Beastly's Arc

Chapter 10 of 11

By morning, the voided notice is back. Beastly sees it as he passes the auditorium — pinned to a fresh post, the black ink louder than before. A small crowd reads it on the sidewalk. Someone points. Someone laughs. Inside the office, the manager is already on the phone, a second complaint open on the counter, asking for the chain to go back up. Beastly walks past the office. He follows the path through the pines to the rival's lodge. The glass doors are propped open. Flyers for the competing recital sit in a neat stack on the porch. Beastly does not take one. He turns and walks back to the auditorium, stopping at the signpost where the parchment hangs. He pulls the folded voided notice from his pocket — the first one, already canceled — and pins it beside the new one. Same words. Same ink. One already overturned. The crowd quiets. The manager steps out, sees the two notices side by side, and reads them twice. He walks to the iron gate now padlocked across the entrance, lifts a key from his belt, and unlocks it. The padlock clatters to the stone. He tears the new notice down himself and hands it to Beastly without a word. Beastly carries both notices back to his studio and sets them beside the blank programs. The booking holds. But on the counter at the lodge, he had seen the rival's flyer count — three hundred printed, and a guest judge's name he did not know.