CHAPTER ELEVEN
O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stain'd
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou mayst rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.
The band gave out a royal fanfare on horn and banjo as Burlie climbed the wooden steps, painted a forest green, of the bandstand. The band stepped down and melted away into the cheering crowd. Burlie's little ladies in waiting dropped her train and stood back, waving at everyone. Thomasina Sawyer bounded around and around encouraging the crowd to clap harder, cheer louder, until Burlie seized her and handed her off to the Monster, waiting with the doctor and the sheriff on the steps. He gently plopped her on the ground next to Maxima and both women pouted.
"Speech!" someone yelled. It was Randy Bliss and his brother stood beside him. Ruddy looked confused. No change there. "And you're late."
"You wouldn't believe what's been going on," Burlie began but Randy's command was taken up by the people.
"Speech! Speech!" the masses demanded all around the park.
"I'll tell you later, Randy," Burlie said and faced forward. She took a sustaining breath. "My name is Burlington McLauren!" she announced and swallowed an unexpected flutter of nerves. It'd been a long time since she was on a stage. There was applause and she was encouraged. "Call me Burlie."
She heard a snort. "What a name."
Burlie looked down. "Don't interrupt, Maxima Batt."
Maxima choked, deeply offended, while people nearby snickered. Burlie went back to business. "Can everyone hear me in the back?"
Yes.
Ahem. Burlie politely indicated her bodyguards. "This is Victor Von Frankenstein and...Venedict Von Frankenstein."
"Venedict?"
"My favorite uncle."
"I have no name. I am the creature that Frankenstein abandoned to the cold, desperate world."
"No, you're not, that was a book. That never happened," Burlie said, frowning at him. "I know it's not fun but we have to be serious now."
The Monster sighed. It sounded like a Angus bull grumbling. "All right. Venedict," he said. He noticed Anzo staring up at him. He stared back. Anzo pushed his glasses up his face and took a good, long look. Then he slowly leaned away.
"Friends, that is not a costume," Anzo announced to everyone. "I've never seen eyes like that."
Burlie nodded as the people stared at the giant in wonder. "In case you haven't heard, there's also a sea serpent tearing up Linger Lake," she said.
"We can vouch for that," Randy agreed.
Ruddy frowned. "We can't call it a sea serpent if it's in a lake, Randy."
Burlie went on with the bad news. "The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow is loose in Plum Tree."
Anzo Dahl raised his hand. "And I can vouch for that. He nearly got me." He drew a finger across his neck.
"And the Wolfman is running around here somewhere," Burlie went on. Too late she remembered that the Wolfman was post 1918. People were confused.
"The wolf man?" asked Anzo's girlfriend. "A man raised by wolves?"
"Tarzan?" Miss Ada asked.
Her own girlfriend shook her head. "He was raised by apes."
"Oh, that's right."
The pop-eyed man stepped forward importantly. "She means Fuzzy. He attacked the jail and I saw him. Right?" Right, the witnesses to that were plentiful. "For those of you just joining us, he's an ugly, growling thing. As if...as if someone was staging a play about a killer dogman and the actor had gotten loose," he said. He pressed his hand to his nose. "No muzzle," he said. "Flat like a bulldog but it ain't no mask. And he's big. Almost as tall as Anzo and twice as broad."
"That I have to see," Anzo said. "I've seen just about everything else," he said to Venedict who looked down and around to see who Anzo was referring to.
The crowd was buzzing cheerfully, interested and excited. Burlie held up her hands again. "I hate to say it but Dracula is also here somewhere."
She'd gone too far. Now there was laughter.
"Ooh, where's the garlic?"
"There's a bat in my hair!"
Burlie swallowed. Yes, it was ridiculous. All of it. One big joke. Maxima was gloating, smirking, because it was all just so damn funny.
A pretty and plump lady in a beaded evening dress spoke up, beaming. "Miss Burlie? Thank you, I haven't been so entertained in a long time."
"I'll thank you, too. This is fun," a middle-aged professor type nodded at her.
"It's not fun!" Burlie screamed at them. The laughter faded. Burlie struggled to get the rest out. A sobbing cry was in her voice. "There's a witch here! A witch, do you hear me?" She gripped her cloak while the townspeople rustled uneasily and strained to hear. "A witch has put these monsters into your beautiful town."
Burlie turned completely around, shaking. "A witch. Ruining everything!"
