We kept the flat priced low because of the woman next door. For years, tenants lasted at most eight weeks. At exactly 4 a.m. every morning, Mrs. Dragu would start making noise—dragging her cane along the hallway, slamming cupboards, stomping around like she was rehearsing some private march—and then she’d erupt in that high, breathless cackle, as if she were the only audience to a joke the rest of the building had missed. She’d been “that” neighbor: impossible, exhausting, unforgettable. So when Marcus, a young man, came to rent and we warned him, he just nodded, smiled, and moved in. A year went by. He didn’t leave. Nobody understood why he’d stayed when everyone else fled. Then she died.
The day they cleared her flat after the police finished their check, we went in to sort through her things. She had no family—no children, no siblings—so responsibility fell on us as the building owners. The place wasn’t messy in the way you’d expect from someone everyone complained about. It was quiet, unnerving. The walls were scrawled with tallies, circled dates, faded notes. Her kettle had been left warm, like she’d stepped away for a moment and never returned. Then we found the letters.
They were everywhere: hidden behind drawers, tucked under floorboards, folded in coat pockets, taped beneath shelves. Dozens. Over a hundred. All addressed to someone named Jonas.
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