The Letter
As Kate passed through the drafty hallway of her family’s flat, an envelope slipped through the letterbox with a soft, heavy slap against the cold linoleum.
Footsteps echoed away in the stairwell outside. Kate knelt, picked up the letter, and was about to toss it onto the pile with her parents’ mail when something caught her eye. Written across the front in stark, precise capital letters was her own name: KATE MELLING. There was no postage stamp, no return address, and no postmark.
A subtle, creeping chill settled over her—a quiet disconnect from the mundane world that always seemed to linger just beneath the surface of her very ordinary life. She pulled open the front door and hurried into the communal corridor, her bare feet padding quietly against the cracked grey tiles. She was still wearing an oversized Cure t-shirt and black leggings. At the end of the hall, the heavy doors of the lift hissed open, and an old man stepped out clutching a fresh packet of cigarettes. It was Mr. Blackledge, a retired miner who spent his afternoons down at the local pub. Seeing Kate rush toward him, he clutched his chest with a wet, raspy gasp.
“Bloody hooligan!” he barked, coughing into his fist before steadying himself against the wall. “Running around like that! You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
“Sorry, Mr. Blackledge,” Kate said, taking a step back. “Did you just see anyone walk past the lift?”
“Only my own shadow,” the old man grumbled, fumbling with his keys as he shuffled toward his door. “And it’s a lot better looking than most of the riff-raff hanging around here. Put some shoes on, for God’s sake.”
He shoved his door open, muttered something under his breath about the youth of today, and slammed it behind him.
Kate stood alone in the drafty hallway for a moment. The lift doors remained open, humming faintly, but the corridor was completely empty. She returned inside, clicked the lock, and carried the heavy envelope into her bedroom.
Her room was small and cluttered, lined with pine shelves her dad had helped her assemble a few summers back. A teetering stack of paperbacks sat beside her single bed, topped by a worn copy of Breton’s Nadja.
Sitting cross-legged on her duvet, Kate examined the envelope. The handwriting wasn’t like her classmate Susan’s loopy, pastel-pink scrawl with little hearts over the i’s. This writing was cold, angular, and sharp—drawn with rigid precision, as though the sender had used a ruler to guide every stroke.
She slid her thumb beneath the flap, tearing the thick paper open. Sliding her fingers inside, she pulled out a single piece of newsprint, yellowed at the edges and neatly folded into quarters. There was no greeting, no letter, and no signature—only a trimmed cutting from a back issue of the Wigan Evening Post.
LOCAL WOMAN IN SPOOKY ENCOUNTER
Ms. Evelyn Fairclough of Swinley Lane got more than she bargained for on Tuesday night while walking her West Highland Terrier, Bouncer. Ms. Fairclough spotted a faint light among the trees near the Plantation gates. Expecting another dog walker, she was startled when a barefoot woman in ragged, ancient clothing ran across the path.
According to Ms. Fairclough, the figure appeared to be from another century and was in visible distress before disappearing into the thicket.
Local lore connects such sightings to Mabel Bradshaw, wife of Sir William Bradshaw. Tradition holds that Lady Mabel walked barefoot every night from Stanwick Hall to Wigan as penance after a tragic turn during the Crusades. Sightings of her wandering spirit persist in the area to this day.
Kate read the short article through twice. The local paper printed quirky filler pieces like this all the time—UFO sightings over the coal pits, massive vegetables, or local ghost stories. It was the sort of light reading her dad skimmed past at breakfast before checking the rugby scores. Why would anyone deliver it directly to her door?
From down the hall came the comforting smells of frying onions and vegetable soup, accompanied by the muffled sound of the evening news on the radio. Her adoptive parents were warm, ordinary people who lived quiet lives. Yet Kate had always felt a subtle, lingering distance—a sense of playing out a life in a key that didn’t quite belong to her.
She had been adopted at five years old. She retained no memories whatsoever of her life before arriving in Wigan; that early childhood was a foggy window with nothing visible on the other side. Dreams occasionally brought fragments—shadowy foliage, unfamiliar stone architecture, low spoken rhythms—but she usually dismissed them as an overactive imagination.
She turned back to the manila envelope, carrying it over to her desk and switching on the adjustable reading lamp. Under the bright yellow glare, she inspected the coarse paper. Near the bottom seam, caught in the low angle of the light, she spotted something drawn in very faint graphite.
Kate leaned closer, her pulse quickening. Someone had sketched a small, delicate symbol in soft pencil. It featured a central staff flanked by a pair of outstretched wings, with two serpents coiled around its length, their heads facing one another near the top.
A caduceus.
She ran a fingertip over the indented lines. A local ghost story clipping was one thing, but this symbol was a weird addition.
Outside, a low rumble of thunder echoed across the Lancashire sky, and rain began to patter against her window. Kate stared down at the twin serpents under the desk light.
