The envelope gleamed at Sara from the pile of mail she'd tossed on the kitchen table.
A roguish wink, like the slit of a creature's eyeball all made of hot gold.
After coming home from an eighteen-hour shift, her arms muscles wired from having performed CPR, she was sure only a mug of unsweetened coffee could keep her from collapsing on her sofa immediately.
As it turned out, the golden envelope did that just fine.
Tossing off her coat, Sara took the envelope in one hand, shaking off ads for local restaurants and free Bible classes.
The paper was creamy-thick. Sara examined it carefully. In an elegant hand, her name and address were scrawled on the golden envelope. There was no return address, no name for the sender. The stamp was ruby-red.
If someone had wanted to get her attention, he had it.
Who even wrote letters anymore?
Never mind that. Sara didn't have friends outside from her colleagues, hadn't been on a date since last year and was not on talking terms with her father.
Who would write her a letter, period?
"One way to find out," she said to herself, tearing open the envelope.
Dear Sara
No. Sara looked at the greeting again, realizing she had only seen what her eyes expected to see. Not "Dear Sara." "Sweet Sara".
A laugh escaped her. Well, this promised to be good.
She read:
Sweet Sara,
You don't know who I am, and no doubt this letter will strike you as strange. But I know who you are. For the time being, you may think of me as a secret admirer.
It is my pleasure to invite you to my domain on Prospero Island, where you will be my guest in the following months. You need not worry about how you will travel there. I will make all the arrangements. Packing would be equally futile—all you can possibly desire will await you on the island.
As I write this, a tremor courses through me. I am sure, as you discover it, it courses through you.
How original, you will think, for this man to woo me in such a manner!
When you learn to know me you will be quick to realize, sweet Sara, that an original is exactly what I am.
I count the days till you shall join me on Prospero Island.
Until then I remain your devoted servant,
J. N.
Sara blinked at the letter stupidly for a moment, as though the words would rearrange themselves into something that made sense.
Turning it over, she found no name, no signature to identify her 'secret admirer' other than the initials 'J. N.'
Sara read the letter once more, already convinced she'd dreamed it, then, without thinking, brought the letter to her face and smelled it. It had been perfumed.
Not knowing what else to do, Sara laughed.
This was clearly a joke. At twenty-eight, she was still crawling under student debts, and her love life had been a long desert lately which, to be honest, suited her fine. The closest Sara had had to a 'secret admirer' in her life was a pervy neighbor who used to shine a flashlight at her bedroom window at night to try and catch glimpses of her.
A joke. She didn't see what else it could be.
Still as she examined the envelope—sealed in red wax—Sara couldn't satisfy herself with the explanation. So much effort had gone into this. This wasn't the sort of envelope that sat catching the dust in one of your drawers. The perfume, the pompous prose. Who would put themselves through so much trouble just to prank her?
Sara mentally reviewed the colleagues she didn't get along with at the hospital. This wasn't their style—they weren't 'original' enough for it, not that original was the word she'd use to describe the sender. Besides, her colleagues were just as busy as she was. They'd never spend precious time that could be used washing their hair or grocery-shopping just to tease her.
Sara put the letter and the envelope back on the table where they seemed to stare at her with mismatched eyes, one golden, one white.
Grabbing her phone, she Googled the name of the island without much hope. The search taught her what she had been suspecting.
That there was no such place as 'Prospero Island'.
Like her secret admirer himself, the place where he had invited her seemed to be a ghost.
…
A few days passed, busy enough that Sara all but forgot about the letter. As she didn't know what to do with it, she let it rest on her kitchen table where she never ate anyway, because by the time she got home she was usually too exhausted to do anything but sleep.
It wasn't until another envelope came that Sara began to think she'd approached all of this the wrong way.
The letter hadn't been some silly joke that she could ignore.
And she would need to take measures, rather sooner than later.
The second letter came in the same packaging: golden envelope, red wax, sprayed with perfume.
It read as follows:
Sweet Sara,
I hope you are preparing yourself for your stay at Prospero Island. The island is all prepared to welcome you. You must have many questions, and I'm happy to say I can answer at least one of them at present. Your departure will take place on June 17th!
Sara checked the date on her phone. That was exactly a week from now.
