Eleanor slowly closed the heavy oak door. I heard the lock click. When she turned to face me, her hands were trembling so violently she could barely hold her clutch. She walked over to the small table beside us and set down a thick, heavy manila envelope along with a gleaming set of car keys.
“This is your wedding gift,” she said gently, though she was struggling to keep her voice from fracturing. “There is a significant amount of money in that envelope, Travis. And a new pickup truck, fully registered in your name, waiting out back.”
I frowned, a cold knot forming in my stomach. I offered an uncomfortable smile and gently slid the envelope back across the polished wood toward her.
“Eleanor, I don’t need any of that,” I told her, my voice thick with earnest honesty. “Being in this room, being with you… that’s more than enough for me.”
She looked up at me. The expression in her eyes made the air leave my lungs. Her gaze was completely hollowed out by a profound, agonizing sadness, as if she were a woman standing on the edge of a cliff, about to take a step into the abyss.
“My dear,” she whispered carefully, her composure finally beginning to splinter. “Before we move forward… before anything else happens tonight. I need to tell you something important.”
**Chapter 2: The Mark of the Past**
The temperature in the room seemed to plummet ten degrees. A violent shiver ran down my spine as I watched her. She reached up with unsteady fingers and slowly pulled the sheer, white shawl off her shoulders, letting it pool silently on the floor.
When my eyes naturally fell to her bare left shoulder, the blood in my veins turned to ice.
Right there, just below her collarbone, was a dark, circular birthmark with jagged, irregular edges. I knew that mark. I knew every chaotic contour of it. It was the exact same, highly distinct birthmark I had borne on my own left shoulder since the day I was born—a mark I had stared at in the bathroom mirror every morning of my life.
