I softened my voice. "I can help, Jack. I'll find you a job at the—"

His eyes turned hard. "I don't need charity. I need the money, for the journal and the document, which I've just remembered you haven't paid me for, yet. But don't worry about that one. I'll throw it in with the journal." He smiled and straightened.

"Two for five thousand. It doesn't get much better than that, Celeste."

I laughed a little, but it was a dry and hoarse laugh. "I think I've finally learned how to say no." I shook my head. "This is too much, Jack. I can't keep doing this. Someday, we will get caught, and there will be hell to pay for you and for me. I just—"

My brows furrowed as my eyes caught a paper lying west of Jack's battered boots.

"What is it, Celeste?" He turned, following my gaze.

"I just..." The words faded in the wind just as easily as the paper. I lunged forward to catch it before it whirled away and was lost forever. My hands grazed the paper before it was whisked away but failed to get a firm grip as the currents picked up, and the wind lifted it higher. "No..."

Jack stretched up to his full height and jumped. His body arched gracefully, and his long fingers plucked the paper from the air. I breathed in a sigh of relief and moved to his side. My eyes dropped, following the lure of the words.

It was a regular sheet of paper with normal margins and legible font. The moon shone down upon it, illuminating the piece from within—bringing an ethereal glow upon it. A big circle formed around the paper from the borrowed light in the disguise of an ellipse...or, a halo. Jack unfolded one of the creased corners and pressed it down with his fingertips until it lay flat. The oil-smudged pads of his fingers rubbed the paper's surface as he tried to chip away the brown grease-stain that streaked through the paper's area. My eyes worked to make sense of the computer-typed words that lay beneath.

----------

Change is in the air. I know it is so. My mother tells me to be quiet, but I cannot stop this feeling inside me that tells me that something is wrong. We are a Christian people now and have been since the white evangelists came. We do not fall prey to the old juju that lies dormant in the framework of my village. But still, something is not right. I know it. Whether this feeling is from my Christian conscience or it is my ancestor's warning to me...I know all is lost, at least it will be very soon.

He knows I know, too. It is not something he has said or done, but it is a feeling. He laughs off my worries and scoffs at my pleas, all the while knowing that I am right. He jokes with my mother and cheers with my father and brings presents to my siblings. All the while, I know that it is a lie. He is a lie. And he is coming for me because I speculate the truth.

I am prepared to die young. I fear for my family, my culture, my land, and my people. I do not want everything to go with me, but I fear it will. The future is just so mystical. We try so hard to predict it, avoid it, change it. But it does not morph on the whims of insignificant humans. No, it laughs in our faces without breaking speed. The end is near and has been for a while. All we are left to do, all that we can do is wait, cry, scream, howl, pray, and then wait.

And so I wait. And I curse the fact that my days are numbered and that my end is near. It is the fault of my speculation. My curious mind. My transparent face. Because my laughs fall flat these days, and my eyes grow wary when he is near, he knows that I have guessed. And his uneasiness has let me know that my guess is truth.

Will he be able to look my parents in the eye when I am gone? Will he still give presents to my siblings? Will everything be the same or will grief beset my family forever? Will Chika still cry out my name in the dark even though I'll no longer be there to calm his nightmares? Or will his howl intensify with the loss of his sister?

I do not know. I do not wish to know the pain my family will feel in the coming future.

To be honest, a part of me is glad that I will be gone before the end comes. It is selfish of me, I know, but I cannot help it. I was not meant to take on this burden. I never asked for this knowledge. I am only fourteen. I am mature enough to accept my fate, but am I supposed to be superwoman, too? I've written this in the hopes that a part of me—the spiteful, fearless part of me—will survive.

Knowing comes with a price, a price that I will have to pay. But he will not bring me down because I have this, my voice. My truth is here for you to discover—if you choose.

Choose wisely if you dare. As I've said, knowing comes with a price.

----------

I peered into the words, seeing much more than simple, black type. It was the beginning of a story, a fairytale, an adventure. It was a possibility, and I had every inclination to explore this opportunity.

"I want it—the journal." The words escaped from my lips unbidden, but with every passing second, they were truer. The excitement and thrill of the adventure rushed over me, reminding me why I returned every eighteenth. I came back for the sake of a new finding.

Today, I had come back for this.