STEPHEN MICHELL
I was married in the summer after I completed my Master’s degree, six months after the Great Merge, as the newspapers had decided to call it. Our wedding day was hot. It was held outside at the university – as was Lily’s girlhood dream – in the old quad among the locust trees that formed a canopy like a cathedral framed by the high grey stone, the gargoyles gazing down at us as we spoke our vows. I don’t know how much it cost – Lily had said, “I want to have it at the university, and my parents are going to help,” – and that was enough for me to know. My parents offered to help as well, but as far as I could tell the whole thing was much more than covered. There was seating for a hundred people, and a large gazebo, and a string quartet. I thought it all to be a bit cliché, a little girl’s pristine fantasy finally come to life. But it was exactly as Lily wanted, and she was radiantly happy. I was sweating in my suit, even in the shade of the trees. It was hot. My father was in the front row, also sweating, heavy drops beading down his brow. But he nodded firmly and winked, a gesture that told me to hold my course. I braved the heat. I loved Lily, and after we both said, “I do,” I stopped sweating, realizing that it had been my nerves and not the heat, which had been running my pores. And then the sun passed over the stone walls and the evening was much cooler, and there was chilled champagne and a band and dancing. Lily and I danced together. She looked up at me, and I looked back at her, and nothing else mattered then.
None of us were thinking at all about the Great Merge. It is surprising how even the most unbelievably astounding things can become “old news” given the right amount of time and media attention. It was common to hear students around campus sigh at the mention of the Great Merge, in a similar fashion as though someone were humming an overplayed song from the radio. Nevertheless, a few heads did turn with surprise when the first satyr crept into the shaded quad and joined the wedding party.
My mother cried outright, as did a few others, and my father stood stalk still, utterly baffled. Lily’s parents were mortified, I’m sure, but they looked to Lily, and when, after a moment’s bewilderment, she smiled, everyone seemed to relax and take the satyr’s presence in stride. Still, our parents, aunts and uncles – Lily’s little grandmother Marcy – were unnerved, to say the least. The older generations have had more difficulty understanding the whole situation. But who can blame them, really?
Before long, there were six satyrs among us. They are odd little creatures, pleasant and polite, always bowing and averting their eyes, but also sniffing and roaming in the manner of cattle. The first of them crept forward slowly, bowing and exalting us with raised arms, and keeping a fair distance. It was all too much, almost embarrassing, being treated, as we were by the satyrs, as gods, but there was little we could do to desist them. As they became more comfortable, a confident swagger emerged. They started to wink at the bridesmaids (and at Lily’s dog Casper), and their appetite was ravenous. They seemed like young bachelor party frat-boys – classic wedding crashers. But they were charming. They knew how to smile, and their entreaties seemed so genuine that it was not long before Lily went and offered them all glasses of champagne. It was now a proper wedding.
The satyrs laughed a great deal, which is a startling sight, but extremely heartwarming to hear, and, of course, they loved dancing and they drank plenty champagne. Near the end of the night most of them had retired to the darker corners of the quad and proceeded to “pet” one another. Lily had gasped and said, “Don’t look, Evan,” and she laughed. “Oh, my God, that’s hilarious.” Yes, it really was. I put my arm around Lily’s waist and softly breathed, “Oh, my,” into her ear. She laughed and pushed me away. And that was our wedding. That was the reality of the Great Merge, the early reality. A year and two months later, Lily and I were a regular married couple, and the whole world was talking about the Shrines.
We cleaned up together after dinner. I washed the dishes and Lily dried them, leaving the cutlery in the rack. Then we made iced coffee and sat in the backyard and Lily did the morning’s crossword.
Our home was a grand lot, owned by Lily’s parents, but purchased, Lily always reminded me, for us. We lived outside Midland, Ontario, a forty-minute car ride to the town, to the old drive-in theatre (actually it had shut down), and the grocery store. The area was quiet and green, with a dozen trees for every person, and the air was fresh and restorative. Unlike Toronto, where all was grey and the feeling of stagnation and collapse was pervasive, the country gave me hope. To be immersed in greenery, the ever-constant noise of birds and frogs, the occasional howl, the complete stillness of morning, and the reverence of nature at midnight that dawns almost silent, was rejuvenating, to say the least. Lily had procured, after months of hopeful anticipation, a teaching position at Huron Park Public School in Midland, grades three and four. She loved it, though the work was tiring, and emotionally draining, and she was usually in need of a glass of wine after four o’clock, then another as she plunged into piles of adorably incorrect spelling tests. I was continuing my studies at the university, working ever toward my Ph.D, but most of my research could be done at home through online journals. I seldom went down to campus unless my supervisor requested it. Sometimes we Skyped.
