4338.211 · July 30, 2018 AD
Empty Hangers
Jamie's hangers still sway when the wardrobe opens. Empty now. But Luke hasn't been dwelling on absence — he's been building something in its place. Hidden. Organised. The kind of system that makes sense to the person who created it and raises questions for anyone else. Beatrix sees enough to wonder. Not enough to understand. When she leaves with secrets of her own, Luke finds himself alone in the quiet house, surrounded by the careful architecture of control. Some people cope with chaos by surrendering to it. Luke has a different method entirely.
The safe lies hidden beneath the wardrobe floor — a discovery that came with the house, now repurposed into something Luke finds deeply satisfying. Zip-lock bags in careful rows, each one containing the essential fragments of someone's former life. Phones, wallets, keys with handwritten tags. Everything organised by owner, everything accessible, everything under control.
Beatrix receives Paul's bag and the rules that come with it: phones off unless necessary, no answering calls, cash used sparingly, transactions documented. She absorbs the instructions without argument, then mentions the settlement's financial problems. Luke admits they'll need to get creative. Something sparks in her eyes — a plan already forming, something involving Jarod, something she won't explain. "The less you know the better." Then she steps through the portal and is gone.
The silence that follows presses in from every direction. Luke stands alone in his living room, then returns to the bedroom, to the safe, to the notebook that suddenly feels inadequate. Scattered observations aren't enough. If something happens to him, all this knowledge vanishes.
The vision crystallises: not just notes, but a chronicle. Origins, contributions, connections, losses. A proper record of who they are, what they've built, what they've sacrificed. The Book of Kin. A legacy. A monument. The kind of document that announces its own importance.
His pen moves across the page, filling it with architecture. The evening light fades. The world outside feels distant. Luke has work to do. Important work.
