Dana Vespoli Dear -

She read on.

Dana turned the envelope over, thumb tracing the wax seal—crimson, unmarked, as if it had been pressed by a ring she didn’t recognize. She lived alone now, in the small house by the salt marsh where the fog rolled in each evening like a held breath. The mail came at four. By 4:03, she had the letter open and the kitchen light on, even though the sun was still out. dana vespoli dear

A floorboard creaked in the hallway. Dana didn’t move. She thought of the stray cat— Dear, she called him —who had stopped showing up three days ago. She thought of the way the fog had been pressing against her windows earlier than usual, thick as cotton. She read on

The fog had already started to seep through the keyhole. The mail came at four

I live in the walls, Dana Vespoli. Not as a ghost. Not as a rat. As a memory you buried wrong. Remember the summer you were twelve, and you told your sister she could have the last piece of peach cobbler? You lied. You ate it at midnight, standing over the sink, and you never told her. That’s me. That’s all the little truths you fed to the dark.

Look under the bed.