The university had become a rather frantic environment. Many departments, but especially Mythology – and the related History and Literature – had gained a new prominence ever since the Great Merge. I was researching a joint thesis in Mythology and Classical Sociology. My supervisor, Professor Alec Galbran, was the talk of the campus. Wrinkled, squat and round, he fit the cast flawlessly for a lunatic academic. He believed all of it. If the creatures of mythology have come through into our world, then the gods must have as well. He would rake his hair back and take off his glasses, then put them back on. And with the global emergence of the Shrines – the Shrines! He was getting either closer to losing his mind completely or possibly finding it.
On the occasions that I visited campus, there was often much laughter in the grad house of Professor Galbran, and then much furrowing of the brows and nodding if he walked through the door. None of us could ever admit (it was just too absurd), but we all hoped he was right. And we wanted to be there with him when he proved it.
But it was all a grand confusion. The world’s initial question had been how? How in all the realms of possibility had an ecosystem of creatures, previously believed to only exist in myth, suddenly emerged in the wild? More recently, especially at the university, the question had become why, stirring up speculation of a mystical nature, giving rise to a new investment in an Astrology department, and garnering the ceaseless attention of the media. The campus was a sea of cameras and amateur reporters wanting the inside scoop to post on their blogs. It was chaos, to try and wonder why.
The evening was hot in the backyard. Every evening seemed to be getting hotter, even as leaves fell and winter approached. But that was old news. Lily and I drank our iced coffee and relaxed. Lily yawned from behind her crossword. Her students were always most unruly on Friday, sensing the lawlessness of the weekend, I suppose. She was tired from it. I looked at her, hoping she might turn to me so we could communicate, as we often did, without words, easily with only subtle intimations of our eyes. But she was caught in some clue. I looked up at the sky. It had become a bit of a constant habit, for me and for many people. Supposedly, it was now possible, though improbable, to look up into the night sky and see a winged stallion fly overhead, or as the headlines called it: Pegasus. They said the stallions only flew at night, but some high-minded thinkers posited the animals might possess a unique ability to camouflage under sunlight. Either way, I had never seen one.
Lily claimed to have seen what she believed was one, several months previous while up north around Lake Superior with her girlfriends. They had seen something fly over their fire at night. Or rather, as Lily claimed, it had galloped over them. I had seen only the television coverage. It was laughable, really, but if Lily could believe it then I guess I could too. Enough, at least, to wonder.
She had believed it all right from the start. I suppose I loved that about her, as much as it made me doubt her sanity. That willingness in her to accept. She called me right after the news story aired – the footage that stopped the world. A winged stallion, huge, marble white, had landed on a highway in Germany. I remember watching the CBC, gathered close in the Media Commons room at the library, crowded shoulder to shoulder, all of us staring at the television screen, watching what looked like the mythological Pegasus trotting along a backed-up expressway. Then, causing a stir of shrieks and shouts, the stallion vaulted into the air and flew. I rushed out of there, needing air, dizzy. My cell phone was ringing. That was the real start of it.
The rest just happened one day, or at least that’s how it felt. I was focused on completing my Master’s, and hardly noticed the sudden proliferation of wild animals, goats and deer and wolves, even eagles, that were being spotted in towns and cities all over the world. They say it was the precursor to the emergence of creatures – satyrs, nymphs, harpies, and the more elusive ones, like gorgons and centaurs. I remember studying late one night at the library and a friend of mine called me to her computer to show me a YouTube video uploaded from Hong Kong. It was a poorly shot, handy-cam recording of a dark underground tunnel. The person holding the camera kept looking down and recording their feet, which was irritating. But they were waiting to see something. And halfway through they stopped and stood still, and then a great bulky shape ran through the shot. It looked like a huge, half-naked man. But it had horns. The video was called The Minotaur is REAL!!!!! They said it lived under the shrine in Hong Kong. I watched the video again a dozen or so times and I had trouble sleeping for about a week.
