Molly’s spare shoes were pinching my toes, and I tried not to pace the park while I waited for the Butter Festival’s grand opening.
After seeing the black hole where Holt should have been, there was perhaps a mini-freakout at Traveler involving three witches. Then we calmed down and I copied all the images to a memory stick for the sheriff—except for the last one. Molly lent me her sneakers and I left to go to Scarness Park for the grand opening.
Scarness Park is down on the foreshore and not surprisingly right next to Scarness Beach. There was a permanent stage built near a children’s playground, and adjoining that were a few free public-use barbecues.
Behind the stage are rocks that form the break wall and then the beach and calm water. The tide was going out. In the distance you could see Truer Island. A few lazy seagulls drifted on the virtually nonexistent breeze. A fat pelican floated on the rapidly disappearing water.
It was a beautiful day and a wonderful time to be alive . . . for anyone who hadn’t seen a dead body recently.
I was calm . . . sorta. The idea that someone bad had seen me at the warehouse wasn’t sitting very well in my stomach.
Behind the crowd was a huge object hidden by a black sheet. It was protected by a guard rope and assistants dressed in all black. Presumably it was the giant chunk of ice that Zero Bend would carve.
I turned back to the stage and looked up at the banner proclaiming “Butter Festival” in bright red and blue letters. All around me were tourists, locals who supported the festival, locals with nothing better to do, and locals who disapproved of it (Hattie Stern). She’d pursed her lips at me when I caught her eye. There were also a bunch of girls dressed in punk clothing that was very short and revealing.
Without warning, throbbing bass burst out of the speakers. BOOM-cha-BOOM!
The mayor leapt up on the stage and received a hero’s welcome. He took the microphone.
“Buuuuuuuuuuuuutttttttttttteeeeeeeeeerrrrrrr!” he called out like he was inviting a wresting superstar to the stage.
The crowd cheered again. I found myself getting caught up in it. Yeah, butter carving! It’s amazing!
“The man of the hour to open the festival, Preston Jacobs!”
The mayor whipped the crowd up into a frenzy—well, most of the crowd. Hattie Stern was still sucking lemons.
Preston Jacobs bounded up onto the stage.
We’re a seaside town, so tans aren’t that unusual here, especially with our magically influenced weather, but Preston Jacobs had taken it to a whole new level. He was glowing, his skin somewhere between leather brown and bright orange. His hair was yellow. Not blond. Not white. It was like the sun had burst on his head. He took the microphone, shook the mayor’s hand and smiled at the crowd. All I saw was gleaming white teeth before I had to close my eyes, afterimages floating behind my eyelids. I blinked away the glow coming from his perfect mouth and saw his eyes, a vivid sparkling blue so vibrant there was no way it could be real.
“Thank you, Harlot Bay!” Preston called out, his voice echoing across the crowd. He had a slight accent, a twang from somewhere further south that suggested that while he looked like a surfer, perhaps he might rope cattle too and had a yeehaw cocked and ready to go.
He moved behind the podium and put the microphone in its holder. The thick gold watch on his wrist gleamed.
“Welcome to the Harlot Bay Butter Festival. This week we’re going to be seeing some of the world’s greatest artists fighting it out to win this”—he gestured to a giant trophy sitting at the back of the stage—“and also take home five hundred thousand dollars!”
The crowd went crazy, and he raised his arms like a televangelist at the front of a congregation.
Preston leaned down over the podium, smiling warmly, the skin of his face so tight it looked like it might snap at any moment. He was unnaturally smooth. My guess: extensive plastic surgery.
“You know, folks,” he said, his voice dropping down, “I lived in Harlot Bay many years ago, and I can’t think of a better place to hold this championship. This town, this beach, was where I played as a kid and where I got the idea to sell sandcastle-making supplies. In a way, Harlot Bay gave me everything, and so when Greco Romano”—a scattered cheer went up—“called me, I said yes immediately. Thank you, Harlot Bay, for your welcome, and in return we hope to provide you with art that challenges, art that amazes, art that changes your conception of what art truly is.”
