Last Chants

by Lia Matera

  “Maybe something has. But not this guy. I’ve seen him.”

  “Listen to the phrasing,” Arthur insisted. “We must speak to him.”

  “Please, Arthur—no!”

  He wrenched his hand free, shooting a beam of light through the trees.

  Immediately, the piping stopped. I thought I’d been frightened last night. Tonight took the trophy.

  I heard twigs snapping, duff crunching. I heard footsteps too swift to be anything but a person running.

  Arthur pointed the beam in their direction.

  Oh please, let it be Edward, I prayed. Please oh please oh please.

  I was drenched with sweat, heartbeats hammering my eardrums.

  Even Surgelato. Let it be Surgelato. I’d take prison over massacre by a naked demigod.

  A figure came into view: broad, muscular, unbelievably hairy, totally nude, carrying only panpipes and a leafy tree limb.

  Arthur had gotten his wish. Except for one detail: “Pan” had human legs.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Arthur’s light froze on the legs. They were as thick as pine trunks, carpeted in curly fur that glowed red in the light. Though they assured me he was human, his legs told me nothing about his mood or intentions.

  I grabbed Arthur’s arm, jerking it upward.

  In the instant before the light hit his face, I absorbed an impression of a very short man with a barrel chest and a lot of muscle.

  His face was framed with matted brown hair, mostly shoulder length. He was dirt-streaked and ugly, with an overhanging forehead, a nose that had obviously been broken many times, and a reddish beard with bits of leaf caught in it.

  But he didn’t look murderous. He didn’t look angry.

  I kept the light on his face. I held my breath listening to him; listening for his first hint of movement or aggression.

  He simply stood there, brows relaxed over his bent, flattened nose. His lips parted but he didn’t speak.

  He held a huge leafy branch as tall as he was, braced on the ground like a staff. His other arm, massive with undefined muscle, hung limp at his side, panpipes dangling.

  “Who are you?” Arthur’s voice was surprisingly commanding. He sounded like a much younger, stronger man. Or maybe I just hoped so.

  I expected the man to grunt, he looked so primitive. Naked, hairy, filthy, he looked almost Neanderthal. But the noise he made was not primitive. In fact, he had a British accent.

  He answered, “I am Pan.”

  I almost got the giggles. He certainly wasn’t carrying any ID.

  I let go of Arthur’s arm. The beam of light dropped again to the man’s legs. But Arthur brought it back to his face.

  “Pan?” Arthur repeated. His tone said he’d need to see goat legs before believing it.

  “Pan.”

  “You”—Arthur sounded bewildered—“you play very beautifully, sir; very beautifully, indeed.”

  Pan nodded. He cast a glance at his pipes. “Shall I tell you what they wrote about me?” His accent was clearly British, but not English, maybe Irish. I didn’t know my accents well enough to guess. But it was toney, for sure. Educated, precise, well-modulated.

  “What they wrote?” Arthur’s voice sounded calm, which calmed me, too. “About Pan?”

  “Yes.” Pan nodded his head. His neck was as thick as some men’s legs. “I repeat it but rarely. Very. Very. Rarely.”

  I’d have tried to find an excuse—train to catch, car to wash—anything to leave now. But I was no anthropologist. To me, naked strangers meant trouble.

  Arthur answered quickly, perhaps to forestall me. “Why, yes. We’d be honored.”

  A scream gurgled up my throat as Pan stepped toward us, his gait distinctly King of Siam. But the smell of him, as ripe as a musk ox, seemed to kill my vocal chords.

  Arthur moved aside, shining his light on the stump. “Please take our seat,” he said.

  Pan nodded regally. Seeing him up close—a short, ugly man with no sign of hostility in his movements or gestures—I began to relax.

  When Arthur sat cross-legged on the ground, I joined him, feeling a bit like a kid in a fairy tale: We’d found a troll, and he’d promised us a fable.

  “We’d be very pleased to hear your story,” Arthur reiterated.

  I just wished he were upwind from us. I guess my reluctance was apparent to Arthur.

  He nudged me.

  I wasn’t quite sure about this. If Pan went berserk, he looked strong enough to knock over a tree. But the light on his face showed a very tranquil demigod.

