Jubilee July's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Jubilee kept copying names from the leather ledger until the woman behind the counter laid a hand on the page. The woman said one family had asked, years back, never to be contacted again. She turned the ledger toward Jubilee and pointed to a line near the bottom. The name was Gilder. Beside it, in different ink, someone had written DO NOT WRITE. Jubilee stared at the entry. One of her four friends had been a Gilder. She closed the ledger and thanked the woman and stepped out onto the sidewalk with the address copied on the back of her hand. She walked the six blocks slowly. The house sat behind a tall iron fence wrapped with wire. Boards covered the downstairs windows. The porch steps were swept clean, but the front door was nailed shut. A weathered wooden sign hung crooked from the gate, GILDER RESIDENCE in faded paint, spider webs strung between the letters. Through a gap in the boards she saw a curtain move. Someone was inside. Someone had heard her stop. Jubilee took the four folded drafts from the front pocket of her satchel. She had written and rewritten his note for a reason. She had drifted from him worse than from any of the others. She unfolded the cleanest copy and read it once through. Then she folded it again and slid it back into the satchel. She took out a blank card instead and wrote three lines: the date, the maple tree, and her phone number. She signed it with her first name only. She did not mention the others. She did not ask for a reply. She slipped the card through the slot in the gate and watched it land on the walk inside. She waited a full minute. The curtain did not move again. She turned and walked back toward the parlor, three names still to copy and twenty-two days left. The family had asked not to be contacted, and she had contacted them anyway. She had chosen. Now the choice belonged to whoever picked the card up off the stones.