Surely, you are wondering who I am, and why I am determined to meet you in such a particular fashion. Let us say that certain encounters are important enough that it would be obscene if the setting where they took place should be ordinary.
You are no ordinary woman. As you will find out very soon, I am no ordinary man.
I have traveled across the globe, sweet Sara, and ask you to have confidence in me when I tell you that no place is suited to our reunion except Prospero Island.
The thought of your arrival shall keep me awake every night till you are my guest. I dare hope you are excited as well, but discourage you to give yourself too much unrest over practical matters (means of transportation, etc.).
As I said, all the arrangements will be taken care of.
In case this was not obvious, I advise you against trying to thwart the inevitable. Resistance will be fruitless.
In wait of finally seeing you in the flesh, I remain yours sincerely,
J. N.
Sara read the letter a second time, then a third. Though Chicago was always warm in the weeks leading up to summer, goose bumps broke down her shirt collar.
Now, she thought, this isn't funny at all.
She tossed the second letter with the first on her kitchen table, nervousness throbbing with each pump of her heart. She didn't know she was pacing until she kicked her toe against a chair.
"Shit."
She rubbed her foot on the linoleum floor to stifle the pain.
Who the hell was this 'J. N.' and what had happened to fuck him up as a child so that he'd think the proper way to demonstrate admiration was by abducting a woman?
Even as a taste of bitter bile rose up her throat, Sara couldn't help but laugh.
This was all so ridiculous. Absurd. Baroque.
But it was also starting to scare her.
The next day, she was so upset, she almost got crushed to death at an intersection by a driver who horned copiously and called her names that made "Sweet Sara" sound like the peak of good taste.
At least if I get myself killed, I won't be going to Prospero Island.
The thought of going to the police crossed her mind, of course.
But then, like most people living in 2025, Sara's faith in the authorities had chipped away to nothing as stories of abuse of power, corruption and racism became rampant. Gone was the illusion of supermen dressed in navy blue who defended the vulnerable. It was hard to hold on to it when they looked so happy to beat on the vulnerable during protests.
Sara knew she was exactly the sort of person the police would be protective of—that is to say, she was privileged. White, young, conventionally attractive, and her father was a successful politician.
It didn't stop the shiver that ran down her spine when a police car stopped behind her at a red light.
In the end, what decided her was the package that arrived on June 13th, four days before the alleged "Departure".
It came in the shape of a box, such a far cry from the banged up parcels the mailman squeezed through her mailbox that she knew, even before she took a close look, that the Postal Service had had nothing to do with it.
It waited for her on the doormat. Like the envelopes, the box was a buttery gold, surrounded by a thick crimson ribbon.
A punch hit Sara in the throat.
The gift hadn't been mailed to her. It had been placed there, in front of her door. She couldn't move for a second, spit drying from her tongue. When, finally, she summoned the courage to take the box inside her apartment, it demanded effort to convince herself to touch it, as though the glistening parcel had been smeared with poison.
"Come on," she whispered to herself. "If you can cut into human bodies, you can open a damned box."
She didn't know what she had been expecting, a bomb, Medusa's head, a rabbit hole that would lead her straight to the imaginary island her 'secret admirer' claimed to own.
Still when she lifted the lid, there was no room for relief.
Her jaws parted.
Inside the box was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen. Fabrics that seemed cut from caramel and white chocolate spiraled softly beneath her fingers. The dress was couture—it had to be, from how richly it weighed in her palms. There was no tag, but Sara didn't need to see one to know that the dress had been tailored to her measurements.
She wasn't sure she knew her own measurements.
But her 'secret admirer' obviously did.
Shock sat in her stomach, a block of coarse salt that prickled all the way to her fingers.
Anyone could buy a pretty envelope and write a creepy note. This was different. The dress meant wealth, resources, commitment.
As though the piece of fabric were a proxy of its sender, Sara let it go in disgust and shot to her feet. Then she gathered the letters, the package, and shot down her staircase two steps at a time.
So much for keeping this from the police.
Maybe they wouldn't be much help, but at least that way there'd be a record.
A record, she thought wryly. In case June 17th arrives and I happen to disappear.
…
End Notes: Suddenly this story popped into my mind and I couldn't sleep till I'd written it. Do share your thoughts in the comment section and leave kudos if you enjoyed it. Take care!