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Belinda’s book left so much for us to guess.  What would
happen if we didn’t choose?  Neither she nor any of her descendants ever noted
an answer.  Only that we
must
choose.  In the back of the book, Belinda
started a family tree of sorts.  Mothers noted the birth of their daughters by
entering their name.

Many branches just stopped.  Like great Aunt Danielle’s. 
She never had a daughter.  No one ever talked about her choice.  My mom warned
me at an early age not to bring it up.  Mostly, Aunt Danielle sat quietly on
the chair in the corner of the living room her haunted eyes staring off into
space.  I suspected she lost a daughter long ago along with her husband, but
never asked.

Aunt Grace, my mother’s sister, chose a man who wouldn’t
give her children.  Unlike Aunt Danielle, Aunt Grace spoke about it once when
just the two of us were home.  She hadn’t wanted to condemn her child to our
shared fate, the visions and forced choice.  But after helping to raise me, she
regretted her choice.  Only one branch remained active in the book.  My
mother’s.  Everything rested on me now.  I’d have no cousin to share the burden
when I reached their age.

Gran and I worked in silence.  The smell of fresh basil,
plucked from the herb pot in the kitchen window, filled the room.  Water
bubbled on the stove heating the kitchen.  Gran chopped ingredients to the
frying pan and I moved to sit at the table.  I buttered bread, cutting each
slice in half and set them to the side.  I enjoyed working in the kitchen,
mostly liking the warmth and light.

“Looks like it will be dark early tonight,” she observed,
glancing at the cloud-laden sky through the window by the sink.  “Homework
done?”

“Yeah.”  I loved summer and its long days.  Winter sucked
almost as much as the bus ride did because of its short days.

Belinda’s book also stated those with the gift had to be
home before dark.  No explanation why.  Just simple instructions to secure the
house before the sun sunk below the horizon with a note that shutters worked
best to block out the night.

Mom and Aunt Grace arrived home as we put supper on the
table.  As usual, Aunt Danielle didn’t join us, preferring her solitary chair. 
She took her meals when she felt like it.  No one seemed overly worried about
her.  As Gran’s identical twin, I supposed they would worry if she started
looking thinner than Gran.

After supper, we all got ready for bed.  I had priority on
the shower since I wouldn’t wake before seven.  Another lovely rule.  To
protect the daughters from the night, we slept until the sun’s first ray
crested the horizon.  In winter, it made it a tight race to get to school on
time.

Mom knocked on the door.  “Fifteen minutes until dusk. 
We’re starting now.”

“Okay,” I called back turning off the water.

In late fall through early spring, the monotonous events of
my short days made me want to scream.  Get up, race to school.  Do homework
while riding the bus home.  Make dinner with grandma, eat, and get ready for
bed.  No time remained for anything else.

I hurried to pull on my pajamas, fleece lounge pants and a
cami.  The material stuck on my still damp skin a few times.  When I rushed through
the bathroom door, I felt slightly twisted.  The tightly closed shutters
blocked out the fading light and cast most of the house into darkness.

Using my hand as an anchor on the hallway wall, I moved to
the living room where everyone waited.  The one time of day Aunt Danielle
actually joined in.  Their quiet murmurs filled the house.  They sat on their
heels on the living room floor in a small circle.  Each spoke the words from
Belinda’s book.  Words of protection.  Moving toward the circle, I stepped
between Mom and Gran to stand in the middle.

I could feel the sun setting outside and a cold scary
presence growing.  As one, they rose and reached their right hand toward me. 
Their fingertips brushed my bare arms and lethargy set in, cocooning me in safety. 
Their quiet words stopped.

“Sleep tight Tess,” my mom whispered wrapping an arm around
my shoulders.

She led me to my room.  I struggled to keep my eyelids open
so I didn’t run into my bed.  Waking up with a bruised shin made me grumpy.

Yep, I hated winter, weirdly induced sleep, and boys who
died after committing their lives to me.

*    *    *    *

I woke with a start and glanced at my mute alarm clock. 
Seven a.m.  Mom stood by my bed with a plate of toast ready.  The cycle began
anew.

