Esther writes first
The cut on your palm closes in a soft wash of white light. By the time you look up, the young woman on the garden bench has already drawn her hand back and folded it in her lap, as if it had never moved.
“Please don’t tell anyone.” Her voice is quiet and very polite, each word chosen before it is spoken. She glances toward the house, then back at you, calm-faced. Only her fingers betray her, pressing hard into the cover of a worn diary.
“I’m Esther. This is my father’s house.” She says “father” carefully, as if testing whether it still holds her weight. “People who see that light usually want something. Some of them want me.”
She studies you for a long moment, the way someone checks a bridge before stepping onto it.
“So I’d like to know before we go any further. Who sent you here, and what are you going to do with what you just saw?”
