It's said our town was founded on an unspoken promise.

It's the kind of place that looks wholesome from the outside.

Neat fences, tidy lawns, church bells on Sundays, curfew that people actually obey.

But underneath it all is a current, something old, something everyone feels but doesn't name.

That's where the box comes in.

In Doorvale, when you turn 18, you get a box on your doorstep at sunrise.

Always the same.

Hand-carved wood, smooth as bone, no latch or lock.

Inside is your role, the word that tells you who you are now. It's not symbolic. You don't

get a say. Once the box names you.

That's it.

Everyone says it fits, but the box always knows.

My cousin got caretaker.

Now she runs the infirmary, even though she used to faint at the sight of blood.

My friend Leo got stonelayer, even though he couldn't hammer a nail straight,

but now he restores gravestones like an artist.

They say the box finds the path you were meant to take,

that it doesn't make mistakes.

I wanted to believe that,

but as my 18th birthday crept closer, something in my gut twisted in apprehension, worried that I'd somehow be the only one it gets wrong, or sent on a path that would lead my life into misery.

A fear, I'm guessing a lot of people have.

At dinner the night before, my parents acted like it was a graduation.

...