The metal mailbox groaned as Coyaa pried the jammed door open with the flat edge of a house key. A stale draft puffed out, smelling faintly of rusted iron and old rain that had nowhere to dry. She reached inside her narrow apartment building vestibule and dragged out the gray bundle waiting for her.
She dropped a heavy textbook onto the hallway radiator to free her hands. The top envelope was a final notice from the electric company, sporting a bright orange sticker that looked entirely too pleased with itself. Beneath that sat a medical bill she had been ignoring since February and three circulars for discount carpet cleaning.
Her thumb caught on something stiff and thick wedged behind the utility notices. She pulled it free, squinting in the dim hallway light where the overhead bulb flickered with a greasy yellow hum. It was a heavy cream envelope, completely blank except for her name written in ink the dark, wet color of dried plums.
No return address stared back from the flap, nor did any postal cancellation mark deface the paper. She turned it over, pressing a thumb against the wax seal that bore an intricate imprint of a coiled vine. The paper felt strangely warm against her skin, like it had been sitting near an oven instead of a damp metal box in a drafty hallway.
Coyaa ripped the edge open with her nail and unfolded a single sheet of matching heavy parchment. The handwriting scrawled across the page was jagged and hurried, telling her about a grand house waiting for her in a town she had never heard of before today. Her breath hitched in her throat as she read the signature at the bottom, which used her mother's childhood nickname.
She snatched her phone off the radiator, nearly dropping the keys as her fingers shook against the screen. Keshia picked up on the third ring, her voice muffled by the sound of sizzling oil and loud laughter in the background. “You better not be calling to tell me my car got towed again,” Keshia said.
“Drop the pan,” Coyaa told her, staring down at the crimson-tinted ink on the page. “I just got something in the mail. And you need to look at it right now.”
Coyaa scrambled back up the narrow flight of stairs to her apartment, the phone wedged between her ear and shoulder. The linoleum in her kitchen was peeling at the corners, curling up like dried leaves whenever the weather turned damp. She kicked the front door shut with her heel and threw the stack of bills onto the cluttered table.
“I'm serious, Keshia, get your coat,” Coyaa said, pacing the length of the small room from the sink to the small window. Outside, the sky hung heavy and bruised with the permanent crimson haze that passed for daylight in this city. “My family is mixed up in this. Some place called Oakhaven where the sun apparently forgot to rise.”
On the other end of the line, Keshia made a sharp, questioning sound that might have been a laugh if it had any humor in it. “Your family didn't even talk about your grandmother's side, Coyaa. What do you mean they left you a house?”
“I mean a literal house with deed papers and a wax seal that won't stop bleeding light onto my counter,” Coyaa said, leaning down to stare at the glowing edges of the letter. The red moon outside cast long, twisting shadows across her floorboards that seemed to stretch toward her shoes. “I need you to come with me. Both of you.”
She hit speakerphone and dialed Charmaine's number with a trembling thumb, waiting through the endless electronic clicks. Charmaine picked up immediately, breathing hard as if she had just been hauling heavy crates. “If this is about the dried sage, I told you I'm out until Thursday,” Charmaine said.
“It's not sage,” Coyaa said, watching a dark moth beat its wings frantically against the windowpane. “I found a letter from my blood kin, and they want me to come claim what's mine. Do you want to go to this mystery town with me?”
A brief silence stretched over the line, broken only by the faint, muffled sounds of Charmaine's apothecary bells chiming in the background. “Is there a catch, or is this just your usual brand of trouble?” Charmaine asked.
“There's definitely a catch,” Coyaa said, gripping the edge of the kitchen counter until her knuckles turned white. “I need you.”