If you control fate, what do you owe in return? 

Sea knows the world is cruel but logical. Everything has a flow toward fate – the way rain runs downhill, the way shadows lengthen before dusk, the way certain doors are never meant to stay closed. Grown-ups say fate is a kindness because it does not linger. It moves on. It keeps the city breathing. 

From the hill above the city, Sea watches the lights come on in careful rows, as if someone had measured the dark and portioned it out. The buildings of the Merrow Family sit closest together, roofs of different heights pressed shoulder to shoulder like animals bracing against cold. In the centre of it all, 10 glass cubes in materials of a drastically different calibre surrounded a central dome that lit up in streams of gold. The gold streamed into the cubes, and eventually the Merrow Family buildings lit up. 

Her mother says the family is large enough to be a country by itself. Her father says it is wiser than one. Sea listens and files the words away, the way she does with most thoughts that she prefers to keep to herself. She has learned that what matters most is not what is said, but what is repeated. When something is repeated, it becomes engraved, it becomes a fate. 

They do not call it a wheel when they speak to children. Children skip at their parents’ heels as they cross Merrow’s Open House carnival, where the air rings with laughter and the syrupy smell of spun sugar, where sweets glitter like gems and music blast in carnival booths. Elders linger at the edges of the grounds, smiling easily, as if this day has always been meant for joy. 

The Dome stands at the centre of it all, bright enough to draw even wandering gazes back to it. Sunlight strikes its curved surface and breaks apart, scattering across the grass patch that surrounds it and shimmering. Children slow as they near it, tugged between excitement and awe, and parents hush them. Sea remembers how her mother keeps tugging on her necklace and giving Coral’s hand gentle squeezes.  

Golden glass doors swing open to admit them into a hall washed in warm yellow light, where a bronze chandelier – the millennial old heirloom of the Merrows – drapes elegantly down the centre of the ceiling and the staircase gleams with polished railings, cool and smooth beneath curious fingers. Stained glass lines the ceiling, filtering the sunlight into a myriad of colours.  

To the children, it is a place of marvels – bright, important, glorious like a new world that spun away from reality. Sea snaps awake from her trance and picks up her basket of herbs set on the grass. She loves the lonely moment she could get with herself every sunset, where she could muse on anything she wanted – no, she shook her head to clear these thoughts. It’s the Merrow’s Open House day tomorrow, and she needs to get home.  

---

This year, the day of Open House comes early, dragged forward by murmurs outside her thin curtains that double as her windows. With a pounding heart she jolted awake to hear her sister’s name thrown into her ears through a low, elegant prose of a young man. Her heartbeat echoed in the empty streets which greeted her as she tore open her windows and looked out. The streets were empty. 

The morning market was exceptionally crowded with maids of the rich Merrow families, most which Sea had grown to know. They were chatty in a melodious way; it always keeps Sea entertained while waiting in line. Dressed in flowery patchwork dresses, they were mostly young maidens who got adopted by the upperclassmen when they turned 16. Coming from the lower society within the Merrow families, Sea knew it would be a matter of time before it becomes her and her sister, Coral’s fate. Despite their callow age, they gossip of officials who smile with their mouths and calculate with their eyes, of secret affairs with mistresses and birthed children whose names were never heard of again. Sea does not understand all of it, but she always listens to them keenly. 

Her sister Coral hums beside her as she joined her to sit on the steps outside their building at noon. She pulled her knees tight to her chest and listens to Coral’s soft humming. She always hums when she is afraid. Sea has never told her she notices. 

“Do you care about fate?” Coral asks, not looking at her. 

Sea considers this. “Sometimes,” she says finally. “But just like the way birds seem free, they always circle the same sky.” 

---

In another part of the city, a clerk adjusts a ledger. He has done this before. He will do it again. He tells himself this is not cruelty but maintenance, the way you prune a tree so it does not split under its own weight. The city needs roads. The city needs water. The city a balance between the wealthy and the poor to keep the demands rolling – and he mused to himself how he’s just like a dead fish that flows along the river’s rhythms. But…whatever. He presses his seal into wax and feels nothing at all. 

Click. He looks out the window panel of his box office and watches the sparkly gold Wheel grind to a halt. A name pops up on a mini screen on his table. Copy down. Wax seal. Send. The clerk wishes his job to end faster because he wants some gossips on how his friends fared on the Wheel. He’s carefree because the Wheel would never affect his constant, lonely life of solitude.  

He’s a clerk because it’s his fate. And he knows the Wheel too much. 

Down at the main entrance, Coral reaches for Sea’s hand. Their parents have won a little over eight thousand (an extremely miniscule prize to win) through spinning the Fate Wheel. Coral told her it was worth about 67 market trips of groceries – her nimble mind was always quick with numbers. Sea was secretly gleeful, but her mother shook her hand away hastily as she reached for it; it broke her heart somehow that her family doesn’t share her joy. Father smiled widely and shook hands and bowed vigorously as a clerk approached. 

“Pardon me,” The clerk began amiably, “I believe the Swesst Merrows coincidentally lost 8 thousand through the wheel this morning. You will retrieve your exchange with them through the Central Bank tomorrow, 11am sharp.” 

“Are we excused from this venue now?” Mother said anxiously. 

“Hold on just a minute,” The clerk replied. “Salary?” 

“Four thousand…total,” She glanced at Father. He simply nodded solemnly. 

“Ah, that’s a bit difficult.” The clerk slides the pen under his sleeves and pulls out a gold tablet of numbers logged in neat tables. “Hmm let me see…James Merrows…net worth twelve thousand fifty.” He looks up searching for Father’s eyes and upon not being reciprocated by the same professional jolly of his mood, his smile lessened. Sea watched her mother step forward and rashly grab the clerk’s shoulder, but he caught her arm, released it and bowed. 

“Follow me on to the next room please,” He said. 

“Wait, could we-” 

“No adjustments to the net worth after stepping into the dome!” 

“Our-Nezumo Merrow’s family unit is giving us a giftcard of 3000 for my husband’s birthday today-” 

“What’s below the net worth requirements as shown on the tablet,” He took out the pen from under his sleeve and tapped it with his silver pen gently, “will be the final value considered.” He slid a finger across his lips, bowed once more, and turned. 

As she shuffled behind her parents who followed the clerk into the next room, Sea thinks of fate again – she wonders who decided that fate should be spun instead of spoken, rolled instead of fought for. She wonders if the wheel ever wonders back. They say the wheel is fair because it does not see faces. They say it listens only to balance, to thresholds and totals and the rules that keeps the Merrow Family alive. They say everyone agrees to it, in the way people agree to weather. Sea wondered if this is how consent looks when it is written by someone who has no other choice. 

By morning, Open House would be over. Sea will go to school and learn about numbers and laws and the great virtue of order. She will learn that obedience is a kind of survival. As the second gold door opened to a swirl of heavy misty perfume, Sea makes herself a promise she does not yet have words for. If fate is something that can be turned, then it can also be stopped. And if someone is turning it, then someone, someday, will have to answer for where it lands. 

Prologue ends. To be continued!