All the Myths Are True

A MythPunk Story by Arveliot

It was a familiar dream.

The blue glow of the aurora blazed in the moonless sky, so brightly it painted the shadows of trees onto the snow at her feet. The frigid air burned in her nostrils as she pulled it into her lungs, and bit at her eyes between blinks.

A thousand footprints marked her path through the unscarred snow, the shadows within each step dancing like smoke in a teacup as the shifting aurora flung the shadows about.

Ahead of her, arrow straight, lay a path of teal snow, constantly shimmering as it caught and cast the shifting light. Above her, swirling blue lines that trickled their spectacular ink painted the sky, fading into the black as they were replaced by still more colour.

On a night like this, it was easy to believe in magic. To believe in the strange things that lead her out.

Like the strange sights at Lake Lebarge.

At the end of her path lay a lake. Now a bowl of ice in the cold clutch of winter, the hazy ice was milky and thick, pimpled like a curling rink, and slick as treachery.

At the heart of the lake, cloaked in snow, an old steamship lay atop a small island. The exhaust pipes bowed from the weight of age, and much of the hull had crumpled; folding into itself until the ship lay over the small island like a man crumpled over a couch.

But it wasn't the ship that called her out, wandering beneath the northern lights. Drawing close to the ship, she could see the plume lazily blooming above the smokestacks, and yellow light glowed from one of the small windows.

She drew close to that window, too short to see through it, but close enough to wrench at the handle of a nearby door.

The door creaked open, its hinges screaming in irritation as she managed to wrestle it open a few inches. She peeked through the open slit and had to shut her eyes and turn her head away.

Heat pushed at her like hand, thrusting her head back and bathing her face in hot, dry air tinged with the smell of a campfire. She blinked a few times, forcing her eyes to focus.

She saw a man.

He rested on a chair, surrounded by fire, in a room where tongues of flame lapped at the walls and swirled along the roof. The man, his heavy duster unbuttoned and his warm hat resting on the arm of the chair, turned and seemed to notice her for the first time.

"Come in or stay out, girl, but close the door!" he said.

*****

The dream always ended there. She couldn't even say if she had shut the door. Her next sight was always the white stucco on the ceiling that looked like a maze on one of those children's place-mats.

"Honey, are you okay?" came the familiar, plaintive voice from just outside her door. No surprise, there was no room for that in so familiar a ritual. But the routine hadn't dimmed the compassion, and the question never came with any judgement.

Having spent four years in high school, the absense of judgment in her mother's concern made the woman that much more awesome than anyone else she had ever met.

"I'm okay, mom. You can come in," she said, sitting up and taking a moment to compose herself.

"Alma, was it the same dream again?" her mother asked, as she opened the door, leaning on the handle and using the door as a shield.

"Same one. I kinda wish I'd come up with a new nightmare," Alma said, a harsh note to her voice that she didn't want there.

Her mother lip curled and her jaw clenched. Her gaze turned away and rested on an inconspicuous bit of the carpet.

"I'm sorry, mom. It's not what I meant," Alma said, slipping out of bed.

"Letting you slip out into the Yukon, in the winter, onto a derelict ship on a frozen lake wasn't our proudest moment as parents," she heard her dad say from somewhere in the hall. "Last thing you should be doing is apologizing to us."

"I'm okay, guys. Really," Alma insisted. "I mean, I have tickets to that Masquerade Ball, on Halloween night. Remembering an old nightmare is just a way to kick-off the evening."

"You know how creepy that sentence sounds, right?" Her mom asked. "You may as well have said 'I have a bad feeling about this' and shot your night in the foot."

"No, it's just..." Alma started saying, until her head caught up with her. "Okay, wow. That does sound creepy."

She laughed, only a little forced, as she slid out of her bed and started her day.

*****

She smiled as she spun once, in front of the mirror of her closet.

Her gown was the most elaborate thing she had ever worn. Glimmering satin that shone like silver, in a subtle pattern of leaves that took in the light in her room and threw it out like a disco ball. Even in the mirror, the effect was mesmerising.

She tried another twirl, and laughed as she stumbled on her unfamiliar heels, barely keeping her balance.

She left in the evening, just before sunset, tickets safely secured in her purse and her stomach empty. She picked out a coat from the closet by the door, threw it on with a dramatic swirl, and smiled with barely restrained excitement as she stepped out.

