Benji sat between Rebecca and the mayor’s oldest son, Tobias. It’d been a while since he last saw him, and Benji was quick to notice his height. He had a few inches on Mayor Perkins now, and was mighty proud of it. Tobias took every opportunity to stand next to his father, and when he did, he’d extend his spine and raise his chin to amplify the difference.
Out of the four siblings, Benji wouldn’t be surprised if Tobias took the next spot as mayor of Wishville. The siblings were practically bound to run against each other, not that anyone else in town was forbidden from running. It was common understanding that a Perkins had always been mayor, and that was just another piece of Wishville not willing to change.
Mrs. Perkins and the mayor sat, their backs and necks in straight alignment, as though preparing to sing.
The twins fought over who got the prized seat, the one closest to the corner. Benji never understood their obsession for that seat. “I don’t wanna have to squeeze out,” one said. “I call corner.”
When the decision was settled, everyone was seated except for Sam. They waited awhile, the food steaming from the platters to the ceiling. Benji watched the steam rise, his mouth watering. Yet simultaneously, he also wanted Sam to take her time.
Benji waited for them to call Sam into the room, but Mrs. Perkins was far too gentle for that. She slipped out of her seat and hovered down the hallway, her dress rippling beautifully behind her. When she returned, her arm was wrapped around Sam. She guided her into the last seat—the one across from Benji. Neither of them looked at each other.
The moment Mrs. Perkins’ sat, the twins attacked the food, competing over who could fit the most on their plates.
When the effects of the war had settled, Benji reached for his own helping. Seeing that Sam had her arms crossed, the adults plated themselves next over chitchat.
“Can you believe these two will be high schoolers soon?” Mrs. Perkins asked. “They grow up so fast.”
Rebecca smiled. “They do.”
Tobias tapped Benji gently on the head with a flat palm. “Most of them do, at least.” He took a bite of bread, the twins laughing hysterically in the background. Benji smiled away the joke, but Mrs. Perkins must have sensed him uncomfortable. She scolded Tobias with a voice soft enough to be a compliment. “Please don’t tease.”
Sam wasn’t amused. She leaned back in the chair, her arms crossed and her hair as frizzy as ever. It looked as if she’d been sleeping the whole day. Benji didn’t judge her, though. So had he.
Normally meals were busy. Three conversations would go on at once. One between the brothers, one between Rebecca and the adults, and the last between Sam and Benji. Perhaps all three had to be functioning for the others to exist, because the room stood silent. Their eyes followed him throughout the meal. All of them except Sam’s, at least.
“Is something wrong?” Mayor Perkins asked.
It took awhile for Benji to realize he was talking to him. “Oh, sorry. I’m just thinking about a few things.”
“You two seem dense,” one of the twins said. The other elbowed Sam in the side, an action she had evidently picked up from them. “Got in a little lovers’ quarrel?”
Benji took a long sip of water, trying not to focus on their laughter. He stared at Sam through the glass. She looked as if she were about to explode. Her face grew more and more red until it finally happened. Sam burst.
“He tried to leave.”
The room grew silent. Benji nearly spit out his water, not able to believe the words that left her mouth. There were a few secrets acceptable to slide, and this was certainly not one of them. He stared at Sam deep in the eye, but she didn’t look at him. Her eyes were on her empty plate.
Mayor Perkins set down his fork. “What do you mean by that?”
“Yeah.” Rebecca turned to Benji. “What does she mean by that?”
The twins turned to each other in confusion, and Tobias scratched his head. “Tried to leave what?”
Benji waited. He stared at Sam, waiting for her to cover it. He waited for her to say leave school before the test and then whisper karma into his ears later in the evening. He wanted it to be some kind of payback for whatever he did that had bothered her so much the day before. But she said none of that. Instead, she faced him and stared right through his soul. “Benji tried to leave Wishville.”
That was the end of it. Benji had pictured the scenario several times in his mind. What would happen if word got loose of what he had tried to do? What would people think of him? How would people react? And the fact that the Mayor, his father’s best friend, of all people, was sitting at the table hearing the words for himself was anything but good.
The attention shifted. There was no more confusion about Sam. No more stares in her direction. Instead, everyone turned to Benji, and the room went cold. The meal on his plate was suddenly unappetizing.
“Benji,” Mayor Perkins said, “is this true?”
CHAPTER 11
red
“Let me get this straight.” Rebecca collapsed onto the couch, her face burrowing deep into her palms. “You tried to leave because you needed to know what was out there?”
He faced the rug.
“Benji.”
“Yes.” He nodded. “Yes, that’s what I just explained.”
The room was cold.
When the moment passed, Rebecca hunched over and took a deep breath. “Please, sit down,” she said. “I want you to explain everything. From the beginning.”
“I did.” Benji stood firm. “I already told you everything.”
Rebecca sat on the sofa for a while, her face slowly growing more red by the moment. Without alarm she stormed from her sitting position and raised her chin to look at her son right in the eye. “Sit.”
And this time, Benji sat.
