Ezra opened the door to find the couple and their broker standing in the October light, all polite smiles and practiced warmth. He nodded, stepped aside, and let them in.
The phone rang.
He excused himself and walked to the kitchen, lifting the receiver with a sigh. “Hey,” he said. “Yeah, they’re here now. Just walked in.”
He leaned against the counter, watching through the doorway as the couple wandered the living room. “No, I haven’t told them anything. I don’t think I will.”
The woman laughed softly. The man pulled her close. Ezra turned away.
“They’re headed into the playroom,” he said. “I hate that room.”
Whispers floated down the hall. He closed his eyes. “They’re still in there. I wish they’d move on.”
A pause. Footsteps. “They’re going upstairs now.”
Then, faintly—just before the stair creaked under the man’s foot:
“Any reason he left those writings in there? I don’t think I could do that.”
Ezra didn’t answer. Not to them. Not to the voice on the phone. He just stared at the chair beside him. As he said his goodbyes and hung up the phone he froze. The woman was talking now. “Seems strange to have written such a thing, and backwards too”.
Even as he heard her voice, Ezra’s legs were already moving. The playroom pulled him in like a memory he hadn’t earned. Her words echoed, but his mind couldn’t hold them. Then he saw it—on the back wall. Backwards. Childlike. Familiar.
“evael t’noD”
This was not the writing he had erased. Not the memory he had buried. This was new.
…
To be continued???
You decide!