A cold rain was indeed falling outside, mining the ground with
puddles. I covered my head with a shawl against the rain and set out to
explore the area for some sign of where Father de Céligny might have
taken shelter.
My intention had not been to wander too far from the village, for after
inspecting every house I was able to ascertain that there was no human
habitation at all within its confines and it did, indeed, appear to have
been abandoned.
But my source of primary bafflement remained the lack of evidence
of any kind of struggle or bloodshed. There were no bodies, obvious
graves, no stains. As I have already written, nothing had been burned. I
inspected every house, first tentatively and then with more boldness as
I realized I was entirely alone. So the mystery remained, surely an entire
village could not have simply vanished into thin air? Or, for that matter,
migrated to some other part of this land, leaving behind their belongings,
including weapons and cooking utensils?
Slowly and carefully I took my leave of the village and began walking
towards the lake. The rain had not diminished. On the contrary, it fell in
colder and more punishing sheets, seemingly with every step I took away
from the settlement, into the forest and towards the lake.
I had been walking perhaps a half-hour and had almost reached the
rocky hills above the lake when I heard a sound that chilled me to the
very marrow of my bones. It came from behind one of the boulders in
my path, and it froze me in my tracks with a terror so primeval that it
must surely have descended from generation to generation from Adam
in the Garden of Eden, after the fall from Grace, when all wild things had
become his enemy.
A giant grey wolf had stepped into my path, its back low and arched
in a menacing posture. Its black lips were pulled back from the cruellooking yellow fangs. Again, the wolf growled low in its throat. The
murderous intent of this monster could not have been clearer.
To my horror, it was joined by another, and yet another, until there
were five of the creatures blocking my path, each more fearsome than
the last. I had seen wolves in France, shot by hunters. They had always
struck me as fearsome, but these wolves were larger and more terrifying than any European variant. And in their eyes, I could see only the muddy
hatred of the human species and a fierce hunger for human flesh.
The wolves advanced slowly, and in terrible unison, maintaining the
half-circle around me with the precision of a military phalanx formation,
driving me backwards. My eyes never left theirs, nor theirs mine, as they
slowly forced me away from the caves.
Praying under my breath, I remembered what I had been told in
Trois-Rivières about this exact danger, and the importance of neither
showing fear, nor running quickly, lest those actions provoke an attack
from the marauding animal in question.
The first wolf lowered its head even farther and from its throat
again came a snarl of the purest menace. It moved aggressively forward.
I looked around me for a stick that I might use as a weapon, but found
none.
Even if I had, while a stick might have been of some use against one
of these animals, there were five of them in total and any attempt to
charge one of their number would have doubtless provoked an attack by
the others in the pack.
I backed away slowly, my eyes on theirs, and theirs on mine.
Edging myself onto the trail, I realized that the wolves were “herding”
me back onto the path, the path that would obviously take me back to the
village, or at the very least, to open ground. They kept advancing forward
with every step backwards I took.
I stumbled towards the village, walking tortuously backward, my eyes
on my pursuers. I flailed behind me with my arms, trying to anticipate
the sharp branches behind me before they jabbed into my neck and back.
When I failed, I tried to stifle my groans of pain.
They followed me at a hunting distance, but did not attack. In the
one instance where I stopped, however, to get my bearings, they began
to growl again. One darted forward and made a feinting snap at my hand.
I cried out and jumped back, and when I again began to move, the wolf
kept its distance.
Step by torturous step, always looking back over my shoulder,
or walking backwards and glancing behind me to stay on the trail,
occasionally stumbling painfully while the wolves moved like shadows
and smoke among the boulders and low-growing trees and foliage as they
stalked and herded me, I inched closer to what I hoped was the safety of
the confines of St. Barthélemy. My terror was such that it felt as though
it was hours before I saw the village, but obviously it could only have
been a fraction of that time.
