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Did she really use proper punctuation in a text? It looked like a letter. She deleted the message and tried again.

Esther

Hi.

Wow, that was a creepy one. Delete.

Esther

This is Esther.

Too direct. Was she a robot?

Time to consider this text objectively. What was her goal?

Ashley must think she forgot and that Esther was sabotaging her assignment. But every time she pulled out her phone, nothing came out right. She’d think of Ashley’s giant blue eyes and golden mane and that smile she had that was almost a laugh and?—

Esther stumbled on a sidewalk crack and lost her grip. Her phone bounced back and forth against her hands before landing with a wet thud in a puddle.Serves me right.She pulled the contraption out by a corner and dried it on her shirt. It sported a new crack bisecting one corner of the screen.Great.

At least it was working. Her phone pinged.

Ashley

Hey girl! When do you want to meet up? I’m free Friday after 6.

Oh, sweet Jesus, it sent the last message. Now she was a robot. She put her phone, The Betrayer, back into her pocket and walked the last block to the Platt house in ashamed silence. She’d text Ashley after work when she cooled down and had something brilliant to say.

Esther hopped up the steps to the two-story, redbrick house and rang the doorbell, one of those fun, manual twist ones that trilled through the house. It was the oldest private residence in town, built in the Neoclassical style.

August answered the door. “Hey, Esther. Come on in.”

She entered the foyer and slipped off her shoes, placing them in their usual spot under the half-moon console by the door, and followed August from the muted seafoam and beige of the foyer into the gilded white of the sitting room.

Two days a week, every week, since the start of school a month ago, this was Esther’s routine. Plattsburgh University required a practicum for the master’s degree in library and information science, and she had happened upon a posting looking for an archivist to catalog the Platt family’s historic records—soon to be donated to the local historical society.

“Do you have a minute?” August’s words stopped her progress to the stairs.

Her neck strained to find him—still standing in the living room—while the rest of her body remained frozen, facing the steps in its determined retreat to the upper floors.

“Yes?” She honestly wasn’t sure. This was not part of the routine, and routines were what kept her out of harm’s way.

“Good.” He gestured to the couch and sat cross-legged on the white-and-gilt chaise lounge across from it.

She approached the couch, giving him a once-over for anything else out of the ordinary. His long hair was pulled half back, as usual, and he was wearing a black tunic over black distressed jeans, making him stand out boldly from the white and gold and sunlight.

“Right.” He nodded as she settled into the couch, took a deep breath, and suddenly, he was normal August, chin up, shoulders broad. He transformed his perch on the chaise into a king holding court. “We’re looking for a book.”

“We?” She shifted uncomfortably on the couch’s old springs.

“I need you to find a book for me.” He waved generally at the ceiling. “While you’re going through the collection anyway.”

“Any particular book in mind? I’ve found several. There was a fascinating journal by Zephaniah Platt on the creation of the town charter.”

August made a face. “Not that. This is more of… Well, it’s older, for one. Kind of like a weird cookbook maybe.”

Now it was Esther’s turn to make a face. She warred between frustration that he wouldn’t just say what he wanted and annoyance that she wasn’t upstairs already doing her work. “I think there was a collection of family recipes by Zephaniah’s daughter, Hannah Comstock.”

“Definitely not that. Just, if you see anything…weird, let me know, okay?”