by Anthology
"But of course they did. They couldn't handle the rigours of school life. Not like you—"
"Shut up! Maybe another officer wouldn't look too hard, and take your word for it. But I know better. And after seeing what you did to that girl tonight—we all will."
The thought twisted within her. His feelings writhed like mud in disturbed water, unseen by him but clear to her. She should have been able to play on that, push him in the direction she needed.
But that cross, above his head, bolted to the wall like a radio antenna, damped her ability to sense what he was feeling, made her weak. Ordinarily, if pressed, she could have wrenched on the wood-and-iron door of her cell and snapped the bolt; she was strong enough, having fed just this night before they caught her. But the sign, especially with Courchene sitting beneath it, sapped all her strength.
Why? she pleaded silently. Why does it hurt me so? I have been faithful.
To what? replied the Holy Spirit.
To you.
Indeed. Which is the problem.
Her fingers traced the long-vanished wound on her neck. She had been a young woman, then. Seventeen. Enough education to teach, and just about to start with a class of bright young boys and girls at MacDonald School—years before Indian Affairs came along and turned it into a place to teach the Indian to be "civilized," dragging the Anglican nuns and church authority with it. By then, of course, it had been clear that the thirst and strength Mackenzie had imbued her with meant she could never venture outside during daylight hours. And that thirst sometimes spoke to her, taught her, showed her visions of another place. She had always believed them glimpses of Heaven, sent by the Holy Spirit. For what she was driven to do—to feed off animals, and even people, like a wood tick—would otherwise be monstrous.
You should know now that none of this was true, said the Holy Spirit.
"Funny you remember that, and not all the times you hit me for speaking Ojibwe," said the mountie.
She snapped her hand away from her neck and glared at him. "It was for your own good."
He cleared his throat. It squeaked a little as he raised his voice. "That? And the times you locked me in that dark little room because I couldn't read?"
"You never applied yourself. You pretended to be stupid."
His eyes glistened and his right hand caressed the pistol in his holster. "I was neither stupid nor pretending. All the kids knew what went on in that place. Now I see, tonight, how much worse it was for some of them. That girl you attacked—I saw her neck!—ran away while we were dealing with you. But my partner is out looking for her. Even without the bodies she uncovered, you're going to prison. But we'll get her story. And people will know."
Margaret clenched the bars of her cell and sucked her breath in so hard it hissed.
The glistening in his eyes became tears. He stood up and opened the flimsy curtains on the east-facing window behind his chair. "But you're never going to see the inside of a courtroom. Not when that sun comes up."
When he stood, the Holy Spirit spoke to her again. Keep him on his feet. Make him come closer to you.
"Why?" she asked out loud.
"Because you deserve it," said Courchene.
"What? I didn't hear—"
She meant to coax the voice of God to repeat itself, but again, speaking out loud, she provoked the constable.
"'Maybe I should apply a ruler to that hand'," he said, raising his voice as he repeated the phrase she had used on students as a matter of course. She shrank back from the terrible purpose in his tone.
He stepped towards her.
That's it, said the Holy Spirit.
"What?" she said.
"You heard me!" thundered Courchene, taking another step, his hand shaking as he pointed at her. He didn't seem a towering knight of authority anymore, but instead, a frightened boy quivering awkwardly in a man's body.
More, said the Holy Spirit.
But she did not understand, and so backed right to the far wall of her tiny cell, wishing she could melt and pass through the wood and stone.
"You, you were always a good boy, dear," she said, hoping that praise at this late stage would still turn his rage from her—the children were always so desperate for a kind word, that was why she and the nuns withheld them, as a rule, to keep the students in line—and allow her to appeal to his mercy.
He has none, for you, said the Holy Spirit; and in her heart she knew it spoke the truth.
He took another half-step toward her, his tall, broad-shouldered frame casting a shadow in the light of the electric bulb fixed in the ceiling. It also, for a moment, blocked her view of the crucifix, and suddenly she felt a leaden weight fall from her limbs.
Now, said the Holy Spirit, you must listen to me, or we will both perish. You are ready to attempt something that may deliver us yet.
She closed her eyes. What must I do? she said silently.
Allow me to take control for a moment.
Her eyelids flew open, her pulse racing. This was it. The test of her faith. The splinter of doubt in her grew too painful to ignore and she realized the truth. This was not the voice of God that had been speaking to her.
She felt jubilation at her discovery, even as the Voice said At last, you see—
Because she knew, with certainty, that it was the Devil who whispered to her. You cannot tempt me, she told it.
The Voice howled something silently within her, in infernal language she could not understand. She fell to her knees and began to pray. She ignored the looming officer over her and beseeched the Lord for deliverance.
It is your faith in your God that keeps you imprisoned, whispered the Voice.
She ignored it.
The sign, that symbol on the wall—here the Voice seemed unable to even call it what it was, a crucifix—means something very powerful to you. It focuses your thoughts and beliefs. But it must mean something very different to this man. Because your human minds seem capable of making the same depiction mean very, very different things. My kind cannot do this, and this clash of faith hurts us.
Margaret did not understand the voice at all. She kept whispering her Our Father aloud.
