C L A S S I C S
C R E A T I V E
J O U R N A L
VOLARE 2.2 N O V .
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M A G I C
VOLARE I S S U E
2 . 2 :
I I
Meghan O'Donnell
M A G I C
Moonlit Magic
Marina Martin
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Under This Cathedral of Trees
Michaela Drouillard
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ὥς
Rachel Sutherland
V I I
Beatrice LefebvreBabinsky
V I I I
Avery Warkentin
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Circe of Aeaea Immersion
Hecate
Editor In Chief Cover Design Layout
Sara Merker Meghan O'Donnell Rachel Sutherland
Editorial Board
Marina Martin Meghan O'Donnell Rachel Sutherland
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Moonlit Magic
Meghan O'Donnell
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Under the Cathedral of Trees: Extrapolation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses Marina Martin.
Forest light gleams with the promise of morning, glimmering between branches and projecting the blossoms of spring across the mosaicked floor. Silence encompasses the wood, comforting, without smothering the pneuma within. Space is simultaneously weighted and weightless, the canopy lifting ever-skyward while preserving the holy stillness beneath. Air is damp and cool, a pleasant temperature, crisp footfalls the only disturbance. The doe treads through the grove with gingerly step, dark eyes fixed on the horizon while devouring the locational sanctity.
The wretched and divine convene between these trees, and god dances in the grove.
Retreating beneath the canopy, immense trunks and skyreaching buttresses of limbs conceal an ever intrusive sun: only dim illumination is allowed. Yellow eyes observe without action, studying the doe’s devotion and catching a glimpse of god between branches, cascading in beams from sky to earth. The doe felt him, her invisible observer.
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Retracing steps, hooves echo the collage of leaves that litter the earth, wild, yet carefully arranged. Expansive and with direction, the leaf-ladden and lighted forest floor leads her to the clearing. In the glade it is midday, the sun beaming clear, revealing all but the deepest crevices in a muffled green. Beauty and error both on display, deep red drops stain her path, flesh gaping in precise and savage crescents along her side. Revelry and silent wonder slide a servants’ prayers skyward, through trunk and branch, they pour out of leaf and vine.
The doe has no fear in the luminous glade, contented by leafy consumption and conscious of the security that wooded metamorphosis implies. She kneels in the glade, casting primitive prayers, nearly overtaken by a longing to stay in the grove forever, undisturbed and endless, sheltered among the arching boughs and tinted sunlight. In the demarcated yet naturally infinite, she yearns to become fixed in space.
Light's fingers gently collect invocations conveyed through branch and leaf: the blessed doe is answered in god’s dance. Preemptive of pursuit, a transformative flight, no wolf will feast in the glade under god’s bright rays. Hooves descend into the earth, spreading and dispersing, as oak skin ascends, caressing marred flesh and stretching her limbs tall and firm, a crown of leaves and needles adorning her head. Concrete and eternal, her pneuma soothes the grove’s air and remains, silent and lively evermore.
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Forest light softens with the imminence of evening, leaving a glow between branches and scattering floral shadows across the patterned floor. A new tree stands in the glade, central, basking in muted sun. Her roots tangle and limbs soar, arching, and graze her ancient neighbors: the grove is alive. Every wide trunk holds god, every branch realizes his reach, leaf-webbed windows climb up to meet his light, and aid his luminous descent to the beloved grove, demarcated now in stone.
NOTA BENE This was written in dialogue with Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which comments on the presence of the divine in nature, as I wanted to explore nature as a sacred place where magic can “save” you. Nature holds magic; to me, modern “magic” spaces, like cathedrals, have always mimicked the forest in form and feeling.
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ὡς
Michaela Drouillard
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Circe of Aeaea Rachel Sutherland
cools winds push along the coast, catching in the sand and shoreline.
a ship seeking nostos approaches the small hut, regal for its size, nestled amid the forest trees.
daughter of the sun, speak power, whispered through the ages, with the wilds at your fingertips.
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Immersion Beatrice Lefebvre-Babinsky
The first thing I heard when getting out of the taxi were barks. Past the metal gate there was a long dirt road stretching out before me. On either side were tall, old trees, but no lampposts. That’s practical. Readjusting my bag on my shoulders, I started down the interminable path in the dark.
