The Death of Pan: Part One (complete)

I receive the strangest call from an old friend early in the evening. His voice sounds stilted, slightly panicked. Through all the time I’ve known him, I never once saw him nervous or apprehensive, and this worries me. After everything he’s done for me, he’s never so much as asked me for a favor. I owe him a great deal.

The Carnival hasn’t changed much, but it’s so much bigger than I remember, and even in my memory it towers above me. It’s been a long time since I’ve been back, perhaps too long. I had begun to forget what home felt like. 

“Put out that cigarette, Hector.” His voice comes through with the memory, always scolding me for my nasty habit. “It’s unsightly and there are children around.” But this isn’t a memory. It’s actually him.

I smile up at him as I pull the cigarette from my lips. “Authaire, you old so-and-so! You haven’t aged a day.”

“And you look both thirty and seventy at the same time.” He snatches the cigarette from my fingers and stomps it out with his heel. He looks at me, and I can see the pain in his eyes. Something is definitely wrong.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Mr. Faire breathes. “You’re the only person in the world I can trust right now.” His hand lands in the middle of my back, and I can feel his fingers tense against my coat.

“This way.” He leads me from the entrance and towards the center of the carnival. There’s no one around, and an eerie silence wafts through the grounds. I have never seen the place so bleak. The carnival is always full of life, and this is not the carnival I knew.

Mr. Faire leads me towards the house of mirrors just ahead of the entrance to Scarebrooke. He stops at the door, then turns to look at me and takes off his hat, fumbling with the brim. “I must warn you - whatever you expect, it is not that.” He glances at the door  as his jaw tenses. “Hector, this is...” He laughs nervously. “I don’t even know what to call this.”

“You’ve kept everyone inside, correct?” I point at the door. “Everyone who was in there when the body was discovered is still there, correct?”

Mr. Faire nods. “Yes.” His breathing is strained. “I’ve had Haytham stay at the door.” 

I notice his hands are trembling. I have never known him to show such signs of nervousness. “Do you want to stay outside?”

“No,” he says adamantly. He quickly places his hat back on his head. “This is my carnival, my home. I should be the one who sees to matters such as these.”

I reach for the pack of cigarettes in my jacket pocket. “I will make you leave if I have to.” I tap one cigarette out from the packet.

“Please don’t, Hector,” Mr. Faire protests. “You know how I...”

“I won’t light it,” I grunt at him. “Just let me hold it.” I place the cigarette in my mouth, then head into the house of mirrors.

Haytham turns as we come inside, and I see a group of people huddled there. Some are together, and others stand apart from one another and avoid looking at the mirrors. I count at least seven people here, but more could be hiding within the labyrinth of mirrors. I glance back at Mr. Faire. “Where’s the body?” 

“I’ll show you,” Haytham answers. 

I let out a sigh. “Stay here, then. Keep an eye on this lot.” I motion to the people sitting around before I follow Haytham into the labyrinth.

“So, tell me,” I say to Haytham’s back. “Mr. Faire is awfully unnerved. Is this just him being a worrywart, or is this something to truly be terrified about?”

“You should be terrified, Mr. Keres,” Haytham says staunchly. “I have never seen anything like this in my long life. I wasn’t even sure it was possible.”

He stops and motions to the center of the labyrinth where the mirrors open up into a circular room. I step inside and see the body laying in the middle of the room, surrounded by reflections. I kneel beside the body and remove the sheet covering it. There are stab wounds all over the chest and neck, signs of struggle on the arms, and contusions to the head. I drop the sheet and look back to Haytham.

“The fuck is this?” I point at the body. “You must be kidding. This is-” I shake my head and start to laugh at the absurdity. “This is a god!”

“Was,” Haytham murmurs. “He was a god.”

Rubbing the stubble on my jaw, I try to figure out how someone, anyone, could possibly kill a god. Not that this one didn’t deserve it. I reach for my lighter and bring it up to the cigarette in my mouth. Haytham groans. “Mr. Keres, please, do not light that in here.”

“My bad.” I drop my hand and shove the lighter back into my pocket. “I think you can understand, though.” I take the cigarette from my lips and exhale slowly. “So. The god, Pan, is dead.”

“That’s the way it looks, doesn’t it?” Haytham scowls. “What do you intend to do, Mr. Keres?”

