The envelope was addressed to no one. No name. No date. Just a small rectangle of brown paper, sealed with wax the colour of old burgundy. Edna sat down on a nearby trunk—slowly, as her old knees demanded—and turned it over in her hands. The wax seal had a small imprint pressed into it. She tilted it toward the torchlight and squinted.
A bird. A swallow, she thought. Wings out, mid-flight. She had seen that image before. She was almost certain of it. But where? She sat with the question for a moment, letting it drift through the rooms of her memory the way you might let a name sit on the tip of your tongue. It would come. It usually did, if she didn’t chase it.
She tucked the envelope carefully into the front pocket of her cardigan, gathered the rope over one arm, and made her way back to the hatch. The attic could wait. The kettle could not. And Lily would be here any moment…