Episode 2: The Letter with no replay

💌 Episode 2: The Box Beneath the Floorboards

Elena didn’t sleep much that night, she lay in bed with the envelope on her nightstand, staring at it in the soft moonlight. That single sentence;“Your sister’s story isn’t finished” kept unspooling in her mind like a film reel she couldn’t stop.

She thought of burning it, she thought of throwing it out the window but the idea of destroying it felt wrong. It felt like throwing away a hand reaching out from the past.

By dawn, she had made tea, though it went cold untouched. The city outside was still quiet, coated in frost. She stood at her window, looking down at the street where the stranger had vanished the day before. It was empty now, no beige coat, no scarf, only the occasional hiss of tires on ice.

At the bookstore, she found herself glancing at the door every time the bell chimed. The customers were the usual mix tourists flipping through illustrated guides, an old man looking for poetry, a mother with her restless child.

None of them looked at her the way that man had, none of them felt like they were holding a piece of her life.

By the end of the day, she couldn’t take it anymore.

When she got home, she went to the bedroom and pulled out the wooden box from under her bed. It was heavy with years of letters over four thousand, tied neatly in stacks with red ribbon.

She untied one bundle, letting the letters spill onto the floor. The smell of old paper filled the room, earthy and faintly sweet.

She picked one at random.

“Irena,

Today, I fixed the spine of a book from 1892. The binding was cracked, but I made it whole again. I wish I could do the same for us.”

She put it aside, picked another one.

“I dreamed of you last night, we were on the roof in Bucharest, singing about nothing, like before. I woke up laughing and then I cried.”

She read for hours, but there was nothing, no clue, no hint of anyone else touching them. Until she noticed something strange.

At the bottom of the box, there was a slight gap between the wooden slats barely noticeable and she ran her fingers along the edge.

One of the boards lifted not easily, but enough to reveal a narrow hollow space underneath.

Inside was a second envelope.

Her heart began to hammer. The paper was yellowed, the edges soft from age. On the front, in faded ink, was her name not typed, written.

She recognized the handwriting instantly.

Irena’s.

Her hands shook so badly she almost tore it in half opening it and inside, the paper was creased and brittle.

“Lena,

If you’re reading this, it means I didn’t make it back to you. But there are things I need you to know. I’ve kept something from you, something I was afraid would put you in danger. If anyone asks, tell them you don’t remember the night before the accident. Don’t tell them about the man. And whatever you do, don’t open the door.”

The words blurred as Elena’s breath caught the door, the one in the ice from her dream.

She had never told anyone about that dream. She had never even told herself it mattered.

She dropped the letter as if it had burned her.

For a moment she thought she heard footsteps in the hall, slow, deliberate, one after another but when she turned, there was no one there only the sound of the wind pressing against the window.

That night, she placed both envelopes the stranger’s and Irena’s on her nightstand.

She didn’t write a letter to her sister. For the first time in twelve years, she was afraid of what writing might bring.

Just before sleep took her, she whispered into the darkness: “What door, Irena?”

🔚 To be continued in Episode 3: “The Man in the Photograph”