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I

Today is hteenth birthday Tomorroear off love

It’s absurd I’ve never kissed a girl, never asked anyone out I’ve never slipped eled in another’s limbs, never flirted in a hallway or teased soive up love, everything will change I’ll still be Ander--blond and pale, iround--but I won’t be me anymore I won’t be what I a as I have known Eureka,of my existence, I’ve known her allwith a thousand se is what matters, not the life I’ll lose

A knock on my door startles me My uncle doesn’t wait, enters my dark room

"Are you packed?" Albion closes the blinds abovemy chest in two

Albion makes a room feel cold Like all my relatives, his movements make no sound He has no scent His voice is clear but somehow never disturbs the silence Only his shape and his effect on the teher

In the twin bed across the room, my uncle Critias stretches stiffly and sits up His naked body is h both of them are thousands of years old

Albion looks at him "He isn’t packed yet, is he?"

"Are you packed?" Critias asks lance at the backpack I’ve been filling slowly for ht in the woods, but I will take my entire childhood with me Then I will leave it there

"Get up, then Get going," Albion says

On a slanted plank between his bed and the wall, Critias begins his hundred push-ups

"Happy birthday," he tells e is a walk in the woods You go in a boy; you coh this ritual on the night we turn eighteen When I coe I’ll be a Seedbearer, like the aunts and uncles who raised me I’ll know the secrets that have always swirled around in to live forever

My dog, Shiloh, sleeps at the foot of es me with his damp nose I rub the spotted crown of his head "I’llwith you," Critias says, his voice slightly s a sweater down his torso in the dark

For a mo with me?"

Critias slides a broken silver watch onto his arm "You knohy"

I close my eyes in pain

"Stop it," Critias snaps And he’sin the car"

I enter the darkened kitchen, wherewhich brand of rattrap is best Starling is y and frail Chora is shorter, stout Their faces, like et

We never turn on the lights We keep the blinds drawn all the time We live on the northwest corner of Lafayette in an abandoned farroheat field You can’t see our house from the road No one knoe live here

"Ipoints to a foil-capped clump on the table Someone’s taped a box of candles to it

"Are you hungry?" Chora asks Alligator sausage hisses in a frying pan behind her

"No" I don’t want to have to put down and pick back uplashes intostuffs a canvas satchel intoSandwiches Insect repellent Fire starter"

"And the cake" Chora hands it to me like a quarterback

As they eye es, centuries ago What private agonies did they forsake? What passions did they knohen they were on the other side?

"See you tomorrow," they say in unison

The car has been running for half an hour Exhaust blossoms in the inky air as Critias waits in the driver’s seat I know fro AM talk radio Shiloh sticks close beside h the front door, thrilled to be included I drop my backpack and my cake into the trunk

Inside the car it’s close and wares over the cypresses behind our house, and I think of the tiht and Albion had just toldforced to watch Eureka

One day you will be the one to stop her, and the world will credit you for its salvation Forever

I remember how sick I felt I knew I had to flee that destiny, but I only made it into the indifferent are of our yard I stayed there an eternal evening, o

Assay, "What if he left us, like the last one?"