Finally, a white dot appeared in front of me, like a lighthouse guiding a boat to the coastline. As I approached, the light began to take shape, revealing a young woman standing at a crossroads. The summer dress she wore draped down to the ground and hid her feet. Her hair and eyes were as dark as the night around us. For a moment, I thought I was seeing in black and white, but the glow of her bronze skin assured me otherwise.
“Sorry for being so late,” I started before she could even open her mouth, “my plane was delayed and the taxi had a hard time finding this place.”
She smiled at that last part. Something glimmered at the edge of my vision and I looked down. Two dogs were flanking her. I could barely distinguish their shape, but their shiny eyes gave away their presence.
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“Don’t worry,” she said as I looked back up, “as long as you got here safely.”
One of the dogs barked, startling me before they both turned to leave, vanishing into the tree line.
I followed her to my cabin, a comfortable silence hanging between us.
Before I could reach for the doorknob, the young woman stepped closer, blocking the path. “How rude of me. I didn’t introduce myself.” She extended her hand, nails decorated with small flames. “I’m the camp coordinator—” I took her hand. It felt warm in the night air. My ears started buzzing. I didn’t catch her name. Jet lag must be kicking in.
Inside the room, I tossed my bags in a corner. Dropping on the bed, I let sleep take over.
***
When I opened my eyes, light had finally made its way back into the world. I looked at my phone. A bit too early for breakfast to have started yet. My internet didn’t work. I closed my eyes and sighed. Forgot to ask that camp coordinator for the wifi password. Turning to lay on my back, my body protested. It was the worst bed I’d ever slept on. My fingers poked at the mattress. How could I even fall asleep
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on something as hard as this? I opened my eyes and sat up. I was lying on rock stairs. I blinked. Turning my head frantically like an owl, I noticed I was outside. Looking up, the stairs I was on led to an enormous temple. Unexpectedly, the building was in perfect condition and was even painted in vibrant colours. Where is this? I definitely remembered falling asleep in my room. Was this some sort of weird initiation? Somewhere deep down, I was glad not to have changed out of my day clothes before falling asleep. Down the stairs was a public square, where quite a few people were already gathered and chatting. I listened as their words floated softly across the open space. My stomach rumbled. Ugh. I wish we could get breakfast before starting the immersion. I can’t think on an empty stomach.
I finally stood up and made my way down the stairs into the square when I realized that everyone was dressed in, well… non-modern clothes. Was this an immersion AND a reenactment camp? This was not on the website.
Trying to find the way back to my room was already hard enough, but everyone’s stares as I walked by made me pick up the pace. That’s right. I didn’t get the memo about dressing up. Sue me! My t-shirt and shorts had never felt so heavy on my body. Around me, everyone spoke Latin as if it were their first language. They were exchanging words I was far from familiar with. Crap. How are they all so good at Latin on the first day?
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I passed by just as many young children as elderly and middle-aged folk. Why were there people from every age group? I thought this session of the camp was reserved for university students.
I hadn’t made it very far when shouts arose behind me. I turned around. People were pointing at me and mumbling too fast for me to understand. A group of men in light armour advanced toward me, holding spears, and looking far from any kind of welcoming party meant to kickstart the camp. They spread in a circle around me.
Haven't you figured it out by
A soft laughter echoed in my ears. Haven’t you figured it out by now? You aren’t home a a voice whispered inside my now? You aren't home anymore, mind. I’d heard that voice before. But where? When?
Don't worry too much. Help is on the way.
Don’t worry too much. Help is on the As quick as it had come, the voice was gone.
Nothing made sense anymore. Why had I woken up in front of a temple that wasn’t in complete ruins? Why were there so many people when the camp was supposed to have less than one hundred people, staff included? Why were there armed men surrounding me? And whose voice was I hearing?
But somehow, as crazy as it seemed, the voice assured a certainty in my mind: this wasn’t a reenactment. I was truly surrounded by men all but pointing their weapons at me, and
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no one would answer if I spoke in English. Well then, broken Latin it was.