His mom clutched at the fabric of her cardigan. “I want to believe you.” She paced across the room. “I do. But you’ve been so secretive lately. You never told me you almost left Wishville. Sam did it for you.”
Benji’s eyes didn’t lift off the ground. He pulled his arms close to his stomach and wiggled his toes in the carpet. The room darkened by the second. He couldn’t tell if the sun was setting, or if Rebecca’s shadow was standing in the way. The weight of the air around him was dense, leaving his shoulders sore from the pressure. If he said nothing, Rebecca would be even more furious.
Maybe I should try explaining myself.
“You’ll listen to me?”
Even though he didn’t look at her, something about the room told him she had softened. The walls lightened, and she sat on the opposite end of the couch. “I’m always listening.”
So he told her. He told her everything starting with the time Nina first acted strange toward him—May 4th. He told her about how she predicted her death the night before. He told her about how everyone had fallen apart. He explained everything.
When Benji was toward the end of his story, Rebecca shook her head. “Wow.”
Benji’s arms relaxed. “The day she told me about her death, she also gave me this red—”
“I can’t believe this.” Rebecca’s pupils were like yo-yos, twirling as she tried to gather her thoughts. “I can’t believe you’d come up with such an elaborate story to cover up some stupid mistake.”
Benji’s forehead was riddled with folds. “Mom?”
“Go to your room.” Rebecca pointed toward the hall. “I don’t want to see you until you decide to tell me the truth.”
Benji stood from the couch. “I told you everything!”
“Well I told you to go to your room!” She was red now, breathing like a bull.
It was one person. One person was all it took for Benji to feel as if all of Wishville were against him. It wasn’t like this with Sam, Chloe, or even with James. This was worse than disappointment. It was tangier and more pungent.
The smell of betrayal.
He slammed his bedroom door behind him, shut off the lights, then punched a fist against the wall. “Stupid.” He turned to the ground, clenching his eyes shut. “Stupid, stupid.”
The only source of light in his room was the dim glow of the moon from his window. As Benji leaned against the door, his teeth clenched, arm pulsing, his eyes shot over to a hint of red.
A beautiful envelope sitting on his desk.
* * *
Benji shut his eyes until all he saw were the shapes and colors of his brain. After a few seconds, his mind turned white. They opened once more, and the envelope was still in his hands. It wasn’t a nightmare set to disappear.
“I can’t do it.” Benji lifted the envelope in front of him, ready to blast it across the room. “I can’t!” But instead of letting go, his grip on the paper intensified until he could nearly feel the words through the paper.
What would happen if I knew how it all ends?
What if I opened the envelope?
What if I discovered the truth?
I could plan my future.
I could—
Benji blinked, and the thoughts disappeared. “Should I do it?” He searched the room, waiting for a response. When the moonlight quivered and the silence stood firm, he lowered his eyes back to the future in his grasp.
The envelope didn’t open willingly. It took him a while. At each attempt the paper would rip at an angle, creating a strange tab-like fling of rips off the side of the envelope. He paused, waiting for himself to change his mind, but he didn’t.
The envelope was finally torn across, wide enough for him to retrieve the paper from inside. It appeared to be a page ripped from a notebook. Folded in half, it mocked him, as if to say, This is your last chance. You don’t have to do it.
Benji’s hand shook as he brought it closer to his face. With the sight of pencil marks through the thin paper, he pulled his swollen eyes away and locked them to the wall. Without looking, he parted the paper with his tangled fingers and held the finished product tight enough to choke the writing off the page. He was about to read.
“Don’t do it.” There was no one there to stop him. The words had come from his own mouth. He slammed his lips shut and breathed in short intervals.
“Don’t do it.” He leaned over, a sharp pain overrunning his stomach. “Don’t do it, Benji.”
But no matter what he said, the paper would not let him be. It stood proudly in his fingertips. He waited for it to crawl back into the tattered envelope where it belonged, but it refused to even look in that direction.
He bit his quivering lip and forced his eyes from the wall to the opened paper. He read the date. He saw it with his own two eyes.
Benji leaned in closer. The date didn’t change.
He pushed the paper further away. No difference.
The page fluttered to the ground, and Benji scooted away as if it were infested with some kind of disease. The idea of shutting his eyes made him shiver. The paper was like a spider on the wall. He didn’t want to take his eyes off of it with fear the beast might disappear.
Benji collapsed to the floor, refusing to breathe. “No.”
He stood there for a while, his focus locked on the paper resting in front of him. The town spun, but by the time he calmed his dizziness and lifted his head, his mind was blank. All that was left was a date imprinted in his brain, echoing through him in burning waves.
A date that would greet him seven days away.
Part II–wishville
CHAPTER 12
stricket
The forbidden hill. Benji wasn’t sure what brought him here.
Three hours ago the red envelope lay at his side, opened. The paper in his hands, read. There was nothing to do. No way to escape. He chose to stare death in the eye, and because of this choice, he could no longer look away.