"Aw, Maxima ain't that bad!"
"Who said that?" Maxima gasped. "Which of you said that?!"
"Aren't you the witch, Miss Burlie?" Randy asked. "You fell right out of the sky, practically on top of us. Right, Ruddy?"
"We could call it a lake snake instead of a sea serpent, I guess," Ruddy answered. "Hey! We could call it Leroy the Linger Lake Snake."
"Will you please keep up?" his brother snapped.
"What? What did I say?"
"Miss Burlington? Are you all right?" the pretty lady asked.
Burlie slowly turned around again. Maxima wasn't smiling anymore, by god. Don't you mess with a pro, you old bag. Burlie raised her voice and there was immediate quiet. "His name is Fisk Iping. He looks like the doctor, here." Everyone stared at Frankenstein. He inclined his head to them all. "Fisk's extorting money from my rich Aunt Wylie. He's got us, her family, held prisoner in this diorama until she gives in. I'm down here with ya'll. My parents and my little sister," she looked at Piggsbee, "And a policeman that tried to interfere are all on top of the west turret of Bathatch in a cage." Piggsbee frowned at this assault on an officer. And a child. Genuine fear tightened every muscle in Burlie's face. "At least that's where he claims they are. I don't know what's happening out there. But I have to get to the castle!"
"Diorama?" said Rudyard Bliss, seizing, as ever, on what interested him at the expense of what was interesting everyone else.
"Quiet," Maxima hissed.
"The witch thinks he's safe in the castle. And that's where we'll get him. Fisk doesn't know about you." She pointed at Piggsbee. "Or any of you." She pointed at everyone, a great, sweeping gesture. "He doesn't know that they," she pointed at the Frankensteins, "Have minds of their own now. He put them here to rattle me. But I like them." The Monster flicked a piece of dust off his burlap shroud. Burlie went on, "The others, though, we saw what the snake did to the lake. A nut with no head is galloping around Plum Tree. God knows what Dracula'll be like. And you're stuck with all of them. Your heaven will be wrecked." She saw Maxima flinch and wondered why.
Murmur, murmur, rutabaga, rutabaga, the townspeople whispered among themselves, intrigued.
"I mean," Burlie went on. "Your party has lasted a hundred years. We can't have it end now. Like this."
The reaction was not what she expected.
"Whaaat?" Miss Ada asked. "What do you mean a hundred years?"
"Be serious," Anzo shook his head, his glasses sliding down his nose. "I just got here. I haven't even won a prize yet."
"Be quiet, girl!" Maxima shoved her way past the Monster and thundered up the steps. "Be quiet!"
"What?" Burlie turned and loomed over the little woman. That stopped her charge right quick. "What's wrong now?"
As the crowd reacted to this new spectacle, Maxima shot an almost fearful look at them over her shoulder. "Be quiet," she whispered yet again. "They don't know."
"They don't know what?" Burlie asked. Maxima stamped her foot. Burlie almos
t cracked up. "Oh, I thought people only did that in books. Do it again."
She had to bend to hear Maxima's response to that. "They don't know they're dead. And I will not have some...some tawdry trollop destroying our paradise."
"Speak up!" Randy called out and Burlie's little handmaidens began to edge closer.
"She said you don't know you're dead!" Burlie called out loud enough for Alaska to hear. Maxima gasped and her hands flew to her cheeks in horror. Another gesture Burlie never thought she'd see outside of a Dickens novel. "Want some lavender water, Max?"
The white feathers shook with rage. "You miserable strumpet."
"We don't know?" Miss Ada repeated dully. "What?"
"Say that again," Piggsbee said.
The Bliss brothers stared at each other. And then they laughed. Ruddy covered his mouth and his shoulders shook. Randy threw his head back and let it rip. They weren't alone.
"What did she say?"
"She can't be serious."
"That business with the doctors and the hospital an' me feet turning black? Did I imagine that?"
"It felt like drowning."
"Well, we were drowning!"
"I went first and then you went."
"No, I went and then you went."
"Hell, we all went."
"Don't curse!"
Maxima's eyes flicked from one person to another as she listened. And then she had to grip the wooden rail of the bandstand. "You...you knew? You all knew?"
