I woke myself with the sound of my own screams.
In the weak daylight that crept through the windows and under the doors of that haunted place, I wondered if I had only dreamed the appearance of Father de Celigny, for the door was still crudely barred from the inside, just as I had left it before falling asleep. Otherwise, the room was undisturbed. The windows were likewise barred and there were no tracks in any direction upon the floor other than my own. From outside came the sound of the trees shuddering with rain.
I touched the side of my face. I could still feel the imprint of the priest’s cold fingers on my cheek. If that was a dream, I told myself, it had been a most vivid and realistic one. Were dreams even dreams in this evil place, where the legends spoke of the dead walking in the forest, going about as they had when they were living? Or were they auguries, visions, or portents? I thought of my dream of the smiling dead girl in the water and I shuddered.
After a Spartan breakfast and an hour of prayer, I set out to find Father de Celigny, if only to prove to myself that I hadn’t been dreaming. While there was no evidence of him anywhere in the building, I believed in my heart that he was real and that I had not been dreaming. The puzzle of the door barred from the inside was one I would consider later, I told myself. So eager was I to believe I was not the only living soul in St. Barthelemy, I was prepared to overlook even the evidence of my own senses.
But if he were nowhere in the buildings, he must be nearby, perhaps in some secondary domicile, or perhaps dwelling among the Indians away from the village itself, however unlikely that seemed. I knew, for instance, that the Indians liked to visit our homes in the settlements, that they were attracted to objects of mystery to them, our crucifixes, our books, our writing instruments, and our clocks. But I had not seen them even in their own houses here, so why would they be elsewhere in the forest?
A cold rain was indeed falling outside, mining the ground with puddles. I covered my head with a shawl against the rain and set out to explore the area for some sign of where Father de Celigny might have taken shelter.
My intention had not been to wander too far from the village, for after inspecting every house I was able to ascertain that there was no human habitation at all within its confines and it did, indeed, appear to have been abandoned.
But my source of primary bafflement remained the lack of evidence of any kind of struggle or bloodshed. There were no bodies, obvious graves, no stains. As I have already written, nothing had been burned. I inspected every house, first tentatively and then with more boldness as I realized I was entirely alone. So the mystery remained, surely an entire village could not have simply vanished into thin air? Or, for that matter, migrated to some other part of this land, leaving behind their belongings, including weapons and cooking utensils?
Slowly and carefully I took my leave of the village and began walking towards the lake. The rain had not diminished. On the contrary, it fell in colder and more punishing sheets, seemingly with every step I took away from the settlement, into the forest and towards the lake.
I had been walking perhaps a half-hour and had almost reached the rocky hills above the lake when I heard a sound that chilled me to the very marrow of my bones. It came from behind one of the boulders in my path, and it froze me in my tracks with a terror so primeval that it must surely have descended from generation to generation from Adam in the Garden of Eden, after the fall from Grace, when all wild things had become his enemy.
A giant grey wolf had stepped into my path, its back low and arched in a menacing posture. Its black lips were pulled back from the cruellooking yellow fangs. Again, the wolf growled low in its throat. The murderous intent of this monster could not have been clearer.
To my horror, it was joined by another, and yet another, until there were five of the creatures blocking my path, each more fearsome than the last. I had seen wolves in France, shot by hunters. They had always struck me as fearsome, but these wolves were larger and more terrifying than any European variant. And in their eyes, I could see only the muddy hatred of the human species and a fierce hunger for human flesh.
The wolves advanced slowly, and in terrible unison, maintaining the half-circle around me with the precision of a military phalanx formation, driving me backwards. My eyes never left theirs, nor theirs mine, as they slowly forced me away from the caves.
Praying under my breath, I remembered what I had been told in Trois-Rivieres about this exact danger, and the importance of neither showing fear, nor running quickly, lest those actions provoke an attack from the marauding animal in question.
The first wolf lowered its head even farther and from its throat again came a snarl of the purest menace. It moved aggressively forward. I looked around me for a stick that I might use as a weapon, but found none.
Even if I had, while a stick might have been of some use against one of these animals, there were five of them in total and any attempt to charge one of their number would have doubtless provoked an attack by the others in the pack.
I backed away slowly, my eyes on theirs, and theirs on mine. Edging myself onto the trail, I realized that the wolves were “herding” me back onto the path, the path that would obviously take me back to the village, or at the very least, to open ground. They kept advancing forward with every step backwards I took.
I stumbled towards the village, walking tortuously backward, my eyes on my pursuers. I flailed behind me with my arms, trying to anticipate the sharp branches behind me before they jabbed into my neck and back. When I failed, I tried to stifle my groans of pain.
They followed me at a hunting distance, but did not attack. In the one instance where I stopped, however, to get my bearings, they began to growl again. One darted forward and made a feinting snap at my hand. I cried out and jumped back, and when I again began to move, the wolf kept its distance.
Step by torturous step, always looking back over my shoulder, or walking backwards and glancing behind me to stay on the trail, occasionally stumbling painfully while the wolves moved like shadows and smoke among the boulders and low-growing trees and foliage as they stalked and herded me, I inched closer to what I hoped was the safety of the confines of St. Barthelemy. My terror was such that it felt as though it was hours before I saw the village, but obviously it could only have been a fraction of that time.
And still, they did not attack, though they had every opportunity to tear me limb from limb. They did not break their deadly silence, nor was there any lessening in the obvious malignity of their intentions, and yet it was as though they were somehow tethered and held back by some entity I could not see. I doubted that whatever providential force held them at bay was Heavenly-if it had been, the force would have sent them back to whatever sylvan hell they sprang from instead of allowing them to stalk me like wounded animal prey.
And then, finally yielding to my panic, I turned and broke into a run.
In the minutes during which I ran, I had every expectation of feeling the foul weight of their heavy bodies hurling me to the ground, and their foetid, hot breath on my exposed skin, and the death-bite agony of their teeth on my throat. But I felt nothing of the kind, and made my way to safety inside Father de Celigny’s house without once turning my head.
Upon entering, I looked out the window to see if the fiends had returned to their wilderness. My heart sank when I saw that they had not. Instead, they sat, poised like living gargoyles in a semi-circle in front of the entrance. As I watched, they cocked their heads as though listening to some master’s whistle, or to some command only they could hear. The entire tableau resembled a grisly sixteenth-century German woodcut depicting the fell horrors of werewolfery in some dark, forgotten forest.
As the day progressed, the beasts sat, or lay with their paws crossed in front of them. They must have known that I was vulnerable, and doubtless they could smell my terror as I knelt to pray, and yet they did not charge the entrance.
At one point in the late afternoon, I reached out with my hand to touch the door. As my fingers brushed it, a commotion erupted on the other side. A cacophony of howling and snarling greeted me.
Although I knew it was impossible, still it was as though the wolves had somehow known that I had touched the door from the inside, and that I might possibly be contemplating egress from the safety of the house. The fury in their bestial voices left no doubt whatsoever in my mind of the fate that would be mine if I dared step over the threshold.
I stepped backward towards the opposite wall and immediately they ceased their furor, again almost as though they knew my movements without seeing them. I realized that this must be more of the same deviltry that had plagued me since I left Trois-Rivieres and it came to me then and there that I would very likely not survive that night. It came to me also that Father de Celigny had fallen to the same forces. If I had not dreamed his appearance by my bedside the previous night, whatever I saw could only have been his shade. I mourned Father de Celigny in that moment, and knelt to pray, for I didn’t doubt that I would soon join him on the other side.