The evening air was warm and still. Comforting even, as dry leaves swirled around her feet as she stepped through the walkway from her door. Her heels made a very satisfying click as she sauntered down the path.

She took her first step onto the street, stepping off the walkway of her house, and frosty air hit her like a bucket of water.

She stumbled sideways, catching herself, and pulled her coat close. The air felt bitter, cold, and smelled like fresh snow. The smell was distressingly familiar, as if it belonged to an old ache she couldn't quite place.

Ahead of her, a pair of men dressed as Vampires lingered at the end of the street. They conversed casually, but as she approached, they leered in her direction when they say her.

Alma was surprised at the attention to detail the two men had put into their costumes. Their faces were believably gaunt, their skin was the perfect colour of a pallid corpse, and whatever fake teeth they used as fangs looked convincingly like real teeth.

"Something comes to us unbidden. Wanderin' a blood moon during All Hallows' Eve is a poor place for virgin blood to a'wander." One of them said, in a speech that could have been ripped from Shakespeare in the Park. Alma winced, but refused to slow her pace.

As she drew near, she heard the grating caw of a large bird above her head. The sound startled her, and she turned to look up into the nearby tree.

On one of the lowest branches a raven perched, it's beady brown eyes fixed on the two men just ahead of her.

Alma was surprised when the two men stepped off the sidewalk. One of them gave a short bow, and said, "hope you'll be enjoyin yer night, lass."

Alma passed them without a word, huffing indignantly. She heard the raven cry out again, before its wings beat at the air and carried it off into the twilight.

She watched the bird fly until she heard a muffled crash and the cacophonous rattling of leaves in the tree above her head. Startled, Alma looked up to see a solid length of polished wood cradled by the branches.

"We'll we're not gettin that God-damned thing out of there!" someone barked from behind Anglea. Surprise gripped her stomach and forced her to jump, spinning around to see the speaker.

There were a half-dozen bearded men standing near a tree, dressed in old looking tweed cloth. Their thick Québécois accents lent a musical note to their speech, and they gesticulated wildly as they spoke.

"For risking our immortal souls, that didn't turn horribly awry," one of his companions said.

"We had to gag your filthy mouth for the last half-hour, you fool! Deals with the devil are all about the letter of the contract! Take the Lord's name in vain, and you damn us all, you cantankerous drunkard."

"Ah, but this sight alone was worth risking my soul," one of them said, and Alma's heart skipped a beat as he stepped up to her, took her hand, and kissed it.

"Forgive the forwardness, lass. And the crass talk. These aren't men who do well without alcohol," he said before he took a step back and turned his head to his companions. "Off with us lads, we need to go cure ourselves of this wretched sobriety!"

The group cheered and started away, leaving a half-dozen wooden paddles leaning against the tree.

Alma shook her head and carried on.

The group of children that swarmed past her were dressed in the same green, wrinkled masks, and very well done prosthetic ears. They swarmed past her legs, none of the rising much above her knees.

She had to hold her ground to keep from kicking them accidentally and waited until they passed to start walking again.

"Grimauldkin won't do much besides ask homes for candy," Alma heard someone say up ahead. She looked back up from watching the swarm of children and saw a pair approaching her, conversing with each other.

There was a woman, wearing chainmail, who seemed to glow with a faint, white light that shone through the links in her armour. Despite the absurdity of it, her white armour and the sword at her belt looked convincingly authentic.

The man walking beside her wore a heavy, black duster, and a wide-brimmed hat. Over his shoulder rested an ornate, beautifully embellished silver tube with a dark, oaken handle at the end.

"It's not the Grimauldkin who are ruining my night, Perry," the man in the duster said. "Someone crashed a canoe into a tree a few minutes ago, and we still need to deal with that poltergeist in the Queen's Printer."

The woman in the armour laughed. "Listen to yourself, Coates. Deal with the poltergeist in the Queen's Printer. Did you ever think you'd get to say that line out loud?"

The man in the duster shook his head and titled his hat forward, just as the pair passed her.

As the man in the duster passed by Alma's shoulder, their eyes met. She saw something in them; a single flash of light that could be broken apart into every hour in history, and every place in the universe.

She gasped and stumbled, teetering on her heels and waving her arms frantically.

