Teen Spirit.

『 twenty one: A GHOST SPEAKS ! 』

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April 14th 1937.

I'm sixteen and death is upon me. I can feel it in the hollowness of my bones, bones of which the angel of death wishes to drink out of. They've announced it for all, I am to be the bride of Ephraim Black and bear him sons and keep the tradition alive, furthering the line of many Spirit Warriors. I don't want it, I don't want that, and I don't want him. Can't they see that? They don't see! I don't belong to him. He's twice my senior. Father and uncle wish for me to do my duty but they see the defiance in my eyes and the rebellion on my breath. I've been given a hundred congratulations and not one meant a thing to me. This isn't all I'm meant for, am I? This can't be. It can't.

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June stopped reading as it ended. She reread it over and over before she skimmed to the next journal entry. Her eyes were glued to the pages in front of her — she glanced at the time, it was still early in the night, she'd have enough sleep before she had to awake early and shop for last minuet things with Jacob for her mother's baby shower. June knew she shouldn't put herself through things like this ... reading a girl who's face she's stolen and life she's reliving. She noticed how the second entry is longer, sadder.

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May 26th 1937

They've forced me into being in his presence. Ephraim's. The thing is ... he isn't so bad. He's very kind. The fact upsets me more than I wished, selfishly. What woman wants a cruel man for a husband? But I am no woman yet, barely a girl. I still have no intention of marrying him. I've heard the pale-faces from Forks say there's trains that take people from here to a place of hope, of dreams. It would take more than kindness to convince me. It would take a promise of leaving this dull land and never looking back. But Ephraim loves this land more than he could ever love me, it's his duty he says, and I want to tell him that he answered wrong. I should be his duty. He tells me I'm beautiful but he doesn't know about the bruises that scatter my body and the ones that I can feel to the marrow in my bones, he doesn't know about the nightmares that plague my nights and render me sleepless. The bruises are each a death sentence. Father and the Elders tell me there will be more girls like me when I continue my line, not if, for the magic in my veins is a privilege they say and only a girl with Capote blood could ever be what I am.

I wouldn't wish this curse on anyone.

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June shut the journal immediately. She stared at it for a moment, blinking, she didn't know she was crying until the tears hit the leather of the book. Curse, Melanie called it. June looks at her arms ... she hadn't done any strange stuff in a while, no flowers or no super strength and her bruises weren't as visible as they normally were. They just were. June laid down on her bed and thought about the words in the tear-stained diary in front of her. A curse, she thought again. June thought it might be — how very was it, to be the cause of your own death. This power his had in her blood, a power which had cursed another before Juniper was ever a thought. June didn't want it. She told her grandmother that much. If the spirits saw fit for her to be some almighty being, June wasn't the gal.

She was pulled from her thoughts by a knock at her door.

June frowned, stuffing the book under her bed before she looked in the vanity, hoping her mascara wasn't running down her cheeks. Satisfied, she called out, "It's open!"