December 22, the sixteenth anniversary of Ivan Ingold’s The Secrets to Success artwork, drew art connoisseurs and clamoring fans in search of riches from around the globe. Kyle struggled to count the many heads that surrounded him as he waded through clamoring fans. Parents, teenagers, children, lovers, and tourists laughed as they conversed about the wonder of the day. 

Dark clouds overhead denied the sun’s warm rays, and a winter breeze swept across the port city. Small raindrops pattered on top of umbrellas and hoodies. Cargo ships and sailboats docked and sailed through the bay. Seagulls screeched over the beaches, and low clouds fogged the hills. Nylon and polyester jackets rubbed against each other, filling the air with a constant squeak and sweeping sound. Two-story duplexes covered the lower half of the town, and Victorian-style homes were tucked away in the upper half. The crowd started back on the paved roads of the town square, where small businesses, the chapel, schools, and the police station were, and carried to the dead beige grass of the hills of Astoria, Oregon. This yearly march turned the once-healthy grass desolate. 

It is important to understand that this small port city at the mouth of the Columbia River, although captured in joyous spirits on that day, was a place rarely deserving of praise. Astoria received close to 70 inches of rain per year, and there were times when overcast clouds hid the sun for weeks. Like the comings and goings of everyday life, Astorians drove slowly and often hid their heads underneath the hoods of heavy raincoats. Before the arrival of Ivan Ingold, nothing ever happened in Astoria, Oregon. As one can imagine, the constant rain and dark clouds evoked feelings of sorrow for Astorians. This town was efficient at siphoning whatever trace amounts of hope and optimism that sprouted from the pavement like weeds. 

Cars with license plates from across America parked on the highway, and the police restricted access from certain city streets for the flow of foot traffic. Kyle avoided this part of town every year for this very reason. As much as he hated it, the event evolved into a traditional festival as big as Oktoberfest in Germany or Carnival in Rio. Fans fashioned booths, stages, games, and some even displayed their own art. 

“Relax, try to let loose a bit.” Pablo handed Kyle a lit cannabis blunt, but Kyle refused. Thick white smoke rolled through the crowd and infected the surrounding air. Bystanders signaled their annoyance with over-the-top coughs. The years Pablo spent smoking marijuana turned him thin, and his brown eyes developed a permanent glaze over them. 

“Give him a break.” Landon bumped Pablo in the shoulder—even with his monstrous physique, Landon tried not to bump into other people in the crowd with his watermelon-sized biceps. 

“Just trying to give him something to take the edge off. We all need a little more chill in our lives.” Pablo placed the withering blunt between his lips and sucked. 

“I don’t think this was a good idea. It feels wrong being here without Keon and Elijah,” Kyle said. He dragged his feet, and a lone ray of sunshine snuck through a cloud and sizzled the bags under his hazel eyes. A good night’s rest turned into a prehistoric relic ever since Kyle found Elijah’s body after he swallowed the barrel of a shotgun. 

Landon placed his hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “You’re killing yourself in that house. No one will blame you for taking a step away.” 

“Even if you refused to come with us. I would have dragged you out of that house, Kyle.” Pablo neared the end of his blunt and rolled it between his index finger and thumb. 

“You would have tried. I told you earlier, I’m only staying out for a couple of hours.” He shielded himself from the persistent sunray. “How many times is everyone going to sit outside a deranged artist’s house? That’s all everyone does this time of year.” 

“You’re telling me you’re not the slightest bit interested in whether today will be the day?” Pablo droned as the three of them continued to move with the crowd. 

“Frankly, Lo, no, I’m not that interested. Just like I hadn’t been interested the last couple of years. I feel like I’m on the island of Summerisle,” Kyle said. 

“Summerisle?” Pablo asked. 

“The Wicker Man.” 

Pablo stared at the two of them with a blank expression. 

“It’s a horror movie from the seventies,” Landon said. 

