Songs_of_the_Satyrs (26 page)

“Pretty child.” He cupped my cheek. “Come now. Make a choice. You? Or shall I take your sister?”

Mother suddenly called out for Jocelyn. She’d found the jeans. Her footsteps pattered up the stairs, on the landing now.

“Shall I remove your mother as well?” He bent down and whispered in my ear. “Imagine life with just your father. Sweet pecks from his mustached lip. You’ll get anything you want with both women gone. I’ll even give you an ability to make things more interesting. Eternal life? Telepathy? What about the ability to foresee the future or manipulate your mundane world? All for two silly women who can’t understand what it’s like to be you. Such a clever girl, my Victoria.”

No. No. No.

My sister’s face darkened the windscreen. Her lips mouthed the words,
Save me.

My mother’s discordant screams tortured my ears.

Drip.

I licked wet lips, tasting salt. The car engine revved.

Stop this. There’s nothing you can do to change things. Eternal life was the deal.

The satyr’s voice joined the others in my head, the faint sound of drums and piped music prickling my skin.

My hands with their scarred wrists came off the steering wheel, hiding my adult tears. The tires of my car peeled rubber as I accelerated across the intersection.

And for just a moment the blaring horns, tearing metal, and iron-rich blood filling my mouth tasted like freedom.

Keith received the e-mail simultaneously at every one of his addresses at 1:13 in the afternoon on a Friday. The message was brief and worded in such a way that he couldn’t help being interested. His job was to find news after all, to stay plugged in to the goings on of society. It was more than his job; it was his calling.

Nothing like this had ever come through his inbox, though.

The e-mails were all the same: four simple lines and a name. When he had his tech guys trace the address they came up short. The sender was good. Even the Nigerian scammers couldn’t hide their trail as well as this guy had, which made the allure of his story even stronger.

The name alone wormed its way into his every waking moment. The sender referred to himself as Penelope of Mantineia’s son. Keith did some research and discovered that Odysseus’s so-called faithful wife had spent a lot of time on her back, legs spread, while her hubby was out and about. Her son could be anyone.

The body of the e-mails though . . . those words sat in Keith’s head like a smoldering coal. They crawled up and down his spine and sparked in his brain. Those words would not leave him alone until he met their author and found out whether or not his suspicions were accurate—which is what he eventually decided to do.

On the other side of the worn wooden door—a door he traveled twenty-four hundred miles to stand in front of, the last thirty of which were on the back of a mule with a hand-drawn map to guide him because the locals didn’t venture into these hills (they said so before calling a blessing of Allah over him)—dwelled the sender of that cryptic e-mail.

He knocked three times, and when the door slowly creaked open the smell that wafted out was one of an animal’s den. His head swam, and before he could right himself, the ground rushed up. Maybe it was the altitude, or maybe last night’s
aushe sarka
had been slightly off. Or maybe it was the fact that this was really happening—he was meeting the sender of the message, and what he had feared looked to be true . . .

***

“Mr. Lantain.”

The voice was distant, drawn out, and cloudy like he was hearing it from the other side of a wet towel.

“Mr. Lantain, wake up.”

Keith’s head felt like a wet towel, actually. Cold and heavy. He could smell exotic spices and something cooking. The world drifted back to him. He was in Afghanistan, here to interview the man who’d sent him the e-mail. Keith opened his eyes and the back of his head grew its own freight train pulse.

“You mustn’t move right now, Mr. Lantain. You struck your head when you passed out.”

“What?” Keith scooted back on the bed. The pounding tempo sped up inside his skull. He was in a small shack, darkness barely held back by the glow of a fire. A kettle steamed in the hearth. The coals fluttered, undulating as he stared into them. The voice came from the shadows beyond a small table.

“Sometimes the altitude gets to people. Sometimes, my appearance.” The man stepped forward into the flickering light, and Keith’s breath stopped short in his chest. He was not fully a man.

Closing his eyes, Keith focused on his breath. Under the smell of the stew and its strong spices sat that stale animal stench, like a city zoo on a hot summer day.

When he opened his eyes again, the man-thing was lighting a large candle in the center of the rough-hewn table. Keith recognized what the creature was.

“You’re a satyr?” The words came out like someone else’s.

