At the Altar of Pan
by A.C. WiseHe says, "Relax, baby. You worry too much."
He takes my hand. I've been dreaming of him all my life.
He says, "You're just my kind of girl."
He flashes me a smile and I know I should be afraid; a strange man, a lone girl walking through the park, even in the middle of the day. I should be afraid, but I'm not. It's my voodoo, it's my juju, and it keeps the fear at bay. It's my dirty little secret - I worry too much to ever be afraid.
It's a magic I can't explain and one that can't be learned - a thousand worries piled up against the threat of fear, a wall so strong nothing can break through. Did I leave the stove on? What if the cat gets out? Did the person who touched the doorknob before me wash their hands?
When I spill salt, I throw it over my shoulder. I won't even breathe heavily if there's a mirror nearby. My mother is dead, but I wouldn't step on a crack to save my life. A thousand worries; they are a mantra, a spell, a fetish woven of neurons firing randomly in my brain; they keep panic at bay.
Only true love can break the spell.
I've been waiting my whole life for the one. I've been waiting my whole life for him. He says, "Baby, you worry too much, you have to learn to chill. Take my hand and I'll show you how."
I am falling in love with him and I don't even know his name. But it is written on my heart in the language of longing. I want to be worthy of the blessing only he can bestow.
These are the things I know about him. He is always relaxed. He wears a white suit, like vanilla ice cream, with a stripe of strawberry down the center, his shirt and tie. He wears a fedora hat, white too, with a pink band. He doesn't shave much - he has casual stubble, a shadow waiting to be a beard - he doesn't worry about that kind of thing. He doesn't worry about anything at all.
He takes me for a walk in the park, and I count cracks in the pavement as I step over them. I watch skaters glide by, and I worry that they will fall.
I know it's my worry-magic that draws him to me - I can see it in his eyes - so I tell him my concerns. As I speak my spell an indefinable shadow, deep as stubble underneath his skin, falls over him. But just as soon as the storm clouds come they're gone, passing from his lightning-colored eyes.
Chill.
He buys me ice cream. I worry about tooth decay.
"I dig you, baby." He says. "Why don't you run away with me?"
I trust him. I don't know why. I don't let strange men take me home. I clutch my bag close when they pass me on the street. I grip my pepper spray if they even so much as smile at me.
This man takes my hand and flashes me a white-lightning grin. This is different. This could be love. I would follow him anywhere.
"Don't you every worry about anything?" I ask him, full of awe.
"It's not in my nature," he replies.
We walk across the park. I don't step on the cracks. I worry about everything except him. He negates worry with a wild magic of his own - something older and deeper than I can fathom.
He leads me along a walk that turns into a way; a path I've never seen before. The trees close overhead, black branches erasing the sky. Before it was cloudy; now twilight blushes beyond our strange bower and darkens the sky. I don't remember night falling. The stars are almost visible, playing hide and seek between the trees. I worry that they will fall out of the sky.
Things watch us in the dark. The ground is weird, rolling and purple, soft and insane - it is the same color as the sky. "We're in deep now, baby." He tells me. "How do you feel?"
He smiles and holds my hand, urging me towards something I cannot see. In the weird wood his eyes burn. I know he wants me to lose myself in the moment, to give myself to him, but I can't because I keep thinking, did I remember to buy toothpaste, did I put gas in the car, did I feed the fish this morning?
With all these worries piled around me, I cannot be afraid. The dark woods reach out and find no purchase beneath my skin - it will not prickle and rise. A thousand shadows, half seen, scream with thwarted rage. I should want to flee, but I just stand and look at my ice cream-colored man and wonder if I'll start seeing gray hairs nestled on my head soon, and what if I get cancer one day?
He looks at me sadly and he takes my hand. I've disappointed him. I've hurt him deep inside.
"There's too much worry in the world," he mourns. "It crowds out unease, malaise, panic, fear. It is the death of them, all these little niggling concerns. They are pretenders to my throne. There is no one left to worship me."
I can't fathom the sadness in his eyes. I don't understand half of what he's saying, but I nod along, worried that he'll think less of me. I want him to love me. I want to be lost in his eyes; unlike any I've ever seen before. They flicker like a summer storm.
"I thought you were different," he laments. I've let him down, and this worries me.
"I am different!" I tell him. I want to do something, anything, to make him smile; my ice cream man, with the strawberry swirl at the heart of him.
"I can change!" I blurt out.
"Can you?" He tilts his head to look at me. "I thought so." He lets his voice trail. He considers me for a long moment, and then his face breaks out in a grin and he tips his hat to one side, jaunty-like, to match the lop-sided smile.
"Hey, baby. It's not you, it's me! Subtlety is a dead art too, after all. I just need to try harder."
