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arm once more.
    "No. You should walk the other way - meet up with the trail going to the Community Hall. I'll go this way." He stood and started creeping through the foliage, not waiting for a response, focusing on his feet, carefully weighting each step so as not to make the slightest crackle.
    "Sure," I whispered to his back, probably a little too late. He didn't turn around.
    That night, I recounted the strange conversation, rolling it over in my mind, looking for meaning, hoping to understand even the smallest piece of it. It was so exasperating! There always seemed to be facts around me that were just under the surface. Nothing was given to you. You always had to dig for it, steal it, hide it, shove it into your pocket when no one was looking. I just wanted to know, if only for a few seconds, what it felt like to be on the other side of the secrets, to know what was really going on around me and why. I earnestly hoped that Mikkel was right in saying that I would Come of Age soon. I was sick of being in the dark. Who really cared if I would have a month of sitting at the table and looking grave after eating my meals? At least I would know what there was to be grave about. And I told myself that I was undoubtedly ready for it, whatever 'it' happened to be.
    And Mikkel was right when he said they would move onto me next. As it turned out, Harek would take me into the shelter the very next day.
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    5
    I was meant to spend my last class of the afternoon in one of the thatched huts, furthest from the clutter of the other community buildings. I had been taught there before and so didn't really think anything of it. It was supposed to be an individual class as well, so I was walking along the trail alone when I came through the trees and could see the hut for the first time. Harek was waiting for me outside, his hands clasped together, his arms forming a patient "V" out in front of him. I suddenly understood what was about to happen, and smiled.
    Harek was a large man who had a white, well-trimmed beard and unsettlingly bright green eyes. I'd always thought his eyes suited him perfectly, that they somehow matched the intensity he had in him, a fervency that, I believe, never really abated. Because he acted in only one of two ways: either he was disinterested in what was going on, completely lost in thought, his eyes jotting around as if tracing random thoughts bouncing off the inner recesses of his skull; or he was bursting with fiery animation right in the middle of things, his voice and presence demanding everyone's full attention. I liked him, mostly. Though like everyone else, I felt a tinge of fear with him as well. I guess I admired him in that peculiar way that one can admire a volcano while standing on the rim of its crater, an invisible and fascinating force murmuring below one's feet. And I think I liked him because of this strange volatility, because he always seemed either on the verge of settling into a long silence, or blowing up - but nothing in between. It kept things interesting.
    He watched me as I approached, waiting to speak until I was standing right in front of him. "And? Do you think you're ready for this?"
    I nodded, blistering with confidence, "Absolutely."
    The corners of his mouth pulled up into a smirk, "Then follow me."
    We walked the whole way without speaking. I'd assumed that we would go to the mystical Great Hall, where we would look through some of the forbidden books that resided there, so I started to become quite interested in where we were going when we turned at a fork in the trail and began to climb up a regular hill. Of course, as children, we had explored in this area before, but only found a kind of prickly vegetation that became either too dense to continue, or too painful. After walking for quite some distance, Harek stopped and turned to his left, facing one of these impenetrable bushes. He reached out and carefully picked it up, pivoting it slightly as one would a door, revealing a