The Message on the Postcard

Amanda hadn’t planned to stop at the shop by the lake, where gulls squabbled over chip ends, and the air smelled of damp cedar and petrol. She had opened her bedroom windows that morning to let October in, but by noon her hands were sore from knitting, and the empty house had begun to bother her. She took the car out and followed the county road toward Lake Erie.

She drove near the beach, parked, and kicked off her shoes. A flyer flapped in the dune grass: Wonder Cards. Unusual postcards. Something for everyone. The shop stood across the road between a bait store and an empty ice cream parlour. Amanda had passed it many times without noticing it.

A bell rang when she entered. The owner looked up from the counter and nodded. He was an older man with silver hair and small round glasses. Behind him, wooden racks held postcards of cats, barns, lighthouses, wildflowers, baseball fields, the moon, and the tide. A glass case beside the till contained more elaborate cards bordered in silver foil.

“People come a long way for those postcards,” he said.

“For postcards?”

“For the right postcard.”

Amanda smiled and turned the nearest display. A cheetah caught her eye, mid-stride, its long body stretched over tawny grass. Her brothers had chased her mercilessly when they were children. It had been good fun until they caught her. The card reminded her of the speed she once had and the stubbornness she still possessed.

“That one,” the owner said, “has been waiting.”

“For whom?”

He held out his hand for her money. “You, I expect.”

That evening, she seasoned a roast while Nat King Cole played on the radio. Harvey arrived just after five with the smell of cold air still on his coat. They danced a little before dinner, making slow circles on the kitchen tile. Amanda served Baked Alaska because it was his favourite and, after three years with him, she still enjoyed making him happy.

“Have you ever been into that postcard shop by the lake?” she asked.

She showed him the cheetah.

“No, but I like it.”

“It’s for me.” She heard the firmness in her voice and laughed. “You can admire it, though.”

After Harvey left, Amanda placed the card beside the coffeepot. She checked the doors before bed, including the narrow door near the back staircase. Since David, she always checked twice. She had not seen him in more than four years, but some habits remained even after the reason for them had disappeared.

At two in the morning, a delicate click woke her. Amanda sat up and listened. The furnace had stopped, leaving the house quiet. She waited for another sound, heard none, and went downstairs.

The paper bag from Wonder Cards lay open on the kitchen counter. The cheetah postcard rested beside it with a pen laid across the back. Amanda turned it over.

I’m watching you.

She checked both doors and every window. Nothing had been forced. The spare key still appeared to be inside the little metal box beneath the back porch railing. She could see its brass edge through the narrow opening.

In the morning, Amanda called Harvey.

“What kind of joke is that?” She asked, then wished she had begun differently.

“What are you talking about?”

She read the message to him. Harvey denied writing it. He sounded more worried than offended.

“Call the police.”

“And tell them my postcard was written to me?”

“Tell them someone may have entered your house.”

An officer came, examined the locks, and walked around the property. He found no footprints in the hard ground and no damage to the doors. By late afternoon, Amanda had almost convinced herself that someone at the shop had written the message before she bought the card.

When Harvey arrived for dinner, she handed it to him. The back was blank.

“It was there,” she said.

“I believe you.”

His answer helped more than any explanation could have. He stayed the night, and Amanda slept with his arm across her waist.

The next morning, the postcard lay beside the coffeepot again. The pen rested across it. Neither of them had carried it upstairs.

I watched you sleep last night.

Harvey read the words. His face changed.

“You see them?” Amanda asked.

“Call the police again.” He searched the cupboards and closets while she telephoned. The same officer returned with another constable. They searched the house and found nothing.

Harvey wanted her to stay with him, but Amanda refused to let two sentences on a postcard chase her from her own home. He left shortly before supper after making her promise to keep her telephone nearby.

Amanda locked the doors behind him. When she checked the metal box beneath the porch railing, the strip of brass was still visible. She did not open it. She should have.

The telephone rang at nine. Harvey’s voice came through the answering machine while Amanda brushed her teeth upstairs.