“Not just any satyr or faun, Mr. Lantain. I am All, the one you surely know of as Pan.”

“The son of Penelope of Mantineia.”

“That is correct.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t ask that you believe in me, Mr. Lantain. I only wish that you hear the story I have to tell. That is why I wrote you.”

“Are you telling me that you, Pan, an ancient Greek god of the forest, now lives in the mountains of Afghanistan and uses the Internet?”

“I am
the
god of the forest, Mr. Lantain, get that straight. As for the e-mails, I simply hired a young boy from the village at the base of this valley to send them. He brings me the supplies I need, as well as runs errands for me.”

“If you’re
the
god of the forest, why are you living in these bleak mountains?”

“Something powerful is hunting me and no forest on earth is safe because of it. Simple as that. I’ve been hidden here for some time and I cannot return to the fields and forests of Greece, and thus I’m afraid this place will be the end of me. That is why I summoned you here. I am dying, Mr. Lantain.”

“What, are you going to sacrifice me, make stew from my meat? How is it that I, a mere mortal, can help you, a god?”

The beast laughed so loud the small windows rattled. “I’m beyond the benefit of sacrifice now. You can help me, Mr. Lantain, by listening to the story I have to tell and sharing it. The story is the tale of your kind. Perhaps knowing the truth will allow you to gain control of your own fate once again. I’m afraid it may be too late for you, though. Far too late.”

Keith thought about what the e-mail had said as he pulled the printed text from the chest pocket of his jacket, unfolding it in the dim light. He didn’t need to see it to recite the message:

I know what has gone wrong with civilization. I was there when it happened. Come to the village of Keshem where the tribe of Persians called Afghans live. I have a story to tell you.

Mr. Roman Faunus

“Yes, and here you are.” Pan stood up and walked to the kettle, his hooves thumping in the dry dirt of the shack’s floor. Pulling a small bowl from above the mantle, he ladled some of the aromatic stew into it. “You must eat this and finish the bowl. It will heal your injury. Then, you will sleep.”

“I shouldn’t sleep. I shouldn’t even be lying down.” He tried to get up and the pressure in his head pushed against the back of his eyes. Keith settled into a sitting position. “So tell me this story.”

“Only after you finish the stew.” The goat man handed Keith the bowl. “By morning you’ll be fine. Eat, please, Mr. Lantain. Then rest.”

Keith was hungry after all, his stomach reminded him. He dipped a large wooden spoon into the bowl and began to eat. It was spicy, the vegetables perfectly done, and the aroma made the throbbing in his head slow. He wished there was meat in it, goat meat, but considering the chef that didn’t seem appropriate. Keith laughed. “This is really good, what is it? I’ve spent time here and I’ve never had this kind of stew before.”

“It is an old recipe, Mr. Lantain.” The goat man smiled, his teeth peeking out from behind his wiry Billy Goat’s Gruff goatee.

Keith shook his head. “Shouldn’t you have horns?”

The beast lowered his head and parted the shaggy hair. “Just like these, I imagine?”

Two small horns, curled like those of a ram, were there just above the pointed ears. Pan shook out his black hair and all was hidden again.

It seemed this creature was, at least, a satyr. Whether or not it was Pan still remained to be seen.

Keith shrugged. “I thought they’d be larger.”

The two laughed and Keith scooped out the last of the vegetables, then finished the dregs. “That was really good, um, Roman?”

“Roman was just a clue for you, Mr. Lantain, one you seemed to have overlooked. I’ve told you my name.” The goat man walked over and took the bowl and spoon from him.

“So you want me to call you Pan, then? Really?”

“That is the name I was given, so yes.”

“Well then, Pan, you can call me Keith.”

Keith felt warm and calm; the bed felt soft underneath; the blanket, heavy on top of him. The fire whisked at the chill in the air with dark orange flames, comforting in their mild heat.

Pan smiled at him from across the shack, then turned and pulled out a small velvet bag from a cabinet next to the fireplace. When he turned around Keith could not hold back a small laugh. From the bag, Pan produced a set of old wooden pipes.

“Well you certainly look the part now, I can’t argue with that.”