"That won't help you," said Courchene. "All the years you made us memorize and repeat your white God's words, it taught me and my brothers there would be no answer. A lot of kids never made it out of that place. Now there will be no answer for you, either, except the sunrise."
The voice was frantic now. If you stay here we will both burn. You've felt the sun's touch before.
Her words faltered as she came to "…deliver us from evil." She remembered the time she had tried to leave the school in the early evening, years ago; a few seconds and her skin was a painful crimson. It had taken her weeks to recover. And as long as the school authorities let her stay and work in the basement, there was no trouble. She found she was very persuasive, even down to the suggestion to the nuns that yes, indeed, of course she wore a cross around her neck. Oh yes, they would say, staring at her neck, where no necklace lay, I see it now. And they were not lying; they saw what she wanted them to see. But now they had seen too much; Reverend William had caught her in the act of feeding on the little brat who had discovered the other girls' bodies in the locked basement room. He knew what she had done. It was too much, and he had sided with the little savage, calling the police. She could not go back to the school. She must escape.
I can help you, the voice said, and she could not tell whether the agitation she felt belonged to the voice or to her.
God will help me.
A second of silence, then the voice replied: if you do not take the help that is offered, what more can your God do?
She ran her tongue over her sharp teeth. What, indeed?
"What must I do?" she asked.
Courchene gripped his pistol in its holster as if afraid it would jump out of its own accord. "You can sit there in the light, alone."
Then the voice took control of her, just for a moment.
She
felt an odd sensation, as of a long, deep, exhalation. The cell and police station faded to grey, become indistinct. Then she realized it was she who was changing. Her body lightened, diffused, lost all shape and spread to fill the cell. She had no eyes nor ears, but she sensed the shock and surprise from Courchene as she turned to mist. The Voice, saying nothing now, pulled her through the bars of the cell, a rolling fog to freedom on the other side. She wailed with exhaustion, being stretched beyond her limits without having permission to break. Her tendrils wisped through the air of the police station. Then the Voice inhaled all of her vaporous being back into her familiar, solid shape, right down to the black buttons on her dress and the leather soles of her shoes. She staggered. She was so thirsty.
Courchene retreated, clumsy thumping steps stumbling on the floorboards, and the crucifix on the wall loomed into view.
Down! snapped the Voice, and she crouched without thinking. Now the officer's body blocked her view of the symbol again. Her throat was still parched, her tongue thick and pasty, but she felt her strength seep into her. I need…Communion…she thought.
Not here, said the Voice. You will lose everything as long as you can see that, that thing on the wall. Keep your eyes averted. If he has not locked the door there may still be time.
She crawled away from the mountie and when she got to the station's entrance she clung to the brass doorknob. With a sob she twisted it and wrenched the door open.
Outside, the air was crisp and frost hung in the air. In the late autumn, winter whispered to the prairie grass. The stars filled the darkness above, but the sky to the east had lightened, just a bit. She was free. She just needed to make it to the train station, and she would find a dark, safe place to wait out the day. If aboard the baggage car of a passenger train, so much the better, but for now, she had escaped.
The she felt the constable's meaty hand clamp down on her shoulder.
"Not so fast," he said, spinning her around and pointing his revolver at her.
Again, cried the voice.
Courchene cocked his pistol. He really meant to shoot her. Immediately, she let herself disperse again, even as the mountie fired, his bullets passing through her misty form leaving no damage but swirls. One, two, three, four, five, six…click, click.
She took her human shape once more, the change coming more easily this time, and grabbed the mountie's wrist, keeping the gun pointed away from her. "Such a naughty, filthy boy," she said. "Shame on you, to shoot at a woman like that."
He shied away, throwing his free hand in front of his face, as if to ward off a blow. "Don't!" he cried, his voice breaking. A little boy in a man's body.
She furrowed her fingers into the knot of his necktie and tore it open. He slapped at her clawlike hand to no avail as she ripped apart the buttons of his collar. The skin of his neck and chest lay exposed. She was so thirsty now the night crowded its blackness in at the edge of her vision. His gun fell from paralyzed fingers and she slid her hand up the back of his neck, gripped the short hair and pulled his head back. Now she would take the Communion he offered, and be strong again.
There were scars on his chest.
She smiled. A sign of his being disciplined, surely, back at the school. "Something to remember your teachers by," she said softly. He tried to winnow his hand to the inside of her arm and push her away, but her grip was like a snake's lips on a leopard frog.
He spat at her. "None from that place."
She lingered a moment on the thin, white marks that shone in the moonlight on his chest. They were far too regular, even for a beating given in the same place many times.
Don't think about it, said the voice. Drink.
Courchene struggled to meet her eyes from the awkward tilted-back position of his head. "I did the Sundance."
The marks seemed to quiver and push her back.
Ignore it, said the voice. Drink.
She winced. It was some savage ritual, she realized.
"My father was dead," said the mountie. "But there were still some elders who knew the ways. After I graduated from the academy and joined the Mounties, I followed in the steps of my ancestors." He grimaced. "You're the first white person to know."
Now her strength deserted her, though her terrible thirst remained.