  “Wouldn’t we be very pleased, Willa?”

  Arthur nudged me again. Maybe he thought it best to humor Pan. Maybe the anthropologist in him was curious. Maybe he thought Pan could tell us something about Billy Seawuit.

  “Yes,” I said, tepidly.

  “You’ll tell us how you came to be in this place?” Arthur suggested. “What you’ve observed here?”

  “I would tell no one the truth, no one my very own story, because there is no one left in heaven or on earth entitled to hear it. But I will tell you what they wrote about me. I will relate to you verbatim the best account by a man.”

  “Ah,” said Arthur, “we’re to hear a recitation, then?”

  “And perhaps afterward, I’ll play for you,” Pan promised.

  The weak light from Arthur’s penlight lit Pan’s face like the glow from a dying campfire. I felt like a kid at camp about to hear spooky stories from a counselor. An unclothed, delusional counselor.

  But Pan’s voice was a soothing baritone, and it’s somehow easier to trust a British accent.

  He began sonorously: “The man ran naked down the tangled slope.” He sounded like a poet reading Joyce. “His hirsute form broke a path in the tall, wildflower-dappled grass. He ran swiftly, chest heaving, brown hair whipped free of its natural curl, slanting eyes half-closed.”

  Pan’s voice grew hushed, he leaned forward, picking up momentum. “His lips curled in wicked anticipation.

  “Stationary the man might have seemed ordinary, even ugly. He was too broad for his height and tanned to swarthiness. His sunburnt skin stretched taut along the planes of his wide cheeks, and his nose was large and bent, perhaps by well-deserved blows. The hair on his body and even on his arms and back was too thick, a wiry weave of golden and russet that softened his powerful chest and flanks to wooliness.

  “But in motion,” Pan continued, “the man rippled like a cheetah, sprang like an ibex over the land.”

  He paused for effect.

  “The land: clearings of wild radish and grasses blowing to seed, mixed forest of live oak and fir and madrone in flower, cool pine summits, fairy rings of redwoods tall in their bark like dowagers in mink, and here and there, tucked in creaking groves and sunny clearings on the slopes, a few rough houses, built without government sanction by men who did not care to be governed.”

  I heard Arthur’s, “Ah.”

  “And from the occasional peak,” Pan’s voice swelled, “from the rare clearing, there, away to the west, catching the sheen of afternoon sky like silver lamè, the Pacific Ocean.

  “The man stopped, tensed to stillness. He sensed that the woman was near, and he inhaled slowly. Among the meadow smells—beaten grass warming in the sun, the faint perfume of nearby manzanita blossoms, of distant pines and salt sea—among the meadow smells there lingered a sense of her, not precisely her scent, but the merest inkling. The man’s shoulders drooped, and he lifted a short-fingered hand to his eyes.”

  Mimicking the man of the story, Pan lifted his (indeed short-fingered) hand to his eyes. He kept it there for a few more sentences:

  “Behind the hand, thick straight brows knotted and drew close together. His mind’s eye saw another meadow, far away, shimmering under a turquoise sky. At the meadow’s foot there rustled a glade fed by a hyacinth-bordered brook.”

  He dropped his hand from in front of his face. He leaned forward, voice heavy with feeling. “In that meadow, Syrin
x squatted over a rabbit hole in earnest expectation, slingshot braced against her bent knee. From a leather thong attached to her girdle hung two unfortunate relations of the rabbit pausing just beneath her in his tunnel.”

  Pan smiled suddenly, then continued.

  “Syrinx strained to hold her lamenting muscles motionless. She was downwind from her prey; he would not take warning unless the faint rumble of her movement sent him scurrying back through his earthen sanctum. She could feel a drop of perspiration trace the cleavage between her breasts. It mortified her to kill this way, with the prey trapped before her, but she must have three rabbits for the Gods. If her sacrifice were scant, the Gods might shame her before the Huntress at the afternoon hunt.

  “She imagined the cold blue eyes of the Goddess narrowing with disdain. She had seen that look before, when other dryads had let their prey escape through jinx or incompetence. The Goddess would turn those withering eyes on a frightened huntress, nostrils flared and thin mouth set in arrogant displeasure, and she would snap her fingers for the others to close around her. Then she would turn swiftly on her long, marble-hard limbs and disappear up a slope or into a copse, the others following quickly, casting fleeting looks of sympathy on the ostracized huntress. And it would be many hunts before the offending dryad would be allowed her place beside the others. And in the meantime there would be no meat for her because every creature would outrun her arrow and outfox her slingshot.”

