Chapter 4
“The Giants dwelt in Talo-tolo, the world Tolo of the Hindus, where we find the Tol-tecas (Tol-people): therefore America: called also Atala and once sunk in the waves.” — Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, The American Nations, Vol. I
Phiale was excused from that Saturday morning’s bouquet-making. Having transferred so late, she was never assigned a Rose mentor like the other first-year Flower Club members were. So there was no reason for her to assemble an arrangement in appreciation of a senior’s “wise guidance,” as was tradition.
While the other Violets were snipping Guardian Angels and matching greenery with Golden Beauties, Phiale picked her way upstream through thorny undergrowth along the banks of Maple Run. She felt compelled to find its source.
If anybody had asked, she’d have said she simply wanted to … but how simple was it? What kind of a dweeb would let a fairy convince her she was possessed by a water nymph, anyway? Phiale wasn’t getting any Linda Blair vibes — her head hadn’t exactly whirled around like a vomit sprinkler. In fact, she pretty much just felt a pleasant buzz of power. But was that the nymph’s leash?
She also wondered why she actually felt protective of that winged weirdo — as opposed to immediately informing the authorities about her. As Phiale steadily climbed in elevation up the side of a long ridge, her hiking boots and jeans soaked and muddy, she came to where a subterranean spring became Maple Run as it emerged from the base of a 20-foot cliff. She rested on a boulder and gazed into the stream’s implausible depths. Beneath her, she sensed a vast network of invisible waterways feeding the ones we can actually see — like the Wabash snaking across the light-green landscape in the distance. At first, Phiale thought she heard the water making flute music; then the brook emitted noises like a human voice … it almost sounded like: “I found another shield!” And: “Look at the size of that skull — big as a beach ball!”
Once Phiale realized it wasn’t the creek talking, she went to investigate, skirting the sheer limestone face via the eastern slope on an old logging road. She found the Seance Club at the dome-shaped apex and hid behind a shaggy red cedar. Mr. Owen was straining to lift what appeared to be an enormous copper shield into a trailer attached to a Jeep, which had ripped a large stone slab from the ground with a front-mounted chain winch. Phiale started to go see what they were up to, but something held her back. Something felt off … creepy, really. The girls had gathered around the teacher holding shovels — except for one — just standing there gawping. “Sienna, what are you doing?” he asked nervously. “You’re supposed to be on lookout.”
Phiale didn’t stick around.
* * *
“Only 120 miles northwest of here, a race of giants ruled over what we now call Cahokia,” Mr. Owen proclaimed to the class.
Phiale, along with his other students not in the Seance Club, had learned not to take him too literally. But good lord, she thought — what the hell kind of school did my parents send me to? Normally, she’d be dozing away the class after lunch on a Monday, but the teacher had a way of keeping her attention.
Mr. Owen continued: “The city’s population peaked at around 30,000 in the year 1100 … yes, Windi, I said giants, and I see your hand, but you’ll have to wait until I’m done … making it larger than any other settlement that would come along in what’s now the United States for the next 600 years.”
He turned off the lights, pulled a screen over the chalkboard and flipped on a projector to show an ancient city dotted by large, pyramidal mounds and residential dwellings — with the Mississippi River, smaller streams and maize fields in the background. One pyramid towered over the others inside an expansive plaza surrounded by a palisade.
“Just across from modern-day St. Louis, Caho—”
“I don’t see the Gateway Arch,” Windi blurted. “Maybe the giants could have used it as a croquet wicket.”
“No croquet, but plenty of ‘Off with their heads!’” Mr. Owen said, moving his finger across his throat. “The blood of many young girls soaked the earth of these terraced mounds as offerings to their overlords. Constantine Samuel Rafinesque described the horrifying details. It’s all in here.” Wild-eyed, he grabbed a leather-bound manuscript from his desk and waved it around (it was one of several writings the hapless professor accidentally left behind in New Harmony after his 1818 visit).
“Enough!” Rapp blared over a loudspeaker mounted above the screen.
“Are you eavesdropping on my class?”
“I won’t tolerate the devil’s teaching in my school, you heathen.”
