Chapter Sixty-One

Evenfall’s Final Request

Dusk settled in, and a silver moon rose low in the Midwestern sky. The wind returned to the lakefront with a vengeance. It whistled through the imperfections in the window casements. Soon the night would turn Lake Michigan into a sheet of black glass, and a thousand stars would shine upon Spider Island.

We borrowed the Baptistes’ Ford pickup and drove northeast, at Evenfall’s direction. We passed Gill’s Rock along the way, and I saw the church as well as an entrance to Dark Woods but said nothing. We followed the road along the rounded tip of the peninsula and arrived at the ferry terminal in Northport.

Our view encompassed much of Death’s Door, including Pilot Island, which was not visible from the Gill’s Rock Light. That inhospitable and barren islet was a feculent barb in the otherwise pristine waters of Lake Michigan. The silhouette of an abandoned lighthouse appeared against the backdrop of an indigo sky.

Any melody to the composition of the night was all dissonance. We looked out over the Door of Death and watched a silver moon fill the night with cold light.

“Now what?” I asked. Evenfall promised she’d help me if I assisted her with “one simple task.” It sounded too good to be true.

“My gallery is over there.” She pointed across the western edge of a field, where a small cabin sat next to the Death’s Door Gift Shop. We walked across the field, hand in hand.

The small white clapboard cottage stood upon a limestone bluff overlooking the harbor. Evenfall had a spare key hidden in one of the empty flower baskets stationed along the shop’s front side. She unlocked the door and flipped on the lights.

A large, leather-topped mahogany desk was the only piece of furniture in the small gallery. Dark cherry paneling, walnut and birch framed artwork, dim lighting. The gallery was a bit gloomy.

The art was also dark. Most prominently displayed were scenes of violence. A black-eyed raven plucked fresh meat from a still-breathing deer. It looked up at the raven with a look of pain and horror. In another painting a Menominee warrior speared the assault of waves that threatened to overturn his canoe. He had nothing more than a simple wooden paddle in his defense, but he used it like a weapon to fight back against an unkind and omnipotent storm. The only exception to the theme was a partially hidden portrait hanging in the rear of the gallery. A woman lay alone and contemplative upon a limestone bluff. She was curled into a fetal position and appeared to be on the verge of tears as she looked out over the green water.

“What do you think?” Evenfall’s looked at me expectantly.

I swept my hand in an arc across the room, indicating the many works that hung on the vertical slabs of dark wood. “Did you paint all of these?” I asked.

“My style has changed over the years,” she confided. I understood implicitly the sorrowful woman was an earlier work. The violent scenes were the new Evenfall. I rethought my adjective of choice. Not merely violent but domineering. Victimization was her previous theme. The new paintings celebrated those characters that chose to kill rather than be killed. Her style had indeed changed.

“You are a woman of many talents.”

She led me around the desk to the gallery’s back corner. One large oil on canvass occupied the back wall. The title of the work, inscribed upon a brass plate beneath the painting, read Walker of Moonlight. It was stunning.

The subject of the painting was Evenfall. She walked a moonlit path that fell cold and white upon the dark waters of a green sea. She had lighter, auburn hair in the painting, which she adorned with a garland of red roses. A belt of simple brown leather was cinched about her waist. Although her head was turned toward the viewer, she walked away, to a nearby island. She held a candle whose flame reached upwards toward the moon.

Evenfall’s self-portrait was lovely, her face revealing the sad turn of her smile. Hazel eyes were open just enough to expose a trace of loneliness. She was either being guided along some noble end beneath the white moon or led away from whatever darkness plagued the violet foreground. A mystery ...

“I need you to lead me there,” she said. I knew without asking what she meant by “there.” She was a gifted artist and furthermore knew secrets enough to produce works of magic. This was not Kesemanetow, though, nor Miskenupik.

After gaining permission I touched the painting’s lower right corner but felt neither cold nor electricity. Evenfall wanted me to transport her into the painting and then along her moonlit path. She couldn’t get there without me.

“If you do this for me I will help you release the children,” she said.

I agreed.

