The Harvest

The Breakthrough

Now that I knew about Harvest Week, I was painfully aware of the sense of dread that settled all around town at the end of August. How nervous the people got, how on edge everyone was. I wasn't an exception to that anymore. Nightmares about Rhododendron and storms and shadows plagued my nights all throughout summer and I felt actually sick when I returned home on the first day of the last week of August, almost expecting to find a blossom on the porch.

I never did, of course. Not for four more years.

The monster only takes children. I was eightteen now, therefor not longer considered a child. My sister, Veronica, was not. She was younger than me, five whole years. I will never understand why my parents chose to have another child after such a long time, considering what was going on in our town. They were playing with literal lives here and it made me sick.

I loved my sister. Ronny was the sweetest girl in the world and I loved her more than anything. A part of me hated my parents for bringing her into this world where we had to fear for her life every single year, but I never let her know that. I never told her about Harvest Week. She was a happy child, popular in school, smart and well-behaved. Her life would be better if she never learned what I had at such a young age.

I was an adult now, at least on paper, and I was trying to build a life for myself. My plan, of course, was to leave this town at the first opportunity. I had already talked things through with Henry, my boyfriend of almost three years. Leaving my sister, who was thirteen years old now, was not an option for me, not with a monster roaming the streets of this town every year. I would take her with me when I left, but for that, I needed money.

Henry had a job at the same bank my mother worked at and it was payed quite well, so that was I start. I was working in the local bakery – it was a simply job with a decent salary. I didn't have a chance to get a better job. My grades had never been great in the first place and after my friend's death, they dropped even more. After barely managing to graduate high school, I took whatever job I could get.

I bought a car a few weeks ago. Nothing special, just a fifteen-year-old worn down Honda, but I drove and it didn't fall apart and that was all I needed. Henry and I both lived with our parents and therefor didn't need to pay rent, so we could save almost all of our earnings for our little escape plain. According to our calculations, it would only take us one more year until we could get in my car, take Ronny and away to make a life in a town without monsters. We could leave next summer, before August. Before Harvest Week.