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CHAPTER ONE

I t was only February but I was already over everything.

To be fair, it had been a rough year so far. The month before, I had lost my main job, copywriting for The Home Shopping Network. (Yes, they are still around.)

I used to write smarmy little blurbs for tons of their crappy products.

“ Rugged, yet luxurious, this durable tote duo, made with rich Corinthian leather, will be the last luggage you’ll ever need to buy.

Available in Brawny Brown, Elephant Grey, or Bible Black.

” Or, “Sleep like a baby in this Concierge Collection Three Piece Stonewashed Cotton Coverlet set. Edged in hand-finished lace, this set is both the essence of elegance and the soul of slumber.”

There was a little more to it than that, but you get the idea. Anyway in the beginning of January, the Powers That Be at HSN decided that they didn’t need me—or any of the other copywriters—anymore. They fired us all and installed an AI program which saved them a ton of money. Happy New Year!

The deal might have saved my old employer a ton but it lost me most of my income.

I still had some web design gigs I was working, but they weren’t enough to pay my rent—especially when it was set to double at the end of February.

That’s right — double. So by the end of this month, I was going to have to come up with twice as much money to stay in my crappy studio apartment with half as much income coming in.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage it and the stress was keeping me up late every night. If I didn’t find some new online gigs soon, I was going to have to go out into the big, bad world and get a job dealing with people in person .

The thought twisted my gut into knots. I have social anxiety and just the idea of working on the outside made me feel sick. Hell, I can’t even manage making phone calls—let alone talking to people face-to-face. It’s my worst nightmare.

Okay, so I’m kind of a shut-in, but it’s not like I’m some crazy old hoarder lady who talks to herself. My tiny apartment is reasonably neat and I don’t collect cardboard boxes or old magazines. I just prefer my own company—that’s all.

And anyway, there’s nothing worth seeing outside.

I live in Central Florida where it’s hot and humid ninety percent of the year and the minute you go out of the door you feel like you’re melting.

Seriously, the under-boob sweat is no joke, especially for a top-heavy, curvy girl like me.

So I just stay in my apartment with my AC cranked up and work remotely on my laptop.

I have my cat Sebastian for company and that’s as social as I want to get.

If only my rent hadn’t doubled, I might have been able to make it. I had a little saved back—a very little—in case of emergencies. But my emergency fund wouldn’t last long under the current conditions.

And it wasn’t like I could appeal to my landlord—my apartment building was managed by a corporate conglomerate—a faceless, soulless entity owned by some billionaire who was probably using the rent increase to build his fourth mansion in the Bahamas or buy his fifth yacht.

If I didn’t manage to come up with the money, I would probably get a form eviction letter in the mail and find my locks changed the next time I ventured out for groceries.

Yes, I do go out for groceries. You can get them delivered, but that costs a lot more. Ditto for take-out—not that I can afford it very often—but I go out to pick that up too. (Have you seen the price of Door Dash and Uber Eats lately?)

The point is, I’m not a total shut-in. Poverty forces me out into the world—I just hoped it wouldn’t force me into getting one of those dreaded face-to-face jobs. Ugh .

But the job search on-line wasn’t turning up very much—I’d picked up a few more gigs but nothing that would totally make the rent at the end of the month, even if I lived exclusively on Ramen noodles.

At that moment, when I was just about to totally despair, I heard a knock at the door of my apartment. The sound made me flinch and my heart immediately jumped into my throat. I don’t like people at my door—most of my regular delivery guys know to just knock once, leave the package, and go.

The knock sounded again, however—an impatient rat-ta-tat-tat —letting me know that whoever it was, wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer. I would have to take a deep breath and just hope they didn’t want me to talk much—or at all.

As I went to the door, I passed by the small oval mirror which was one of the few things I had left from my Mom’s house.

A curvy woman with a long nose, thick dark hair, and pale grey eyes looked back.

My Dad was Greek and I inherited my hair from him—it’s coarse and wavy and so thick that I get it thinned when I can afford to.

But I hadn’t had any extra money to visit my regular stylist lately, so it was kind of a long, wavy mess around my head.

The woman in the mirror looked pale and unhappy—exactly how I felt.

Lately the whole damn world was beginning to feel like a trap.

Or maybe more like one of those hamster wheels where you’re running and running and never getting anywhere—just wearing yourself out trying to stay in one place and not get flung off.