“You’ll pay for this,” Mr. Owen growled as he ripped wires from the bottom of the speaker. The phone started ringing, so he tore the cord out of that too. Then he locked the door.
“Moving forward in time …,” he said, adjusting his pantaloons and changing the image on the screen to a rendering that also featured a walled town with a plaza zigzagged by walking paths, next to a river. In the new picture, though, a much larger inner wall also served as the communal living quarters — a three-story building that formed a square enclosing several other buildings along with towers billowing smoke. Sitting near the screen, Phiale made out a well-dressed 19th century family and their dog taking in the scene from a ridge. It looked pleasant, albeit a little boring.
“This is how New Harmony should have looked,” Mr. Owen said, sighing. “It took me a long time to realize we were going about things all wrong back then — that people aren’t naturally inclined to embrace their duties simply for the well-being of the community … that they wouldn’t feel ashamed to lollygag under an apple tree while a work crew marched off to the hop field.”
He flipped back and forth between the renderings of the two towns, one that actually thrived, the other, a pipe dream. “Since then, I’ve realized that if you want a perfect world, a harmonious order, grandeur — above all efficiency — there must be sacrifices … in honor of more advanced leaders … of a certain stature.”
Mr. Owen clicked the projector to yet another rendering, similar to the first with various pyramids, but smaller than those in Cahokia. “This is where we’re going on a field trip Friday — Angel Mounds in Evansville. We’ll be joined by the rest of the Seance Club because we need extra hands for a project we’re working on.”
“Should we bring our own shovel, or will the club provide one?” Windi asked.
Mr. Owen gasped, as did Sienna, sitting in the next desk row over from Windi. “Young lady, if you’re implying that our club might be planning to desecrate one of those mounds … well, let’s just say the Indiana State Museum will stop at nothing to protect the official narrative … but enough!”
“I was just wondering if it was going to be like what the club was doing in that photo going around.”
Mr. Owen sucked in a breath and blew out slowly. “I’ve seen it — an obvious fake; anyway, their faces are concealed so it doesn’t matter.”
Windi held up her phone to show Sienna an image posted to the subreddit r/usefulredcircle by u/iiskipper — two girls with tongue-out emojis covering their faces posed next to an eight-foot sword leaning against a tree, its gold hilt encrusted with turquoise and obsidian. They were standing on a wooded hilltop scarred by recent digging, and in the background, blending into the foliage (if not for a useful red circle), was Sienna, whose job had been to make sure nobody saw them. “That’s you, right?”
“I was just the lookout,” she blurted. “Those giants are going to defend our town!”
Mr. Owen laughed nervously. “Keep quiet, you idiot!”
***
That evening just before dusk, Phiale scribbled off a History essay on why the walls surrounding Angel Mounds had to be so tall, and then she headed to that day’s Flower Club duty.
Belle appeared (as in she was suddenly there) next to Phiale as the latter dragged a hose toward an overgrown patch of weeds called the Butterfly Garden. Phiale was joining Windi at the plot, where one representative from each of the Flower and Butterfly clubs was supposed to meet regularly to tend it (a good way to bait specimens for the Pinning Wall).
The project was founded back in the 1920s as a peace partnership between warring factions at a time when interclub relations in general ranged from incendiary to explosive. Its state of neglect was a testament to the lack of collaborative spirit it had managed to foster over the ensuing century.
Phiale turned on the spray nozzle, sprinkling crabgrass, thistle and milkweed … possibly some purple coneflowers that weren’t blooming yet, if ever. “I doubt it needs watering,” Windi said. “You always water too much anyway. Huh … that’s funny — my dad’s a contractor and said your name is a fancy word for a fountain, like in a garden.”
Windi jabbed pruning shears in the direction of Belle. “What’s she doing here? Does she even go to this school? Nobody ever knows who she is.”
“You must be getting excited about your initiation rite — about making the cut,” Belle said and made stabbing motions over her heart.
“That’s a myth. Those Seance cows made it up a long time ago to smear us.”
“But it makes sense. Sacrifices become increasingly horrifying as a cult matures — it’s a matter of metaphysics.”