I scratch my chin. “Well, it depends. I could run away and tell my only friend in the world to take care of it himself. No one wants to deal with shit like this.” I point the cigarette down at the body. “Or I could suck it up and be the first to figure out how someone kills a god.” I let out a laugh. “Then I could go after the murderer.”

Haytham nods. “Where do we start?”

“Step back.” I approach the body again and remove the sheet entirely, staring down at the dead satyr before me. Then I take a safety pin out of my pocket, jab it into my fingertip, and smear the blood onto a mirror, creating a magic circle while I breathe an incantation.

The lights flicker, dim, then go out. They brighten, then dim again. Suddenly, Pan appears standing in the mirrors. Behind each reflection stands a figure, possibly more than one. 

I step back to the dead body. “Good evening. Or,” I chuckle, “perhaps not for you. You’re dead.”

The Pan in the mirrors grimaces at me. 

“So tell me, what brings you here?” I fan my hand out over the corpse.

Pan’s dark eyes fall to the ground, then look back up at me. The figures standing behind him shift in alarm, backing away from the reflection. “If I knew, I would tell you.” His low, rumbling voice is what I imagined he would sound like, given his reputation. It is both lovely and horrible, the voice of a predator. 

I shrug. “I know. I didn’t expect this to be so easy. But why were you here at the carnival, of all places?”

Pan smirks, his reflections all projecting an air of smug superiority. “Recently, my daughter ran away from home. I was coming here to take her back.”

I click my tongue. “Which one?”

His eyes narrow.

“You have six or seven dozen, I’m sure.” I place the cigarette in my fingers between my lips. A bit of blood has stained the tip. “Everyone knows your bloodline is an ocean, Pan. You’re going to have to be specific with me.”

Pan’s scowl deepens.

“You don’t even know her name?” I chuckle. “Wow. Even my shitty father knew my name.” I wanted to light my cigarette so badly. “So you came here searching for your daughter. What for, aside from your own control issues?”

I notice the Pan in one mirror is different, and the figure behind him stands much closer. Pan is looking behind and down at the figure before turning to stand like the others.

“She was kidnapped. I was simply bringing her back home. I get so lonely these days.”

I scowl. “You and I both know that isn’t the issue for you.” 

Pan chuckles. “How do you know so much about me? You don’t even know me. You can’t speak for the emotions I felt, the life I lived, the world I created.”

“I know enough.” I tug the cigarette from my lips. “I know the people you hurt, the lives you ruined, all because you needed to get your dick wet.”

All the Pans grin and elevate their chins.

“I’m sure that everyone who has ever come in contact with you has motive for your murder.” I look down at the corpse again, its head surrounded by dried blood. His eyes are wide open, and both sockets completely black. I flick my eyes back up to the mirrors. “But there are only seven out there.”

“Only?” he chuckles. 

“You came here for a reason, Pan, not just to chase down a daughter. No, no, she probably didn’t even matter to you. What mattered to you was that you were slighted.” I jab my cigarette towards the center reflection. “She was taken from you, an offense of the highest degree. Your pride wouldn’t even let someone steal a penny from you. You built cults around yourself. You didn’t come here for a child, you came here for revenge.”

Pan sighs and presses his palms against the glass. The figures behind him turn, facing forward. I can see the features of some, but not much. Pan won’t allow them any light. 

“You don’t know me at all, Mr. Keres,” he hisses. “A pitiful blight like you has no idea what my life is like, what tortures I suffered daily.”

“Tortures,” Haytham snorts behind me.

Pan turns his attention to him. “And what do you know?”

“Tell us your tortures,” Haytham sniffs, “and perhaps we won’t laugh at you.”

Pan sneers, his lip curling up over his teeth. He steps back and the shadowed figures move away, turning aside. “As if you care.”

“Of course we don’t,” I laugh. “No one gives a fuck about your feelings. Not here anyway. But you’re dead, and we need to find out how and why. So tell us, o tortured one, why are you like that?”

“I was cursed,” Pan says. 

I furrow my brow at him, unimpressed and unmoved. “So am I. Join the club.” I roll up my sleeve to show him the dark tattoos covering my arm. 

Pan throws his head back and laughs. “Worse than that sad little attempt at discomfort. No, you see, what was forced upon me was so much worse.”

“Your choice of words is a riot,” Haytham snaps, “considering what you’ve done to people.”

