9. The world will call you by my shadow

I stepped out of the walk-in closet with my mind still tangled in numbers, documents, and questions. But one clear thing was this house wasn’t just a place to live. It was a fortress, maybe even a shrine. This house was a leftover piece of hundreds of stories that were never finished.

My eyes lifted toward the upper landing with the glass railing, just above that massive bed. A narrow spiral staircase rose from the corner of the room, almost hidden behind long curtains.

The space upstairs was larger than I expected. Like a private mezzanine tucked away. The walls were lined with shelves. Books, folders, scrolls, and old wooden boxes neatly stacked from floor to ceiling. And in the center of it all stood a long wooden table, its surface scratched and worn by time.

Behind the main shelves, I spotted a long glass cabinet. Inside it were names written by hand in slanted, elegant, and cold letters.

Names.

Not book titles or artifacts, but names of people.

Names of women.

Some crossed out.