See, I blame my uncle for all this.

  Not because he was evil. Not even because he was cruel.

  Dimitri was weak.

  Weak in the way that doesn’t look dangerous until it ruins everyone standing too close.

  When he was sober—which was almost never—he could be funny. Sharp. The kind of man who remembered stories and had opinions about things nobody cared about. He liked plants, of all things. Could talk for an hour about herbs nobody cooked with anymore, leaves nobody bothered to identify.

  But sober Dimitri was a rumor.

  Drunk Dimitri was the rule.

  By the time I knew him, the man had a permanent bottle attached to his liver. He drank cheap and often, and when his money ran out, his pride went with it. Borrowing came next. Then borrowing from the wrong people.

  Loan sharks don’t care why you borrow.

  They only care when you stop paying.

  Dimitri stopped paying.

  They found him three weeks later at the bottom of the bay with concrete shoes and a smile frozen on his face like he still thought someone would forgive him.

  No home. No car. No bank account.

  All he left me was a book.

  No will. No apology. No hidden cash tucked in a wall like in the stories.

  Just a book sitting on my kitchen counter like it belonged there.

  I remember staring at it that first night and laughing.

  Actually laughing.

  Because what kind of sick joke is that?

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  It looked like something you’d find at a dime store between horoscope pamphlets and miracle weight-loss ads. Brown leather. Cracked spine. Notes scribbled in the margins like the author expected to argue with himself later.

  I didn’t read it.

  I threw it away.

  Trash can. Lid closed. Done.

  I went to bed angry, woke up broke, and shuffled into the kitchen the next morning to make coffee I couldn’t afford.

  The book was back on the counter.

  Not beside the trash.

  Not near it.

  On the counter.

  Clean. Dry. Exactly where it hadn’t been.

  I stood there for a long time, every bad possibility lining up in my head at once. Someone in my apartment. A prank. Grief finally snapping something loose.

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  I checked the lock.

  Still locked.

  Windows. Closed.

  Nothing missing.

  That’s when I noticed the envelope tucked into the back cover.

  My name on it. Dimitri’s handwriting.

  I almost didn’t open it.

  Not out of fear—out of resentment. The old man didn’t get to lecture me from the grave.

  But curiosity is a nasty habit when you’re already angry.

  The letter was long. Rambling. Half-drunk in places. Full of regrets I didn’t ask for and apologies that came too late to matter.

  I skimmed most of it.

  Then I saw the line that stopped me cold.

  If you ever need to hide something, really hide it, start simple. Don’t chase invisibility. Chase absence.

  I reread that part slower.

  This isn’t about making things disappear. It’s about convincing the world not to notice.

  Underlined twice.

  Below it was a recipe.

  Jasmine leaves.Thyme.One rose petal.Clean water.Boil three times.

  At the bottom, written harder than the rest, like the pen dug into the page:

  Intent matters more than ingredients.If you can’t hold the image, don’t bother.

  I snorted.

  Fantasy nonsense.

  But something about it stuck. Maybe because it wasn’t dramatic. No spells. No chants. No promises of power. Just instructions written like a man explaining how to fix a sink.

  I told myself I’d try it once.

  Just once.

  Not because I believed it.

  Because I was broke, unemployed, and angry, and sometimes you need a stupid idea just to keep from thinking too hard.

  The first attempt did nothing.

  The second smelled awful.

  The third boiled over and cracked a pot I couldn’t afford to replace.

  By the fifth day, I almost quit.

  Then—on the fourth attempt that night—I saw it.

  Just a flicker.

  A moment where my eyes slid past the object instead of locking onto it.

  That tiny failure of perception hooked me harder than any success ever could.

  Because hallucinations don’t behave like that.

  By then, the book wasn’t a joke anymore.

  It was a problem.

  And I couldn’t stop.