Pan slams his hands against the mirrors, making the entire room shudder. “You asked me a question, and you’re mocking me!”

I look back at Haytham. “Let’s get this out of him, and then point and laugh at the dead later. OK?”

Haytham huffs, crossing his arms against his chest. “Fair point.”

Pan sniffs and regains his composure. “When I was young, I was cursed by my own mother.”

In one of the mirrors, a shadowed figure replaces Pan - a woman with dark skin and pale eyes. Her long hair covers her naked body, and flowers and vines sprout from within. 

“Who is that?” Haytham whispers to me. “What’s going on?”

“Shh.” I step towards the woman in the mirror, while Pan glares at her from all sides. She looks at me with tears in her eyes. 

“You’re his mother, I assume,” I say to her. “He’s brought you up, so tell us why you would curse your own son.”

She shakes her head slowly. Around her, bees rise up and begin to buzz loudly. “I only wanted to teach him a lesson, but he would not learn.” Her voice comes out as if she is speaking from a catacomb. 

“A lesson,” I murmur. I glance at the angry faces of the reflections of Pan. “What sort of lesson?”

“He hurt a girl, in a way that I could not forgive or protect him from. But it was the girl who was punished!”

I shake my head. “You don’t have to explain to me, ma’am. Keep going.”

“As a woman, I was angry. As his mother, I was furious. I had taught him better.” The tears were flowing down her face. “In my anger and my disappointment, I cursed him. I did! And I would do it again.”

“Shut up!” Pan’s voice echoes throughout the room.

“What was the curse?” I ask her. “Tell me what you did to try and punish your son.”

She closes her eyes, but the tears still flow. As she clasps her hands to her chest, the flowers and vines in her hair begin to wilt, and the bees fall to the floor. “I cursed him to never be satisfied, to never find what he is looking for, to never feel as though he is complete. His children would never love him. His lovers would always leave. He would understand how empty life truly is without love.”

“See what I mean?” Pan hisses. “She took everything from me! She made life a living hell!”

“But you learned nothing,” I murmur. I would give anything to light my cigarette and smoke. “You continued to be a piece of shit and ruin lives.”

“You don’t know how it feels!” Pan screams.

“I only wanted to save him,” his mother cries. “I only wanted to find the goodness in him that would do right.”

“And that is why you are buried, mother!” Pan bellows. “That is why you are where you are!”

She closes her eyes, and her body begins to wither. Her hair goes gray, and her skin is covered in dust. Her flesh shrivels as her arms curl around her like vines. 

“You killed your mother?” I glare at the reflections. “I hate my father, but I would never kill him.”

“You should. Get rid of that weight around your neck,” Pan hisses. “And I didn’t kill her. She’s still very much alive. I only buried her.”

His mother sinks back, fading into the shadows again as Pan steps forward. 

“She's alive?” I whisper. “You buried her alive?”

“As she buried me!” Pan roars.

“Always the victim.” I look down at the corpse and try to keep myself from smiling. “OK then, so we have that. Is that why you treated people the way you did?”

“I tried to love,” Pan hisses. “I tried to overcome what she did to me. I wanted to find someone who could save me.”

I can feel Haytham’s eye roll behind me, Lord knows I want to do it too, but I don’t want to lose control and have Pan vanish. “So you started your first cult.”

“It wasn’t a cult,” Pan scoffs. “It was my family.”

I need to fucking smoke. I pinch my fingers between my eyes and rub down the bridge of my nose. “OK,” I groan. “So you have your little family. What came first?”

A figure appears in the mirror, a young boy with dark curls and a hateful expression. “I did. I was the first, but not the last.”

“Who are you?” I ask.

The boy tilts his chin up. He has the same coloring as Pan, the same dark coat of fur and the same twisted horns. But his eyes are softer, gentler. This was a child who had love in his heart. “I am Robin,” he answers.

I nod softly. “OK then, Robin, you have been brought up. Why is that?”

“Why do you think?” he scoffs. “I was his firstborn, and look at what followed me.” Behind him, many, many more shadows appear down an endless corridor. “My siblings and I are a testament to our father’s endless obsession.”

I squeeze my hand into a fist, looking through the mirror at the line of children behind Robin. “And what would that obsession be, little Robin?”

“Nothing was ever good enough for him. He wanted the perfect child. His wives, his lovers, his castles and possessions - nothing was perfect.”

