Booking The Crook

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I stood at the kitchen window, staring out into the backyard as January’s chill seeped through the glass and into my bones. The cold was making my skin prickle and my teeth chatter, yet I didn’t move. If I stayed, maybe time would stand still. Maybe the morning wouldn’t happen. Maybe if I went back to bed and pulled the covers over my head, it would all go away.

“Minnie?” my aunt Frances asked. “What, pray tell, do you see? It’s pitch dark out there.”

She was right. Even though I knew the backyard contained snow-covered maple and beech trees, the only thing I could see was my own self. Whoever had installed the double-hung windows had placed them at a height that forced any five-foot-tall human—in this case, me—to either stand on tiptoes or crouch slightly to see over the top of the lower window. This morning I was standing on my toes and seeing little more than the reflection of a pair of slightly bloodshot brown eyes and too-curly black hair.

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