A Dark Night of Hate and Spite.

Letters are Yesterday's Thing.

I ripped the seam of my letter open as a shiver ran down my spine. It was one of those shivers that happened right before something important. I got the same shiver the day I opened my acceptance letter to university when I was nineteen, on the cusp of life seeing it with new eyes and a fresh heart to feel everything it had to throw at me. On the other hand I got the same shiver when the doctor told me my mother had died. When I graduated from university with my masters in history and they called me to the stage. The day my bestfriend was in a car crash and lost all function in his legs. That shiver was specific to important things, but as the world had shown me over many, many years, not all important things were good things. Though lucky me, they weren't all bad either. I had a fifty-fifty shot.

'It's like flipping a quarter,' I thought, 'full of chance and dwindling hope.'

I looked up at Bernice as I slowly removed the letter from the envelop. She smiled that famous Bernice smile that could make a dying man with nothing left in the world feel good inside. Yet right then, I didn't feel good inside. I felt nothing but dread in the very pit of my gut and that made me look down into my quivering hands and unfold the paper they held. My whole body went cold and my hands stopped shaking, which for me, was never a good sign.

'Dear Claire,

You are cordially invited to join yourself and numerous other sinners for a night of mystery. We all sin my loving Claire, but yours are special.

45 Pavedflower road

You know where.'

Beneath the address was a drawing I couldn't identify if my life depended on it, but I had a sick and sticky feeling in my stomach that told me I would know very soon. I lifted my eyes from the page and looked at Bernice. She looked deep in thought, her brows knit together tighter than any sweater, her lip turned white between her teeth. Very few things made her this nervous. Visits from her ex-husband, calls from ancient family members, calls from the government directed at her and doctors appointments that started with 'The results were odd' and or 'We need to do further tests.' It was worrying that this made her that nervous.

"I hope you know I'm no serial sinner young lady." She laughed nervously and smiled in a way that said 'I am deeply and profoundly worried as well as uncomfortable.' I smiled back in a way that I hoped said the same thing, though it did resemble my 'Why does this guy think telling me about his almost football career is going to pave the road into my pants' look, which would be deeply confusing.

"Pretty road name." I laughed lightly and stuffed into my back pocket, sparing my hands to rub my thumb over my palm a few hundred times. 34 years of life and I was still anxiety's bitch. I don't like being anyone's or anything's bitch.

Bernice reached up and touched my shoulder softly. She touched me in a way that someone with decades more experience would. Like she knew I future I couldnt yet fathom. With one touch that communicated in the deepest fashion that this was not the worst to come. We would need to prepare for what was to come.

"It doesnt give a date. Curious." She sighed loudly and looked down. "Bet ya five bucks they want us there tomorrow."

I laughed then. Tomorrow was the safest bet. I hugged her tight and we made plans to meet at 9:00 am the next morning. I nearly ran to the door once we'd finished planning the coming morning. Once my back foot crossed the threshold I might as well have slammed the door shut. As my bod slid down the door I let out a breath heavier than the seven seas. More troubled too. I started racking my brain wondering what in the hell that letter could be about. For me or Bernice. The only other thing on my mind was who the fuck else was going to be there.

More importantly did I know them too

I rubbed my hand down my face and opened my eyes. I was boring. Getting old. I'd never shoplifted, skipped school. Hell I'd never even had a detention when I was in school. When you googled 'boring goody two shoes' my face popped up. Along with every picture I ever took of my cat or care bears when I was nine. I was in every sense of the saying, more boring than watching grass grow. I couldnt for the life of me remember one thing worthy of hat letter. Maybe, just maybe

I made myself forget?

Could you do that? Could I do that? Was it even possible?

'You're gonna drive yourself mad with this Claire.'

Despite my need to ask more questions that, inevitably, I could not answer, I knew my inner Claire was right. I would only run myself ragged. No good could come of this. No good ever comes from overthinking something. Especially something you yourself know nothing about and cannot change.

I stood up slowly ad walked to my bathroom, legs shaking, breath ragged, sweat pooling in the palms of my hands. I splashed cold water on my face and took a deep breath.

In 1, 2, 3, 4.

Out 1, 2, 3, 4.

How a simple little letter had effected me so much was beyond my comprehension. I was usually kept together, so in control. Of myself anyway, the world? That was a whole other story.

I splashed my face a few more times before bracing myself on the sink. I looked up into the mirror and sighed. 'No use worrying over what you can't change, right?'

I walked out of my bathroom and down my stairs. I gripped the railing so hard my knuckles turned white as I made my way down them. Step by step by step. I moved slowly, and then leaned on the wall to make it to my sitting room. I sat in the big chair in the corner. It was 15 years old, from when I was 19 in my very first apartment. It was 30 inches deep, and about two feet tall from the cushion up. It had the softest cushion I had ever felt and once I sat in it I knew I needed it. After 15 years of boyfriends and roommates the thing was pretty beat up, but beat up in a well loved sort of way. It was the perfect reading chair and for the past three years thats all it had been used for. Me sitting and reading. It was kind of depressing seeing as most of my favorite group photos had been taken in the chair. But what was I to do.

I walked to a tall auburn colored bookshelf on the far side of the room. Not my best set up decision in history but the getting up to get a book thing grew on me. I grabbed the most worn book on the shelf. 'Neverwhere,' my favorite book since I was 16. My copy was 18 years old, beaten and torn a little but in overall good repair. Neil Gaiman had been my favorite author for as many years as I could count. He was an artist when it came to novels, no author could reach me like he could.

I took the book off the shelf and slowly walked over to my chair. I flipped through the pages two, three, five, nine times before I opened to chapter one. I scanned the page as many times as I had flipped through the book. My mind was buzzing and I couldn't calm it down. But then I read the first paragraph. Then the second, the third, the fourth and the fifth. Next thing I knew I was in London and the letter never happened and tomorrow was a couple centuries away, or so it felt.