The woman in armour caught her and helped prop her back on her feet.

"Thanks," Alma said, as the armoured woman let her go.

"Love your dress," the woman said, with a smile that felt like sunlight.

"I can't believe we have a syzygy and a blood moon, during Halloween. Everything that could make my night worse seems to be happening," the man in the duster said, as the pair marched on. "Galahad owes me."

Alma shook herself, took a moment to make sure her dress was in place and carried on.

She passed another screen corner, following the crosswalk and cutting through the old, stone Parliament Building.

As she passed through the grounds, cut around the fountain and passed the tourists, Alma noticed a tall, shadowy shape in the water.

A tall, curved trunk stood as high as a ship's mast, dark as midnight with the occasional glint of fish-scales as a passing searchlight swept over the water.

The light swept up the trunk, and at the top, she caught a glint of an oddly shaped head, with a strange pair of eyes looking back at her.

But when the light vanished, she wasn't able to see the creature again.

Thankfully, the rest of the short walk to the Empress Hotel was uneventful, and she joined the crowd gathering at the entrance without seeing anything else strange.

There was a man at the door wearing a faded red suit, who was forcing the crowd into an orderly line as he checked tickets. His voice, even as he politely wished people a happy time inside, boomed as he spoke, and seemed to force the conversations nearby to a hushed whisper.

As she drew near the entrance, the man in red seemed to notice her. His eyes narrowed, the smile faded beneath his moustache, and his hand rested on the handle of the revolver holstered at his side.

"You're not here to make trouble, are you Lou?" The man asked as he tilted his hat with his left hand.

Alma turned her head, to see a tall woman wearing faded, dust-covered trousers, a shirt that might have been white decades ago, and the hardest expression Alma had ever seen.

The woman spread her hands and said, "I put that behind me a long time ago, Sam."

The man paused for a moment, weighing his words. This close, Alma could see that his red suit looked like the formal red serge of the RCMP, but wrong.

The collar was too large, the hat was too light a colour, the red looked too weather-worn for formal wear, and the man was wearing a sword along with a revolver.

On his shoulder pips, she read 'North West Mounted Police'.

"I've never needed to use this," the man said, as he tapped the handle of his revolver with his finger. His fierce voice remarkably clear for the near whisper he now spoke at. "I'd like to keep it that way."

"I've seen too much grief to want more, Sam," Lou said in response.

Sam nodded, and gestured for her to proceed. Alma followed Lou, and offered the man her ticket.

"Speaking of trouble," the man said, as the man handed her her half of her ticket back. "Tonight's a bad night to go wandering off with a tall, handsome stranger. Keep that in mind, miss."

The man tipped his hat to her and turned back to the line, as Alma passed through the doors and checked her coat.

The man at the coat-check was a well dressed gentlemanly man with an old-fashioned collar on his wool suit, who smiled as he took her coat, and wrote a ticket from a small piece of paper on the desk.

"Miss," the man said to Alma. "If you happen to see an elderly woman from Saint-Justine with a young boy pouting over a Maple Leaf's sweater, would you tell her my grandson is deeply apologetic?"

"I, uh, of course." Alma promised, despite herself. She shook the old gentleman's hand, and he handed her the ticket.

On the ticket was written a number, and a neatly scripted signature reading 'T. Eaton'.

The second set of doors, just past the coat-check, lead to a massive room swirling with colour and vibrant with a tide of dancers.

A thousand masks glittered in the glimmering candlelight, with hundreds of women in dresses and gowns, each one somehow a distinct and unique colour, swirling around black and grey suits.

At the stage stood a thin, elderly man in a suit, and a black fedora. In the swirling light he looked almost ghost-like, but his deep, gravelly voice rolled through the hall as he sang.

In the centre of the room, nineteen young women danced in a circle, just as a chorus of 'Hallelujah' reverberated through the hall. The nineteen women, likely of Alma's age, were the only people in the room not wearing masks.

Alma could see tears in their eyes as they flowed in their small circle, holding hands as they danced. The inside of the ring was empty, and the crowd seemed to slow just as the song's chorus reached its end.

When the song stopped, the girls let go of each other's hands, and vanished into the crowd.

"It warms the heart to see them dance," a man said, from beside her. Alma turned to see a man with a wild mane of hair, a handlebar moustache, and a rope where a tie would normally sit beneath his collar.

