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One year, some reality TV folks caeant Good kids—a little skinny, alearing sunglasses and s, hair slicked up like it was 1950 and the race down by the river The world is what it is And the world likes to gawk—s mission, claws coible county , we’d have found another way We’ve had a long time to sort it all out

We don’t hold with anything too immodest, even in the Blossom of the Deep coirls have to lue They knot seashells in their belts and stick rhinestones in the corners of their eyes Polished crab claws holding back their braids Painted fish, all in a row along their long arlimpsed beneath a wave I remember back in ‘74, Annie Gandhalass—she sparkled in the sun, strands of black pearls hanging in long loops from her neck to her knees

Oh, Annie, not till the century changed did we see a candidate as sure as you We had such hopes

The file between the earth and the sea They said primitive cultures practiced it all over the world in one form or another They said ouldn’t know on a conscious level what this was all about, but that down deep, where folklore lives, it was this old story playing out in Wiscasset every May Give so

The Blueberry Bride portion of the pageant takes place at the Airls show their love of our wild blueberries in the form of pies and tarts and ice creams, cakes and tortes and cupcakes thick with lavender buttercreaar, pancakes piled up like pyramids, syrups and coht blueberry liquor in a crystal bottle half as long as her ar spirits into the co then and there—the girl who’d distill alcohol from the innocent berry more or less inculpates herself But in the end the es had to recuse the their enjoyment of the fruits of the Blueberry Brides, and, insensate with pie and liquor, napped through the rest of the afternoon

In the late nineties, a few boys were allowed into the pageant After all, Wiscasset produces quite asflowers there is a sensitive boy or tho kno to bake a blueberry tart and has the musculature to pull off a merman tail In northern Maine, these roses don’t always last long, or stick around, sonothing a them to wear purple suits and fold butter into flour The TV folks were interested in that, but we haven’t had a boy line up in front of the clock-tower for years now Their fathers don’t like it, mostly They keep their sons in their houses after the frost, refuse the call No one approves—you can’t keep them hidden forever If they have the inclination, well, it will coood work

Anyway, the talent cos out It was difficult, when the fil black lens into everyone’s faces and asking theeant, about proto-Celtic folklore, about history better left alone

The girls take the stage one by one—the stage being a plywood rise set up in the woods outside of town, in a clearing we all know too well They dress conservatively—black dresses, high collars Even a bit of lace at the wrist is too distracting to be allowed NoBut they don’t sing irl stands by a black table On it lies a bit of splintered wood, scorched at one end, a length of rope, a jug of water They place their hands over the items Some

times they cry So So happens Once, in ‘51, Sarah Cottonly’s nose started bleeding, so bright and so red in the sunny glade We’re waiting for so Maybe we don’t even knohat it would look like Not a bloody nose Not a girl crying in the forest like her mother’s died

The TV people didn’t film that, of course It couldn’t be borne Couldn’t be explained Why yes, those are iot over-excited When they didn’t have a process Why do you ask?

We set up a show for the TV folks Girls with batons Girls with flutes Girls on the balance bea Poe Girls with sparklers in their hands and red, white, and blue boots clicking out the Declaration of Independence in htful, to see the with healthy sheens of sweat, the sun in their hair like tiaras crowning theht that year And they stood at the black table one by one by one Soer year

What is a crown? When the cameras are on, it’s a couple of tiers of cubic zirconia in pale violet and deep blue, a cluster in the center just the shape of a berry with green geirl’s head

When they’re off, it looks a lot more like a noose

I knohat you’re thinking But it’s not like that Salem was a bad horror ht you could wind up with a dozen witches in a generation, ether under the moon in a forest bare of leaves In Wiscasset we know better Witches are rare If you’re lucky, youall the irls a town produces like a harvest of berries all in a basket You can’t find the a bunch of twelve year olds which cruel old lady they despise the most, which pretty maid has earned their ire You have to have a process You have to kno to flush them out And even if all you find is a really top-notch blueberry torte hite chocolate ganache, even if all you find is a ive her the crown for the cae for all that

But irl with black pearls draped over her like rosaries, a girl with a blueberry tart in her hands like a violet, sea-drenched heart, a girl with her hand poised over a cairn of burned, splintered wood that once bore the weight of a woirls will look up from the black table and her eyes will fill up with a terrible, wonderful light The black of her dress will go indigo with berry juice, the blood of the earth that bore her, and she will sether, all at once We will have found one, one witch ah her like the name of God whispered three times