I went back to her house, found no one home, and walked around to the tiny back garden.

Not a soul in sight. The cat, hungry, purred against my legs. I saw a plant pot by the door: of course, a key was beneath it. Once in the kitchen I called out. No answer. The cat yowled and I turned in fear, only to see her scratching at her empty bowl. Fed the cat. Went in the living room, many of the books had been taken from the shelves. Took a deep breath at the foot of the stairs, called out again, and went up to the bedrooms. No one.

In the front hall beside the door, all coats and hats were neatly arranged. Shoes aligned. This was my clue. When she’d been there, the front hall was a massive jumble of coats and hats layered with shopping bags on the few hooks, then a cardigan lying on the stair bannister, shoes and boots piled where she’d left them. Now I thought about it, the kitchen was too tidy as well. Not an item out of place. Aligned and at right angles. “Ready for a real estate staging photo,” I thought. And the whole home now looked as if it were staged, empty and without the quirks and idiosyncracies of its redhaired owner. The life was gone. And where was she?

I picked up the unopened letters on the floor beneath the mail slot, absently glacing at them as I stacked them on the hall table. One popped out – it had my name on it. Addressed to me.

My heart beat faster and I looked over my shoulder instinctively, as if someone might see me opening the letter. “No, you see,” I’d explain to the observer, “It is mine. It was addressed to me, see…” I didn’t want to open it there, so stuffed it into my bag. “I’ve got to get out of here, ” I suddenly thought. Worried for the cat, I filled a dish with dry food and left the way I’d come. Walking so quickly I could be nearly running, I turned down the street at the next corner, and tucked into a cafe to get my bearings and open the letter.

Casually sipping my coffee, I took the letter out of my bag as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do. Gently opening the envelope, I glanced up over my cup to look around the cafe seemingly without interest. Without letting my eyes linger too long, I saw the other people there, minding their own business, the laptoppers, the friends, the mum with her baby in a stroller – glad to get out. And the barista talking to the cashier while a customer decides which pastry to order.

“No one cares,” I thought. I lift the letter from the envelope and unfold it. It is blank. But then in the light, letters begin to appear – written in a fine spidery hand, light green ink appearing into brown.

“To whom it may concern,” it began. “I am sending this letter and many copies to those of you who share my affinities in this effort. I’ve had to leave town for a while.”

At this point I felt doubt – why on earth would she have left her cat? That didn’t make sense and was out of character. “I made my departure look sudden, and perhaps coerced, but I assure you that is not the case. Please meet me at the Seatemple Inn as soon as you can.”

I looked up, still casual, glanced at my phone as if an important text took all my attention, and quickly packed up. As I stood to leave, someone immediately took my window table. It looked like she was a friend of the mother who had moved her stroller and all that stuff over. No one saw me go out the door.

At home, I googled SeaTemple for directions, then worried that it was tracked.
“So what?” I thought to myself, “I can be found. Look at this letter, sent to me at another address only three days ago.”

The week of connection and synchronicity was in full force; the quantum web, I liked to call it, filled with significance, deja vu, symbols, and correspondences. It was all coming together, but would it all be explained?