[b][/b]Summer of Darkness cpt1

Chapter 1


-Ivenka
Eighteen.
She was only eighteen when she fell.
The day was full of fluttering snowflakes.
The sky cluttered with grey formless clouds.
The ground polluted with a few dirty white drifts. Refuse of the season that
lay piled against the rows of ramshackle wooden houses that filled her village.
Once these had been the homes of the wealthy and the happy. Over the years,
they had become rotted out wrecks much like the people who lived within
them.
The girl crossed her arms, trying to keep a little of her warmth to herself as
the winter battered against her fragile jacket. Still, despite the weather she
kept moving forward.
The girl grasped at the air, searching in vain for a foundation as she felt her
feet slipping.
Pain shot through her as her bottom slammed into the frozen ground. She
gasped and then quickly staggered back to her feet.
This was no time to quit.
She had almost reached her destination. She could see it. The bulletin board
was only a few steps away. A few feet beyond the giant rusted statue of a soldier
riding horseback. That triumphant memorial honoring all those who had died

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fighting for a better future.
“Do you think there will be anything today?” A neighbor boy asked as he
joined her.
“Who knows. Maybe someday God will remember us. Maybe someday things
will be better.” The girl began to scan the board. Trying to find hope amid the
chaos of fluttering paper.
“Maybe it will be better someday, just not the way you think.”
The girl looked at the boy as confusion was written over her face. “What do
you mean?”
The boy shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s what your Grandfather used to say
before he died. Maybe it will be better someday, just not the way you think.”
The girl grimaced as she visualized the wasted form of her grandfather. How
he had shriveled as the cancer had eaten away at his liver. She shuddered and
willed her thoughts into the present.
A few girls her age were clustering around her. They met here at the bulletin
board every morning. Today they were chattering about something exciting.
Opportunity!
The girl looked up at the colorful advertisement flapping in the icy wind.
“Girls. America needs you! Work as a waitress, earn up to ten dollars an
hour. Housing and travel provided. All interested women should meet at the
town hall at noon. Promptness is encouraged as spaces are limited.”
“Ooooh!”
“What if they take us all! It would be such an adventure.”
The chatter swirled around the scarf wrapped tightly around the girl’s head.
Being short, she was easily forced backward as more people shoved their way
toward the bulletin board to read the exciting news.
The two young people headed back along the street where they had just come.
Their minds spun at the unbelievable opportunity that had just presented itself.
“It’s only for girls.” The boy sounded disappointed. “Does that mean you’ll
leave me?”
“We already discussed this.”
The boy hung his head. “I know.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t forget about you.” The girl smiled. “I’ll work hard.

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I’ll save up all the money I can and then I’ll send you what you need to join
me.”
The boy nodded silently, wiping a tear from his face.
The girl headed back toward crowd of women and girls milling around the
weathered bulletin board.
If someone wanted to pay her way out of this town, they would be her savior.
What were the instructions to sign up again?



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