On the sixth day I started cleaning the paintings. Dust had gathered in the frame grooves, cobwebs in the corners. I moved through the cabin with a damp cloth, talking aloud to myself the way solitude sometimes encourages. When I lifted the winter painting above the fireplace, something shifted behind it. Flat. Heavier than it should have been.
I set the painting carefully on the couch.
An envelope was taped to the back.
My name was written across it in my grandfather’s hand. Not Claire. My full name.
Claire Elizabeth Monroe.
And beneath it, in smaller letters:
“If you are reading this, it is because I am already gone.”
I sat on the floor with that envelope in my lap for a long time before opening it. The cabin was quiet. The lake beyond the windows was quiet. Even the refrigerator seemed to hush. There are moments when your life divides into before and after before you understand why. This was one of them.
Inside was a folded letter, a brass key, and a business card for Daniel Mercer, Attorney at Law, in Pine Falls, twenty miles down the road.
The first line of the letter made every hair on my arms rise.