“Amanda, pick up. I’ve been thinking about that card.”

A floorboard moved outside her bedroom.

Amanda lowered her toothbrush. The sound came again, followed by the soft scrape of a shoe. She reached for the telephone on her nightstand, but the extension was dead.

Harvey continued speaking downstairs. “I’m coming back. I don’t like you being there alone.”

A shadow crossed the strip of light beneath her door.

Amanda opened the door before fear could pin her inside. David stood at the end of the hallway. He had gained weight, and grey threaded the hair above his ears, but his eyes had not changed. They held the same wounded anger she remembered from the night she asked him to leave.

“You should have answered my calls,” he said.

“How did you get in?”

“You always were careless with that spare key.”

He had pushed a sliver of brass into the box opening so it would appear that the key remained inside.

“Harvey is on his way.”

"Harvey," David said, disgust in his voice. “He doesn’t know you.”

“You don’t know me anymore.”

David moved toward her. Amanda backed into the bedroom and grabbed the heavy pottery lamp from the dresser. She threw it. He raised an arm, and the lamp struck the wall beside him. Amanda ran past while he swore and reached for her coat.

She headed for the front stairs, then heard him behind her. The back staircase was closer. It descended from the old linen room to the kitchen, giving her a secret route through the house when she was a girl.

She reached the top step and stopped. David knew the house. He had spent enough weekends there to remember both staircases.

His footsteps crossed the hallway behind her. Amanda ran down anyway.

The kitchen light shone across the bottom steps. David appeared below her. He had doubled back through the upstairs bathroom and taken the servants’ passage, arriving before her.

“There you are,” he said.

The cheetah postcard stood upright beside the coffeepot. It pictured grass bent beneath an unseen wind. The animal turned its head and looked straight at Amanda.

Run.

The word did not appear on the back. She heard it inside her.

David climbed one step. Amanda drove her heel into his chest. He grabbed the banister, but she kicked again, harder, catching him beneath the chin. He fell against the wall. Amanda leapt over the last two steps, snatched the postcard from the counter, and ran through the back door.

She had no shoes and no coat. Gravel cut her feet as she crossed the driveway. David shouted behind her. She did not look back.

The road to the lake was nearly a mile long, yet her legs found a strength they had not known since childhood. Porch lights slipped past. The cold air burned her lungs. David’s footsteps followed for half a block before falling away, but Amanda kept running.

Wonder Cards was dark when she reached the beach road. The owner stood outside, fitting a key into the lock. Amanda waved the postcard above her head.

“Stop! Please wait. Let me in. Let me in!”

He looked past her toward the road, then unlocked the door. Amanda stumbled inside. He turned the sign to CLOSED and drew the blind down.

“Back again so soon?” he asked.

“Someone was in my house.” Amanda struggled to catch her breath. “This card knew.”

The owner took it from her. The cheetah stood motionless again.

“They usually do.”

Blue lights moved along the beach road. Harvey’s car pulled in behind the police cruiser. He had heard the crash through the answering machine and called the police before leaving his house. Another cruiser had gone to Amanda’s home, where officers found David trying to retrieve his car from a neighbouring street.

Harvey entered the shop and wrapped his coat around Amanda. She told the officers about David, the hidden key, and the threats. For once, David had remained long enough to answer for them.

Two weeks later, Amanda returned to Wonder Cards. The owner was rearranging the glass case.

“I suppose I should thank you,” she said.

“Thank the card.”

Amanda turned the display. A postcard of an old stone chapel rested between a lighthouse and a field of sunflowers. White blossoms covered its steps. A man and a woman stood beneath the arched doorway, but their faces were too small to see.

“How much?” she asked.

The owner smiled. “That one has already been paid for.”

Amanda married Harvey two months later in a stone chapel near the lake. After the service, she saw the postcard lying beside the guest book. The figures beneath the doorway were no longer strangers. The woman wore Amanda’s dress, and the man beside her had Harvey’s smile.

On the far edge of the picture, almost hidden in the long grass, a golden cheetah rested with its head upon its paws.