“When I first saw Reba, I thought she was a ghost. It was in the spring of 1998, and I was fourteen years old.
I was sitting in the back of our old Volvo, and we were driving home along the cherry tree-lined avenue at dusk. My mother was smoking. I coughed and rolled down the window. I looked out and up at the cherry trees in bloom. And there I saw it: In one of the gnarled old cherry trees in front of the empty house that all the kids in the village avoided, a girl was sitting. Or rather, she was lying face-down on a branch. She was barefoot, wearing a white dress, and her long, blonde hair hung down over her face. But through the curtain of hair, I saw her eyes; they seemed to be staring at me.
I was startled.
Then we had driven past. I turned around and looked back at the house through the rear window until
it was out of sight.”

*Four* is a coming-of-age novella. It deals with awakening, first love, the search
for freedom, and the end of childhood.

Henriette Clara Herborn, born in Mainz in 1978, is a writer, journalist, and instructor of creative writing. In March 2026, she self-published Edition HCH, a collection of eight books. Herborn lives and works in Mainz.

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