Pablo shrugged. “If it ain’t something I can watch high, I ain’t watching it.” 

Landon snatched the blunt out of Pablo’s hand and crushed it with the heel of his shoe. “Maybe this is the problem.” 

Pablo jabbed Landon in the gut, and the two of them gave each other a round of back-and-forth air boxing before Kyle stepped between them. “Luke is already up there waiting for us. He didn’t want to be late for the performances and shows beforehand.” Landon held his gut and readjusted his shirt. As art majors at the community college themselves, Landon, Pablo, and Luke enjoyed this day more than their own birthdays. 

Somehow, Kyle could never shake artists. Everywhere he turned, a self-proclaimed artist battered him. He scoffed at the zealots who invaded the town every year. He felt like the only person in North America who had not bought into Ivan Ingold and the influence of his artwork. The constant debate his friends had about whether The Secrets to Success could be more poetic than the beauty of Guardians’ House made him want to paint a canvas with his brain. 

Festivalgoers culminated near a place the locals referred to as the “Block.” A large, colorless block of cement at the flattened peak of a mountain, with no windows and one door. The Block had less character than a prison. It stood erect and proud in all its monotonous glory. Kyle gawked at its size. Despite his indifference toward the architectural aberration, it still blocked out the sun whenever he studied in the quad. For that, he appreciated Ivan Ingold and his home. 

Three of them brushed past bodies like bees inside a busy hive. A cocktail of laughter, intangible speaking, and music made it difficult for the friends to hear each other. Commotion stirred from every turn: a food truck sold corn dogs that the boys smelled halfway up the walk, a row of booths stretched out forever to their right, displaying sculptures, paintings, or drawings, and bystanders admired a wood carving of wolves that tore a man limb from limb. Kyle squirmed at the sculpture’s eviscerated entrails and turned away. 

Kites flew in the cotton candy sky, and kids roughhoused in the grass areas between the booths. Boyfriends tried to impress their girlfriends at ring toss and milk bottle toss games, and girlfriends pretended to care about whether their boyfriends won or lost. Unapproved OSHA carnival rides rattled, screeched, and broke down. Ponies neighed, goats bleated, miniature pigs oinked, and cows mooed their frustration inside the petting zoo. The three friends held their breath as they strolled past the thick stench of farm animals. 

Kyle struggled to understand why everyone treated the day as a celebration. Ivan had given no inkling that he would debut any of his newest artwork. Still, people celebrated and danced together as if it were the year he would present his newest creations to the world. Kyle wagered with Landon and Pablo that half the people there did not attend for Ivan, and after questioning passersby, they failed to find concrete evidence. 

Luke jumped out from behind a booth and landed in front of the three of them—the nineteen-year-old body checked people with little regard for their personal space. “I didn’t think you were gonna be able to do it,” Luke spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear. 

“It wasn’t as easy as you thought it was going to be,” Landon retorted. “Took some clawing and scratching at the door.” 

Luke rubbed shoulders with Kyle and smooched the air. “I saw Lily over there by the guy in the big purple bear costume.” He slurred his words and pointed with a beer can. 

Kyle rolled his eyes. “Where’d you get that from?” 

“Why? You want some?” Luke dangled the can in front of him. “The fake ID I got from that guy on the internet worked.” 

“No thanks, I’m good.” Kyle waved his hand. 

“Suit yourself.” Luke handed Landon and Pablo a drink. “Did you guys see the dude spray painting that van?” 

“No, we just got here. We’ve spent our time up here trying to find you,” Landon said as he snapped open the can. The can hissed, and alcohol sprayed out of the top, splashing Landon and wetting his shirt. 

Luke clutched his stomach and laughed. “You should see the look on your face!” He fell backward into a man who pushed the drunken minor off him. “The classics never die!” 

Landon wiped the beer from his face and dried his hands. “I ought to wring your neck.” 