  Pan’s voice conveyed sympathy. And something more, a presage of danger?

  “Suddenly the dryad leaped to her feet, golden hair tumbling free of the loose twist she had secured with a twig of myrtle. She had hunted too long to miss the signs: Something or someone was stalking her. She scanned the meadow quickly. It had been a hunter’s feeling, a sixth sense, a sudden empathy with her prey. She began to back slowly toward the glade, where some naiad might help her.

  “And then she saw him, up where the meadow crested and was crowned by a shaggy circlet of fluttering oak and olive.”

  His voice was remarkably expressive, almost enthralling. I found myself leaning closer, determined not to miss a word. And his next word was practically a shout:

  “Pan! Broad and powerful and sexual, even in silhouette, arms akimbo and feet spread wide.

  “Pan! Her sharp hunter’s eyes squinted him into focus, and she caught the glint of large misaligned teeth gleaming in his rough face. For a moment she stood frozen with dread, as she had seen deer and rabbits freeze, eyes large and desperate.

  “Pan. Trouble and dishonor and carnality. Melea the naiad had nearly died bearing his child, a hideous creature with the hindquarters of a goat.

  “Not she! Not Syrinx, one of Diana’s own huntresses! No God would profane her!” he boomed.

  He put up his hand, wriggling his fingers. “Her fingers worked free the knot that held her girdle, and she felt the rabbits drop, then she turned and fled down the grassy slope toward the glade, hair streaming and breasts rising, frightened body glistening in the bright sun, legs stretched as long as an antelope’s. But glancing over her shoulder, she saw the God closing the distance between them, saw his face turned comfortably sunward, like a man enjoying a race, and she knew she would only just reach the glade. If there was no one there to help her, the God would take her cruelly without a thought for her suffering or her future.

  “‘Diana!’ she screamed, nearly there now, nearly at the bank of the moss-green brook, ‘Patroness, pity me!’” There was a throb in his voice. “And Syrinx felt a rough hand chafe the tender skin of her waist. Her toes began to falter in the damp, marshy earth of the brookside as the God caught her. She could smell the musk of his body as she choked in desperate supplication, ‘Please help me, Goddess!’”

  He let the plea hang in the night air.

  “And in the next moment,” his voice was grim, “her motion was arrested. She surged forward to escape, but her limbs would not carry her: She was rooted. She sensed that the God’s formidable arms encircled her, but she felt nothing. She swayed in the breeze, blindly drinking earth-fragrant water through thirsty roots. She did not hear the raging bellow of the savage God.

  “‘You, Virgin!’ the God screamed,” and indeed “Pan” screamed it. “He watched the Goddess come through a curtain of weeping willow that she parted with a deceptively delicate hand. ‘What have you done to her?’ He stared in horror at the stand of reeds he had been embracing.

  “‘I’ve spared her your bestial embraces,’ Diana said coldly, lids half-lowered over eyes that smoldered with contempt. ‘As she begged me to do.’”

  His voice trembled with the injustice of it.

  “Pan took a step backward, away from the reeds. It was a moment before he could pull his astonished eyes away from them and say, ‘So you’d do this to her?’

  “The Goddess smiled slightly, her haughty face relaxing. ’I must teach you not to take my dryads.’”

  Again, he gave us a moment to absorb the horror.

  “Pan stared at the tall, long-limbed beauty, her body as white and strong as alabaster, her pale hair glinting silver in the sun, the thick cloak of weeping willow behind her. She was as beautiful as any Goddess, but she was the only one for whom he felt no sexual stirring. She reeked of celibacy and austerity, she brought death to woodland animals.

  “He swaggered toward her. ‘I’ve a mind to take you in her place.’

  “The Goddess slid disdainful eyes over his short, hale body. ‘You’ll regret your impropriety,’ she hissed. ‘You forget who I am.’” He mimicked her voice as if it were a snake’s.

