Lillyanne Plume's Arc

Chapter 2 of 22

Saturday morning at the coffee shop, Lillyanne worked the espresso bar with a headache and a bad mood. The envelope from her pillow was two days in the trash and she had almost stopped thinking about it. Then she cleared table four and found another one waiting under a saucer. Black on one side. White on the other. Red wax seal. Her name in silver ink. She stared at it for a long moment, then walked it back to the counter. Her boss was pulling shots. She held it up. "Did you see who sat at four?" He glanced over. "Nobody's sat at four all morning." She dropped it in the trash under the register and went back to work. At noon she reached into her bag for her wallet and pulled out an envelope instead. Same weight. Same seal. She threw that one in the trash too, harder than she needed to. By Wednesday she had thrown away six. One in her apron pocket. One inside the sugar canister. One tucked between the pages of the paperback she kept behind the counter. One folded into her scarf. She stopped asking who put them there. Nobody ever saw anything. Thursday afternoon the postwoman came through with the shop's mail. Lillyanne knew her by her white braid and the snow crusted on her boots. She delivered to every door on the block and remembered every name. "Anything for me today?" Lillyanne asked, half joking. Margarie set a stack of bills on the counter and shook her head. "Not from me, dear." Her rosy face pinched. She lowered her voice. "Whoever's leaving those for you isn't using the mail. I'd know." Lillyanne's stomach dropped. "You've seen them." "I've seen the seal. Once, a long time ago. If they've picked you, they don't stop." Mrs. Boddy adjusted her satchel and pushed out into the cold before Lillyanne could ask another question. Lillyanne finished her shift at nine. She walked home in a state she refused to name. She climbed three flights, worked her stuck lock, and pushed the door open. Her apartment was covered in envelopes. They were on the couch. On the counter. In the sink. Fanned across the floor like a dealer had thrown a deck. Hundreds of them, black and white, each stamped with red wax, each with her name in silver. Something in her chest broke loose. Not fear. Fury. She grabbed a garbage bag from under the sink and started sweeping them in by the armful. She filled one bag. She filled another. She dragged both down three flights and threw them in the dumpster behind the laundromat. She went back up and did it again. And again. At two in the morning she stood in her cleaned apartment, breathing hard, hands shaking. On the kitchen counter, where she had just wiped it bare, sat a single new envelope. She screamed inside and set that one on fire.