Pablo pried the tab on his can, and it snapped open without incident. “Your dad is going to hang you,” Pablo said and took a sip. 

“I’ve been hiding things from the Honorable Judge Bell since I could walk.” Luke took a drink and swallowed. “Besides, that four-leaf clover up my ass hasn’t failed me yet.” 

“If only we could all live so carefree.” Kyle peered over his friends in the direction Luke pointed. 

“A little liquid courage before I go snag the future Mrs. Vasquez’s number.” Pablo chugged the rest of the beer. 

“You are brave to mess with that one. I heard she will cut you up into tiny pieces like her father did.” Luke tossed his now empty can onto the ground and crushed it. 

“You’d better not talk like that in front of her,” Kyle said. 

Lily Guy set up her booth outside the gate of Ivan’s home. She rearranged Shakespearean skulls behind the booth alone, with the words ‘Woman’s Poetry Club’ written in bold bubble letters and colored in with diverse colors of markers above her head; the primary colors being green and red. Lily graduated a year before the rest of them, with high cheekbones, freckles, and red hair. Her booth stood out from the rest, made from oak wood instead of ash. She etched the quote, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” into the wood across the surface of the table. 

A toddler at the time of her father’s murderous rampage. She had her last name changed so she could have an attempt at a normal life. She knew only the stories that the people around town told her about him. “Hi Landon!” 

“What’s up, Lily-pad? Have you been getting a lot of foot traffic?” 

“Eh, here and there, I’d ask if you want to join, but then the other girls in the club would throw a fit.” 

“It’s okay. I’m not much of a poet anyway.” 

“Are you free next weekend? I’ve got an extra ticket to a concert. The opening act starts at seven. You can take your mind off things.” 

Pablo squeezed the flimsy aluminum can in his hand, and his skin lost its color. The proverbial arrow struck him in the chest—only this arrow did not belong to Cupid. Landon attracted women the way streetlights attract moths. 

“Sorry, I can’t. I got something I gotta do next weekend,” Landon said. The arrow in Pablo’s chest missed every major artery. Lily leaned against the post of her booth and retreated into her shell. Luke brought the collar of his shirt over the bridge of his nose and hid his laughter from the group. A stiff elbow in the ribs from Kyle forced Luke to collect his breath and return to the conversation. 

“Oh, okay… no worries, I just thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask.” Rejection never came often to her, but when it did, she handled it as gracefully as a drowning swan. 

Pablo snuck away from the group, alerting no one; he left behind the ghost of his footprint in the still matted grass. The heart on his sleeve suffered a massive blow. 

“What about you, Kyle? You wanna go to the concert with me?” She meticulously rearranged the skulls on the ledge of her booth. “It’s okay if you’re busy, I can ask—” 

“I-I don’t know.” Kyle rubbed his eyes. “Can I get back to you?”  

“Yeah, I guess. Take my number. If you could just let me know by Friday.” She tore a piece of paper from her notepad and scribbled on it. 

“Sure thing,” Kyle said and stuffed the paper in his pocket. 

“Well, that was something. I’m gonna go check on Lo, wherever he snuck off to,” Luke garbled into Kyle’s ear. 

“I’ll come with you.” Kyle and Luke left Landon with Lily and traversed the crowd in the direction they believed Pablo had gone, who failed to make it far. Pablo daydreamed, hunched over with his hands braced on a garbage bin filled to the top with soda and beer cans. 

“Are you really going to be like this right now?” Luke stumbled into the garbage bin, knocking several cans out and onto the grass. 

“Be like what?” 

Luke wrapped his arm around him. He not only guided Pablo back toward Landon and Lily but also used him as support while they talked. “You’re going to sneak away and sulk just because some girl didn’t want your number? Kyle wasn’t her first choice either, you know?” Luke slurred. 

“She’s not just some girl. Wait, she asked you after Landon?” 

