I held my left hand flat against the mahogany surface. Carefully, I copied the ten digits onto the meat of my palm, the ink pressing deep into my skin.
I watched the ink dry, dark and blue against my pale skin. The numbers looked like a foreign code, a secret language written on my body that I did not yet know how to translate.
I slid the phone back behind the thick green folders of the 2018 tax files, placing it exactly where it had been hidden. I pushed the drawer shut until the latch clicked.
The house was completely silent around me, save for the hum of the refrigerator in the distant kitchen.
I stood there for a long minute, looking at my hand, before rubbing my palm against my skirt to see if the ink would smear. It remained sharp and clear, a permanent mark of my discovery.
I looked out the window of the study. The sun was just rising over the hedges of the estate, casting long, pale shadows across the gravel driveway. The world looked exactly the same as it had yesterday, but everything inside the walls of this house had shifted.
I walked to the hallway closet and pulled out a fresh pair of cotton gloves, slipping them over my hands to protect the ink from rubbing off as I went about my morning. The fabric felt soft against the dry skin of my palm, hiding the numbers like a secret bandage.
By three o’clock, the laundry room smelled of heavy starch, steam, and damp oak leaves drifting in through the high, cracked window. I stood at the long folding table, smoothing the creases out of twenty-four white damask tablecloths for the upcoming dinner.
Eleanor sat on the wooden stool by the dryer, her posture as rigid as if she were sitting for a formal portrait. She wore a high-collared cream blouse, and her fingers drifted to her neck, smoothing her patterned silk scarf as she watched my hands move.
“The catering staff should be doing that, Bella,” she said, her voice carrying its usual quiet chill. “You spent ten years managing public relations for our firm. Folding linen is hardly an efficient use of your time.”