It was the Shrines that were starting to bother me. The feeling was ominous, terrifying yet astounding, certainly otherworldly. I kept wondering what the hell they were. So I did some research.
The first Shrine appeared in Canada, in northern Alberta near Fort McMurray. The second was spotted off the coast of Brazil in the South Atlantic Ocean. Then in China, in downtown Hong Kong, and a final Shrine was discovered in Siberia. Each one was different, but all were colossal, mystifying, and ultimately humbling, leading some people to believe that the pyramids in Egypt and in Middle America were also Shrines, built long ago. Professor Galbran contested the validity of that claim. The main problem, he argued, was that Shrines were not built. They arose. Alberta had a Shrine within a day, with great force and violence to the wilderness; Hong Kong’s Shrine tore apart the streets and buildings of the downtown core, using the very material in which they were situated; the Siberian Shrine is one thousand feet tall, an edifice of ice and snow and rock; the South Atlantic Shrine is a constant vortex of water, raised up into a flowing funnel atop the surface of the ocean. Early researchers attempted to enter the vortex but their vessel was obliterated. The human race was humbled. It was irrefutable that something far greater than our science, our art, our mind, truly existed.
Lily yawned again and put down the paper. The evening was getting on, but we still had about an hour before sunset. I was not tired. The coffee had roused me.
“Let’s go for a walk,” I said.
She rolled her head to look at me. “If you like.”
Our house was not far from a small nameless lake with a path along its bank leading up through the hills to the forest. I often woke earlier and went for a run around the lake. The water was shaded and mostly covered in algae, but sometimes after a good wind there were spots that we could swim. The track of land was public, and the pathways through the forest was open, a fine area for people to take their dogs.
Lily and I put on pants and long-sleeved shirts to fend against the mosquitoes, and then walked down the road to the lake. We had recently purchased proper running and hiking shoes. I wore mine in the morning when I jogged, but Lily seldom wore hers. We were being quiet, so I asked her how they fit.
“They’re nice,” she said.
I looked at my feet. “I should get my dad a pair,” I said.
“He would like that,” Lily said. “I keep telling you to invite your parents up here.”
“It’s a far drive.”
“They haven’t been here once.”
“I know, it’s a far drive.”
We had walked around the lake and were starting up the hill to the forest. Lily had become quiet. She was tired. I began to regret going for a walk. The coffee had roused me, made me restless, but I should have just done some push-ups and gone to bed. Instead, I was out in the darkening forest with my wife and she was upset. I knew when Lily was upset. I looked again at my feet in the running shoes. Lily had been right; my parents had yet to come see our home. But with all that was happening in the world, it was becoming difficult to see the purpose in such things. What did my parents’ visiting matter?
Lily stopped and looked at me, she was almost teary-eyed. I knew we were thinking much the same thoughts. I took her hand, no words, Lily said it all in a look, and I knew she was right. It was most important, in these days, to find the purpose in things, the indelible import of meanings, as small as each might be. For without the tiny significances of moments, we would have nothing. I held Lily’s hand as we started walking again. Then I casually glanced back. That’s when I saw the first of them.
“There’s a wolf behind us,” I said, matter-of-factly.
Lily stopped and turned. The wolf was down along the bend of the lake, standing squarely in the path, staring up at us. It was a large wolf. Then we saw another. It came slowly from the brush, down the embankment into the path. It was smaller, not a cub, but thinner than the big one. They both looked up at us.
“Let’s keep walking,” I said.
We went up the hill. I kept an eye over my shoulder. The two wolves had not advanced after us, which was relieving, to say the least. I was unsure about what to do. The wolves were blocking our route home, and I had little desire to try to insist that they move. The best idea, I figured, was to go up through the forest, loop back, and come down again, leaving the wolves alone as best we could. My little idea probably would have worked had Lily not looked back once more.
“Oh, my God, Evan,” she said, gripping my arm. “Look!”