“Salve!” I said, trying to sound as friendly as possible. Now what? This is why we should learn more than ‘the tyrant burned the city and the inhabitants fled to the fields’ in class. Although ‘excuse me, where is the bathroom?’ would hardly be helpful right now either. I inhaled deeply to try and calm the crazy rhythm of my heart. I tried to explain that I was from abroad and meant no harm. But, never satisfied with my answers, the leader of the band of men kept barking question after question. I stumbled a bit as my Latin slowly came back to me. When I told them where I was from, the man’s eyebrows knit together in confusion. A man in the crowd asked his neighbour if he knew where my place of birth was, but the other simply shook their head. How do they not know a city as big as-
A hit to the back of my knees made me buckle to the ground, landing on all fours. As if that wasn’t enough, a knee pressed into my spine until I was completely flat on the ground. I kicked the air in an attempt to free myself, but my arm was pulled behind my back as a result. What the— What’s going on? The constraint made me fight even more, now with a strength I drew from despair. But the grip did not budge, tightening even more instead.
I heard someone approach and tilted my head to look up.
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Tears were blurring my vision from the shoulder-lock and the knee embedded in my back, taking my breath away. A young man with short brown hair had stepped away from the rest of the crowd, and had moved toward me. He was dressed, like most of the others, in a simple knee-length tunic. The man in armour closest to him put an arm out, preventing him from getting any closer. Everyone gathered kept looking back and forth between him and I, as if neither of us belonged there. I, pretty obviously, did not. But why him too?
“No way,” he said. In English. "Yes way," I answered. "Can you please help me?"
He shook his head, snapping out of whatever he was thinking about and half-turned to the man standing in front of me. He spoke to him in fluent Latin, but it was pretty obvious he wanted the others to hear what he had to say as well. I could barely keep up with what he was saying. Am I misunderstanding something? Did he just refer to me as a relative?
The man holding me down released his grip, but stayed close. I stood up and rubbed at my shoulder. Looking around as discreetly as I could, I tried to find a way out, but came up with nothing. After some back and forth between the two, most people in the crowd had lost interest and had already gone back their dealings in the square. Apparently, the conversation ended on a satisfactory note for the both of
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them, since the older man nodded and moved aside to let the young man, who had obviously intervened on my behalf, pass when he moved over to me. “Come with me,” he whispered under his breath. I obliged. He was my only way out. It would be easier to escape one unarmed man than half-a-dozen of what I figured to be soldiers.
As soon as we had rounded a corner and no one seemed to be watching us too closely, he abruptly turned to face me. “You’re from the 21st century, right?” “Um… Yes. But, whe—?” “I am too!” O-Kay. “Wait. Let’s not talk here. No one can understand, but still.” He grabbed my arm and started down the street. Every time I opened my mouth to ask a question or tried to free my good arm, he would silence me by saying, “We’re almost there. Just a minute.”
We reached a small house and he led me inside. “Let go of me!” I ripped my arm from his grip and took a step back as soon as the door was closed behind us. “Answer my question. Where are we?” “This is Rome. This is the 2nd century BCE.” “What.” It came out more like a statement than a question, but he still ignored it, opting to interrogate me further. “I know it’s hard to believe, but it worked!”
I was getting tired of not having my questions answered. “Woah there! What ‘worked’?”
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“Don’t you know how you got here?” “No,” I answered truthfully. “I arrived late last night at Latin immersion camp. The camp coordinator, I didn’t catch their name, was waiting for me, showed me to my room, and that’s it.” “The camp coordinator. Female, hair and eyes pitch black, and probably the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen?” “Yes?” I hesitated. How was she relevant to my—and apparently his—situation? “Okay, well,” he took a breath, as if to brace himself for a pop quiz he was not prepared for. “That’s the Roman goddess of magic.” He looked at me intently, clearly awaiting my reaction. “You believe in the gods?” It was all I found myself able to answer. “And you don’t? You were literally sent back in time by two millennia, or did you not realize?” “No. I did… I do.” I remembered the piercing gaze of the crowd, the man kicking me into the ground. My shoulder was still in pain. “I guess you’re right.” Everything had been going way too fast for me to understand right away. I tried anyway. “So, if I’m following your ‘a goddess sent us back in time’ theor—” he glared at me, “fact. Why did she do it?”
