Part 3: The Ledger’s Ghost
394 Words
*Back at her home, Helena hides the ledger in a false-bottom drawer and re-reads the note left at her door. She begins to suspect that Elias may have written it — but why leave it anonymously?*
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The fire in the study had burned down to coals, but Helena didn’t mind the cold. It kept her sharp.
She sat on the floor beside the old writing desk, sleeves rolled up past her wrists. The hidden compartment beneath the bottom drawer was just wide enough for the ledger — and she’d lined it in oilcloth to protect against moisture. The smell of ink and damp wood hung low in the air.
She placed the book inside carefully, fingers lingering a moment too long on its cover, then slid the drawer shut with a soft thud.
Helena rose, dusted her hands, and crossed to the small table near the window where the note still lay — unfolded, as if rereading itself in her absence.
You’re not the only one reading his lies.
She’d thought of little else since returning from Elias’s office. The words had no signature. The handwriting, angled and deliberate, was unfamiliar. Not Charles’s. Not Jo Greer’s, her old maid. Not anyone she could immediately place.
She’d even compared it — in her mind — to Elias’s.
The shape of his words, the way he spoke — concise, controlled, biting when needed.
Would a man like that leave a warning and walk away?
If he’d meant to scare her, he’d have said it aloud. If he meant to help her… he wouldn’t hide. Not unless he needed her to believe she was alone.
She folded the note, slower this time. Pressed the edge against her palm.
It wasn’t the words that unnerved her. It was the certainty in them. **Someone else had read the ledger.**
She pulled the ledger’s twin key — the only one — from her pocket and placed it inside a hollow book on her shelf. One she knew Charles never touched.
She returned to the window and pulled the curtain back just an inch.
Nothing. Only fog. Always fog.
And yet, as she stared into it, she felt the same sensation from the night before: eyes. Watching. Weighing.
She whispered, almost to the glass, “Then come and say it.”
The fog didn’t answer.
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**End of Part 3**
- Writer
