Return to Sender
You posted a curse to the man who ruined you. This morning it came back through your own letterbox, unopened, your name where his should be.
Play as
The sender, wronged and out of options, who chose a folk remedy over a solicitor and now holds the result. Her rage was justified; her method was not clean.
How it opens
The envelope is on your mat, face up, and the handwriting is yours because you addressed it yourself. But the name beneath the sea-stained postmark is not the name you wrote. It is yours. Same street, same crooked seven in the number, and in the top corner your own return address struck through with a single wet line.
You did everything the old woman on Gully Lane told you. You wrote his name nine times inside. You did not sign it. You posted it before the tide turned. It should be sitting on Gareth's breakfast table this very minute, souring his tea, curdling his luck. Instead it is here, and it is warm, warmer than the cold hall has any right to make it.
The curse takes hold when it is opened. It has not been opened. You are holding it, and your thumb is already under the flap, and downstairs the second post is rattling something else through the door.
Setting
A damp coastal town out of season, present day, where an old craft of grievance still runs beneath the ordinary post. Curses are sent by letter and take hold when opened; they are bound to a named recipient by the sender's own hand. Something has rewritten the name on the envelope, and the post only ever comes once a day.
A branch can end when
- Rhona finds the true recipient the letter now names and must decide whether to send it on.
- Rhona destroys the letter unopened and pays the price a broken working demands.
- Rhona opens it and learns why the curse came home.