Attack him, said the Voice, before it is too late!
But she couldn't. His faith in whatever the scars meant to him was so powerful it melted her grip on him. She let go. The sight of his chest burned a hole through her mind and she tripped as she backed away from him.
Run, said the Voice. The train station!
Courchene stooped to retrieve his weapon. "H-halt!" He shouted.
Margaret picked herself up and fled. The sight of his patterned scars flared before her eyes. I have to get free.
The few trees that lined the dirt roads in MacDonald gave her little cover. After she had run for little over half a minute, shots rang through the chill autumn morning. Dogs in the few surrounding few houses began to bark. She reached the small wooden CN station and found the schedule for the coming day. Half-past eleven, for the passenger train they had likely meant to use to take her to the court in Regina. But at midnight there was a freight train from Vancouver, passing through on its way to Winnipeg. She knew no one in that city, and nobody knew her.
She checked the door. Locked. She doubted she had the strength for another change—and even if she did, what if she were unable to take on solid form again?
God, show me what I must do, she prayed silently.
There was no answer.
Then, You know what to do, said the Voice. It has always been you. We are one.
She shook. All those things she had done, to the children in the school, to those she took her Communion from—which she thirsted for even now—no one's prodding but her own? Unthinkable.
Yet she had gotten herself free.
Yes, said the Voice.
She stepped down from the platform. Gasping, she crawled on the dirt beneath it, found a way under the station to where the beams blocked all light, where she could wait out the day. They might find her, before night came. But if they did, she would fight them with all her holy strength before being dragged into the light.
Caged(Short story)
by David Jón Fuller
Originally published in Guns and Romances (Crossroad Press)
People say most Canadians don’t like guns, but in Horst Schellenberg’s case, he just hated being shot. And thanks to a .22, his first date with Rene didn’t go exactly as planned.
It started with him running naked across a snowy field in January. His clothes were packed in a duffel bag banging against his legs. That was fine. It was minus thirty, and his ears were still ringing from pounding through his favorite Maiden songs on his drums that afternoon. The newspaper said they’d be bringing Somewhere on Tour to Winnipeg during March. So he was stoked, not just from the thought of seeing Bruce Dickinson leave the mic to battle a huge version of cyborg-Eddie onstage—and, fuck, would that be mint—but about getting to hear Nicko McBrain hammer away on drums all night. He wasn’t Horst’s favorite drummer in the world—rest in peace, Bonzo—but man, he was good. Top five, for sure.
But it looked like that concert would the only bright light of the winter. Horst was flunking Grade 12 and it looked like the ass-end of 1987 was going to see him repeating it just so he could fucking graduate. Sure he could drop out, but then what? His folks were already breathing down his neck, and on top of that, his pack leader Mitch was all, “Don’t drop out, you don’t want to be stuck in a dead-end city job your whole life.” Christ.
But tonight he wasn’t going to worry about bio, trig, or Tess of the Douchebags. He was going to see Rene. In the duffel was a new black T-shirt, unripped jeans and leather jacket—you wanted to look good when you went to see a guy.
But his car, an old Chevy that had seen better days, had conked out on the highway. Looked like the fucking alternator had finally bit it. He should have check
ed it earlier and replaced it, probably—he was acing auto shop, for fuck’s sake—but parts weren’t cheap and it was either that or a new snare drum for his set.
Fortunately, Horst had options, so he changed form. A Canadian winter was nothing new to a dire wolf.
The territory was familiar; he’d been hunting along the outskirts of Winnipeg all winter. That was actually how he’d met Rene. Horst had been shifting after he’d fed (it was a cow he’d brought down; mule deer were just too fast for a wolf evolved to hunt mammoths), and when he’d come back to get his clothes from where he’d cached them in the bush, there was Rene, watching him from the back door. There had been a moment, in the bright light of the moon, when he had expected Rene to run, pull out a rifle or call the cops. But he just stood on the concrete back step of his family’s house, his brown eyes half-laughing at him as he looked him up and down. He had light brown skin and his straight, black hair was bound in a long braid that snaked over his shoulder. He looked nineteen, so just a year older than Horst.
“Hey, you still got blood on your face,” he’d said.
Horst was too busy covering his crotch with his hands to say more than, “Uh, thanks,” and hustle back into the bushes.
But the bigger deal, he realized later, was not only was Rene not scared of him, he’d clearly seen something like Horst before—and he wasn’t one of Horst’s pack or any other he knew about. Plus, Horst already had at least one ex thanks to his, ah, condition. Not that he ever told Jamie Hawryshko about what he could do; but when you’re already hiding from the world you’re into guys, and the one person you don’t hide that from you still keep your other big secret from—well, it didn’t last. And Mitch was very big on secrecy. As in you told anyone, you were roadkill. But Rene—he knew already.
So, of course Horst went back to see him a few times. The third time—and Rene could always somehow tell exactly where he was lurking in the trees, too afraid to lope right up to his back door—he’d said, “Hey, why don’t you come back next Friday and we’ll go out for a walk?” Horst had changed back to human form (hands over crotch) and said, “Sure. My name’s Horst.”