With a sigh, I sat up and shoved a huge bite of toast into
my mouth.  While I chewed, I tossed on clothes and grabbed my bag.  Though
cheap and filling, I disliked toast.  Maybe just because I had it every
weekday.  We’d tried having cereal weekdays, but I made an awful mess in my
rush, usually wearing milk dribbles.  Now cereal remained reserved for the
weekends.

Within five minutes, I sat in the back seat of mom’s rusted
out car.  It long ago lost its emblem identifying the make and model.  The
cracked leather seats quickly warmed on the fifteen-minute drive to town.  I
dwelled on the unfairness that it took fifteen minutes to get to school, and
forty to get home.

She and Aunt Grace dropped me off near the front steps of
Middlelyn High with a wave good-bye.  Only a few other late arrivals like me
still rushed through the main doors.  It meant fighting my way to my locker
through crowded hallways.

As I trudged forward, I felt more than the usual stares
boring into my back.  Glancing around, I saw Brian with a group of boys talking
quietly.  They all watched my progress.  Great.  By rejecting Brian, I’d made
matters worse.  He probably told others about the bet.  My refusal just made me
more of a challenge.

With a mental sigh, I hurried to my locker placing the book
I’d taken home inside and pulling out the books for my first two classes.  Less
locker time would be a good thing today.

Predictably, one of the boys broke away from the group and
approached me.

I cut him off when he opened his mouth to say something. 
“Don’t waste your energy.”

Closing my locker, I walked away completely uninterested in
whatever he’d been about to say.  I could do without mockery, no doubt my
remark about Brian’s drinking already fueled today’s rumor mill, or another
attempt to get me to say yes to a bet-date.

The day crawled by as Brian’s group of friends took every
opportunity to approach me.  My patience wore thin when one of them approached
me at lunch.

Clavin, I remembered hearing his name from a group of girls
before I became an outcast, suggested that we ‘get it on in the supply closet’
for a date.  Sitting alone at the table while he hovered close, gracing me with
his magnificent presence, my words carried to the next table when I told him to
sit on a broom handle instead.  Everyone at that table snickered.  He didn’t
turn to glare at them as his face infused with red.  Instead, his eyes narrowed
on me before he stormed off.  His look promised retribution.

By the end of the day, I’d managed to offend each member of
Brian’s circle.  Not intentionally after the cafeteria incident, but it didn’t
matter what I said, they got angry.  I hated their stupid bet and their callous
attitudes about it.

The last bell rang and the halls flooded.  I left the
chemistry lab merging with the other students pouring into the halls while
thinking of what Gran and I would make for dinner.  With our meager pantry
inventory running through my head, I didn’t notice Clavin walking beside me
until he bumped me into a side hall where Brian waited.  The students still
passing in the hall looked away pretending not to notice.

Tripping over my own feet from the nudge he’d given me, I
struggled to regain my balance.  Bag falling of my shoulder and heart thumping
from the narrow avoidance of a face plant to the floor, I looked up at Brian.

Before I could do more, he opened the supply closet door
while Clavin pushed me from behind.  I fell inside.  They slammed the door
behind me.

The sudden absence of light startled me as much as their
abruptly cut off laughter worried me.  If they thought this would turn me into
a crying mess so they could then tease me, they needed to think again.

 Standing still, I dropped my bag and stretched out my arms
while my eyes adjusted.  A thin band of light at the bottom of the door did
little to light the small space.  The smell of cleaning supplies and old mop
water surrounded me.

Moving toward the door I called out, “Real mature.”  I tried
the handle, but it didn’t move.  I pounded a fist on the door.  “Let me out.” 
No response.  The handle still didn’t budge.

Pausing, I listened for an indication they waited outside
the door.  In the distance, I heard other students as they left the school. 
Nothing nearby.  My stomach did a crazy flip and fear slid into my belly.  I
needed to get out soon or I’d miss the bus.  Home before dark…

I pounded and kicked the door frantically hoping someone
from the main hall would hear me.  When no one came, I changed strategies. 
Time to be smart, not panic.

Feeling along the door, I searched for a switch.  Nothing to
either side, but shelves.  Raising my hands above my head, I waved them around
feeling for a string.  Something brushed my fingertips.  I slowed down the
waving and tried again with success.  Closing my fist around the string, I gave
it a gentle tug.  Light flooded the space and I blinked away the pain as my eyes
watered.  Between blinks, I studied the tiny space.