I turned. I will always love Lily for her curiosity and her unorthodox acceptance of what other, more self-possessed people might readily discount in an otherwise unbelievable situation. And also because she made me turn around that evening. There was a white doe poised at the bottom of the hill, facing us. Its ears were turned up showing their pink interior, and its coat shimmered marble-white in the last of the evening sun. We looked silently, astonished by the brilliance of its coat, for it truly shimmered, much more than scant light through the tree line would have allowed. The white doe shone almost blue, itself the source of the light. I was astounded. Lily still gripped my arm.
All this time I had entirely forgotten about the wolves. They gained my attention again when the doe suddenly jerked its head, and I saw that there were more of them, three more, coming down out of the hills and along the path.
The white doe remained absolutely still, its eyes turned to the wolves drawing closer. It seemed obvious to me then that the wolves had been tracking the doe. The first two I had seen must have gone ahead to wait at the lake. I wondered how long the white doe had been fleeing. Yet it seemed completely at rest, not at all fatigued or frightened. The wolves drew ever closer.
“Oh, my God,” Lily said, her only phrase when dumbfounded, and I knew she was reaching the same conclusion about the wolves and the doe as I, only she was certainly taking it further. She saw that the wolves were going to kill the doe.
Then the wolves started. It was all quite instantaneous, really. I had only one thought – to get Lily out of the way. I grabbed her and rushed down into the brush. The white doe sprang up the hill and past us, a blue trail of light following in its silent wake. Then the wolves came over, all five running at once in a close team. I held Lily close in my arms under the brush. The moment was all of a single heartbeat, sheer terror as I held my wife and listened to the wild patter of the wolves. There was, amidst all of it, another sound.
A voice.
Sister, what’s wrong? All day you have run from me.
Then the noise diminished over the hill amongst the trees. Lily sat up. We got to our feet and dusted our clothes. We looked along the path with the intent perhaps of discovering lasting evidence of the doe and the wolves. We found evidence in the tracks, light hoofprints and ragged paw marks, all together in the dirt. Without words, and this will always attest to the integrity of our bond, Lily and I started following the tracks. They lead down the hill to a short plateau and then up again. There was a curved ridge, a hill spotted with young saplings, and then another slope down to a glade. We saw the blood first.
The wolves were dead. All save for one. The larger one, the first we had seen, was still alive. It stood among the bodies of the others, upon the rocks and grass in the glade, and the ground was dark with blood. We stopped on the slope and looked. A glittering light illuminated the glade, emanating undeniably from the white doe. She stood just beyond the body of wolves at the base of another small hill. The surviving wolf looked up at her. There was blood upon its fur, and dark stains across its snout.
“It killed the others,” Lily whispered. “Why would it do that?”
I said nothing. As I watched, a second light flooded the glade, casting out from the body of the wolf, and as the light spread over the rocks and grass to the trees that lined the area, we heard a rising sound. It was similar in sense and steadiness to a song, and we listened. The glade hummed with it, a low chanting howl with a constant harmonic cadence. It appeared, from all I could gather then, that the lone wolf was singing, either in exhilaration from the kill, or in some sort of supplication to the white doe.
And then there was a voice again.
That is it then. They have died. For you I have tasted their blood. For you I have made the hunt upon the hunters. Is that better? Do you still hate me, Sister?
Lily gripped my arm with both hands. My legs trembled, but I stood straight for the both of us. The white doe looked down at the lone wolf, its ears turned up as before. Then it quickly jerked its view in our direction. The lone wolf slowly turned, sniffing the bodies below, until it stood as when we had first seen it, large, staring direct and cold at us.
Is it not enough, Sister? Do you desire more, before your anger is at rest?
The wolf tilted its head, as if inquisitively, still with its eyes on us. I could feel Lily shaking. Some part of me thought to look for a stick or a rock. I put my hand on Lily’s stomach and pushed her a step back. I thought to tell her to run. If the wolf attacked, I’d tell her to run, and I would try to get in its way. I kept my hand on her stomach, holding, and waited.
And then we heard a different voice.
No, Brother, the hunt is ended. Continue your song. Your song is what I love.
I released my breath, relief flooding me, but neither of us moved, save for my hand clamping onto Lily’s hip and her squeezing my arm. We said nothing. The doe and the wolf remained in the glade, their light radiating in waves, a steady rhythm in sync, I concluded later, with their respective pulse. At the time I was perhaps caught in a mixed sensation of fear, shock and amazement. I don’t recall exactly the path of my thoughts or decisions and, least of all, my actions. Lily described it later that I had a smile on my face. That I was holding her hip very tight, and my smile was devious and delighted. I remember none of that, only the vital realization, or rather impulsive conclusion, that these animals were gods.
