Prologue: Isaiah

Nearly all the gravestones in the cemetery belonged to children. The engravers usually worked alone at funerals, slowly chipping away at the limestone.. Most parents didn’t attend the funerals, and most gravestones didn’t even give the children the dignity to write “died” before their age and name. They swept under the rug the fact that most children in the cemetery were under four. Four years old was when they would’ve had worth–when the ceremonies began.

I tripped on the raised stone of a familiar grave. This one actually said “died” but it should’ve said “taken”. “Viktor Volkoav - died at age 36” it read. He was my father, and he had disobeyed the community. That morning, he was supposed to be back from the docks when the sun rose, but the elders couldn’t find him. My mother has always told me stories of how people who disobeyed the rules would be punished, and I’ve heard many about rebels getting lost in the woods forever, but I didn’t think it would happen to my father. On that day, I didn’t believe it. How would he get lost? He had been fishing for the community for years, but that morning they found the dock empty. Only his boat was left. 

My fingers dug through my pocket for the piece of string my sister had snuck me earlier. I pulled it out, and twisted it between my fingers, like I was waving goodbye. I dropped it onto the gravestone with the one other scrap of string my mother had left all those months ago. The strings might’ve given him happiness, but they wouldn't bring him back from the woods. The string fragment I left was red and frayed. It wasn’t mine, or even the color of a string I've received. My mother too had left a red string piece. “Love” what the elders said the red string ceremony would give you. Somewhere in the trees, I can’t help but wonder if my mother’s red string has yet been severed from my father’s.

“What are you doing, boy,” a voice rasped from behind a gravestone, making me jump.

I was writing in my notebook, and I had been caught. For the first time in my life, someone found out I was writing notes. 

“I uh–I’m visiting my father’s grave,” I shoved my notebook into my coat pocket.

I tried to ignore how my heart was practically slamming against my ribs.

“Huh,” he said, “can I see that notebook?”

I gripped the small leather-bound notebook in my pocket tightly, inhaling deeply. I felt inside my other coat pocket, sighing in relief when my finger found the decoy. 

“It might take me a moment sir. It seems to be stuck in my pocket,” I shrugged.

His eyes darted around the graveyard impatiently, his arms crossed. As his attention was elsewhere, I carefully used the slot I made in between my pockets to shift the decoy to my left hand in my pocket.

“Sir,” I cleared my throat, holding up the notebook.

He poked through it and rapidly turned the pages, licking his finger and touching it to the paper to turn each one.

“Well, get to your lessons, boy,” he shoved the notebook back towards me.

“Sir, we don’t have lessons this morning. There’s a ceremony.”

“Oh, fine then. Go on then,” he said.