And still, they did not attack, though they had every opportunity
to tear me limb from limb. They did not break their deadly silence, nor
was there any lessening in the obvious malignity of their intentions, and
yet it was as though they were somehow tethered and held back by some
entity I could not see. I doubted that whatever providential force held
them at bay was Heavenly—if it had been, the force would have sent
them back to whatever sylvan hell they sprang from instead of allowing
them to stalk me like wounded animal prey.
And then, finally yielding to my panic, I turned and broke into a run.
In the minutes during which I ran, I had every expectation of feeling
the foul weight of their heavy bodies hurling me to the ground, and their
foetid, hot breath on my exposed skin, and the death-bite agony of their
teeth on my throat. But I felt nothing of the kind, and made my way to
safety inside Father de Céligny’s house without once turning my head.
Upon entering, I looked out the window to see if the fiends had
returned to their wilderness. My heart sank when I saw that they had
not. Instead, they sat, poised like living gargoyles in a semi-circle in front
of the entrance. As I watched, they cocked their heads as though listening
to some master’s whistle, or to some command only they could hear. The
entire tableau resembled a grisly sixteenth-century German woodcut
depicting the fell horrors of werewolfery in some dark, forgotten forest.
As the day progressed, the beasts sat, or lay with their paws crossed
in front of them. They must have known that I was vulnerable, and
doubtless they could smell my terror as I knelt to pray, and yet they did
not charge the entrance.
At one point in the late afternoon, I reached out with my hand to
touch the door. As my fingers brushed it, a commotion erupted on the
other side. A cacophony of howling and snarling greeted me.
Although I knew it was impossible, still it was as though the wolves
had somehow known that I had touched the door from the inside, and
that I might possibly be contemplating egress from the safety of the
house. The fury in their bestial voices left no doubt whatsoever in my
mind of the fate that would be mine if I dared step over the threshold.
I stepped backward towards the opposite wall and immediately they
ceased their furor, again almost as though they knew my movements
without seeing them. I realized that this must be more of the same
deviltry that had plagued me since I left Trois-Rivières and it came to me
then and there that I would very likely not survive that night. It came to
me also that Father de Céligny had fallen to the same forces. If I had not
dreamed his appearance by my bedside the previous night, whatever I
saw could only have been his shade. I mourned Father de Céligny in that
moment, and knelt to pray, for I didn’t doubt that I would soon join him
on the other side.
When I roused myself from my prayer, I looked out the window and saw
that the sun had nearly set and the shadows were lengthening across the
abandoned village. The wolves were no longer sitting or lying by the door.
They paced nervously, sniffing the air as though they could smell the sun
setting and the entrance of night.
As it grew darker, the wolves become more and more agitated. Two
of them began to bark sharply and to whine nervously. Faster and faster
the night came, more and more the wolves fretted and paced in circles.
And then, in unison, they threw back their heads and began to howl. The
plaintive sound, which I had heard before only in the distance, carried
with it a quality of reverence, an aspect that was even somehow prayerful.
For several long minutes the wolves lamented. Then, to my
amazement, they turned tail and ran, abandoning their guard posts in
front of my door for the path that led back to the lake.
I stepped over the threshold in wonderment at what had just
occurred. I looked left and right, but there was no trace of them anywhere.
Above the rise of the distant cliffs, a gibbous moon had begun its
ascent, not full, but bright enough to illuminate, however dully, the
deserted village and the surrounding forests, which I could hear coming
alive. In the distance, the chorus of the wolves came again, this time
louder, as though more of them had gathered to celebrate the awakening
of the night.
Of a sudden, I imagined
I saw movement among the huts—shadows
flitting and darting. I rubbed my eyes, because the shadows were moving
with inhuman, even preternatural, speed. They moved upright, and were
human in shape, of medium height, and thin, or so they seemed—they
vanished as quickly as the appeared, almost as if they were taunting me,
for as soon as I was able to focus my eyes upon them they were gone.
