The House of the Wolf

23

The two women walked together along the path into the woods. It sloped steeply down into a ravine, which they followed for perhaps a half-kilometre before it terminated in a little dell. At the far end was another stone niche, heavily overgrown so that it resembled a natural cave in the rock wall behind it. Josephine led her right up to the dark cavity, and peering inside it Chantal saw a small stone statue. A man, with the hooves and horns of a goat. His face was fixed in a strange inhuman grin that held more than a hint of savagery. She could tell by the weathered condition of the stone that this figure was far older than the St. Francis sculpture.

"This is the old secret of the island that I told you about," Josephine told her. "This is an ancient place of worship, for loups garous and sorciers."

"It's the Devil!" exclaimed Chantal in revulsion, stepping back. "So the islanders were Satanists, then!"

"No," said Josephine, "look harder. What is that in his hand?"

Chantal approached the statue again. There was a long slender shape within the curled fingers of its right hand, an object that was too small for a spear or other weapon. "He's Pan!" she said, recognition suddenly dawning. "The Greek god. He's holding his flute, or pipe, or whatever they call it."

"That's right. Pan Lykaios; Faunus; Lupercus... He's been given many names over time, but the god himself is unchanging. That is the old secret of this island: that the worship of this pagan deity continued here until fairly recent times. Loups garous brought his cult over the seas from Arcadia. This place is called the Grove of Pan, and it is known only to loups garous and their closest friends. They made sacrificial offerings to this idol in olden times. That isn't really as sinister as it sounds. Pan was the god of herdsmen, and many of the loups garous that lived on the island were farmers. It was only in later times that the 'Horned One' became confused with le Diable. And since in Christianity the pagan gods were regarded as deceitful demons, it would have made no difference even had the truth been known. In the end, the worship of Pan simply died out, just as it did in the Old World; but not before it birthed shadowy legends of Satanic masses on the Île d'Orléans, attended by witches and werewolves.

"Pan may be a foreign deity, but he would feel right at home here. He was a spirit of Nature, and my people believed in such things. I told you this island was called a place of enchantment long before Europeans came here. Ouindigo, the native Algonquin tribes named it, after the spirit of the wilderness: the Windigo who dwells in the solitude of the wastelands. All those who wander the wilderness fear the Windigo, because if he catches you alone he can take over your mind and drive you mad. Those possessed by the wild spirit attacked other humans, even turned cannibal. Does that remind you of anything?"

After a pause Chantal said, "The Arcadians. M. Dubois said some of them ate people when they were in wolf shape."

"C'est vrai. Hardly surprising, really, since they were worshippers of Pan. The god of the solitary wild, the father of fear... When you worship cruel and fearsome things, you see, you end by turning cruel and fearsome yourself. It's inevitable."

"Then why hasn't this idol been taken away?" The statue of St. Francis and the wolf had been tranquil, calming; man and beast bonded by mutual love and understanding. Here man and beast were one: Pan had a frenzied inhuman expression, his horned head flung back, his pointed tongue protruding between his bared teeth.
"For the same reason that this part of the island has never been tamed and cultivated. Respect. The wild things have their place in the world, and that is as it should be. The Windigoes and Pan are the essence of Nature, a force of destruction as well as of life. That is what the Horned One represents to us: what we were in the beginning, and what we might again become if we don't take care. Do not tread lightly in Pan's domain, or you may never leave it. That is the lesson of the idol. Today you must walk in his realm, and you will walk as a wolf."