The knock sounded a third time—even more impatient this time. Whoever it was, they were getting pissed off. Dealing with an angry stranger was even worse than dealing with a stranger in the first place. I took a breath and put my hand on the knob.

I can do this, I told myself. I can do this, I can do this…

When I opened the door, an irritated-looking little man with bushy eyebrows drawn low was staring back at me.

And I do mean little . I’m only five-four myself and he was at least a head shorter than me.

He had sharp eyes so green I wondered if maybe he was wearing colored contact lenses.

There was a thick red beard on his chin, but no mustache.

The strange facial hair configuration made him look oddly Amish and he was wearing a green uniform.

“About time!” he barked in a surprisingly deep voice when I finally opened the door. “I was thinking maybe you were after making me wait all the live-long day!”

I opened my mouth to reply, but no words came out. Words are hard for me with strangers. I wanted to say, “Sorry,” and make up some excuse, but the sentence just wouldn’t happen. I could feel it, trapped in my throat, like a piece of food that was lodged there trying to choke me.

The little man with the bushy beard didn’t seem to notice my anxiety, however.

“At any rate, now that I’ve got you, are you Sarah J. Massey?”

Mutely, I nodded.

“All right, good. I have a certified letter you must sign for.”

He whipped out a clipboard with a form and handed me a pen—a very strange looking pen.

In fact, it wasn’t a pen at all, I discovered after closer examination.

It was a quill—a long, plumy quill that looked like it might be made from an ostrich feather.

It waved a good two feet above my head as I held it in my hand.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” the little man demanded in his booming voice. “Why aren’t you signing?”

Again, I couldn’t answer. So I bent my head and did my best to scratch my name onto the clipboard. However, the sharpened end of the quill didn’t make any marks.

“Oh—pardon me! Here—I see the problem.”

The little man pulled a little pot out of his pocket, uncapped it, and held it out to me. After a moment, I realized it was an ink pot and he wanted me to dip the sharp end of the quill into it.

This encounter was getting stranger and stranger. I wished I could ask some questions, but they lodged in my throat. I dipped the point of the quill into the little pot and scrawled my signature on the form, rather messily.

The little man studied my writing for a moment and then nodded to himself.

“Not the neatest, but I suppose it’ll have to do, so it will,” he muttered to himself.

He whisked away the ink pot and the long, plumy quill.

I tried to see where he put them, but he was too quick—they almost seemed to just disappear.

Then he pulled out a large, creamy white envelope that at first glance looked like a wedding invitation.

Holding it out in both hands, he presented it to me with a little bow.

What’s this?

I wanted to ask it out loud, but as usual when talking to strangers, my words were stuck. So I just took it from him. On it was a strangely familiar name…Elvira J. Pruitt. Where had I heard that name before? Pruitt was my mother’s maiden name but her first name had been Linda. So who?—

“May I present to you, Sarah J. Massey, the last will and testament of your maternal Grandmother, Elvira J. Pruitt,” the little man said, answering my question and interrupting my thoughts at the same time.

Grandmother? A sudden flash of memory like a light bulb flicking on in a dark room popped up in my mind’s eye.

A woman with thick gray hair pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck.

She was standing in a sunny kitchen, wearing a faded red apron and holding a bowl filled with…

something? Brownie batter? And she was humming a tune that was somehow familiar.

Then the memory was gone again, as quickly as it had appeared. But it left an afterimage, like a bright flash of light does, behind my eyes.

I looked at the envelope again. The date on it was five years before—almost exactly five years. I pointed at it and raised my eyebrows at the little man.

“Ah yes—well, sometimes it takes a while to find the next of kin,” he said, nodding. “And sometimes the invitation doesn’t come to you until you really need it.”

Invitation? But I thought it was her last will and testament?

I couldn’t say the words and he didn’t stay any longer. He nodded briefly at me and said,

“I expect I’ll see you round the Hollow.”

See me around where?

But he had already hurried down the hallway, past the other apartments in my row and was gone around the corner before I could do—or try to say—anything else.

If I had known what was going to happen next, I might have dropped the creamy white envelope and shut the door. Or maybe I would have made the trip all the way down to the dumpster to throw it as far away as possible. I might even have burned it.

But I didn’t know, so I took it inside with me and shut the door.