The Nexgen Cursor

Chapter One

The evening sky was covered in a sheet of clouds, each one touched by a thin lining of gold. 

It would be a beautiful night for a sacrifice. 

I shifted back and forth, trying to keep my focus on the sun. My thoughts kept scattering. Will I be the one? My eyes flickered from the clouds, down to the dark evergreens dotting the yard, and back to the tiny bits of dust twirling in front of the window. I tucked my legs underneath my ceremonial dress to keep them from shaking and glanced at the moving hands.

I was not very good at reading clocks.

The clock above the fireplace didn't seem to tick often enough. Was it broken? Time usually didn't move this slowly. When I played outside, it seemed to get dark too quickly. I would tell my father that the sun must have cheated and changed the time when he forced me to come in and take a bath. I wished that I could play outside now, and make the sun set faster. 

'You aren't allowed outside today,' I recalled my father saying earlier while he tied white ribbons into my thick curly hair, 'if you ruin your dress, you'll have much less of a chance of being chosen.' 

I huffed and puffed about it, but I couldn't argue. I knew that it wasn't true. Leviare, the boy who lived just down the road, had told me so. But my father would be angry if I dirtied my crisp white dress, so I decided it would be best not try to sneak out the door when he wasn't looking. 

Without a second thought, I climbed off the couch and snuck off down the hall, poking my head around the corner and peeking into the dining room as quietly as possible.

"How long is forty-five minutes?" I peeped. 

Sitting at the table was my father. Since the day had started, I had been asking him to keep track of time for me. It must have been the sixth or seventh time that hour I'd asked, because I could see his growing frustration in the wrinkle between his eyebrows. 

My father shook his head and set down his pen, pushing his glasses back on top of the bump on the bridge of his nose to keep them in place. "I told you, we still have quite a while. Find something to do until I finish my work, Kirra." 

"Yes, but how long?" I groaned. 

My legs and arms were wound like a cheap watch. I fiddled with my fingers and goosebumps rose on my arms.

"Take a look at the clock," My father said, growing impatient with me. 

"I have been looking," I grumbled.

His prized possession glowered at me from the top of the mantel. Its face was as shiny as a freshly minted coin. It was my father's hand-crafted antique clock, a gift from his eldest brother, my Uncle Claude, whom my father said he hadn't seen in nearly fifteen years. I never had the chance to meet him, and my father didn't seem to fancy him much, so I could never understand why he insisted we keep it untouched. I used to think that it was because my father was disgusted by Claude, but my uncle must have loved his younger brother very much, because sitting just inside the face of the perfectly waxed clock, my father discovered two hundred Cenero folded neatly. Two hundred Cenero wasn't much, but it was just enough to cover the three apothecary expenses that my father needed to pay at the time.

Now, Uncle Claude's clock sat untouched in a thick layer of dust. I had always thought that it was a good-for-nothing clock that made me sneeze when I stuck my nose too close. 

"When the longest hand meets the number five, it will have been forty-five minutes."

Excitement fled my heart like air flees a popped balloon. Forty-five minutes was too long to wait. I wanted to leave right away. It felt as though my heart had deflated and would fly away out the window while making a raspberry noise. I giggled at the thought. At least flying out the window would mean that a part of me would finally get to see the world out further than the evergreen trees in the yard. 

With my tongue I mimicked the raspberry sound, only to receive a glare from the stone-hearted man who had once again buried himself in his papers. 

Being within his watch only made me more anxious, so I withdrew back to the other room. 

My ear followed the sound of a chair scraping the floor, and without bothering to look, I knew my father had finished his work and was now off to read in his study until it was time to leave. It killed me to see how patiently he could wait for anything, no matter how exciting the occasion. I had a feeling that the big hand would get far past the five before we would arrive at the ceremony.

Although it didn't seem like it, time passed. 

The sun now hugged the edge of the horizon, and a deep pink color was splashed across the sky. I paced the living room, studying all the small details in the room. The scrapes on the wooden mantel. The chips in the soft green paint on the wall. The gaps in the floorboards where they seemed to have been lifted by winter's touch.

"Kirra!" 

My heart jumped. 

"Yes!" I answered quickly.

"Please come out Kirra. Come have dinner with me before we leave." he said. 

He rested his hand on the doorway, his face darkened by the yellow light emanating from the oil lamp in the corner.  His expression was unreadable, but I knew that he could go off at any moment.

"I can't, I'm too nervous."

"Oh, come now Kirrawyn," he urged, "you'll make yourself sick."

"But," I jingled the copper Cenera in my dress pocket, "I want to save room to buy fairy fluff at the ceremony!"

Fairy fluff was another thing that I looked forward to at the ceremony each year. I think the only reason the vendors sold the fluffy, sugary treat was to raise the spirits of the girls whose hopes and dreams had been crushed. Every girl dreams of being chosen at the ceremony, but the Meridian always seemed to pick the girl who wanted to accept it least. 

This was why I had tried my hardest to seem like I didn't want to be chosen, so that the Meridian would look upon me and see how humble I was. But I always kept those thoughts to myself. I never wrote them down or told anyone else, not even in a whisper. Because I knew that the Meridian watches over everything. I knew my thoughts weren't always generous, but they were, for the most part, clever.

My father moved his hand to my shoulder and nudged me off the couch. "I know I may not be as good a cook as your mother, but I'm trying my best." 

I smiled shyly at him and clutched the coins in my pocket.

"If I eat dinner, will you help me finish my mask before the big-hand reaches five?" I asked sheepishly. I hated to ask him for favors.

"I'll try," he said. 

On the best day I'd experience in my life, or so I had thought, my father was being kind. And for what seemed like the first time since my mother passed away, I felt happy butterflies fluttering in my belly.