The wind had teeth in northern Michigan.
Even in May, it bit through Ellie's thin coat as she walked the dirt road that curved like a question mark through the woods. The pine trees crowded overhead like they were keeping secrets. She hated how quiet it was out here. The kind of quiet that let you hear your own thoughts—especially the ones you weren't supposed to have.
She kept her eyes ahead. The Kingdom Hall sat at the bend in the road, squat and gray, like a secret bunker. No steeple, no crosses. Just plain. That was how it was supposed to be. Modest. Unworldly. Holy, in its own way. But to Ellie, it always felt a little too much like a trap.
Inside, Brother Mallard's voice echoed as he read from The Watchtower, steady and sure like the ticking of a clock. The same rhythm every week. Ellie sat two rows from the back, next to her mother, her Bible balanced on her knees. Her skirt itched where it touched her legs. Her younger brother, Isaac, was tracing the embossed letters on his copy of My Book of Bible Stories, the same one Ellie had memorized by age six.
She stared at the illustration on the cover—Daniel in the lion's den. She used to think Daniel looked brave, but now he just looked tired.
"…and remember, brothers and sisters," Brother Mallard said, lifting his eyes from the page, "we must remain separate from the world. For Satan is the ruler of this system of things, and his temptations are many."
Ellie shifted in her seat. Her stomach fluttered the way it always did when those words came. Separate. Worldly. Temptations. It was like the Hall had its own language. One that wrapped around you so tight it became the only way you knew how to speak.
After the meeting, people lingered to chat—about field service, about the upcoming convention in Grand Rapids, about who had or hadn't been seen at the last gathering. Sister Tenner gave Ellie a look that lingered too long, then smiled tightly.
"You're growing into a beautiful young woman, Eleanor," she said. "The kind of girl who needs to be careful not to attract the wrong kind of attention."
Ellie smiled back, the way she'd learned. Small, submissive. "Thank you, Sister Tenner."
Inside, she screamed.
That night, after her chores and evening prayer, Ellie lay in bed and listened to the wind clawing at the windows. The house creaked like it knew what she was thinking.
She turned over and opened the hollow space in the mattress where she kept the things she wasn't supposed to have. A spiral notebook. A dog-eared paperback copy of To Kill a Mockingbird she found in a box at the local library's "Free" shelf. A letter she'd written to herself three months ago. It was simple:
You don't owe anyone your silence.
You were born into this, but you don't have to stay.
She didn't remember exactly what made her write it, only that something inside her snapped like a twig underfoot that day during door-to-door. She'd been paired with Sister Tenner again, and when they reached the last house, a boy her age answered the door.
He had music playing in the background. Something loud and messy and beautiful.
When Sister Tenner started her usual pitch, he smiled and said, "No thanks," and shut the door. Just like that.
Ellie had stood there, staring at the painted wood, and something inside her whispered, He can say no. Why can't you?
She hid the letter ever since.
Now, on the eve of her seventeenth birthday, she pulled it out again and ran her fingers over the words like a prayer. She didn't know what would come next. She just knew she couldn't breathe inside this life anymore. Couldn't bear another meeting where the women nodded and smiled and pretended they weren't dying under all that righteousness. Couldn't wait for her "perfect" life in the New System when she wasn't even allowed to think freely now.
She folded the note and tucked it into the back pocket of her jeans. The same jeans she kept hidden behind a loose board in the closet. She'd wear them tomorrow. For real. She'd pack her duffel bag. Take the $163 she'd saved from cleaning cabins during the summer. Catch the 5:45 bus from Petoskey.
No destination yet. Just away.
She lay back and stared at the ceiling. Her heart pounded with fear. With guilt. With something dangerously close to hope.
When the morning came, Ellie wasn't the same girl anymore.
She was already gone.