Vikki VanSickle - The Winnowing

Im flying.

At least thats what it feels like. What Im really doing is running. But its the smoothest, easiest action in the world, like I was born to do nothing but run. I barely feel the ground below me. I could burst into song and keep on running without breaking my stride.

But then things change.

First it gets hot. Stinging sweat drips into my eyes. I rub at them with the back of my knuckles, which only makes them sting more. When I blink the tears away I find myself lost in smoke so thick I cant see my own hands in front of me. Then I lose my footing. I fall on my knee, hard. I look down and it isnt grass and dirt below me but thick, black gunk, glowing red like embers in the belly of a campfire. It swirls around my feet and hands, lapping at my wrists and ankles.

I push myself up, palms stinging, and I keep running.

I run and run but I cant get ahead of the lava. It roils and burps, splashing my calves with burning drops. I hear screaming and the stampeding of feet behind me but I dont dare slow down to see whats happening. I try to run faster but the lava swirls higher around my ankles. Something is burning and I know it must be my own flesh thats making that horrible smell, but I dont want to believe it. I cant. Im screaming for help and then

Ceiling, walls, a bed below me. The familiar shapes and shadows of my room came into focus as I sucked air into my lungs in hungry gasps. The air was fresh and cool against my skin but I could still feel the grit in my eyes. My legs ached. My calf muscles were tight and the soles of my feet burned as if I really had been running.

I unknotted the damp bedsheet from around my knees and was shocked to find my feet scratched and covered in open sores, dirt and grit ground into the broken skin. The pain was real. The running had been real. Only, the lava couldnt have been real, could it?

Thats when I knew. It had started. I was going ACES. I sat back against my pillow, letting the moment wash over me. For years I had waited and wondered when it would finally happen. The Adolescent Chronosomniatic Episodes were all tied up with puberty. The same part of the brain that triggered boys voices to change and girls periods to start also triggered the vivid night terrors scientists called the ACES.

Yesterday, Saren went off to the Barton Center for Adolescent Health to be winnowed, putting an end to the ACES and the dangers of adolescence. Now it was my turn.

I heard the thin, reedy whistle of the kettle protesting in the kitchen. Gumps was awake. I pulled my softest pair of socks over my throbbing feet and hobbled to the kitchen.

I cleared my throat and said the words Id been dying to say since I knew what they meant: Ive started. Im going ACES.

Gumps kept his back to me as he prepared the tea. Is that so.

Yes. Was I screaming?

I thought maybe you were dreaming about a bad date.

I took my usual seat at the table, rolling my eyes even though I knew he couldnt see me. I wished he would turn around. Gumps, dont be funny, this is serious.

Theres nothing funny about a bad date, believe me. But you dont have to worry about that for another fifteen years.

GUMPS!

Okay, ten.

Gumps was the funniest person I knew, but it made me crazy when I wanted him to be serious. You should probably call Barton.

Gumps stopped joking. He turned, sat down at the table and blew the steam from his tea, somehow managing to fit his long fingers through the slender loop of the handle.

I wondered about that tea. Gumps preferred coffee. It was my grandmother who had been the tea drinker in our family. She was serious about her tea, warming the cup first and only drinking out of real teacups. If you served her tea in a mug, she would say, Mugs are for coffee, dump it out and start again. She had a full bone china tea set from some other era, painted in delicate pink and orange roses and rimmed in gold. When I was little and something was bothering me, she used to brew a pot and wed sit at the kitchen table and figure out a plan. The tea, the teacups who was Gumps trying to cheer up: me or himself?

The Barton Guide says to call right away. The longer you wait the more dangerous it becomes, I reminded him.

I know what the guide says. Gumps looked so sad I lost the will to continue badgering him. Gumps didnt like to talk about going ACES. It made him uncomfortable. But it had to be more than the ACES that was making him sad. My grandmother had been dead for a year; it was just the two of us now. Maybe the idea of being alone in the house was bringing him down. A splash of guilt curdled my excitement.

When I heard the screen door slam I thought maybe you were stargazing. You were obsessed with comet-spotting, you and Saren, a few years ago.

I remember, I said, trying to keep my impatience to myself. Now was not the time for a trip down memory lane. I didnt see what this had to do with me getting to Barton. Plus Saren was already there. I could be there by lunchtime if only Gumps would cooperate. We used to bring the couch cushions out to the backyard to sleep on.

Gumps smiled. Your grandmother had a heck of a time getting the mildew and grass stains out of those cushions His smile faded. But when I watched you run out into the desert like your life depended on it, I knew it wasnt about stargazing.

My stomach dropped to my toes thinking about poor Gumps watching as I ran from him in the middle of the night all in my sleep.

I cut up my feet pretty badly, I admitted.

I imagine you did.

I put my hand on the arm of his lumpy old brown cardigan. Gumps, dont look so sad. Its just the ACES. It happens to everyone. Ill go to Barton and everything will be fine. Ill be back before you know it.

Gumps sighed, then drained the dregs of his cup, grimacing. I dont know how you can stand this poison, he said. Ill make a call. You get ready for school.

But

But nothing. I have deliveries to make and you wont be any worse off this evening than you are right now.

*

Walking to school without my best friend felt like strutting through town with no clothes on just plain wrong. When I passed Sarens house, it was shut up tight like a store gone out of business. I wondered what her mother was up to now that Saren was at Barton. Mrs. Silver had been fun until her son Sarens brother Lex died from complications during the winnowing last year. After that she was never the same, understandably. But then her sadness turned into something else, something erratic and scary, and she went a little bonkers.

At first she wouldnt let Saren out of the house except for school. Before she died, Grandma would go and sit with Mrs. Silver, making tea and letting her talk about Lex, so Saren and I could go off on our own to the park or the corner store. When Saren started to sprout in the way that all girls do, Mrs. Silver talked about taking her away, someplace where they didnt winnow children. Now I know shes really crazy, Saren had said. Where in the world dont they winnow children? But Mrs. Silver talked about her plan the way some people talk about winning the lottery.

When Saren got her period, Mrs. Silver locked her in the bathroom. Saren banged on the door until her knuckles ripped, and then escaped out the window and ran all the way to my house. She spent the night, and the two of us stayed up watching movies, playing Scrabble, doing anything we could to keep her from falling asleep and going ACES. The next morning, Gumps called Mrs. Silver and convinced her to take Saren to Barton. All the while I was in class, trying to stay awake, worrying about Saren. That was only yesterday.