Bringing the pipes to his lips Pan began to softly play a song that penetrated every molecule of Keith’s body. The small shack swooned around him, the world slowly turning on an axis centered over his heart. Everything focused on his chest, every bit of every thing tied to his core. A giddy laugh slipped from his lips, flesh tingled, hair stood on end, and Keith drifted down into a deep sleep, knowing it was indeed Pan playing this music of the ages for him.

Putting his pipes away, Pan looked down into the fire. It was perhaps the last time he would play his beloved music. The chatter of birds across the roof was joined by the clatter of small hooves on his porch. Wildlife, sparse as it was this high in the cold mountains, had come to his song—as they had come for millennia.

Tossing one last log on the fire to hold over until morning, now just a few hours away, Pan settled down into his straw bed in the corner of his final home.

Tomorrow he would tell his story. Then he would be free.

***

Keith woke to the smell of baking bread. Pan was nowhere to be seen, and he wondered if last night had in fact been some twisted dream. That smell just under the sweet baking bread, the faint animalistic scent, told him it might’ve been real. But when the ancient god clomped into the shack with a load of firewood, there could be no more question about the reality of the situation.

“Good morning, Keith. I trust you slept well? How’s your head?”

Keith felt his scalp bit by bit under his shaggy black hair, exaggerating the movements. “I feel great.” He stood and stretched, then dug in his bag for his notebook and mini-recorder. “When shall we start the interview?”

“Relax. Although time is of the essence, we do have enough to enjoy some bread and coffee first.” Pan dropped the firewood, brushed his hands on the coarse hair of his legs, and pulled a dark loaf of leavened bread from a cubby above the hearth. “Fine by you?”

“That looks wonderful, and coffee sounds great, yes. I’m just going to set everything up.”

“As you wish.”

They shared the warm bread—a fine loaf with dates and thick crust—and the dark, aromatic coffee. Pan stoked the fire and Keith tested his recorder as snow-laced wind kicked against the windows.

“I’ll be recording everything and taking notes as needed.” He depressed the record button on his mini-recorder and leaned toward it. “Somewhere in the mountains east of Keshem, Afghanistan, I’m speaking to Pan, the Greek god. He is approximately six feet tall, with dark wiry hair. Two horns, smaller than those depicted throughout the ages. And his lower half is that of a goat. Pan has called me here to tell a story, one he insists humanity must hear.” Keith looked up. “Does that about cover it?”

“Yes, it does, thank you.” Pan smiled, and Keith returned the gesture.

“Okay, I’m ready when you are.”

“Then we begin. You’re familiar with the three-day festival that occurred in New York State in 1969, Woodstock, correct?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I was there. It was supposed to be about peace and love, two things that are important to me, as you may know.” Pan sat down across from Keith. “It turned out the brown acid was not as bad as they had said. It was Andrew Allison that was the bad trip.

“The sixties saw the creation of a more independent woman, and from that independence a whole cultural movement was born. By the time August of nineteen sixty-nine had arrived gender, race, religion, income, power, or sexual preference didn’t matter anymore. From the Port Huron Statement to Tim Leary preaching ‘Turn on, tune in, drop out,’ the arc of change in consciousness and connectedness was astounding. The rampant bourgeois hyper-consumerism, repressive thinking, traditional outlooks, and growing rifts between the haves and have-nots were becoming a thing of the past. Revolution was happening, and individual empowerment bringing forth a truly humane, human culture was underway.”

Pan got up from the table and poked the fire with a long iron rod. Sparks flushed up the chimney. “But listen to me. I sound like some sentimental fool waxing about the good old days.”

“I brought plenty of tapes.”

Pan nodded and took his seat again.

“So anyway, there I was on Saturday, somewhere between Sly and the Family Stone and The Who—incidentally, I still don’t understand why either band was at Woodstock. But let’s not digress.

“Taking a break from people-watching, I ran into our friend Andrew Allison. Old Andy was considered a square in the parlance of the times, someone who couldn’t get his mind outside the box society had put him in. What mattered most to him, in order, were his car, the career waiting for him at his father’s law firm once he passed the New York bar exam the following spring, and the 3.8 million dollars he knew he would inherit after his grandmother passed away. She was on the way out too; it would be a matter of weeks, maybe days, before she succumbed to the brain tumor that had turned her into a blathering idiot.”