Tesseracts Twelve: New Novellas of Canadian Fantastic Fiction by Claude Lalumière

Author:Claude Lalumière
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing
Published: 2012-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

Ringing the Changes in Okotoks, Alberta

Randy McCharles

The following is a true story, though if you ask the inhabitants of the township of Okotoks, Alberta, they will deny it. Small town folk are like that. They like to keep their business to themselves.

The Summer Solstice Fling

Litha: June 21

“Now,” said Mayor Abigail Smyth-Jones in her this is serious business voice, “on to the Summer Fling Festival. I understand that the catering has been confirmed and that the Wild Welsh Trio has agreed to provide music and organize the Participation Dancing.”

“Yes!” growled George Stromley, rising from his seat and hammering the table top. “About the Summer Fling!”

Terry Sutton looked up from the paperback novel he was reading and scrutinized George’s demeanour. What he saw suggested that the next few minutes might be worth paying attention to.

George rarely showed up at Town Council meetings, and when he was pressured into coming he usually sat in a sullen huff. If George didn’t own half the town he’d be dropped from the council like a rancid apple. But now here George stood in all his glory, thunder-faced and damaging the table.

“Carter Donaldson,” George nodded at the stringy-haired scarecrow sitting next to him, “was friend enough to show me the festival agenda you handed out at the last meeting.”

Mayor Abigail shook her head as though scolding a child. “If you had been here last week, George, you would have received your own copy.”

“That’s not the issue,” said George, hefting Carter’s agenda and blindly prodding it with a thick finger. “There’s changes here from our usual festival. And, for the life of me, I can’t understand them.”

When no-one jumped in to explain the changes, Terry got worried. Explaining town politics to George was one of the council’s favourite pastimes, but now even Mayor Abigail looked apprehensive. On impulse, Terry thumbed through his own agenda, untouched since he had received it — the festival was a no-brainer, after all. He found George’s bone of contention tucked in between the BBQ and the Participation Dancing.

“A twilight run through the forest?” George shouted. “Naked?”

“It is a summer solstice tradition,” Mayor Abigail explained, though without much courage. “Just a short run. More of a jog, really. Five, ten minutes tops. Through the trees by the river.”

“Naked?” demanded George.

“Is this a Blackfoot tradition?” inquired Eleanor Woodhouse, who knew more about the Blackfoot Indians than anyone and should not have needed to ask.

“It’s … Celtic,” replied Abigail.

“Celtic,” said Eleanor, her large, green eyes widening beneath short blond bangs. “Is that tribe related to the Blackfoot?”

“They’re in England,” offered Carter. “They have nothing to do with the Blackfoot.”

“Wales, actually,” said Newman Porter, the council intellectual. “And they very well could be related to the Blackfoot. It is theorized that Native Americans originally came from parts of Europe and Asia—”

George hammered the table for silence and stared Mayor Abigail down. “Naked?”

“The citizens will never go for it,” asserted Carter. “Some of the high-school kids, perhaps, but I really don’t think—”

“Why,” demanded George, “would you even suggest that the good people of Okotoks go running naked through the woods?”

Abigail blinked.

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