I closed my eyes and said a prayer for my safety in the face of this wickedness and for strength to drive whatever evil had destroyed the
village back to the Hell from whence it sprang. And I prayed for courage,
for I fear I had none at that moment. I thought of the brave martyrs who
had gone to their deaths praying for the souls of the Savages who were
cutting their bodies and forcing them to eat their own flesh. If I was to
meet my own death at more unearthly, numinous hands, I would strive
to die with as much courage as they had shown, and with as blithe and
open a heart.
“Come, demons!” I shouted, brandishing my crucifix aloft. “Do your
worst! I have no fear of you, for the power of Christ makes my arm a
hammer! You are powerless against His holy name, which commands you
to be gone from this place!”
I swept the cross in front of me like a scythe. I imagined I felt the
shadows leaping back in its advance, but again that could have been in
my mind, for what I had seen before I did not see now—the blackness
had become impenetrable.
And then, out of that same blackness, came the sound of slow and
measured footsteps. My heart leaped in my chest, for the cadence of those
footsteps was human. I squinted to see. Again, that flicker of firelike
crimson in the gloom, but it vanished as quickly as it had appeared. As I
stared, a figure materialized from the shadows. It was a man wearing a
black cassock tied with a cincture. And—O! The joy! I saw that his head
was crowned with the flat black hat of our Jesuit priests.
I called out, “Father de Céligny, is that you?” The figure stood
motionless in the shadows, not speaking. I called out again, “Father,
show yourself. It is I, Father Nyon. You are safe, I mean you no harm!”
They were odd phrases to have come to me, for why would Father de
Céligny ever have reason to fear me? And yet the figure held back with
an aspect that I can only describe as fearful. Again, I called out softly,
“Father?”
And then, he stepped towards me, and I saw that it was indeed
the white-haired man I had seen the previous night, not a dream, not
a revenant, but real as I was, made of flesh and blood. The joy I felt at
that moment was the first joy I had felt in many, many months and the
loneliness I felt in that desolate place left me at once. Finally, I thought,
whatever fate I was to meet in that Land, I would not have to face it alone.
And perhaps we would indeed escape together, Father de Céligny and I!
Where yesterday there had been no possible hope for the future, there was now at the very least a glimmer of it.
In his face I saw the aristocratic lineage to which Father de Varennes
had alluded in Trois-Rivières. It was the face of a descendant of nobility,
the face of a refined man who belonged in the library of a fine country
chateau, or presiding over Mass in one of the grand cathedrals of Europe.
It was the face of a grand seigneur from an oil portrait of ancient riches.
The nose was high-bridged and aquiline, the lips thin and red. His face
held the pallor of long illness, and yet it was the face of a virile and healthy
man. I opened my arms to embrace him with all the joy in my heart, but
his voice stopped me where I stood.
“Father Nyon,” he said. “Come no closer. There is no time to spare!
We must quickly seek shelter. There is prodigious danger abroad tonight;
we are not safe here in this village. Follow me.”
With that, he began walking away towards the Jesuit house,
beckoning me to follow him without turning back. I did follow him,
struggling to keep up with him, for his own progress through the village
was swift and sure, though the darkness was, to me, impenetrable.
As I think of it now, though I know Your Reverence will doubtless
believe the fever guides my pen, he moved like smoke along the ground,
appearing even to float. Which is to say, in one instant be appeared
to be directly in front of me, then in another he was to the left of the
path, then again, to the right of the path. I recalled the movements of
the apparitions I had beheld earlier, flickering like wraiths throughout
the village, but vanishing when my eyes strained to follow them. While
Father de Céligny was plainly visible, the trajectory of his movements
seemed likewise variable.
He stopped at the entrance to the Jesuit house and turned slowly
towards me. Again, I was assailed by a sense of being on the edge of a
precipice and looking abruptly down, for the tableau itself, Father de
Céligny, the house, even the moonlight, seemed to sway before my eyes. I
reached out by instinct to right myself, but my hands found no purchase
and I stumbled and fell. He made no move to help me.