker 3: wasn't unusual for a girl at you to drop to
Speaker 3: need to be fanned and giving water and a sharp
Speaker 3: rest before returning to the soup. I myself felt the
Speaker 3: tail tale flutter behind my eyes, the tunnel vision that
Speaker 3: came from the heat exhaustion. I was stepping back from
Speaker 3: the hot water to catch a bread when Sally Mile
Speaker 3: went headlong into her top. The girls working beside her
Speaker 3: stood for a moment, blinking stupidly, trying to make sense
Speaker 3: of sally face dying and the scalding water. I had
Speaker 3: to push one of them either away and break into
Speaker 3: the water to pull eye, shouted the others to make room,
Speaker 3: tried to get her to cough up the water. Her
Speaker 3: face looked a fright, be red from the hot water,
Speaker 3: snot and tears mingled with his sons. I slapped her
Speaker 3: cross the face to waker, but you wouldn't entirely come to.
Speaker 3: By this time our farm and mister Moses had come
Speaker 3: out of his office and seen the hole mess. He
Speaker 3: shouted at us all to get back to work, and
Speaker 3: grabbed Hi man off the street to help him cart
Speaker 3: her Sally home. I watched him go, and it was
Speaker 3: then that I finally saw the shadow head on, hanging
Speaker 3: quietly in the vestibule by the door to the alley
Speaker 3: where to carry the port drowned girl eyed hungry eyes
Speaker 3: that watched Sally go and then turn back to the
Speaker 3: rest of us, staring windows eyes. I blinked and he
Speaker 3: was gone. Sally never came back. We heard through her
Speaker 3: sister that she came down with pneumonia from the water
Speaker 3: in her lungs, and days later she passed. I was lucky,
Speaker 3: you know. Though I toiled as hard as the next girl,
Speaker 3: I had prospects. My aunt was a cook for a
Speaker 3: well off family, and she promised that after a little training,
Speaker 3: she'd helped me find similar work. And so during the
Speaker 3: days I returned to that horrible hot warehouse to was
Speaker 3: hotel sheets under the watchful eye of mister Moses. And
Speaker 3: at night my aunt took the time to teach me
Speaker 3: how to cook, using ingredients pilfered from wealthier kitchens. Though
Speaker 3: I tirled, I felt that dreadful hope. After a few
Speaker 3: months more, I was introduced to a young man in
Speaker 3: finance who had just married and bought a home, and
Speaker 3: he was in aid of a cook. And so I
Speaker 3: took leave of my aunt and uncle's home, of that
Speaker 3: laundry with that tin horrible shadow, with the hungry eyes,
Speaker 3: and I moved up tying into the servant quarters of
Speaker 3: the home of mister Bryant. Gars were long still, but
Speaker 3: I had a room in the cellar that I shared
Speaker 3: with the housekeeper, Miss Evans. There was a fine job
Speaker 3: that ended all too soon when the family fell ill.
Speaker 3: Miss Nevans started influenza. But I knew different, you see,
Speaker 3: I saw him and the kitchen one morning, the tin shadow,
Speaker 3: just a flecker on a too early morning, when my
Speaker 3: bones ched from the wingswork as I ate stale head
Speaker 3: with my morning tea while the oven fire caught he
Speaker 3: was just looking at me with those hungry eyes. My
Speaker 3: blood run cold as I stood to confront him, but
Speaker 3: he was gone as quickly as he'd appeared. The next morning,
Speaker 3: the family was ill, a terrible waste and sort of illness,
Speaker 3: each of them with a terrible rash on their necks.
Speaker 3: None of them able to keep dying, even the water
Speaker 3: day scept drop by drop. I saw missus Bryant one morning.
Speaker 3: The maid was ill herself, so it was up to
Speaker 3: me to bring the mistress her hot beef brought and
Speaker 3: so the crackers that was to be her sore nourishment.