  “Pan lowered his face to glower at her.” His voice became a resounding, angry thing: “‘And you forget who I am. You can’t touch me, Virgin!’”

  He waited so long, I almost prompted him to continue.

  “Diana smiled her chilly smile,” he said, finally, “and glanced at the stand of reeds that had once been a nubile dryad. ‘No? Perhaps not previously. But I have a new ally.’

  “Pan’s eyes narrowed and flickered dangerous green-gold as he followed her gaze. Syrinx had been on his mind for months. He had tracked her relentlessly, hoping to catch her away from Diana and her frigid huntresses.

  “The Goddess watched him and laughed.”

  His voice again rose to a feral boom: “This the God could not tolerate! He closed the space between them with an angry leap and noticed with some admiration that the Goddess stood her ground. She stood like statuary as he clamped her gossamered breasts to his damp body and reached a hand behind her head to press her face to his. She remained still and cold as his infuriated hands ravaged her, twisting her flesh between his callused fingers, parting the folds of her robe and forcing her legs apart with an upthrust knee. Then he knocked her off balance by wrapping one leg around hers and falling against her. As they fell, he found the soft dampness that was like a mortal woman’s and entered it with the suddenness of a blow.”

  He was sitting forward, squinting as if lost in remembrance. I could see the muscles of his jaw working.

  His voice hinted at feelings barely suppressed. I’d never heard such a fine storyteller’s voice.

  “Pan was buried alive then,” he continued. “The earth sucked him in; he felt it clotting his mouth and ears, scraping his sightless eyes. He felt himself pulled deeper, felt the earth become colder, harder, crushing him on all sides, finally felt it throb with its own molten life until it seared him, twisting him and racking him and pushing him deeper and deeper until he lost consciousness.”

  His face was anguished. Tears ran down his cheeks. But he continued calmly.

  “He awakened in this place, paralyzed with pain, when it and all the land around it still stank with floundering sea creatures. He raised his battered head to see a mountaintop just spewn from the ocean bottom, saltwater surging in thin sheets over its bloated clay.”

  “Magnificent!” Arthur commented.

  Pan’s voice was melancholic. “The man,” he said slowly, “scowling in th
is other meadow, found that the memory still rankled. Of a union with Syrinx might have sprung perfection; her delicacy and solemnity complemented his own character.

  “As always, this reflection disturbed him. He sat cross-legged on the hillside, knees drawn up to accommodate his elbows. And in his hands,” excitement reinfused his voice, “there shimmered into being a pipe made of several lengths of reeds, bound together side by side with tough threads stripped from another reed. The pipe he had fashioned himself, in frustrated homage, from reeds he’d found in his hand when earth and ocean spat him here, reeds he’d torn from the stand that had once been Syrinx.” His voice was a sad hush.

  “He played her obsequy on the pipes, finally laying moist lips to the huntress. And the union was perfection. From the instrument there floated a music both innocent and erotic, virginal and ardent. Naiads, so infinitely far away, lapsed from the brook to lay irises where Syrinx once stood, and in the sky, a cloud obscured the sun and cooled the afternoon, as the musician Apollo listened in grudging envy and chastened Diana with a nettled glance.

  “And so through the millennia, as conifers began to share the land with chaparral, and chaparral gave way to meadowland, from the wildest peaks and the loneliest glades, the windsong of the reed pipe consummated an ancient longing.

  “One hundred and fifty thousand years of husbandry turned ocean floor to meadow, but he never saw another to match the diligent Syrinx, with her air of vulnerable resolve. And he never forgot the Goddess who placed her out of his reach and caused his exile.”

  Arthur suddenly chimed in, “No, I should think not!”

  But Pan held up his hand for silence. Head bowed, he continued.

  “And one mild day, when the air was fresh with stirring grasses, the wind carried the piping through mountain thickets.

  “In one of these, downhill from the man, a woman listened to the unearthly music. Her knife was poised above the rabbit hole. And she turned to hear his music. She looked upward, straining to see him.”

  His head snapped up out of its bow. “And it was Syrinx: Syrinx was here! The circle”—he made a circle of his thumb and index finger—“would close at last. And Diana . . . ” His features twisted into a grimace. “Would writhe beneath them in their consummation.”