He finished off with his voice nearly at a whisper. Everyone leaned in.
“And now, to show us something incredible, we have a multitalented sculptor who has not only broken every boundary of our art form, but has taken it in new and amazing directions. I give you ice carving with the one, the only . . . Zero Bend!”
From behind us, heavy rock music burst out, and the entire crowd turned as one. The huge object under the black sheet was now surrounded by assistants. They pulled away the barriers and the sheet to reveal a gigantic block of ice standing on a steel platform. Industrial-strength coolers sat around it, blowing freezing air over it to stop it from melting.
As they pulled the sheet away, they revealed a man sitting in a silver chair.
Zero Bend.
He was young, maybe late twenties, if that, and his hair was a riot of spikes and vivid colors. His ears, nose, lips and chin were all pierced with gold and silver jewelry. He was wearing ripped jeans and multiple rings, and his fingernails were painted black. He had on giant black sunglasses that were studded in what looked like diamonds.
A girl wearing 1950s swing dancing clothes—a big skirt, a red checkered top, black-and-white shoes, white socks, a kerchief in her hair and red lipstick—appeared from the trailer parked behind the block carrying a chainsaw. She walked over to Zero and tried to pass it to him, but he didn’t respond. He was slumped in his chair like he was either dead or asleep.
I felt a twist of cold in my stomach. Please be asleep, please be asleep. Hungover. I’ll take dead drunk hungover rather than . . . dead. I can’t see two dead bodies on the same day.
The girl slapped him in the face but he didn’t move. His head lolled.
Oh no.
She started the chainsaw and held it up above her head, revving it. The crowd murmured in excitement. The chainsaw was loud, but so was my heart, thudding like crazy.
The girl brought the running chainsaw down on Zero Bend in a savage swipe that seemed sure to cut him in half. The crowd screamed and suddenly Zero was up, twisting the girl and chainsaw in one smooth move. She stumbled away from him and then turned it into a cartwheel and he raised the chainsaw up with one hand and grinned at the crowd.
His teeth were gleaming in pure gold.
Zero ran at the block of ice and swung the chainsaw. It connected with a crunch and a spray of ice that covered the crowd. As we watched, he hacked like a madman, making seemingly random cuts, ice shards flying everywhere. He was dressed in black but soon was covered in what looked like snow.
There seemed to be no pattern to his cutting. He’d shove the chainsaw in deep, rev it up, scrape it down a side, twirl it from one hand to the other, throw it in the air and catch it . . . and suddenly it was over.
The chainsaw went dead and Zero was left standing where his chair was, his head down, panting, covered in ice chips. The ice block looked pretty much the way it was before. It was still square, but now it glimmered with a pattern of internal cuts.
The swing girl walked up to Zero and then looked at the crowd. She put her hands up like, “What is this supposed to be?”
Zero suddenly moved, hurling the chainsaw at the block and grabbing the girl at the same time. He dipped her deep and kissed her.
The chainsaw hit the block and it shattered, chunks of ice falling to the ground leaving behind . . .
Zero Bend and Swing Girl carved in ice, locked in a passionate embrace.
I couldn’t help gasping along with the crowd. It was perfect. Every line of her dress, her legs, her soft lips. His spiky hair, his clothes, even the laces on his thick boots. It was dynamic, like the ice couple were about to break out of their kiss and run away at any moment.
The real Zero pulled the girl up and stood there for a moment with her, their foreheads touching.
Then the assistants rushed in with big black sheets to cover Zero and Swing Girl as they ran for their waiting car.
We were left with their ice duplicate, a kiss frozen in a perfect moment.
I looked around the crowd, seeing the wonder on everyone’s faces, and then a scruffy shape resolved itself into Jack Bishop. He had glints of ice in his hair. Our eyes met in the perfect moment of silence before the crowd went crazy and started cheering.