Speaker 3: She was a sturdy woman by all accounts, but she
Speaker 3: lay there on the bed, skeletal, as if her guts
Speaker 3: had been pulled from her body. She didn't thank me
Speaker 3: when I dropped the tray, just looked at me with
Speaker 3: uncomprehending eyes. I'd seen it before in the boat. I'd
Speaker 3: felt it the none inside. It was horrible. I couldn't
Speaker 3: bear to look at it from the outside. I was
Speaker 3: so shaken that I walked out of the house that
Speaker 3: day and did not return. And so it was back
Speaker 3: to my aunt's hee. Far better or worse, there's no
Speaker 3: lack of jobs in New York City. Miss Nevin's a
Speaker 3: coin soul, referred me to another family. I made the
Speaker 3: move again, and again, almost as quickly as it had begun,
Speaker 3: I saw the shadow man in the corner of the kitchen,
Speaker 3: and another family fell ill.
Speaker 5: I was cursed.
Speaker 3: This shadow had followed me from my father's home, and
Speaker 3: across the ocean into the guts of New York City.
Speaker 3: But what was I did you? I found a family
Speaker 3: in Long Island looking for a cook. I moved in.
Speaker 3: They fell ill. I left, and another family on the
Speaker 3: north shore the same Again and again. I prayed, I
Speaker 3: plead in winter shadow, whenever I caught a glimpse conjole
Speaker 3: and bargained leave me.
Speaker 2: I peg.
Speaker 3: And this way did the years pass. I'd gone through
Speaker 3: a dozen wealthy families, all of them fell ill, few
Speaker 3: of whom ever spoke to me except to give instructions anyway,
Speaker 3: or sometimes for a husband or the butler to make
Speaker 3: advances to carnerie in the kitchen, while the rest of
Speaker 3: the high staff was about their business, was at any
Speaker 3: different than the laundry where mister Moses got handsy with
Speaker 3: the girls, or from the factories, the farms, anywhere a
Speaker 3: girl could find gainful employment. And what choice was I
Speaker 3: given but to bear it, such as the state of
Speaker 3: the wire. It was in a Park Avenue mansion that
Speaker 3: Master Soper Or find me. He had been hired by
Speaker 3: a family in Oyster Bay to discover why he'd fallen ill,
Speaker 3: and his trail led him from heis to heis until
Speaker 3: he find me. He was not unkind, He explained the situation.
Speaker 3: It's typhoid fever. We don't know why it hasn't made
Speaker 3: you ill, but it's getting past to the families you
Speaker 3: cook for. He asked me to go with him as
Speaker 3: he tired to argue, and so he brought me to
Speaker 3: knart Brother Island for the first time, never been to
Speaker 3: a sanitarium. There was no work to do, nothing to
Speaker 3: fill all the empty hours except talk to the sick,
Speaker 3: which was nearly everyone there. At first, that was refreshing.
Speaker 3: I had worked my entire life, and here was a
Speaker 3: sort of endless holiday. In the spring, I would go
Speaker 3: and sit by the water and feel the wind cut
Speaker 3: through me. In the summer, I would even swim a little.
Speaker 3: But at night I'd see my shadow watching, and I'd
Speaker 3: wait to see if his hungry eyes would mean do
Speaker 3: you oh? Sure the sick would die. But it was
Speaker 3: whatever they brought in with him that did him in.
Speaker 3: It had nothing to do with me. He watched over
Speaker 3: all of us par and infirm. He seemed to me
Speaker 3: no harm, So I grew accustomed to my shody man.
Speaker 3: He became start of a companion with his sad, hungry eyes.
Speaker 3: I was there on the island for three years the
Speaker 3: first time. For all their prodden the doctors couldn't figure
Speaker 3: out what to make of me, and so they decided
Speaker 3: to set me loose with one terrible condition. I was
Speaker 3: never to cook again. And so there I was, a
Speaker 3: middle aged woman with no prospects. Now family left. My
Speaker 3: aunt and uncle had long since passed. I went back
Speaker 3: to the laundry. It was the samest when I had
Speaker 3: left it. For the most part. Master Moses had given
Speaker 3: way to another overseer, mister Roberts, who was younger, crueler.
