Page 21 of A Better World

“Which kids did it?” Linda asked. “Should I call the school and complain?”

They had no idea who’d done it. To their faces, the kids were sugar sweet.

Wednesday, Josie came home crying because Farah and Amir’s linebacker-sized kid, Arnie, had tackled her during practice. “We’re on the same team!” she cried. “And nobody called foul. They just kept playing!” After that, Linda asked whether the kids wanted to stay on the team or quit. Hip chose to quit. Josie, feeling bad about having left her Kings team prematurely, wasn’t ready to let go. To cheer her up, Linda set up cones in the backyard after dinner. She and Hip worked with Josie on her speed, agility, and ways to take Arnie down, if it came to that.

Thursday, Linda stumbled upon a group of people from the Beautification Society sweeping rotting flower petals and breaking down maypoles in Caladrius Park. They’d pulled the black ribbons off and kept them separate from the rest. “Can I help?” she asked.

“We’re not taking new members,” a dainty blonde in tight, electric blue jeans told her. “You should put yourself on the waitlist.”

Linda goggled. “But there’s a rake. No one’s using it. I could use it, and then I’d help.”

“I’m sorry,” the little blonde said. “I don’t know how things work where you come from, but around here, we follow rules.”

Hear Ye, Hear Ye:

Come Celebrate Plymouth Valley’s Annual Crowning of the Beltane King!

Refreshments will be served along South Faerie Street

Friday, September 21

Caladrius Park

5–7:00 p.m.

Sponsored by the Board of Directors:

John Parson Junior * Lloyd Bennett * Rachel Johnson * Jack Lust * Addisu Getachew * Paolo Lopez * Mary Coburn * Lucien Keefe * Allison Williams * Jonathan Newhouse *

Crowning of the Beltane King

Friday was thebig day. Their first Hollow event.

“I’m all nervous about this,” Linda whispered to Russell. He’d been let out of work early, and as a family they’d driven to the Beltane Crowning, parking three blocks away and joining the stream of people headed for Caladrius Park.

“Same here,” he whispered back so the twins up ahead didn’t hear.

They arrived at a crowd twenty people deep, the ceremony already in progress. An elevated outdoor stage had been set up beside the tunnel entrance. The flower arrangements and maypoles were gone, replaced by cornucopias filled with root vegetables and gourds. Since the park was on a slope, it was easy to see everyone in attendance, even from the back.

She’d read that the Beltane Crowning was a new tradition. Residents had agitated for a holiday during the five-month dry spell between Beltane and Samhain, one that would mark the end of summer. It wasn’t mandatory but the Farmer-Bowens weren’t going to miss the chance to meet more (and hopefully friendlier) residents.

The people onstage were PV’s biggest hotshots: the entire board of directors. Dead center in the only chair, a magisterial piece of red velvet and oak furniture, sat the chairman and founder’s son, John Parson Junior. He was over one hundred years old, and though his posture was straight—no osteoporosis—he looked desiccated as a cadaver.

Parson stood and slowly walked to the microphone. “And now, the Beltane King!” His voice was soft and strangely childlike.

The Beltane King climbed the stage. His name was Keith and she’d read that he was Parson’s grandson. He looked about thirty years old, with a plain, pleasant face and a disproportionately stocky build. He wore black shorts and a black tank. The bare skin coiling out from this uniform appeared like thick lengths of boat rope.

The old man strained to lift the gilded crown and place it on young Keith’s head. It was the color of polished ivory.

“Bones?” Josie asked.

“Can’t be,” Russell answered. “That’s some kind of synthetic, painted white.”

Then another board member, a very handsome man in his late fifties, handed Keith an aluminum torch composed of three spherical cones welded together like a wrapped bouquet. Keith flicked something along its edge and all three cones ignited with small, smokeless flames. Hydrogen, she guessed. Not propane—that was too rare.

“Our season of planting and new beginnings has arrived,” Parson said in that high-pitched voice that Linda suddenly remembered from BetterWorld commercials as a kid. That’s right. Before all the bad publicity against them, the big companies had streamed tons of commercials.

“The strongest among us, our champion, shall represent the spirit, knowledge, and life of Plymouth Valley, and via his physical sacrifice, ferry us through our dark winters, and usher us back into light.”

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