Dew shimmered on the grass clearing, lighting the way to a lonely house nested on Eudora Hill. It was where Oliver Stricket lived, and therefore was a place no one dared to visit. A desolate house, yet it called across town and lured him here.
It was nearly three in the morning. The realization that he was on Eudora Hill froze him, and his last bits of reason urged him to return home. To crawl back in bed and end this. End all of this craziness. Convince himself the color red was a lie. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep no matter how convincingly he recreated the truth. He knew he’d go mad anyway.
Some called Oliver dangerous. A few used the word psycho. At this point, why should that matter? Benji wouldn’t die tonight, anyway, so what was the harm?
The grass was untouched, not the slightest bend of a strand. His sneakers smashed the grass into patches as he crossed the clearing. “Sorry.”
Great, now I’m talking to plants.
The moonlight washed over him, lighting the grass in a vivid array of greens. Shadows of the surrounding trees amplified the hill’s brightness with their striking contrast. Crackling of crickets filled the air from all directions. A moth glided past his ear, and Benji watched its wings disappear among the stars, revealing a radiant full moon.
The moss-covered deck of Oliver’s house shivered under his feet. He paused, waited for the deck to settle, and knocked on the door. Three bold, heavy knocks.
Before he could pull his arm away, the windows of the house lit with golden light and the door burst open, barely missing his nose.
A man appeared in the doorway. His eyes, although blazing with a fiery alertness, drooped over his cheeks, and he reached to rub them.
“What do you want?” Oliver’s voice reminded Benji of the ocean. Frantic, yet smooth. Violent, yet delicate.
Benji had nothing to say. He wasn’t sure what he wanted, or even why he came. The chilling air draped over him in a blanket, and he rubbed his bare arms. He left home without a jacket.
“Look, you need to leave.” He tightened his grip on the doorknob, but something stopped him from shutting it.
“Hey, kid. Stop crying.”
Benji couldn’t.
Oliver searched the clearing before stepping aside, allowing Benji to enter.
Benji stepped into the house and wiped his face dry.
The inside was tidier than he’d imagined. The furniture was minimal, but each piece served its purpose. Books stacked against the walls so high they nearly covered all the beige paint. Oliver flicked another light on, illuminating a television on the far end of the room. The last time Benji had seen one was in the school library, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been there.
“You like the TV?” Oliver approached the old device. “Not many of them in town. Even if you’ve got one the only thing on it’s the Wishville News Channel. They loop it all day.” He clicked a button on the side, lighting the screen with a quick static flash of green.
“—to a shocking discovery. This month is expected to receive the most rain Wishville has seen in decades, along with a slight chance of flooding.” It was the same voice Benji heard echo through the house every morning as Rebecca ate breakfast with a dose of news. Must’ve been the same as the radio broadcast, but with some added visuals.
Oliver shut the TV off, waiting for Benji to speak. He tried, he really did, but he couldn’t get the words to flow. Instead, he stared at Oliver’s cracked lips and uncombed hair.
“Sorry.” Benji backed into the hall. “I should go.”
As he reached for the doorknob, Oliver cleared his throat. “You’re Scott’s kid, aren’t you?”
“How did you—”
“Just a hunch.” There was hint of safety in his muddy eyes. “I’ll get you some water.”
He disappeared into another room, the door hinges squealing like wild boars. Benji skeptically trailed along the edges of the living room, observing every detail, searching for something off. This was his chance t
o leave. His chance to go where he knew he’d be safe. At least, where he’d be safe for a week. Or maybe something bad would happen before that. Maybe home wasn’t safe at all. Maybe—
“Here.” Oliver thrust a mug into Benji’s hand. “Chug it. You’ll feel better.”
Benji watched the liquid whirl in his hand as he raised the mug to his lips. The chilled water spilled into the void of his empty stomach, and he felt a pinch more like himself.
“Benji Marino, right?” Oliver took the mug from him and set it on a nearby stack of books.
“Why do you—”
“No one’s been here in years.” Oliver crossed his arms. “What happened to you?”
“I think . . .” Benji’s arms went stiff. “I think I’m dying.”
“You’re sick?”
“No.”
“Is someone after you?”
“No!”
The man shut his mouth, waiting.
“If I tell you what happened,” Benji said, “you’ll think I’m crazy.”
Oliver grinned, and for a brief moment, his eyes lifted. “Well, that’d make two of us.”
Benji tried to conjure the memories, but they were difficult to recall. The events were so disastrous that they crashed into each other, forming a blur in his mind, but with some concentration, he understood where the story began.
Benji gulped. “You’ve heard of Nina Koi?”
His eyes widened. “Walter and Cheryl had a second kid?”
Humor struck Benji for a brief second, dissipating before he could smile. “She passed away less than a week ago.”
Oliver nodded, urging him to go on.
“She told me exactly when she’d die, and she was right. But before that, she gave me an envelope. Said it contained the date and time of my death.”
“And you opened it?”
Benji bit his lip to keep the tears from forming again.
Leaving Wishville Page 8
