The Tyrant's Tomb

I wanted to ask Lavinia what was going on, but her posture made it clear
she was not in the mood for conversation. Not yet, anyway. We hiked in
silence out of the valley and down into the streets of Berkeley.
It must have been about midnight by the time we got to People’s Park.
I had not been there since 1969, when I’d stopped by to experience some
groovy hippie music and flower power and instead found myself in the
middle of a riot. The police officers’ tear gas, shotguns, and batons had
definitely not been groovy. It had taken all my godly restraint not to reveal
my divine form and blast everyone within a six-mile radius to cinders.
Now, decades later, the scruffy park looked like it was still suffering
from the aftermath. The worn brown lawn was strewn with piles of discarded
clothing and cardboard signs bearing hand-painted slogans like GREEN SPACE
NOT DORM SPACE and SAVE OUR PARK. Several tree stumps held potted plants
and beaded necklaces, like shrines to the fallen. Trash cans overflowed.
Homeless people slept on benches or fussed over shopping carts full of their
worldly belongings.
At the far end of the square, occupying a raised plywood stage, was the
largest sit-in of dryads and fauns I’d ever seen. It made total sense to me that
fauns would inhabit People’s Park. They could laze around, panhandle, eat
leftover food out of the garbage bins, and no one would bat an eye. The
dryads were more of a surprise. At least two dozen of them were present.
Some, I guessed, were the spirits of local eucalyptus and redwood trees, but
most, given their sickly appearances, must have been dryads of the park’s
long-suffering shrubs, grasses, and weeds. (Not that I am judging weed
dryads. I’ve known some very fine crabgrasses.)
The fauns and dryads sat in a wide circle as if preparing for a sing-along
around an invisible campfire. I got the feeling they were waiting for us—for
me—to start the music.
I was already nervous enough. Then I spotted a familiar face and nearly
jumped out of my zombie-infected skin. “Peaches?”
Meg’s demon-baby karpos bared his fangs and responded, “Peaches!”
His tree-branch wings had lost a few leaves. His curly green hair was
dead brown at the tips, and his lamplike eyes didn’t shine as brightly as I
remembered. He must’ve undergone quite an ordeal tracking us to Northern
California, but his growl was still intimidating enough to make me fear for
my bladder control.
“Where have you been?” I demanded.