.1.

There was a crispness in the air that was unexpected considering it was Labor Day in New England.  It was almost as if you could hear the leaves breathing out the secret of fall.  Grey was walking down a long cement staircase wondering why she ever decided that this was going to give her a sense of relief.  Her whole life she had stared at faded pictures that had been tucked into albums and old books of her mom at University.  Her golden wheat tumbled hair tucked behind her ears, so thick that it was always threatening to fall into her face once more.  Those photos of her mother in crew neck sweatshirts, pulling a wagon in a keg across the courtyard had shaped her intention so early that she had never envisioned another plan.  She felt like she was destined to be here, but yet it didn't bring her any sense of peace to stand on steps that she once had.

Last year she reread her mother's journals and knew that she would join the Order of the Sparrow.  She was a legacy and with her mother gone it only felt right to have the same words that bound her to the fraternity, bind her 18 years later.  She already felt a part of the Order of the Sparrow, the colors, the symbols, the songs her mother turned to lullabies, and sang over her crib in home videos.  Even if the fraternity was not as prestigious as it once was, their house privileges removed by the University for lack of membership, it was something she was drawn to.  Driven to find this connection, wear the robes her mother had all those years ago.

Grey had stepped on to campus and already had a schedule of events in which she would run into members and others that might be recruited as well.  She knew that game, to be wanted, and never let them know what you want.  Her legacy status was displayed in subtle ways, from the feather pin on her eggs nest blue backpack to the small sparrow she drew on her canvas shoes.  She was hoping that these little tokens would be appreciated and picked up by those making the final decisions.  Yet, she hadn't heard anything.  No feather delivered to her door, no note slipped in her mailbox, no phone calls or emails, nothing that would indicate that she was a candidate.  She saw other first years that lived in the halls receiving their signs, tokens, and emblems that would showcase what organizations, fraternity, sorority, or Order they had been accepted to become new members with, but she still received nothing from the Order of the Sparrow.

Which brought her here.  To these steps behind the old Church on campus.  The steps that no one ever really took anymore now that the campus bus runs through campus. The steel railings had chipping coats of paint and you could see the light from the bell tower, it was the only real thing illuminating this section of stairs. It was closing in on midnight and she felt more lost now than she thought possible.  The girl with no mother and a pothead father who just couldn't understand why University was so important in the first place.  Her room was located through the University graveyard that was just to the left of the bottom of the stairs.  She knew that she could be alone with her thoughts on the walk back because none of the first years had built up enough courage to walk the grave path alone at night yet, it would probably take them weeks before they would, but the path was one she was familiar with because her mother was buried there.  She always thought it was a curious place, but her mother had arranged the plot when was only 19 and it was one of her final wishes.

Her Birkenstocks slapped lightly on the steps as she made her way down and found herself on the familiar path of gravel and crooked roots in the old graveyard.  Past the crumbling graves of founders lost in the 1800s, to plaques in Memorium to donors that bequested money to the University that was unimaginable.  Grey wished at a time like this she could reach in and FaceTime her mother and just ask why.  Why was she not good enough to be a new member?  Grey almost didn't take the right-hand turn at the small dilapidated apple tree to her mother's final resting place, but she knew that the only person that could comfort her was 6 feet below the ground just a few meters away.

Grey was rubbing the sleep and disappointment from her eyes when she saw the scattered rose petals, cream.  They could easily be mistaken for something else from far away.  As she got closer she saw the small bottle with a parchment scroll inside.  She reached down and the tag read 'To the Daughter of Roux'.