THE NIGHT IT RAINED PAPER
345 Words
Paris was drenched in silver rain.
Streetlights shimmered like wet stars, and somewhere beyond the Seine, music from a café tried to make the city forget its sorrows.
But Juliet Morel couldn’t forget.
Her pen trembled above the paper as she wrote to someone who could no longer answer. The ink bled softly in the yellow light. She paused, listening to the storm whisper against her window. Midnight Letters #47 Michael,
Two years have passed, but every drop of rain still sounds like your name. They said the crash was an accident. But I feel you in every shadow, every silence. Maybe ghosts don’t need to haunt houses only hearts.
She folded the letter and slipped it into the wooden chest on her desk, already overflowing with unsent words. The same chest Michael had built for her when she was twelve. The same crest carved on top of the Morel insignia, their family’s mark of legacy and burden.
Her apartment smelled faintly of rain and lavender. The city lights reflected in the window, turning her face into something ghostlike, half dream, half memory.
Then three soft knocks at the door.
She frowned. It was nearly midnight.
When she opened it, the hallway was empty except for a single envelope lying on the floor. Cream paper. Crimson wax. The M insignia stamped into it.
Her breath stopped.
That seal was buried with her brother.
Juliet’s fingers shook as she picked it up. The rain outside grew heavier, drumming against her heart. She broke the seal, slowly, almost afraid of the truth that might be waiting inside.
“Truth sleeps beneath the name that built you.”
Her eyes widened. The handwriting was his. Michael’s slanted, impatient, alive.
She backed away, pulse pounding. The lamp flickered. The rain seemed to whisper from the windowpane.
Juliet clutched the letter to her chest. “Michael,” she whispered. “What are you trying to tell me?”
Outside, lightning split the sky open like a revelation.
And in that moment, she knew the past wasn’t finished with her yet.
- Writer