"They were there, I think they would have noticed." Burlie piled on and hoped no one noticed the chills screaming along her skin. Feet turning black, dear god. She noticed the stricken look on Maxima's face and felt a little guilt blending into the horror. But tawdry trollop? Miserable strumpet? Thanks, much. "Why did you think they wouldn't remember their own deaths?" Burlie asked.
Maxima drew herself erect. Another Victorian gesture for Burlie's collection. "Everyone was afraid. Or dead. That enormous pit in the cemetery that Mr. Piggsbee ordered dug, we...we did need it after all...and the War, too, of course. Poison gas. Those 'tank' machines mowing down the calvary. So much horror and pain and death everywhere. Naturally everyone would prefer to forget." Maxima's lips tightened. "No one ever spoke of it so I assumed they all had." Burlie expected Maxima to be enraged and insulted by the people of Souls not behaving the way she expected but she only seemed baffled.
It didn't make Burlie like her any better. "Did you think that only you remembered because you're a witch? Because you're just so much more special than everyone else?"
Maxima went red. "What I think is no blessed concern of yours."
"Poor Max," Burlie murmured. "The last to know and the first to tell."
Maxima turned a look of complete loathing on her but Burlie just smiled sweetly. Damn arrogant witch.
Miss Ada stepped forward again. "Now go back a minute. What did you mean by a hundred years?"
Burlie decided to shock everyone. "I was born in 1995." And they were shocked. Miss Ada had both hands over her mouth. "Out there it's now 2010 so," she did some quick figuring. "It's been ninety-two years since your Halloween started."
A wave of disbelief jolted the crowd like an earthquake.
"Ninety-two years?" Anzo said. "Where the hell is my brother?" He looked at Burlie as if she were hiding him. "I have a twin. Ardo. Have you seen him?"
Burlie spread her hands. "I'm sorry, I haven't. I'm...I'm new in town."
"Well, ask a stupid question, I guess. Ninety-two years?" Anzo looked at Miss Ada in disbelief. She spread her hands, too.
"Maybe he's still alive back in the real world?" Burlie suggested without any conviction at all. He'd be, what? A hundred and twenty years old? But she couldn't suggest that the lost man maybe wasn't a good enough person for this place. "Maybe he found a different heaven?" she said.
Anzo was gutted and his girlfriend put her arm around his waist.
"Diorama?" Ruddy asked again.
Burlie turned back to business. "You're attached, we're all attached, to a beautiful miniature of the town that someone built inside a small traveling trunk," she said, remembering the events of a thousand years ago. "It's on display in the ballroom at Bathatch. Fisk said he could feel a presence. The presence and personality of an antique. " Wow, had he ever underestimated. "Other than that, I don't know anything."
"There's a surprise." Maxima muttered and moved upstage. She faced the crowd and raised her arms for silence. To Burlie's disgust, she got it. "We here in Souls by the Sea have an enduring strength. Nothing will disturb our well-deserved rest. Nothing. No serpent, no creature, no..." she shot a look at Burlie. "No disruptive influence. Be not anxious! Those who are parted will someday be..."
Burlie felt a whiplash of anxiety as she realized this little town quorum had drifted far, far from what was important. And here's Maxima giving a speech. Stage hog.
Trusting to the power of the Scarab of the Black Priestess Burlie swept down the stairs, her dark cloak snapping behind her. She snatched away Thomasina's pitchfork. The little girls startled and thundered down after her. Maxima faltered.
"Fascinating!" Burlie shouted. "Interesting. Thrilling." She turned with a swirl and threw her cloak back from her shoulders. "Really."
"I sense sarcasm," Anzo said. "And I read Mark Twain so I would know."
"You can all talk about yourselves later. Right now?" Burlie drew in a deep breath. "I want you to know that Fisk let me know that the only witches who get punished are the ones who get caught. Do you hear me?"
The whispered reminiscing of the citizens stopped.
"My little sister is six years old. Her name's Lydia. And she's in a cage up there." She pointed with her pitchfork at Bathatch, looming large over the shore. "A child in a cage in your heaven!"
Everyone was listening now. Even Maxima.
"You all thought you'd left evil and pain behind but it's followed you in."
The muttering began again. There was a harsh edge to it now.
"I want that man stopped! Sheriff!" Burlie shouted.
Piggsbee jumped. "Sir!"
"Serious crimes are being committed. Thievery and kidnapping. Probably murder if Fisk isn't arrested now. Are you going to come with me to the castle?"
