A place for good books.

"Clarissa, I have something for you." There was a quality in his tone that alerted her to the fact that he was here as a reluctant messenger. Rather than question him, she stood gazing up at him, her eyes lowering as she watched his hand reach into his pocket for the letter.

He stopped and looked at her intently. "Where is your phone? May I use it?"

She wrinkled her brow, but looked around and saw it, and brought it back over to him. He took it from her and added himself as a new contact, then messaged himself from her phone before handing it back to her. Things were beginning to feel nightmarish to the beautiful, anxious woman, but she waited without saying anything.

He reached for her hand and gave her fingers a slight pressure, before lifting it and placing the envelope in her palm. She stared down at the envelope and recognized the artistic, but unsteady penmanship and prophetic tears immediately rushed to her eyes.

"Clarissa."

He knew what she was feeling. He couldn't change that.

"I must go. I feel that you need to be alone to read this, and I promised I would return straight away. My number is in your phone. If you need to, please call me, regardless of the hour."

He moved toward the door and heard his name cried out in a broken, panicked, watery voice. When he turned back to face her, similar tears were in his own eyes, and he came closer and reached a hand around her waist to give her a quick, awkward, consoling hug.

Clarissa's eyes were wide with dread as she watched him quietly leave. She stared back down at the envelope. She could hear the faint sound of a tear splashing down on it.

"I can't," she whispered to herself. "I can't."

She lifted her eyes and saw a stark, pale, ghostly version of herself in the hall tree's antique mirror. There was an envelope in that strange woman's hand as well, and Clarissa stepped back from the mirror and turned away, bowing her head and allowing a soft moan to escape her lips.

He was finally going to tell her, she realized.