Chapter 13: Four Blank Cards

Eli's POV

I took the envelope from her, and my thumb shook against the flap.

The seal was still glued down.

Nobody had touched it in four years.

I tore it open.

The cream paper inside was the same stock our office orders by the case, and my own handwriting looked back at me.

June knelt on the carpet with the tub in front of her and her eyes on my face.

"Read it to me," she said. "Please."

I read the first line out loud.

"Dear Ms. Sundquist, the Rim Fellowship panel has chosen your essay on the lake as this year's winning entry."

My voice caught on the word winning.

I kept reading, because she was waiting.

The letter offered her a summer on the rim, a furnished cabin, nine thousand dollars and a place in the twilight program.

It said her seat would be held until May first.

It said a reply card was enclosed.

I shook the envelope, and a small card with a printed stamp slid into my palm.

The card was blank.

"It's already stamped," June said.

"All you had to do was check a box and drop it in a mailbox."

"I would have checked it so hard the pen went through the paper."

I believed her.

That was the worst of it, how fast I believed her.

I opened the second envelope, and then the third, and every one held a blank card.

Each May I had checked the office mailbox before I checked anything else.

Each May I had told the panel that the winner had not answered, and each time I had told them to leave her seat empty.

I had kept the cabin key on my own ring for four summers.

My letters got shorter every year.

The first had been a page and a half.

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