I spin around. Confused. Head thumping.
And up the dirt road I can see his shadow, hands still in his pockets, striding away—melting into the dark and the trees.
He walked away and never even said goodbye.
Never said a word.
If he felt the luring pull of the Goode curse, he showed no signs of it. Somehow he felt nothing.
I close my eyes, letting the image of him sink into my memory like bare feet in April mud. I need to memorize him, hold on to every detail so I can sketch him later—shade in the unfinished parts of his face, the tensed angle of his neck, the soft arch of his lips when they nearly edged into a smile.
“Hello?” a voice says a few yards away, so small I barely register it.
My eyes flip open, and for a heart-stuttering second I think maybe Oak has returned, circled through the trees and come back. But when I blink through the dark, it’s a different boy standing before me.
Jude is only a few paces away, holding the paper origami chatterbox in his left hand, his pale blue eyes blinking rapidly as if he’s struggling to keep himself calm in the presence of Lark Goode—local oddity, the girl you might tumble heedlessly into love with if you’re not careful.
He rubs his free hand down his mustard-gray cardigan, then shuffles in his brown loafers that look to be a full size too big, as if they were borrowed from his dad or pilfered from the local thrift store.
“Do you want your fortune read?” he asks quickly, a nervous twitch fluttering his upper lip.
He’s never asked me this before, never dared to get this close, but I shake my head at him. “I don’t have anything to trade.” I know the rules, but my pockets are empty. I have nothing he needs.
“This one’s free,” he answers, and there is something in his voice, a slippery tone, like he’s wanted to read my fortune for some time but has always been too afraid. And truthfully, I’ve always wanted to know what’s written inside his origami chatterbox. I’ve watched with envy as he hands out fortunes at school, always wondering what my fortune might be. Myfate. But also a little afraid to know.
He positions the chatterbox over his small fingers, holding it out for me to see. Across the folded, diamond-shaped paper, four words are written in shaded blue pencil—the same color as Jude’s eyes.
East, West, North, South, they read.
I know he wants me to choose one, and I blink down at the chatterbox, sensing that I don’t want to get this wrong. This might be my only chance to have my fortune read by Jude—he likely won’t offer it again, certainly not for free. I swallow, lifting my eyes. “West.”
West is the direction I’ll go when I leave this town. West is thedirection that Swamp Wells Road heads away from our house, over a long hill that winds its way into Favorville, and then to a larger town called Park Grove, and then to the ocean. Wide and flat and endless. From there, you could set out across the Pacific to any continent in the distance.
Jude expands the paper origami, counting off the letters that spell “west,” then opening the chatterbox wide to reveal more words inside. But instead of navigational directions, I see names—ones I recognize. Jude senses my hesitation, and he says, “They’re names from classic novels.”
I scan them quickly:Gatsby, Pip, Sherlock, Inigo.
I ask myself which feels the mosttrue, the most right in this moment, but they all feel the same.
“Everyone hesitates here,” he says, a tug at the corner of his pink lips. “One day I wrote ‘Veruca,’ for Veruca Salt, on every triangle. I wanted to make it easy. Give only one option. But still…” He lifts a shoulder. “Everyone hesitated. They stared at the name Veruca like they couldn’t decide, even though there was only one choice.” For a second Jude grins up at me, looking me clear in the eyes. But I drop my gaze—afraid he’ll stare too long and start to sink closer and closer until he can’t imagine a life without me. He clears his throat, like he felt the shifting in his chest, like he knows he needs to make this quick. “Fate will give you the fortune you need—it doesn’t matter what name you pick.”
Before I can doubt myself, I say, “Pip.”
Jude nods. “Good choice.” And he quickly flicks the chatterbox open and closed, then open again, until he lands on four different names:Huckleberry, Moby Dick, Jane, Ichabod.
I don’t let myself overthink it, I don’t hesitate, I just say the name that my eyes land on first. “Ichabod.”
But it’s Jude who hesitates this time, who stares at me a moment before opening the chatterbox to peel back the paper. He unfolds the carefully creased angles, flattening open the origami to reveal what waits beneath.
But under the Ichabod name… lies a blank triangle.
It’s the only triangle that doesn’t have several words—a fortune—waiting beneath it.
“I always leave one blank,” he explains, his tone shallow, like it’s lost all its weight.Its courage.“But no one ever chooses this one. After all these years, I started to think no one ever would. Butyoudid.” He doesn’t look at me, just stares down at the white triangle, no fate waiting for me.
No fortune to be read.
“Does that mean I don’t have a fate?” My chest feels scraped clean, an empty cavity, like a cruel darkness has seeped under my vulnerable flesh.
