The Watchtower

blood and to grow straight toward the moon. And toward all the immortal days to come.

15
    The Wild Hunt
    The hounds herded me down onto a long, wide path bordered on the right by a canal and on the left by a straight line of trees, and then they left me, bounding down the avenue as if they’d sensed prey. I could hear their baying long after they vanished in a cloud of dust at the end of the long path. Then I was alone in the moonlit woods.
    At least it wasn’t as dark as it had been in the Luxembourg. No fairy shroud lay over the forest. Instead, bright moonlight illumined everything, turning the dusty footpath into a long, broad silver ribbon. Nor had the trees broken rank like the ones in the Luxembourg had. They stood like sentinels alongside the allée, straight and dispassionate as palace guards. The wind that now came bowling down the path barely rustled their leaves.
    That was strange, I thought, stopping to listen. I could hear the wind, but the sound it made wasn’t the thrashing of leaves; it was hoofbeats approaching fast, coming straight toward me even though I couldn’t see anything ahead but a flurry of dust …
    I scrabbled to the side just as the dust rushed past me, the sound of hoofbeats hammering in my ears. Then they were gone. I followed the path to the end and crossed to another path that ran parallel. The whole woodland was cut into long, straight avenues—not a trackless wilderness at all. When I was halfway down the next path, I heard the hoofbeats again, welling up behind me. I turned and tried to stand my ground, but at the last minute I ducked to the side again, my heart racing to the staccato beat of the pounding hooves. Instead of retreating this time the sound stayed with me, as if it had lodged in my brain, a maddening tattoo.
    I took off into the trees, trying to stay off the paths, which I saw now were just great big runways for the hunt to barrel down. But I wasn’t alone under the trees. Something—or some things —were moving along the ground, stirring the dry leaves with soft, padded paws and hot breath. Hounds . And their prey. People were in the woods, stragglers from the square who hadn’t returned to their hotels when the bells tolled midnight, but who had instead been lured into the woods … and into the hunting grounds. The woman in Breton shirt and capris ran past me, leaves and twigs clinging to her disarrayed hair and a wild, unseeing look in her eyes. She was pursued by the invisible hounds out onto the broad path where she took off running on bare feet. A cloud of dust pursued her. I stared at it, trying to make out what was inside it … and then wished I hadn’t.
    Amid the horses and hounds were creatures with cloven feet and horns that were not quite human and not quite beast. Hair covered their haunches and long tails, but their chests and faces were bronzed bare. Most awful were the expressions on their faces. They grinned and grimaced and salivated, leering after the woman in capris in a way that combined hunger and lust in a queasy mix. Their pupils were vertical, oblong slits—like goats’ eyes. Satyrs . I recognized them from pictures and statues, but these obscene creatures were nothing like the prancing goatmen of classical art. These were monsters.
    When the dust ball caught up with the woman, I lost sight of the individual creatures inside it. Cries came from the mêlée that sounded like a mix of the peacock calls I’d heard earlier that night and snarling dogs. When the dust cleared, nothing was left. Not the horrible creatures of the hunt or the innocent woman who had fallen victim to it.
    Okay, I thought, trying to keep panic at bay, don’t run. They like it when you run. I had Sylvianne’s branch. I’d come to stop the hunt and ask its leader for passage to the Summer Country, not become the hunt’s prey. All I had to do was step out onto the path when I heard the hunt approaching again. I crouched beside the path and listened … and heard someone weeping.
    Was it another trick of the hunt? A sound to frighten me into breaking cover? But, no—this sound was only too real. I followed it to its source and found, crouched behind a boulder, Sarah. Her pretty yellow sundress was torn, her bare feet were dirty and bleeding, her hair tangled into knots. In the hour or so since I’d seen her sketching in the square she’d been transformed from a plucky teenager to … helpless prey.
    “Sarah, honey,” I cooed, coaxing her balled