Sincerely, Anonymous

March 12

March 12

Dear Annabeth,

I got to Alex’s house right as dinner was being served. His family was very nice, he quickly introduced me as we sat down to eat. His mother was a pretty blonde woman, slight in structure. She was one of those people who must have been beautiful once but now she is broken down a bit by age, and is wearing just a little too much makeup. It was Alex’s father who was more of my worry, though.

Alfred Hollow, Panel Member of the 6th Estate and the man who earlier questioned me on the disappearance of my best friend.

He is a burly man with a large pot belly, but his face is very structured, full of angles. But all I could think, past if he could stab a man with all of his facial bone if he really wanted too, was that I was now in the same room as the man whose job I would begin taking in exactly 85 days. 

On the whole, his family was nice and welcoming, but it did get awkward quickly.

“So, are you excited? Only 11 days until Senior Week!” his mother, April, asked me.

I tried answering as politely as possible, stating, “I’m excited, also pretty nervous, lots to do, especially now that we have that new trainer.”

“Horseback riding is useless anyway, you should be more worried about other things, maybe tell some people you’re a Panel Member before it’s announced?” his father replied.

I could feel my mouth falling open without my permission, my eyes bugging out of my head. Alex’s fork fell to the table with a loud cling. Silence fell, the kind of silence that is so tense you could cut it with a knife. The only person who kept eating was Mr. Hollow, who watched with a smirk on his face. I looked over at Alex, grateful that I had told him about my Career that first day I met him and not here. But I wondered if he had already known, if his father had mentioned it previously.

Alex’s father was the one to break the silence, defensively stating, “Well come on, I’m part of the Panel that assigned the job to you, you think I wouldn’t know?”

“No, sir,” I whispered, finally finding my voice, “I haven’t gotten around to telling anyone past my friends yet.”

“What, you aren’t proud of it?” he shot back, “you damned well chose it over the other two Careers we gave you so don’t pretend you didn’t want it!”

“It’s not that at all, sir!” I could feel myself scrambling, I shoot Alex a ‘help me’ look. I thought for a moment that he is going to ignore it, let me fend for myself, but he understood immediately and quickly turned to his father. “Dad, I should really be getting her home now,” he said, throwing some accusatory inflection in his voice.

His dad sighed, pushing his plate away from him and dropping the topic. We got up from the table, where his mother was now whispering to his father in a voice too low for me to register the words, only the angry tone.

Alex led me down the hall towards the back door. He opened it, but blocked me before I could step outside. I looked at him questioningly but he just put his finger to his face, indicating to be quiet. I didn’t step outside, hoping that he would explain what was going on.

“Bye, see you at school tomorrow!” he said into the air, shutting the door and gesturing for me to follow him down the hall, where he opened another door and waved his hand to lead me inside.

After he had closed the door and turned the light on I turned to him, asking, “what was all that about?”

He smiled and sat down on a simple, yet immaculate, bed; patting his hand next to him to tell me to sit down as well.