Kyle shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not that big of a deal—”  

“If you came over here to rub it in my face, then—” 

“We came to make sure you were all right. How could she reject you if you never even tried in the first place?” Kyle backpedaled in front of his friends. 

“It is not just about that… it is about Elijah, too. Being here without him feels wrong.” 

“Here.” Kyle stuck the number Lily gave him into Pablo’s pocket. “Elijah would still want you to have fun—call her tonight and see if she will go to that concert with you.” 

“What about you?” Pablo pulled the small paper out of his pocket. 

“There are plenty of fish in the sea,” he joked as he panned his hand in the air at everyone around them. As he did so, a woman with jet-black hair bumped into a sculpture of stacked tin cans. The hollow cans leaned to the left and toppled over a crowd of onlookers. A stout man working on the sculpture jumped down from the red ladder he balanced on. He spiked the would-be newest can in his hand on the ground and pulled his hair at the horror before him. The small circle of people around his fallen work gasped. He kicked at the cans on the ground, raised his voice, and unloaded French obscenities at the woman. 

“Is that?” Luke grabbed Kyle by the shoulder, who shrugged him off. Kyle left his friends to themselves; he slid through people towards the black-haired woman and vexed artist. He shoved the man to the side, who stumbled into his graveyard of cans. The artist balanced himself and shook a crushed can from the sole of his shoe. He bent over, picked up a can, and charged his arm behind his head. 

Pablo grabbed the French artist’s wrist. “Take a hike.” Pablo snatched the can from the man. He and Luke guided the irate French away from Kyle and the woman. 

“Kyle… it’s good to see you.” The woman clutched an envelope against her stomach. 

Kyle balled his fist, the blood in his veins boiled, and he fought against tears. He drew tight circles with his fist over his abdomen. “I feel nauseous.” 

“I can explain.” The woman held up the envelope. “It’s all in here.” 

“What are you doing? I’m not the one you give that to.” Kyle swatted the envelope out of her hands. 

The woman brushed dirt from the big yellow envelope and re-tightened the metal clasp that held it closed. “I didn’t come here to fight. This is for him. It explains everything.” Her bottom lip quivered, and she broke into a soft sob. “I could always tell you two apart. He has lighter eyes.” 

“Yeah, and one of us is dying.” Kyle scoffed. 

The surrounding crowd caught on to the tense reunion and approached the woman from the back as she cried. “Is everything alright, miss?” A stranger asked and shot Kyle a look of disdain. She wiped away tears and held the envelope out to Kyle. 

“Jesus Christ.” Kyle snatched the envelope from the woman. “You’d do everyone else a huge favor if you got yourself lost again.” Kyle tucked the envelope under his shirt, between his stomach and waistband. He stormed off in the direction Pablo and Luke had carried the French artist. The woman pulled the hood of her jacket over her head and vanished into the crowd in the other direction. 

Kyle caught up with Pablo and Luke, who watched the entire scene play out from Lily’s booth. “Your brother’s ex has a thing for theatrics.” Luke cracked the tab open on another beer. 

“Shut up.” Pablo sprinkled marijuana onto cigarette paper and licked the edges. 

The cadence of the crowd grew to a collective hush. Everyone’s gait progressed into a slow and uncertain halt; one by one, the now mouselike crowd fixated on the top of the hill, where the Block and an unknown person studied the crowd below. Mothers swept their children off the floor and into their arms, girlfriends squeezed their lovers’ triceps, and the animals in the petting zoo stirred. Silence deafened the music playing over the speakers. Even the kites in the sky froze in their arbitrary movements. Kyle held his breath; he chewed on the formed tension like fat on a steak; the merry event turned into a playground of uncertainty. 

A mask of colorful patched cloth concealed the mysterious figure’s face. The lone individual wore a long tan bathrobe that fit loosely to their body, with a splatter of red on a white undershirt with pristine black pants. The mysterious man hiked down the hill barefoot towards the rest of the world.