And then I remember, though I hardly believe it of myself, I called out, “Who are you?”
The white doe looked straight at me. But it was not a deer looking at a man. The eyes I saw, and the impression I felt of being seen, of being wholly considered, was all much more invasive and intimate than any animal could instill. It was the gaze of a mind registering a voice, a question even, and regarding the speaker with interest. I waited patiently for an answer I was sure would come. Lily said my smile perked in that moment.
Then the doe’s voice sounded across the glade, louder than before.
I am The Artemis. He is my brother. He is The Apollo.
The wolf looked at us, then moved coolly out from the rocks and the bodies of the other wolves, and went up the small hill to stand with the doe. Together, they regarded us.
I said, “What are you doing here?”
The voice of the doe sounded: We are here always.
“But why now? Why do you show yourselves now?”
Show ourselves? The doe’s voice carried. We show nothing. Only what we have always been.
“But why have you come into our world?”
The doe lowered its head and appeared to sniff the grass. Beside her, the wolf stuck out its snout. A harder voice said: You mistake yourself, mortal. It is your world that has entered ours.
Lily was gripping my arm.
“I don’t understand,” I called.
Come, Sister, said the voice of the wolf. The sun is down, I will sing to you.
“Wait, please!” I called, desperately. “You have to explain!”
The doe stopped and raised her head and looked at me. Her eyes were round and black. Her voice came gently. Dying worlds will often seek refuge and rebirth within another.
“Dying worlds?” I repeated, muttered to myself, more like.
We will try to help, said the doe. Soon. Very soon.
“Come, Sister,” and the wolf whipped around.
I called out to them again, but already they had turned and their light was fading from the glade. The forest darkened. The sun had been down for some time, and the air turned sharply cold. The white doe and the wolf had gone over the small hill and away. Lily and I were left alone in the dark. We said nothing. I don’t remember the walk back to the house.
Inside, I went immediately to my office and sent an e-mail to Professor Galbran, explaining everything as best I could recall. It took a while, typing and retyping. My hands were shaking. Lily had gone into our bedroom.
I went to the kitchen and took the bottle of whiskey from the cupboard. I poured a small glass. Lily came out of the bedroom after a while.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She looked at me with a heavy, disconcerting look, but was not upset. She was frightened. I poured a second glass of whiskey and held it out to her. She sipped it, and winced. We sat down in the living room together on the couch and slowly drank the whiskey and fell asleep.
In the morning I woke on the living room floor in the sunlight coming through the windows. Lily had gone into our bedroom. I stood up slowly. I could see the green of the forest from across the yard. The whole incident possessed the weight of a dream. After I washed the sleep from my face, I made a pot of coffee. Lily came into the kitchen wearing her yellow morning gown.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Fine, Evan,” but she stood in the kitchen listlessly, staring at me.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t know what to do either. Come here,” and I put out my arm.
“No,” she said, with a rolling of her shoulders that I knew and understood.
I hated when she wouldn’t let me hold her. In those moments she was never upset, but rather figuring something out in her own private way. I knew that eventually, in her own time, she would let me in. But I just wanted to hold her, to comfort her, and comfort myself. All I truly had, if I had anything to keep me, was holding Lily.
I poured two cups of coffee and we drank them slowly at the kitchen table. Later, Lily went into the living room and I went to my office to check my e-mail. Professor Galbran had replied.
Evan, I know. Congratulations! It’s finally happening. Go turn on your television.
Alec.
I started from my desk, but Lily was already calling me.
“Evan! Evan, get in here!”
I hurried into the living room. Lily had the television turned to the CBC news. They were playing clip after clip of aerial footage of the Shrines across the world, Alberta, Brazil, China, Siberia, each one—
“They’re opening,” Lily said, and gripped my arm. “The
Shrines – My god – They’re opening!”
I said nothing. There was nothing one could say at that moment. I opened my arms and let Lily find her place against me and I held her. On the television we watched what could be described only as the end of the world.
But that was wrong. It was the beginning.