I won the lottery.

That was all there was to it.

No special premonition, no divine revelation. I just reached out on a whim next to the convenience store register, checked the numbers, did a double-take at the screen—and before I knew it, I had handed in my resignation.

The next thing I knew, I had bought a manor in a rural town where I knew no one. When I found it on a real estate site, the abandoned house in the photo was dim, the window frames were rotting, and the grass in the garden was knee-high. Yet, for some reason, I couldn't look away. I checked the price and called. That was all.

Repairs took three months. The beams were so old the contractors tilted their heads in confusion, the stone fireplace, the vintage furniture—I kept it all exactly as it was.

On the night of the move, I gave up on unpacking halfway and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling.

It was quiet. To ears accustomed to urban noise, that silence felt a bit heavy.

I reached out in the darkness to turn on a lamp.

My fingertips brushed against something.

With a small click, the drawer of the antique side table by the bed slid open.

Inside, there was a letter.

Parchment. High-quality, pleasant to the touch. In a house where no one had set foot for decades, there wasn't a speck of dust. It smelled of ink. That bluish scent, as if it had only just been written.

The handwriting was orderly. Not so much meticulous as the certain lines of someone used to writing. The letter, written in English, ended abruptly, and the addressee was a woman's name I didn't recognize.

On a whim, I tore a page from my notepad. I wrote a single line with a ballpoint pen.

"You have beautiful handwriting."

I didn't expect a reply. I put it in the drawer and went to sleep.

——

The following night, I suddenly remembered. I wondered how that drawer was supposed to open.

I looked for the switch with the lights on. I found it and opened it.

There was a letter.

In a house where I lived alone.

Next to the scrap of notepad I'd put in yesterday, a single sheet of parchment was folded.

My hand stopped.

I looked around the room once. The windows were closed. The door was locked. No one was there.

Slowly, I opened the paper.

——

"I did not expect anyone else to reach into this drawer. I have questioned the servants, but they claim to know nothing. ——Who are you? Identify yourself."

The signature was just initials.

C.A.

The smell of ink drifted up again.