He sighed, apparently relieved I was more or less going along with his story. Going to a cupboard at the back of the room, he took out a few sheets of paper, with words written in purple ink, all clearly not from the second century BCE. “She
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wrote this down for me before sending me here.” He handed me the papers so I could read them myself, but he carried on talking. “She lost one of her torches in this era. She can’t come back herself, so she needs us to find it for her. These instructions contain clues as to where it could be.” “This is ridiculous,” I said, “if she can give us clues, why can’t she give us the exact location?” “She can’t. Losing the torch greatly weakened her. She had to use all her resources just to be able to gather these clues. She entrusted the rest to me.” I laughed bitterly. “To us, apparently.” He stared at me, confusion furrowing his brow. “You really didn’t know?” “How could I?” My voice boomed, the anger rising as I thought of how I had apparently been cheated by a goddess. “We barely exchanged four sentences.” He scratched his head. “That’s strange. She explained the situation to me before I agreed. I’ve had the instructions since I arrived here.” “Then why are you still stuck here?” “I tried to find the torch on my own, but couldn’t. She wouldn’t let me leave until I got it for her and I ended up liking this place a lot, so I just… sort of stopped looking for it.” “You just-? And that worked?” “I studied Classics in university so I knew enough about the language and the culture to show I wasn’t a threat to their society,” he chuckled. “It took a while, but I made it, even though I’m still not a full citizen and never will be. Now it’s
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been five years. But get this. My job is to help Polybius work on his Histories!” “Wha—No! For real? ” I didn’t know which question to ask first: How was it working with him? Did he know the Scipios personally? My reaction seemed to satisfy him. “I can introduce you later,” he offered, smirking.
My brain was going to short-circuit. “Oh my god. Yes. Please.” Getting side-tracked. Trying to regain my composure, I circled back to a detail that had caught my attention before. “So, you came here five years ago? How come I’ve never heard of any campers going missing? Stuff like that gets reported on the news pretty fast.” “Well, I don’t know what exactly happened after I got here. But she’s a goddess. If she can send us 2000 years in the past, don’t you think she can keep it a secret?” “Touché.” I didn’t know what else to answer. Was this what would happen to me? If I never found a way back, would anyone even notice? My family? My friends?
I sighed. “So, you’re telling me I really have to go on a quest to find this lost magic torch for a goddess I barely know, in order to get home?” He nodded. “Exactly.” “Do you think we’re on this quest because we’re demigods? Is Jupiter our dad?”
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He looked surprised and somehow frustrated at himself for not having thought of it sooner. I exploded in laughter and he soon followed.
“Okay.” I cleared my throat. “Well, I guess we don’t have much of a choice.” His hands were playing with a corner of the pages I had handed back to him. “Actually,” he started. “I can help you, but I won’t be going back with you.” “Why?” Didn’t he want to go back to the present? He might have blended into Roman society well enough, but that wasn’t enough of a reason to stay by itself, was it?
As if on cue, a young child came in and rushed to him, grabbing his leg. His child, I realized. He patted the child’s head gently before picking him up. He smiled at me. “I have my reasons.” “You have a child? Are you married?” “I was.” “Was?” The word was out of my mouth before I could stop it. He put the child down and held his little hand. “She died in childbirth.” “Oh. I’m so sorry.” “It’s… It’s okay.” His smile faded ever so slightly and his eyes turned sad and distant. “It is pretty common for this era, I guess.” Ouch. I shouldn’t have asked. I’m such an idiot. “Can’t you bring him back with you?”
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He shook his head. “She wouldn’t allow it.” “I understand. I won’t force you to go back, then.”
He smiled again and kneeled down to speak softly with his child before sending him out of the small room. Silently, he started packing a leather bag. “We can get whatever else we’ll need on the way,” he said when he was done. He turned to me as we made our way out of the house.
“Can I ask you a question?” “Of course.” “I never got to see Frozen. Is it any good?”
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Hecate
Avery Warkentin
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Volare Call for Editors! Have you been enjoying Volare’s latest issues? Do you want to work on your editing skills? Well, do we have a great opportunity for YOU! Volare is currently looking for more writing editors and a design editor (that would ideally be able to take over design for next year)! This is a great way to get acquainted with the current Volare editors and learn the ropes in order to be an effective member for the team next year! Why wait until then? Let’s get creative NOW!!
CSA Logo Design The Classics Students Association is looking for a new logo! And we are looking for submissions from the Classics student body! Submit your designs to classics.students.mcgill@gmail.com, and if your design is chosen, you will receive a CSA Latin pun mug! Please note that the logo must not include the word "McGill", nor may it include McGill emblems (like the martlet).
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