Piggsbee was a master of the current situation, whatever it may be. He buffed his badge with his coat cuff. "Lead the way," he said. A cheer went up for him.
Piggsbee raised his own hands for silence but, unlike Maxima, that only seemed to encourage everyone. The shouting got stronger as the townsfolk allowed themselves to remember what they owed him. He'd kept his head during the worst. He'd brought out their best.
Burlie let it go on a bit, then, "Victor! Venedict!"
The Monster cringed under everyone's gaze but Victor Von Frankenstein stretched an arm up to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. They both turned to Burlie and suddenly there was a family resemblance in the way they stood and moved. She was a little touched to see it. Frankenstein said "Ja?"
"Fisk put you here on a whim. Do you want him to take you out just as easily?" Burlie snapped her fingers at them. "Just like that?"
"No," said Venedict. "I live and strive."
Burlie nodded. "Good. Will you come with me to the castle?"
"Yes," Victor answered for both and Venedict slapped his hand against his chest with a sound like a horse kicking a drum. Another cheer went up, as loud as the last.
"Maxima," Burlie whipped around and pointed her pitchfork at Madame Maxima Batt, mistress of Bathatch Castle. Maxima threw her head back. "There's an intruder in your home."
"Yes," said Maxima, squinting at Burlie. "Yes, there certainly is."
Burlie sneered back. "And you want it gone?"
Maxima almost pawed the ground. "Yes, I do!"
"Will you come with me to the castle?"
"Yes," Maxima shouted and punched her fist at the crowd. YES the people shouted with her. They waved their hats and bonnets and holiday masks. They slappe
d their hands together. They stomped the ground and the vibration knocked over the Aunt Sally dolls at the pitching booth. YES!
The noise filled Burlie to the brim.
"Souls by the Sea!" she called to them.
YES!
"Want to have some real fun?"
YES!
"Will you..."
YES!
"...come with me..."
YES!
"To the castle?"
YES! YES! YES!
And then there was a beautiful, beautiful mob. "Yes, ma'am!" Anzo shouted. "Let's go!"
"We're going!"
"Save the baby!"
"Grab something!" Burlie shouted back and shook her pitchfork in the air. God help whoever tried to grab that but no one was that foolish. Burlie was on fire. The good citizens of Souls by the Sea scrambled for weapons. Anzo jumped a game booth and started handing out wooden bowling pins. Miss Ada grabbed one for each hand. Randy and Ruddy dashed to the street where they left their truck. They came charging back with boat paddles. Sheriff Piggsbee didn't have a gun but he did scrounge up a baseball bat. It gave Burlie a thrilling chill to see him slap it into the palm of his hand.
She heard a creak and turned in time to see Venedict pull a board right out of the bandstand. Victor was organizing the dismantling of a picket fence that surrounded the barbecue pit. He carried his picket like a sword.
Lights bobbed wildly as the torches and bright lanterns were plucked up and held high. Children ran back and forth, shrieking and whooping.
Maxima descended the forest-green steps of the bandstand. She reached up and grasped a hatpin with a blood-red jewel. She pulled it out of hat and hair with the deliberation of an assassin unsheathing a stiletto. It glittered in the swirling lights. She, once again, stepped to Burlie's side. "Well, if we're going, let's go."
A far off howl answered the wild cheering. The crowd howled back. Burlie spun, her cloak swirling, and she stabbed at the castle again. "FISK!" She broke into a fast stride towards glory. The mob fell in, laughing and cheering (Fisk! Fisk! Fisk!) behind her.
Looking righteous, and full of the gravity of the moment, the Frankensteins marched with the townspeople. "Be men!" the doctor shouted encouragingly.
"Excuse me?" Maxima turned around to glare at him.
"Be better than men!" Victor amended immediately. "Be as heroes who have fought and conquered and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe!"
"RAH! RAH! RAH!" Venedict roared.
Swept along in the middle of the mob the Frankensteins were jazzed.
A soldier began to sing.
"Over there, over there! Send the word, something something, to prepare! 'Cause the Yanks are coming! The Yanks are coming!"
The crowd took it up and the soldiers began to march in step, their boots thump, thump, thumping along the road. The civilians marched with them, the children running to keep up. And they were keeping up. They were untiring.
"We're coming oooover! We're coming oooover! And we won't come back 'til it's over over there!" they roared.
Burlie grinned with a fierce joy.
The witch was going to pay.