After all, I needed someone to create for me a Miskenupik image to help me find the hidden Pillars. Jean’s work was inspired by his connection to Center Island. He would not be able to reproduce the nefarious details of the Broken Path. Evenfall could.

I studied the painting carefully. Her earlier life as a victim was not evident. She informed me that she mixed the walnut’s poisonous juglone with various pigments. I saw the Moon Walker’s arms as two diagonal lines. The single candle flame was a sunset as seen through the cover of cloud. A fractured sunset.

What did Salome tell me? Something about how very few could find the symbol in works other than true Kesemanetow or Miskenupik. That very talent had allowed me to transport the two of us into a trap Salome set for me. Should I tread carefully here? Too late now.

Lines began to shift.

The moonlight penetrated the diaphanous linen caftan enough to reveal her lovely burgundy-colored nipples. Her gown fell to mid-thigh, exposing gooseflesh upon flawless legs. I could almost hear the wind whisper from within the painting. The water upon which she walked became more heavily textured, and the moonlight now seemed to fall upon ripples where the sea had once been smooth. Evenfall gasped as she held my hand tighter. She must have seen how I was changing her work.

The bellow of a foghorn called from somewhere within the painting, and the clean mineral scent of the Great Lakes was heavy in the air. A sweeter note followed. Honeysuckle, I wondered? No, it was rose. The soft summer perfume of rose petal wafted into the air. The crash of breaking waves became perceptible from somewhere deep within the canvas.

The exotic woman lifted her palm skyward, and her candle flickered in the night. She offered her hand, and I took it. The island toward which she walked became larger and more vibrant. A stand of white birch was visible upon its shoreline. The violet of the sky curved outward to our right and left until it enfolded us in its wings, pulling us into a goddess’s world.

Warm air rushed across my face as I was sucked into the moonlit evening. Evenfall’s hand tightened around mine once again, and she began to softly cry. I turned to face her and was not surprised to see she had become the sheer-robed, auburn-haired beauty.

“We’re here, Moon Walker,” I told her.

We stood upon the pallid and ghostly filaments cast upon the raven-black water. We were both walkers of moonlight. The alabaster orb rose high above an isolated island, and its path upon the water reached out to the petrous shore. Sudden gusts of wind lifted Evenfall’s caftan above her waist. She released my hand and danced upon the moonlight, swirling and extending her arms outward in a grand sweeping arc to take in the enormity of this magical place. The sky above us was textured ebony, and all traces of violet were gone. No stars shone down from its impenetrable depths. The moon was our only source of illumination. Evenfall’s moon.

She spun in a series of concentric circles and then slowed until she fell upon her knees. She reached her hands beyond the path and filled her cupped palms with the water of the night. She splashed her face and chest and then fell upon her back as though in a state of exhaustive ecstasy. She laughed and to my ears it sounded more maniacal than triumphant. I wanted to join her in her celebration, but she seemed quarantined in her own masturbatory giddiness.

“Do you know what island this is?” she asked.

At last an invitation into her new world.

I looked ahead to get my bearings. What I mistook for birch earlier was instead a ridge of dead trees whose barren branches clawed at the sky. The rock-strewn island, one quarter-mile ahead, was almost hidden by fog. A dilapidated lighthouse rose into the smoky air.

“Pilot Island,” I whispered more to myself than her. I walked the moonlit path to get a closer look at our destination. The lighthouse was no longer functional. It was marred by years of neglect. This was an island of decay and ruin, even in the other world. And in this world? Probably not a good place to raise a family.

“In the other world it is called Pilot Island,” I called out.

Evenfall caught up with me and together we walked the last hundred yards to the shit-covered shore.

“Yes,” she told me ecstatically, “you did what I asked of you.” She sped ahead to gain a few yards and then turned to face me, her eyes wide and nearly mad. Again she extended her arms and told me what she had named this place.

“Winnow Island,” she said and then she lost herself in a bout of crazed laughter.

“In the other world it was once known as Port Des Mortes Island, but I renamed it yet again,” she proclaimed between fits of mad tittering.

I turned back to face the way we had come and saw nothing but darkness beyond the moonlight. Winnow. I grimaced. No wonder she goes by Evenfall.