“Shut up, nerd.”
“You see, all idols want to grow stronger by constantly leveling up in power — measured by how much their devotees are willing to give up. There’s even a local myth about a snake that grows more than 10 times in size if it’s worshiped hard enough.” She looked at her watch. “What I’m getting at is that the knives always come out eventually.”
“OK, freak.”
Belle skipped around swiping at the air, “Oh, look at me. I’m just a silly schoolgirl trying to catch a butterfly … certainly not a bloodthirsty zealot whose cult would literally rule the world without any pushback.”
“Is that necessary, Belle?” Phiale said. “Tink?”
Windi looked up from acting like she was weeding. “Where’d she go? She was right there!” The garden stake she’d been holding for balance while squatting suddenly turned into a butterfly net. “What the hell?”
“Now, now,” Tinker Bell said, shaking a twig at her, hovering just out of the pole’s reach.
Windi’s eyes grew wider (than usual), and she grinned. “The talking elfin!” Springing from her crouch, Windi stumbled, recovered, fell, got back up and chased Tinker Bell into the darkening woods, shouting and slamming her net into branches.
Phiale went looking for them after she finished watering. Although the Skipper was clearly no threat to Tinker Bell, she still wanted to make sure the fairy was OK (a common feeling among Artemis’ attendants for the past 2,500 years). Plus, winding her way along a narrow trail, she somehow felt a screw-up in that area would incur the wrath of Di — which she’d like to take a hard pass on. Then, faintly, through the thicket, she heard the cries of a girl generally unloved and fed up with life: “Somebody help meeee … gross, you stink … quit stepping on me.”
* * *
The word “panic” comes from the Greek “panikos,” after the effect caused by looking into Pan’s face — an unfiltered glimpse into nature as it really is. While humans can’t handle such a shock and keep their composure, Phiale was partly immune as she stood there staring at the God in a half-dark valley. Being host to a nymph, she was more likely to frolic in nature than be freaked out by it … unlike Windi, pinned to the ground under the faun’s hoof.
“Get that thing off me!” she screamed. “It tried to kiss me!”
“Oh, a nymph … how much more exciting,” bleated the creature. He reminded Phiale of a video she’d watched of a black goat walking on its hind legs through a chicken coop — a little creepy but nothing to lose it over. That is, until it advanced on her.
Then, from the gloaming, an orange hat bobbed into view — under it appeared a figure in camo reaching for an arrow. Di!
“Behold! Artemis, the enemy of exuberance,” Pan proclaimed.
“How dare you appear before these girls in your true form,” said Di in a voice that was quiet but had the effect of somebody suddenly screaming at you from behind.
“Are you going to tell your daddy on me? This is who I am. I refuse to skulk about in a human baa-dy. I’m proud of my faunhood … your precious fairy says God is dead — well, the great god Pan is notdead.” He pounded his chest, and Di nocked the arrow.
“Go find yourself a filthy she-goat.” She took aim, and he disappeared into the woods with a burst of discordant pipe notes.
Phiale shuddered. Hopefully not in the direction of a farm.
“Great, I smell like that thing now,” Windi said. “If this gets out, nobody will ever want to marry me.”
“You mean as opposed to before?” Di said.
“Hey! Wait … aren’t you the Fire Safety Goddess?”
Ignoring her, Di stared at the ground and said: “I remember seeing y’all down here, dropping my kill to reach for an arrow … and that goat thing … wait, I saw the fairy out here too just now. Where is she?”
“You know about her, then,” Phiale said. “Windi met her too just now.”
“So the elfin’s a fairy,” the Skipper said, picking the net off the ground. “You have no idea how much Principal Rapp wants one of us to catch that thing. Sometimes I think it’s the only way I’ll ever make it to the initiation.”
Di shattered the net’s wooden pole with an arrow just above Windi’s hand. “You’re leaving that and coming with us back to your dorm.” The huntress started up the ridge, and the girls followed.
“Wow, what a nutjob,” Windi said. At the crest, Di grabbed something off the ground and then stood silhouetted by the full moon cresting the horizon. “And is she holding a dead turkey?”
