The Calendar

Ash gestured for Lilette to follow him away from the kitchen and into the bedroom. Epicorm wiped the tears from his checks and cheerfully waved goodbye to Lilette, she waved back feeling unexplainably pleasant - perhaps it was because other people tended not to show a great deal of interest in her.
“Bye Lilette!” called Epicorm, like she were a great distance away “do you want to play Snakes and Ladders with me when you come back?” he added with eager hopefulness.
“Sure” she promised, despite not knowing what Snakes and Ladders was.
“And then will you have lunch with us?” he asked as if he’d just thought of the idea.
“Epic” interjected Ash “stop bugging her, she has a lot on her mind right now” Epicorm’s smile faded away, and he looked like he might cry again.
“Oh, but I would love to have lunch with him!” Lilette said honestly, trying to stop Epicorm from another fit of tears.
“Really!?” Epicorm cheered, clapping his hands together. Lilette giggled, she liked how easily she could make him happy.
“Alright” Ash concluded with a smile, placing a hand on Lilette’s shoulder. He directed her through the door and into the bedroom.

Lilette was rather unconvinced that whatever it was Ash wanted to show her – a calendar or something of the sort- was going to affect Lilette in a greater way than finding out her family were being held hostage. It then occurred to Lilette that her family were at the mercy of a gang of rats, and she was at Ash’s house doing nothing to help then.
“We keep the calendar in Dad’s trunk” Ash told Lilette, as he closed the door behind him, and knelt down besides the box labelled The Wise Dreamer. “I know I’ve kept you in the dark until now, and I know you must be worried sick about your family. But you really do need to see the calendar, Dad says you don’t, but I think it’s your right.... look, I’m really sorry about everything that’s going on, and I promise to do whatever I can to get those filthy Rats out of your home. But first, you need to see the calendar” Ash pulled a golden, pine-cone-shaped key from his pocket and unlocked the big brown box before him.
He rummaged around the unorganised clutter of things, Lilette tried not to be snoopy and restrained from leaning forward and looking into the box. “It’s in here somewhere” Ash reassured her.
After a brief while of rummaging, he pulled out an average sized calendar. To Lilette surprise the calendar was not made of leaves, and the writing on it wasn’t engravings.
“The writing” Lilette wondered “how does it stay on the page?”
“It’s called ink. The people of the Overworld use it instead of carving letters into the paper”
“Paper?”
Ash briefly taught Lilette about ink and paper, and told her about the giants who live in the Overworld, whom Lilette had never heard of before.
“I know I’ve just given you a whole new world of things to think about” Ash apologised “but none of that matters right now. Here, take a look” he handed her the paper made calendar. Lilette gazed in fascination at the front page- which said nothing but ‘The Calendar’- and tried running her fingers over the ‘ink’ but to her amazement it stayed on the page. What strange magic these creatures of the Overworld used. The style of writing was very neat, the letters never changed in shape or size. Both Es looked completely identical to each other, as did the As. How did they write with such accuracy? As intrigued by their writing as Lilette was, she much preferred the wavy, elegant font of her own kind.
She looked up at Ash, to make sure it was ok to open it and he nodded. Her heart started to flutter, she wasn’t sure if opening the calendar was really something she wanted to do.
“Why don’t you sit down” Ash suggested, which only increased Lilette’s fears. People are usually asked to sit down, before they’re told bad news, to reduce the chance of them injuring themselves from shock. She wished he had said ‘don’t worry, everything will be fine, just open the calendar’ but he hadn’t, he had asked her to sit down. He would be reading her nervous emotions at this very moment, and yet he wasn’t calming her down by telling her that everything was alright. Everything wasn’t alright, Lilette concluded. She sat down next to Ash, who had gone to sit on his bed.

Lilette grasped the calendar with two hands. She could have sat on Ash’s bed for several years in preparation for opening the calendar. Ash placed a comforting hand on Lilette’s shoulder, she took in a deep breath of courage and lifted over the front page.

It was just a calendar.

The word ‘January’ was imprinted on the top of the page, as would be expected on one of Lilette’s usual leaf calendars, and every day of the month had its own little box (which wasn’t at all unusual either.) Some of the boxes were written in, saying innocently normal things like ‘Epicorm’s Birthday’ and ‘Raspberry Picking Day.’ The calendar was no more special than the one Lilette owned at her own home, despite the strange material it was made of and the ‘ink.’

Lilette looked at Ash- who had taken his hand away when she opened the calendar. He opened his mouth to speak, but Lilette spoke first “It’s just a calendar.”
“No, Lilette, it’s not just a calendar” he sounded worried that the truth may hurt Lilette “see here” he flicked a few pages over “on November 29th?” he pointed it out to Lilette, all it said was: ‘Gibberllin and Poppy wedding.’
Lilette found nothing strange about Ash’s brothers wedding day being noted on the calendar. With only three weeks left until that day would come, Lilette thought it annoyingly normal for it to be on the calendar.
“So?” Lilette asked, trying to understand what Ash what getting at.
“So, Gibs and Poppy have been dating since April. They’re very happy together, but Gibs has no intention of asking her to marry him”
“Then why are they getting married in three weeks?”
“They’re not. It’s just what the calendar says. Or rather, what the calendar foretells”
“The calendar predicts the future!?” Lilette rejoiced, glad to finally understand what was going on “so Gibberllin and Poppy are getting married in three weeks?”
“I don’t know. Gibs hasn’t spoken about it. From time to time the calendar mis-predicts our future. If they are getting married, neither of them know about it yet... Gibs hasn’t checked the calendar in a while” the novelty of knowing about a couple’s wedding before they did made Lilette giggle a little.

“Even though the calendar sometimes makes mistakes, and sometimes we (as readers of the calendar) can consciously alter its predictions.... the calendar is almost always accurate” Ash was beginning to talk seriously now, and Lilette remembered that it had been for a negative reason that he was showing her the calendar.
“Why are you showing me this?” Lilette wondered worriedly, looking deeply into Ash’s eyes as if she might be able to find the answer if she looked hard enough. He sighed sorrowfully, this was obviously the moment he had been guiding Lilette to, but also the moment he had been dreading.
“December 13th” he said simply.

Lilette turned to December. Written in the box of the 13th, in unnaturally perfect writing, were the words ‘Death of Mielou.’