"Theirs is as sad a story as any," the man added, and Alma could see the tears glistening at the corner of his eyes. "But I won't disrespect their presence here by mulling over it too long. They deserve this night."

"Louie," the man with the knotted rope around his neck said, as he offered his hand.

"Alma," she said, as he took her hand and kissed it.

"That name, in this hall? Another sad tale," Louie said, shaking his head. "I can only hope your story ends happier. Enjoy your evening, miss."

Alma wished him well as he joined the crowd, and tried to look for anyone she recognized.

Ahead of her, a man stood in the dancing crowd like an anchored ship in a storm, and looked like the only permanent thing in the whirling storm of colour. The eyes behind his white mask were dark and passionate, and his gaze made her heart skip a beat as she felt his attention deep in her stomach.

He made his way to her effortlessly, wading casually through the waves of couples until he reached her, took her hand, and kissed it.

"May I have this dance?" he asked, still holding her hand.

Her heart fluttered in her ribs like a caged bird, and she could only mutely nod.

He smiled at her, took her by the hand, and whirled her into the swirling crowd as if the two of them were only one more gear in a piece of clockwork. Following his lead, Alma swirled and swayed, her dress scattering light like confetti. She twirled adroitly, her awkward shoes somehow carrying her in graceful motions that left her breathless and entranced.

"Please forgive me if I seem too forward, but I am very pleased to meet you," the man said. Alma barely heard him, her head whirling as if drunk, as she happily spun and pivoted with the man who held her in his arms.

"I, uh..." Alma said, wistfully. "You are a very good dancer."

"A gentleman is not allowed to do anything poorly," the man replied, with a mischievous smile and a twinkle in his eyes. "But you, my dear, are a vision. You swirl like a kite in a gentle breeze, and move as if no one else has ever learned how."

He lead her to a stop in the middle of the hall, and it took Alma a moment to realize the song had ended. She turned to the stage and clapped. She cheered once, surprising herself.

The elderly man at the stage tipped his hat in her direction as the the applause died down, and he began another slow, melodic tune.

"It isn't music I'm accustomed to," the man said, with a sad smile on his masked face. "But I would worry the title 'poet' would be an insult. He is magnificent."

"He is..." Alma agreed, still staring up at the stage.

"Would you walk with me?" The man asked, holding out his arm. "I've been told tonight's a blood moon. A lunar eclipse. I can't recall having ever seen one before."

"Neither have I," Alma admitted. She rested her arm on his, and let him lead her out of the ballroom, and into the courtyard.

Alma was sure she had never seen this sky before. For every inch of the sky, where she might see a single star before, there were hundreds. The night was an ocean of quiet, twinkling light.

"Over there," her companion said, pointing over the roof of the building. Alma followed his extended finger.

The moon loomed large in the night sky, smothered in a hazy, brick-red light that hung around it like a halo of fire.

"Wow," Alma muttered.

"It is quite the sight," her companion admitted.

"Have you ever wondered what a lunar eclipse would look like from the moon?" Alma asked him, breathlessly. She pulled at his arm to turn his head. "I read it would look like a ring of red light around the earth."

"Seeing an eclipse in that empty void? My dear Alma, you dream such silly dreams..." The man said, holding her hands in his.

She though it was a trick of the light, but Alma thought she could see those stars in the man's white mask. The hands holding hers were soft, cool to the touch, and the thumb idly drawing small circles on the back of her hand was oddly sensuous.

He was close now, she was acutely aware of how close he was, but his words stung in the back of her mind, a splinter of suspicion that wedged itself into awareness, and even now, as she wished to be swallowed up in the moment, forced her to think.

"I never told you my name..." she whispered, more to herself.

"I've known you for a long time. I've waited in these halls for nearly a century, hoping you would walk into my life again, Alma," the man said, and the soft hands around her tightened. The comforting cool turned into a bitterly cold, vice-like grip.

The man in the mask loomed closer. "You're back, Alma."

"No, I'm not whoever you think I am," Alma insisted, stepping backward. "And I think I'd like to return, now."

She pulled her hands out of his grasp and turned to march away. The man grapes at her hand again, but she snatched it away and began to run.

"Alma, please!" The man said, and Alma had to stop to avoid nearly ploughing into him.

