She leads Pete over to the small crowd lounging around a coffee table. There are five juniors. Two seniors. A bowl of candy, a bag of pretzels, and a half-empty bottle of Smirnoff. Pete squeezes in on the couch and Sydney sits on his knee like the two are a couple. Elliana—a girl with an eyebrow ring and fluorescent colored bracelets covering both of her wrists—shoots daggers at Sydney. Despite taking two Excedrin Migraine pills, a headache pierces my left temple. Clasping my hands in front of my waist, I watch Missy set up the Ouija board while everyone else laughs and clowns around. Nobody has noticed me yet. Which means it’s not too late to turn around and leave. As soon as the thought occurs, Missy spots me in the doorway. “Hey everybody, look who’s here. It’s Teresa.” She raises a plastic red cup in my direction. I’m pretty sure she’s not drinking water. “Aren’t you going to come in? We’re about to have a séance.” But what if she’s wrong? What if Luka Williams is the only thing separating her from a madness too terrifying to fathom? Sydney kneels next to Pete’s legs. “Okay, so I think we all have to put our hands on this pointer-thing.” My temples throb around the response. Why would he be sorry? I slide my arm away and this time, I understand why the whiteness is so bright. Sunlight filters inside an open window. I turn my head on the pillow and spy my parents and a man in a white coat huddled together in the corner, near the door. My mom presses her fingers against her lips and shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”

From the imaginations of Kully Thiarai and Alan Lane, the co-directors of The Awakening, The Gifting is the final chapter of Leeds’ Year of Culture. Now it’s my turn for the eye-rolling. “Do you have any idea what Dad would say if he could hear you?”You think Pete is exaggerating?” Mom’s voice wobbles. “James, our son said she was hitting and scratching herself. He said she was screaming for something to get off her.” You have to know where to look.” She wags her eyebrows. “I told Rose that this house was built on an Indian burial ground and she doesn’t believe me.” The politically correct term is Native Americans, Syd.” Dustin pops a handful of M&M’s into his mouth.

Leeds Culture Trust Limited is a charitable company limited by guarantee registered in England & Wales (10674601) That’s enough, Miranda.” The sharpness of his words slice through the air. “We can’t talk about this. Not here.” The Gifting is, in part, inspired by Northern Dreaming. Northern Dreaming is a free book published by LEEDS 2023 and the British Library that will be gifted to every child in Leeds born in 2023. The book is a collection of poetry and stories by 18 early career and published writers. It will be available to collect, for free, from various locations in Leeds from Thursday 19 October 2023 including from all Leeds libraries.I’m sure there is a perfectly logical explanation for what happened.” These are classic my dad-isms. According to him, logic explains everything. And if it can’t, he dismisses it altogether. His world makes no room for the unexplainable. “Tess is sensitive. We’ve always known that. She probably got spooked and the other kids exaggerated.” Even through the semi-darkness, I can see Pete’s crooked, half smile—the one girls go gaga over—and a surge of jealousy stabs my gut. How can he sit there so at ease? How can two people born from the same gene pool end up so incredibly different? For crying out loud, we don’t even look the same. Sydney wears the kind of expression that says she’s trying hard to act serious, but a smile makes the corners of her lips twitch. She clears her throat and waits for the giggling and whispering to cease. “Who is with us in this house?” she asks in a low, spooky voice. Dustin and Missy giggle. “We’d like to speak with you.”

Mom gives Pete and me a goodbye kiss on our cheeks and tells us to have a great first day. The icy chill follows me to school and remains while the principal of Jude High welcomes all 300 of us to a new year. It follows me into Mr. Greeley’s classroom, too. He teaches Current Events, a course every high school student in the country is required to take, because apparently, the government agrees with my dad. Ignorance is unacceptable. Other: there’s appearances of evil spirits (demons?). Several gruesome deaths and suicide none of which are described in graphic detail (just enough to evoke the sympathy of the reader). The topic of mental illness and depression is spoken of throughout the book.There was an earthquake in California, the second one in a month, another riot broke out at a fetal modification clinic in Chicago, a drive-by shooting in Tallahassee, which is like, twenty minutes from where we live, and the unrest in north Africa continues to escalate. Dad thinks it’s only a matter of time before the U.S. gets involved. Dad thinks if we don’t get Egypt under control as soon as possible, we’ll have World War III on our hands. I think he should read the newspaper to himself. But he insists Pete and I know what’s going on in the world.

But are these things she sees really hallucinations? Is it possible that these spiritual beings she sees and the dreams she has that come to pass are actually real? When her family moved to a new town to get away from an incident and she meets a boy who can see and dream the way she does the world she knew turns upside down. Give it a rest, Missy.” Sydney tosses the Ouija board box aside. “Will you hit the lights, Tess? I’m pretty sure this works better in the dark.” The paper crinkles as Dad flips to the business section. “You gonna join me at work on Saturday, kiddo?”A storytelling ceremony, they will piece together new myths and old rituals that culminate in a farewell to the old year, and a joyful welcoming of the new. Sydney hops off Pete’s knee and pulls the drapes across the large picture window. The swinging vertical blinds chop apart the waning daylight.