Speaker 3: The girls struggled terribly under hess yoke, and hey took advantage.
Speaker 3: It's see it when a girl was cowled up to
Speaker 3: his office and didn't return for a while, to look
Speaker 3: in her eyes when she came back to the soup.
Speaker 3: And one day it was me getting called to the office. Oh,
Speaker 3: the young overseer had nigh interest in may. Of course,
Speaker 3: I was just another gray worker to him. But I
Speaker 3: sat dining in his office with its steamy windows and
Speaker 3: pearl light, and he began to ask questions of me
Speaker 3: about the girls. If the westper dings to each other
Speaker 3: to me. He wished to cut out any roamors, to
Speaker 3: rip them out by the roots, to let go into
Speaker 3: the wild world. Any girl dead would spake against them.
Speaker 3: It was day finally that I saw a truthful At first,
Speaker 3: he felt a trick of the light. I thought I'd
Speaker 3: seen my poor impoverished shot him on there, looking into
Speaker 3: the dark corner, there was something different. The darkness felt
Speaker 3: more slippery in that room. In it I saw a
Speaker 3: sort of rising slathering. The cool shot of cast by
Speaker 3: mister Robert's body revailed to me for the first time,
Speaker 3: the great behamuth of greed, his massive roots drain in
Speaker 3: the land, his great hungry mouth, yawn and open his eyes,
Speaker 3: sharp and feral. It was he who wanted mated, mister Roberts,
Speaker 3: He who had animated the Sterlings, and the Joneses, and
Speaker 3: mister Moses before the them that serpenty, none of the
Speaker 3: rich and powerful. It was not my own lesser shido poverty,
Speaker 3: with his dull sad eyes and broken grimace, He who
Speaker 3: had forced me and be strong, who made my tendencetnd
Speaker 3: I shut my neck and sculpted the ropy muscles in
Speaker 3: my arms and back. He had been an unwelcome companion,
Speaker 3: to be sure, but he was not my enemy. None
Speaker 3: are the messeries I endured that any of the girls endured,
Speaker 3: the misery that stopped my parents, and the peasants that
Speaker 3: crossed the Atlantic with me. None of it was necess
Speaker 3: sorry for the world to continue on like there was
Speaker 3: enough food in the setty to feed us all, and
Speaker 3: have heizened to shelter all of us. Why we produced
Speaker 3: enough to make all the world comfortable, but to keep
Speaker 3: the likes of the mister Moses and the brilliance and
Speaker 3: Roberts of this world to feed them by hay in
Speaker 3: the shadows, creedy on fire Day needed us, They needed
Speaker 3: our bats broken to suck tomorrow from them.
Speaker 2: I would not.
Speaker 3: I would not anymore. I stood from my chair, never
Speaker 3: taken my eyes off the hideous shadows, sucking at the
Speaker 3: edges of the light. My true enemy, and march oight
Speaker 3: of mister Robert's office marched into the street. And that
Speaker 3: very day I find myself answering an ad for a cook.
Speaker 3: I would no longer be tormented by my lot. If
Speaker 3: I couldn't improve it, I would become an avenging angel.
Speaker 3: And so I returned to the kitchen. There I find
Speaker 3: myself over dinner preparations.
Speaker 6: Far they're wealthy again, And with every meal I would
Speaker 6: cough empty my hand, and with that hat I would cook.
Speaker 3: I'd caress every roast, dag my fingers into the touch,
Speaker 3: every care and potato on the plate. If anyone in
Speaker 3: the kitchens had any objection, they did not speak it,
Speaker 3: instead watching my every move. They knew. They all knew
Speaker 3: what I was, even though they may not have the
Speaker 3: language to speak my name. And it was not their
Speaker 3: duty to stop the great work, to pull the roots
Speaker 3: of the great greedy demon that ran all of our lives,
Speaker 3: one by one, to sicken its mouth till they waste
Speaker 3: to its agents, one by one, family by family. As
Speaker 3: long as I lived with the sickness in my body,
Speaker 3: if not by lead by bread, do I wish it
Speaker 3: were otherwise? Of course? I wish I'd been able to
Speaker 3: stay back home with my ma, and if we were comfortable,
Speaker 3: and that I could live a comfortable life. I wish
Speaker 3: i'd come to a marror gun could be swept up
Speaker 3: my feet by a handsome young lad. I wish I'd
Speaker 3: been paid fairly enough to forge my own way into
Speaker 3: filthy land. Of opportunity. But this land isn't built for
Speaker 3: one such as I to succeed in. Those who have
Speaker 3: will continue to have, and their children will have more.