He winks, and we're back in the park again. The weird woods fall away as though they've never been. Their lingering sense of dread reaches after me, falls short, and wails its frustration - an unearthly sound.
A man crosses our path and carelessly throws a crumpled bag to the ground. I worry about pollution and global warming.
"You worry too much, baby," he tells me. "But I know you can change."
He leads me down into the subway, into the swirling stinking dark, where hot air goes screaming by. I worry about rats and the smell of urine. I worry about standing too close to the edge.
A train pulls up and my ice cream man sketches a bow, "After you."
I worry that he will melt in the heat.
"Now we're really going to have some fun." He grins - a manic grin - and swings around the pole. The car sways. I worry about germs, so I cling to him instead.
We get off at the end of the world, in a wide open field where the trains shouldn't run. In the distance there are airplanes. They look like white flowers that burst wide, scattered in the dust to die. He leads me towards them. I cling to his hand.
He is wild. He is mad. I love him.
We reach one of the small planes, and there is a pilot waiting. He looks like he has been waiting all his life just for us to arrive. He is wearing black leather and sunglasses that hide his eyes and cling to his skin. His hair is slicked back. He looks oily. I worry that in the beating sun, he will burst into flames.
The pilot opens the door and climbs in. My vanilla-scented man bows again, sweeps his arm in a gallant gesture, and doffs his hat.
"After you."
I climb into the dark of the plane, and I just have time to catch the shadow of two budding horns nestled in his hair. The engine whines and whirrs and coughs and we're in the air. He puts his hat back on.
"Who are you?" I ask, but I think I already know. The faint sound of pipe music whispers through the air.
We are sitting in the cramped dark of the plane, struggling into the sky. We are a dragonfly with broken wings.
"I'm the man you've been waiting for," he tells me. "I'm the man of your dreams. You've been courting me all your life." He smiles a wicked-hungry smile.
"Your juju is strong, baby, but mine is stronger. You're my kind of girl, but I can't wait forever. Everyone has needs, baby. You do, and so do I."
His white-lightning grin flashes, sizzling in the air. His cryptic words smell of electricity between us, tinting the air blue. His ice cream melts and runs, becoming something wild and hard.
"What do I need?" I ask him, but I think I already know.
"You need to be afraid. You need to fall in love."
"And you?" I ask.
"You, baby, I need you. I need to win you over. I need to fill your heart."
He is the man of my dreams. We have been waiting for each other all of my life. I love him, and love is a terrifying thing.
My magic is strong, but his is stronger. He can sweep me off my feet. He can take all my worries away.
I look into his eyes. They are every color, and no color at all. For once in my life, I'm not worried about a thing.
There's something building in me; something deep and strong. All my life I've been playing with sparks, but now I'm playing with fire.
"You can be a true believer, baby, I know you can."
He takes my hand.
"Hold on to your hat, baby, because this is the real thing."
He stands up, and kicks open the door.
"It's now or never, baby. What do you say?" He screams into the wind, and the sky screams back at him.
"Okay." I swallow the word, because if I didn't the wind would snatch it from me anyway.
We jump, still holding hands.
The racing air snatches his hat away so I can see his hair, dancing wildly around his horns. I love him, and I would know him anywhere. He is old, deeply old, but he has changed with the times - forsaking pipes for a parachute and a plane.
"We all have to change with the times," he tells me. "Ready now?"
I want to scream no. I'll never be ready, but isn't that the point?
He calls into the wind, "Have a little faith in me!"
My hands are frantic, looking for a ripcord that isn't there. His eyes are hungry, devouring me, burning and wild. I can just barely hear his voice over the screaming wind.
"You're my kind of girl, baby."
He is laughing now, and we're racing the wind to see who will be the first to reach the ground.
"Why are you doing this?" I scream, and my eyes stream with wind-coaxed tears.
"It's my nature, baby, it's my name. I dig you, baby, and you will adore me. You will worship me."
I look at him with pleading eyes. It's growing now, that dark thing that's always been on the edge of my dreams. It's reaching up for me, and I have no more magic to hold it at bay. As we fall, I can't think of a single thing to worry me. There's only him. He's inside me. He's under my skin.
Up here, falling down, there's nothing to worry me. There's nothing but the screaming sky and the man I have come to love. There's nothing but the ripcord that isn't there, and the racing ground. There's nothing left to hold back the fear. He grins and his eyes and smile are electric.
"That's the spirit, baby!" He says. "Don't worry, Panic!"
©A.C. Wise
A.C. Wise was born in Montreal, and currently lives just outside Philadelphia. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in publications such as Realms of Fantasy, Fantasy Magazine and Jabberwocky 3. For more information visit www.acwise.net.