Reply in Kind

The brass canister rattles back into the basket before you've stepped away. You unscrew it with hands that already know what they'll find. The paper inside is yours — the slant of the M, the bitten-off tail of the y, the coffee ring you haven't spilled yet. It's dated next Thursday.

Margaret, it reads. Don't ask who. Ask what to do. Below: instructions. Follow them exactly, and we both keep breathing.

Beneath, in your own steady hand, twelve numbered lines wait like a noose or a ladder. You can't tell which.