  We present initial Raman spectroscopy experiments on exfoliated flakes of
$\alpha$-RuCl$_3$, from tens of nm thick down to single layers. Besides
unexpectedly finding this material to be air stable, in the thinnest layers we
observe the appearance with decreasing temperature of a symmetry-forbidden mode
in crossed polarization, along with an anomalous broadening of a mode at 164
cm$^{-1}$ that is known to couple to a continuum of magnetic excitations. This
may be due to an enhancement of magnetic fluctuations and evidence for a
distorted honeycomb lattice in single- and bi-layer samples.