Speaker 3: And after they've had all, they can eat simply hard
Speaker 3: the rest of the food and dole it out in
Speaker 3: little bites to the rest of us. Make us fight
Speaker 3: over it, then use us to grind at the wheels
Speaker 3: of their industry until we are dust. I've seen their
Speaker 3: true face. I've watched its leather in the darkness, and
Speaker 3: with my hands I did what I could to destroy it.
Speaker 3: I don't regret doing what I did. What here already
Speaker 3: I could see beyond the dock to the land the
Speaker 3: Fogusto tek, Are we.
Speaker 2: At our destination?
Speaker 3: Oh? Is it having our hell?
Speaker 2: That is for you to find out alone?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Beautiful? And what if I don't go.
Speaker 2: Well, you can stay on the dock if you wish,
Speaker 2: But uh, nothing'll happen. You just wait and wait until
Speaker 2: you make the decision to continue.
Speaker 3: Sorry, I've got at least not much control of the situation.
Speaker 2: Maybe half an hour in heaven before the devil knows
Speaker 2: you're late.
Speaker 3: Ah. Oh, I don't know who will be there to
Speaker 3: hear me when I walk right, so I'll say it
Speaker 3: to you. If it's hell I'm walking into, I'll walk
Speaker 3: into it with my head held high, with my shadow
Speaker 3: Man proudly on my elbow. And woe unto them who
Speaker 3: believe that Mary Mallin will ever be under their control.
Speaker 3: Very well, fairy Man, I pray you carry a million
Speaker 3: mile like me in your time. The boar need their vengeance.
Speaker 2: She made the great voyage, like so many before her,
Speaker 2: like so many who came after, all of whom were
Speaker 2: sold the bill of fare, America, the Bountiful, the land
Speaker 2: of opportunity, where the streets are paved with gold, and
Speaker 2: where anyone can succeed. She was met with the same
Speaker 2: hard reality as anyone else, toil hunger. Though she suffered,
Speaker 2: she did not suffer alone. Instead, Yeah, she made herself
Speaker 2: the legend. And so she marches on to whatever lies
Speaker 2: I had, secure in her knowledge that she did not
Speaker 2: sacrifice herself entirely to the benemoth. I wish her well
Speaker 2: on her passage.
Speaker 5: The Passage stars Dan Fogler as the Faeryman. This episode
Speaker 5: features Teresa McLaughlin as Typhoid Mary. Written by Nicholas Tuakowski,
Speaker 5: our executive producers are Nicholas Dakoski, Matthew Frederick, and Alexander Williams.
Speaker 5: First assistant director, script supervisor and production coordinator Sarah Klein.
Speaker 5: Music by Ben Lovett, additional music by Alexander Rodriguez. Casting
Speaker 5: by Sunday Bowling, Kennedy and Meg Mormon. Editing and sound
Speaker 5: designed by Dan Bush, Dialogue editing and sound mixing by
Speaker 5: Juan Campos.
Speaker 2: Additional sound editing.
Speaker 5: By Racket Sound. Our supervising producer is Josh Thane. Created
Speaker 5: by Dan Bush and Nicholas Dakoski. Produced by Dan Bush.
Speaker 5: The Passage is a production of iHeartRadio and Cycopia Pictures.
Speaker 2: Ebitor Uh, dunk my hands in the river, sticks here
Speaker 2: and scrub him down. I'll I'll kill any kind of
Speaker 2: bacteria
Speaker 3: S