Scene 01
The Anthology
FreeThe studio is cold when the pages fall out.
She has been working on the Caravaggio anthology for six weeks — a private commission, water damage along the spine, a crack that runs the length of the lower board. She is separating the endpapers carefully, layer by layer, when the folded sheets slide free from inside the back cover.
Forty-three pages. Handwritten. Dense.
She sets down her spatula.
The handwriting is precise and controlled until it isn't — around page twelve it starts to break slightly, the lines compressing, the letters leaning forward into something she recognises as urgency without meaning to.
She reads until the studio goes dark. Then she turns on the lamp and reads the rest.
When she finishes she sits for a long time, hands flat on the table, looking at nothing.
Then she folds the pages exactly as she found them, slides them back inside the cover, and returns to work.
She has not told anyone.
She has not stopped thinking about page thirty-one.
