**THE LETTER FROM “AUNT” MARTHA**
Dad always said Mom had no living relatives. So, when I saw that letter addressed to her, postmarked from a town I’d never heard of, signed “Love, Aunt Martha,” I felt a chill despite the summer heat.
The handwriting was elegant, old-fashioned. The stationery, thick and cream-colored, reeked of lavender. Inside, a single sentence: “He knows, and it’s time you told her.”
My hands began to shake. Told *who* what? Was this some elaborate joke? The return address on the envelope was smudged, illegible. I felt a knot of anxiety forming in my stomach. I have to confront Mom.
⬇️
My heart hammered against my ribs as I approached Mom in the garden, the lavender-scented letter clutched in my sweaty palm. She was humming a tuneless melody, her hands gently pruning roses, a picture of serene domesticity that felt cruelly at odds with the icy dread gripping me.
“Mom,” I began, my voice trembling, “I… I found a letter.”
She straightened, her brow furrowing. “A letter? From whom?”
I showed her the envelope. Her face paled, the color draining from her usually rosy cheeks. She snatched the letter, her fingers surprisingly strong, and read it, her lips moving silently. When she looked up, her eyes were wide, filled with a terror I’d never seen before.
“This… this is impossible,” she whispered, her voice barely audible above the buzzing of bees. “Martha… she… she died when I was a child.”
The revelation hung in the air, thick and heavy. Over the next few days, Mom became withdrawn, haunted. She barely ate, sleeping fitfully, haunted by nightmares. Her usual bright spirit dimmed, replaced by a crippling fear.
One evening, she finally broke. Sobbing uncontrollably, she confessed. Martha hadn’t died. She’d been forced into hiding, protected by a shadowy organization called “The Covenant,” a secret society Mom believed protected individuals with… unusual abilities. Abilities Mom had inherited, abilities Martha’s letter implied someone else knew about.
“He knows,” Mom choked out, her voice raw with emotion. “He’s been watching us, waiting.”
The “he” remained a mystery. Days blurred into weeks, filled with frantic whispered phone calls, hurried searches through dusty old boxes containing Mom’s childhood belongings – a collection of faded photographs and cryptic journals filled with symbols and dates. We discovered an old address, painstakingly deciphered from a water-damaged journal page; a dilapidated house overlooking the sea in a remote coastal town.
We drove there, a palpable sense of dread accompanying us. The house was derelict, the windows dark and empty. But as we approached, a figure emerged from the shadows – a tall, imposing man with piercing blue eyes and an unnervingly calm demeanor.
He introduced himself as Silas, a member of The Covenant, not an enemy, but a protector. Martha, he explained, had anticipated this moment, arranged for Mom’s safety. The “he” wasn’t a threat, but a desperate attempt to protect her and others from a far greater danger. A rogue faction within The Covenant planned to weaponize their abilities, unleashing chaos on the world.
Silas didn’t reveal all his secrets, but he did reveal enough. It turned out Mom wasn’t just a carrier of these abilities, she was an incredibly powerful conduit – the key to either thwarting the rogue faction or aiding their plans. The choice, he said, was hers. A terrible, world-altering choice that would determine the fate of countless others, and herself. The letter from “Aunt” Martha wasn’t just a warning; it was a prelude to a war she was now inextricably caught in, a war she’d never even known existed. The ending, as Silas left us standing in the twilight beside that decaying house, was not peaceful; but neither was it hopeless. It was a beginning, a fight that Mom would face alone, shrouded in uncertainty and armed with knowledge that could destroy everything or save it all.