Maifest

About the Book

In a small town, a face from the past comes across a computer screen and starts a chain of events that no one could have imagined.  Flood waters from a storm that same night brings up a strange looking box that strikes terror in the hearts of those who find it.  Rumors start immediately. Metal detectors come out and a massive treasure hunt begins.  Although the frustration of this is intolerable to certain people, no one can seem to stop it.

Instead of finding gold out by the river, a skeleton is unearthed.  The remains of an old man everyone seemed to detest brings up much talk about the night he disappeared.  The Sheriff wants to find out why.  He also wants to know what happened to the young man who hated him so much.  Slowly, he begins to backtrack through the year the old professor lived in their town. People will only say there was something slimy, almost scary about the guy. But if that was so, why was he tutoring young athletes?  

A world away, someone begins to do the same thing.  A woman falls in a hotel and awakens in a hospital.  The nurses are intrigued when their patient keeps asking what year it is.  No one can understand who she saw on the escalator, nor can they account for nightmares filled with boxes on fire and people screaming.

Only at the end of a process of sorting through symbols and images does it become clear that it had everything to do with 1968.  She starts to remember what happened on a certain Maifest night and why they were all wearing medieval costumes instead of the traditional formals and tuxes.  Worst, that the sword fighting in her dreams had been horribly real.

The Sheriff’s life is also a nightmare about this time.  He wants to talk to the boys who were in so much trouble in ´68. But no one will talk.  What was going on? And what is the connection to this mania about buried treasure? Petitions pour in from all over the area demanding an investigation.  

A Grand Jury is convened. Everyone involved in what went on that spring is summoned.  The District Attorney is determined they will not be able to cover this up again.  

So they start to arrive in Montville.  All, except for the King of the Maifest who is still missing after all these years.

In the courtroom, the questions are not all about what happened the night of the Senior Coronation and Ball.  The person who takes the stand first is the one who knew the deceased long before he came to their town.  Where in Bavaria had he met this professor in 1945 and was it really near the salt mines where all that Nazis loot was buried?!

About the Author

Ann Isabelle Candilaré grew up in small town similar to that in this story. She has spent most of her adult life working and living on the West Coast, but still vividly recalls the place where her ancestors settled with the greatest of hopes about a better life in America.