The crash of waves surrounded us, choleric and insatiable. The air was stagnant and warm close to shore and smelled of rotting vegetation. Gooseflesh crept up my arms. We were far removed from the sunlight. I could not feel the path of light. We were as far away from the Center as one could go. Nizad...

“There is no sun here, my dear Fire Walker,” Evenfall shouted triumphantly. “No path of fire, either.” She swirled into another series of concentric rings.

“There is only night on Winnow Island, and yet you managed to bring us here.” She stopped spinning and approached me. She placed my hands in hers and kissed me greedily, her lips firm against mine and her tongue sweeping. She reached her hand down below my waist and grabbed me hard. Her touch was possessive and lacked warmth.

“I will give myself to you here,” she offered, “I owe you that much.”

“Can I assume you plan to leave me here?” I asked this with an air of mock naiveté.

A great, heartfelt smile lit her face, and she squeezed me with pure delight. “Your assumption is correct, Mr. Perceptive.”

I was the sacrifice she offered to the Great Deceiver. Fucking great...

I walked with her upon the last few yards of moonlight until we reached the guano-infested shores of Winnow Island. The line of trees ahead was a ghoulish thing clothed in funerary shrouds. They sprung up out of the dead ground with a macabre imitation of life.

From this vantage the moon cast many paths upon the dark waters, each radiating outwards in various directions and passing out of vision into the great beyond.

“My tarot has now found its source of power,” she confessed to me.

“Before tonight this island had no light, no center of power. Before tonight...”

“Am I to understand I will stay trapped here as your prisoner so I can serve as your Miskenupik’s life force?” I asked.

She nodded enthusiastically. “You know what powers you possess, my dear friend.”

Anticipating my next question she interrupted me. “You cannot walk a path from here where no sunlight exists. Where there is no sunlight there is no fire.”

She had me there. I had the two Kesemanetow Isabel had returned to me, but they wouldn’t work here. Too far from the Center. They radiated no heat.

I would need Evenfall’s Moon Walker image if I were to employ that mode of exit. I didn’t think she would hand it over willingly. This island really was her center of power.

“I thought you were going to help me free the children,” I protested. I hadn’t expected a lot from Evenfall but really thought she might help with that. First my mother, then Salome, and now her. When I was a child I believed everyone held goodness somewhere in their heart. I was no longer a child but occasionally clung to childish beliefs. Grow up, asshole.

“The children.” she exclaimed with sarcasm. “I had nearly forgotten the children.”

I didn’t anticipate a heartfelt offer of assistance, nor did I receive one.

“Oh yes, the fucking children beneath the sea,” she said in a singsong voice. “I cannot free them for you, or rather, will not.”

She let her refusal hang in the air as if I hadn’t seen it coming. She was starting to irritate me, almost to the point where I wouldn’t lay with her one last time. Almost.

“I will offer you a consolation prize, though,” she said with a muted giggle. “Inside the lighthouse you will find one of the children of the bay. A little whore who inspired Isaac to persevere. I have left her for you as a little going-away present. You can rape her or beat her or do whatever you wish with her. She is of no concern to me any longer.”

I took this to mean her offer of sex was probably off the table. Just as well, for I would most likely refuse. Most likely...

“I will not free the others. Too much loss of power in the releasing of souls,” she explained to me.

I had not known this, but I had only freed Isaac so far. Evenfall was clearly blinded by her lust for power. Beyond her search for omnipotence she could see nothing else, no other way of life.

“Have you ever tried?” I asked.

“No,” she answered. She had been a victim at one time in her life. Perhaps it had changed her irrevocably.

“I can show you the True Path,” I offered. “We have need of your talent, and you will experience the power virtue can bring.”

She didn’t laugh at me, nor did she seem to consider my offer. Instead she looked out over the radiating paths of ghostly moonlight that shone like abalone upon the sable crests.

“I don’t think so,” was all she said. She didn’t bid me farewell. She was hypnotized by the luminous paths and chose one through inner musings she kept hidden from me. She walked along the deserted beach and stared at a path one hundred yards or so from where I stood.

What a bitch.