"How?" Alma muttered, stumbling backward. "You were over there!"

"Stay with me, Alma. Let us try again," the man said.

This time, she was startled by being able to see the faint outline of the doorway behind him, through his clothes. His hands, once so real, now looked little more than a translucent outline distorting the world behind him.

"You're not real..." Alma muttered.

"Not entirely true," someone said from behind her.

Alma turned her head, to see the same odd pair she had seen a few hours ago. The woman dressed in chainmail had a hand on her still sheathed sword, and was advancing slowly towards the man in the mask.

More disconcerting, the man beside her, in a duster and odd hat, was pointing that ornately decorated, silver shotgun directly at her.

"Down!" Van Helsing barked at her. Before she registered the thought, she fell to the grass, covering the back of her head with her hands.

Her eyes closed, she heard Van Helsing cry out, "Memento Mori!"

Then the shotgun went off, and it's cry shook apart what was left of her nerves. She cried out, pulled her knees to her chest, and shivered.

She lay that way for a few moments, until she felt a warm, hard hand rest on her shoulder.

"It's okay, kid. It's okay. It's over," she heard from beside her ear. Surprisingly, the words felt like a warm cup of tea on a winter's night, pulling the comforting warmth from the armoured woman's hand and carrying it through her body.

Alma took a deep breath, blinked away tears, and accepted the armoured woman's help to stand.

She looked back towards where the man in the mask was, just moment ago, and saw no sign of him.

"Where'd he go? What happened to him?" Alma asked.

"Gone, and hopefully he'll stay that way for the rest of the night," the man in the Van Helsing costume muttered, as he stepped past her. "I really wasn't expecting the ghost of Francis Rattenbury to pop-up tonight."

"Ghost?" Alma asked.

"You're safe now, and that's the important thing," the armoured woman said.

At the doorway, the man in the red serge, she remembered his name as Sam, was posed with a hand resting on his pistol. "You drove him off, then?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. Sorry about the noise," the woman in armour replied. "Did it disturb anyone in there?"

"A few folks flinched. Doubt they'll think much of it," Sam replied, but his eyes were fixed on her.

"Well lass, I did say this was a bad night to go wandering with a tall, handsome stranger. But I'm glad you're okay, if a bit shaken up. We'll get you some tea and let you sit for a little while."

"Wait, the Francis Rattenbury ghost story. The one of him still haunting the places he built. It's true?" Alma asked.

"Less so, normally," the man dressed as Van Helsing muttered.

"Then..." Alma murmured, as she thought back to what she saw as a child, on the shores of a frozen lake.

She thought of the firelight flickering through the windows of a derelict steamship, of a man sitting contentedly on a bench, of her screams and denials for years afterward. Her parents' confusion, the therapist's frustration, years of every part of her mind refusing to simply believe in what she had seen.

"The northern lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see," the man dressed as Van Helsing said to her, and she was surprised to find him directly in front of her, staring intently as if he were picking apart her entire life with his gaze.

She gasped, and tears began to trickle down her eyes. "Was that night on the Marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated-"

"Sam McGee. You've seen Sam McGee," Van Helsing said, breathlessly.

"It's true?" Alma asked. "That myth is true?"

The man dressed as Van Helsing smiled. "All the myths are true."

Author's Notes:

There's a fair slew of old Canadian myths and legends in this story. Sorry if some of is too narrow for a good Wattpad audience. The Canadian setting, in Victoria BC, seemed to require more regional lore.

Two Robert Service poems are referenced here, 'The Cremation of Sam McGee', and 'The Shooting of Dan McGrew'.

Sam Steele is an iconic figure in the North West Mounted Police, reputed as saying the proudest accomplishment of his work was never needing to use his gun.

There's an old legend known as the Chasse-Galerie, a group of voyageurs who elect to visit their sweethearts a hundred leagues away, and make a deal with the devil to enchant their canoe. The stipulation is they cannot crash into a church steeple, and they cannot take the Lord's name in vain.

The nineteen girls dancing is a reference to the victims of the Highway of Tears.

The Ogopogo is a myth similar to the Lochness Monster.

The little boy with the Toronto Maple Leaf's sweater is a polite nod to the children's book 'The Hockey Sweater'.

Timothy Eaton, Louie Reil, and Leonard Cohen make appearances.