“Because of what my mother did!” Pan protests. “I wanted so badly to love, to hold my children and know they were my world. But because of my mother, they all hated me!”

“He took joy in it,” Robin whispers. “Making others suffer. He would take, and take, and take until the people who loved him had nothing left. He made creatures like himself. He wanted to make everyone hurt just so he could feel superior.”

“You ungrateful brat!” Pan snarls.

“He doesn’t care,” Robin chokes. “He likes that he can’t love.” His eyes grow wet as his small shoulders start to tremble. “He doesn’t care. He likes that he can’t.”

“I’m sorry, Robin,” I whisper.

“He betrayed me!” Pan screams. “They all do!”

Robin turns around, running away to join his siblings. They turn into dandelions that spread into the wind, floating away until Pan returns to the mirror. 

“They never betrayed you, because they were never loyal. Easy as that.” I rub my lighter in my pocket as I try to keep myself focused. “You’re dead, Pan. Stop trying to make me feel sorry for you. Show me the real you, the one that someone was willing to sacrifice themselves for to kill. This whole carnival is filled with monsters, but you’re the only real one here.”

A swan appears in a mirror, beautiful, regal and white. She floats down from above and sits peacefully for a moment before rising, her wings spreading out so the feathers fall around her as she transforms into woman. She is heartbreakingly beautiful, and I almost lose my breath as I look at her. 

“I loved him,” she whispers. “I really and truly loved Pan with all my heart and soul.”

“Crap. So he brings you up. His perfect shining example.”

The swan maiden removes her hands from over her heart, revealing that she is bleeding. “I did everything for him. I thought I could be the one to save him, he thought I was the one to give him perfect children.”

“You weren’t,” I whisper. “You couldn’t.”

“I know,” she replies. “But I was perfect.”

I watch her as the white of her gown is stained red from the bleeding of her heart. “You’re what he wanted most - someone devoted beyond all reason. He wanted the people in his life to fall at his feet, to worship him and give up their lives for him.”

“Even when he took our daughter from me, I still loved him. I was afraid.” She begins to weep. “I was afraid of losing him!”

“A woman such as yourself should not be afraid of anything, least of all losing a man.” I move closer towards her. “What did he do that finally made you let go?”

She shows her bloody hands to me. “He tried to kill my son, and our other daughter as well. He tried to take the baby still growing inside me.”

I look into her eyes as she cries. “He knew you would look away from him.”

She nods. “I thought my son had killed him, but it wasn’t enough.”

“He tricked you!” Pan screams. “He took you away from me!”

The swan maiden folds her wings around herself. “I cannot listen again!”

She flies away, and white feathers float down around where she stood. Pan appears back in the mirror and glares down at me. “You can’t trust women to do anything for you.”

I glare up at him, holding a white feather between my fingers. “You’re disgusting,” I sneer. 

“Mr. Keres,” Haytham says warningly. 

I head towards the entrance. “Stay here,” I command Pan. “I need to speak to the suspects for a moment.”

“Come back here!” Pan screams. “Don’t leave me here! Not with… not with that on the ground.”

Haytham leads me through the labyrinth and back towards the entrance of the house of mirrors. I look around at the seven people there. There are two men who look very similar, one blonde and the other dark-haired. There are twin girls, huddled beside one another. There is a mime, an exceptionally tall young man, and beside him is a clown wearing a traditional harlequin attire. The last suspect is a man, slightly short with thick golden curls on his head. 

“I swear to god, if I can’t smoke I’m going to lose my mind.” I complain to Mr. Faire. 

“No smoking,” he scolds.

“Fuck, fine.” I shove my hands into my pockets and look back at the suspects. “How does one kill a god? Obviously this was premeditated. No one can just kill a god so easily. This had to be prepared for, and someone here knew what they were doing and how to do it properly.” I furrow my brow. “This is a very strange evening. I would honestly love to shake the hand of the person who killed him. The world is better off without Pan in it. But the fact remains that you have put Mr. Faire in jeopardy, and I cannot abide by it. Whoever did this, I need to know.”

One of the girls steps towards me. “Here.” She offers me a stick of gum. “It’s not a cigarette, but maybe it will help.”

“I’m not taking gum from a murder suspect.”

She shrugs and returns to her sister’s side.

“Who are you?” The blonde man asks. 

“Hector Keres,” I answer. “And for now, that’s all you need to know.”