They’d just started back when Phiale heard what sounded like a cross between a party favor and a crying baby in the direction of the river.
“A fawn in distress,” Di said.
Windi sneered. “That goat thing? Who cares?”
“No — a baby deer, and we’re helping it.”
Had Belle been with them, she’d have pointed out how they should pause to consider whether they might be headed into a trap. But she was instead crouched on a bluff overlooking the Wabash, mimicking the sound of a troubled fawn.
“That shrew tricked us,” Windi said when they found her bleating at the moon.
“Keep your voice down,” Belle whispered, motioning them toward her.
Peering through the underbrush, they saw Rapp standing a little ways upriver in shallow water just past the Maple Run confluence. “It sounds like Gabriel will have a tasty treat tonight: a helpless creature stuck in the brambles,” he said.
Belle stifled a giggle and made the distress call again. “Shut up, you fool, or we’ll be the treat,” Di hissed.
Rapp started praying in a strange language, and spitting a lot.
“What’s he saying?” Di asked Belle.
“My Atlantean is rusty — plus it’s hard to tell without him being able to screech hypersonically — but I think he’s pledging total loyalty to an archangel whose excretions … no, no, whose arrival is signaling the beginning of the end … and whose flaming sword will tickle … eh, scratch that — you get the point.”
As Rapp circled with his hand above the water, a spiral of ripples glimmered in the moonlight. The coiling became wider and faster, forming a whirlpool, and Rapp stepped back onto the shore. He bowed his head and extended his arms, palms up.
Then the frogs went quiet. Phiale had gotten so used to their mating chorus it was startling when the spring peepers — aka Pseudacris crucifer (false locusts bearing a cross on their backs) — stopped peeping. (Rapp would’ve been nauseated to find out pseudo-religious creatures had been screeching for sin in the muck all around him.)
From the vortex emerged the snake Phiale saw the other day on the flower walk, like it was rising from a charmer’s basket. It kept growing larger, sprouting legs and bat-like wings … if nothing else, our school mascot makes sense now.
Standing as tall as a sycamore, the dragon immediately stretched its scaly black neck toward the bluff at the same time Belle cast a protection spell that cloaked everyone hiding there. The cat-eyed beast got so close that Phiale could smell the sulfuric smoke curling from its nostrils. And she could make out a red streak running across its snout and fanning out past its horns across the back of its head. It flicked its tongue.
“I see you’ve found your wurst, Great Avenger.”
“There’s nothing here,” the beast said in a deep, leathery voice. “I sensed something strong and ancient, but it’s gone. This land conceals powers that can trick you.” Gabriel looked down at Rapp and asked sternly: “Are you any closer to capturing the frosted elfin?”
“We’re closing in.”
“And the gem?”
“Within days.”
“Do not fail me.”
“I grow stronger only through your approval, mein Lord.”
“And richer with river treasure too, if you succeed.”
Windi whispered in a strange voice, her eyes far away: “Golden glints … shimmery depths …” Belle looked at her curiously and smiled (although it was more like a grimace under the strain of her spell hiding three other people).
“I will bring her to you alive as promised,” Rapp said.
The dragon scowled at him, smoke now pouring out of his nostrils. “You had better,” he said and raised his snout to the sky, shooting forth a column of flames that lit the night sky.
“Eh …,” Rapp said nervously. “That was quite the attention getter, your Lordship.”
“No matter. I must return to my lesser form. Once you complete my offerings, though, I can remain at full strength.” The dragon shrank back into a snake and swam off downriver. Phiale sensed a lingering disturbance in the water — like a churning chill.
Belle ended the spell and caught her breath. Di motioned them away from the bluff, but with all that’d happened, she forgot to grab her turkey when she started off. Windi stepped in it, feeling a deep squish accompanied by a gaseous burbling, and let out a string of words that, while somewhat stifled, are those that naturally prick a principal’s attention.
“Who is that?” Rapp said. “Windi? Is that you?”
Check out Chapter 5 of The Flame of Heraclitus. And catch up with the Prologue. (Originally shared on X.)
Rob Robill 