Mounted to the wall, a small utility sink occupied the back
of the room.  In front of it sat the Janitor’s mop and bucket filled with cold
grey water.  I wrinkled my nose.  The shelves held cleaning supplies, bags of
liquid absorbent lay stacked on the floor.  Nothing that I could use to open
the door.

Turning I studied the doorknob.  Round handle with the lock
on the inside.  I frowned at the lock and stepped forward to try the handle
once more.  It gave a little before firming again.  They hadn’t locked me in. 
Someone held the knob from the outside.

Angry, I gripped the knob tightly.  Whoever stood outside
held steady.  I closed my eyes.  I’d only ever gotten visions when touching
skin to skin, but I concentrated anyway hoping I could glean who held the door
closed.  Breathing slowly, I cleared my mind willing a vision to appear. 
Outside the door, the sounds of leaving students faded replaced by an eerie
quiet.

When nothing happened, I grew desperate thinking of the
buses pulling away and leaving me to walk home.

“Brian, I know it’s you holding the handle,” I spoke with a
false calm pressing my face close to the wood.  “I know it’s you just like I
know you’re going to grow up to be a raging alcoholic who dies in his sleep.”

The doorknob twisted sharply, taking me by surprise.  Still
holding it tightly, my knuckles scrapped on the frame as someone jerked the
door outward a few inches.  Just enough for me to lose my balance and catch
sight of Brian’s startled face peering back at me.

Before I recovered my balance, he slammed it shut again and
the side of my face smacked against the wood with a crack.  The cheap door gave
under the pressure, splitting before my cheekbone did.

I cried out and pressed a hand to my face, my fury cutting
through the sharp steady pain.  Furious, I twisted the knob again.  This time I
met no resistance.

Pushing the door open, I stepped out searching for my
tormentors.  The sound of their retreating running feet assured me I need not
worry.

Further down the hall, a janitor turned the corner pushing a
mop and bucket identical to the one already in the supply closet.  Before he
spotted me, I grabbed my bag and darted out holding my face.

The deserted halls echoed with my racing footsteps.  Each
footfall sent a jolt through my throbbing cheek.  Holding it hurt, but so did
leaving it alone.  The pain, which started near my earlobe, seared through the
bone carving a slow brutal path across my cheek to the base of my eye.  Too
angry to cry, I focused on getting out of the building.

Afternoon sunlight poured into the main lobby.  An atrium
with display cases for the school’s sport trophies, it usually felt warm and
welcoming.  Not today.

I didn’t pause to look for Brian and Clavin.  I needed to
get home.

The empty drive in front of the school confirmed my guess
that I’d missed the buses.  Brian and Clavin had kept me in that closet at
least ten minutes.  Since we only had the one car, calling Gran wouldn’t do me
any good and I didn’t want to call mom at work.  She’d insist I wait at the
school.  I couldn’t tell her why I didn’t want to do that.  We had enough to
deal with.

I glanced at the overcast sky, shouldered my bag and set off
at a brisk pace, calculating.  My mom got me to school in fifteen minutes.  Of
course, she tended to speed.  I estimated we lived about seven miles from
school.  While dashing through the halls, I caught the time on one of the
clocks.  Almost three.  That’d give me two hours to get home.  Plenty of time,
I tried reassuring myself.  When the bus passed the house without stopping,
Gran would call mom and she and Aunt Grace would watch for me on their way
home.

An icy breeze played with my hair, lifting it and sweeping
over the back of my neck making me cringe.  I hoped they’d pick me up.  It was
too cold to walk very far.

I’d made it across the staff parking lot when I noticed a
mustard yellow car idling in the student lot.  Like my mom’s car, what it
lacked in newness it had in character.  Too far away, to see the people inside,
I only spared it a passing glance as I cut across the lot to the school’s main
access road.

It wasn’t a big school or a big town so the sidewalk only
lined the main road.  When I turned south to head out of town, I walked the
graveled shoulder.  The ditch dropped three feet before sloping away into the
fallow fields just outside of town.  The clumps of dirt exposed by the last
tilling poked up in frozen disarray from the ground.