Tag: letters

Inktober 2019, Day Twenty-seven: Oh My Stars!

Inktober Prompt: Coat
GoldspotPrompt: Outbreak

27 October, 2019

Dear Bridget,

My thoughts have been swirling so that I have been roused from my bed these several nights. I have bundled myself up against the chill of the darkling hours and gone to sit on my balcony to watch the Orionids. With the collar of my jacket turned up, I have watched the falling stars coat the sky with movement, one startling wonder after another, then returned to bed to dream of the woods, the pond, and the sense of dragon.

Last night ~ this early morning really ~ perhaps I dozed while star-gazing, but it seemed to me that there was an outbreak of brilliant meteors and that, in one of those elongated flashes of time, they coalesced into the same semblance of a dragon that the sunset casts upon the pond in my dream. The dragon-stars’ head was pointed toward your house, and all the meteors streamed in that direction so that the dragon seemed to fly.

I must have dreamt it; there was nothing in the morning papers about the occurrence.

I write this before the post has had a chance to bring a note from you, but I wanted to jot it down before the rational light off day could persuade me the vision was mere nonsense springing from the fevered brain of

Your
Hannah

Inktober 2019, Day Twenty-six: A Choice to Make…

Inktober Prompt: Dark
GoldspotPrompt: Haunting

26 October, 2019

Bridget,

Now I apprehend why you were reluctant to tell me about the last page that you have in the book. After your experiences in the wood, the thought of going back, of returning to the source of thoughts and memories so haunting, cannot be easy or comfortable. But if the women in the story brave the trees, the fog the path, the pond, perhaps that is what must be done?

Have you heard from Dr. Torres yet? Do not keep in a dark as grey as that between the innermost trees

Your anxious companion,
Hannah

Inktober 2019, Day Twenty-five: The Other Clichè Drops…

Inktober Prompt: Tasty
GoldspotPrompt: Weird

25 October, 2019

Dear Bridget,

I suppose we should have known that the last tale in the tome would be the one you needed. But it is maddening and too, too cliche that the last page is missing! Have you asked Dr. Torres if she has it? It might have dropped out at her house or office.

Forgive me ~ I know you’re busy ~ but I have questions. Your summary says that, in the story, a weird has been placed on the family, but does the legend say by whom or why? And the illness that strikes the men has the same sense of duality that Dr. Torres discerned? It is strange, fantastic even, that the woods and pond as described in the book are exactly like the woods and pond now. One would expect many changes to have been wrought by Nature over the generations. Tell me in more detail about the last page whose paragraphs seem to point to a missing resolution.

I have, by the way, done something selfish. In order to soothe my sense of uselessness, I have sent ’round to the bakery a note, asking them to deliver a box of pastries and treats for you and your father. I wanted you both to have something tasty from

Your hapless friend,
Hannah

Inktober 2019, Day Twenty-four: An Eerie Coincidence…

Inktober Prompt: Dizzy
GoldspotPrompt: Ghost

24 October, 2019

Bridget,

These coincidences are almost too many to believe, queer and eerie ~ we shall have a neologism: queerie ~ but perhaps that is just how the world works.

Dr. Torres found the volume in a book store ~ I should like to know which one! ~ as she was driving here to open her new practice? Do you believe this account, Bridie? It makes me a little dizzy in those parts of my brain struggling to maintain a link to logic.

And to find out that you, or your family, are part of local legend and you never knew! I was aware that your mother was another Bridget, but, like you, I had no idea that your family always had a Bridie in every generation of the family tree. All this you learnt from the introduction! Do any of the legends in the book hold clues as to what is happening now?

It saddens me that your father is not improving any longer. How often what we see in others reflects back to us; how aching it must be to have your father look through you as if you were a ghost. In my little world, you are the reality that is

Most substantial,
Hannah

Inktober 2019, Day Twenty-three: Shadow Curse

Inktober Prompt: Ancient
GoldspotPrompt: Shadow

23 October, 2019

Bridie,

These are dark matters indeed! Dr. Torres has discovered an ancient shadow fallen on our wood, one that reaches to your house, that place of refuge for me ~ my second home; that is what you tell me. Write me as you read through the book she lent you so I feel I am

With you,
Hannah

Inktober 2019, Day Twenty-two: The Ghosts of Lethargy…

Inktober Prompt: Ghost
GoldspotPrompt: Revenge

22 October, 2019

Bridie,

I still feel like a ghost unto myself ~ my present, weary incarnation constantly haunted by the specters of who I was and who I might have been. I would dress as Lethargy for Hallowe’en were I not already cloaked in it.

Why do you think someone might be seeking revenge on your father? He has always been ~ always seemed to me ~ a kind and decent human. Whom do you suspect? Whisper more in the epistolary ear of

Your friend,
Hannah

Inktober 2019, Day Twenty-one: Treasure and Hope…

Inktober Prompt: Treasure
GoldspotPrompt: Eerie

 

21 October, 2019

Bridget,

It makes sense that you’d treasure that hair ornament; it is the receptacle of hope and it looks lovely in your wavy tresses. It is a glint of light in this long, eerie darkness.

Forgive the brevity of this note; it in no way reflects the extent of my

Love,

Hannah

Inktober 2019, Day Twenty: Watching the World Go By…

Inktober Prompt: Tread
GoldspotPrompt: Fever

20 October, 2019

Bridie,

I had the dream again, though it had a different feel to it. This time I wasn’t part of the dream; I was more of a spectator gazing out over the landscape from a height. I watched the wood turn from a place of sun to one of mist. I saw the fog tread over the trees like a fever over the forehead of a sick child. And like a fever, it seemed to play a dual role, inflicting suffering while burning out a disease.

The world turned under me and our pond came into view. Again, the setting sun emerged and illuminated the pond and again I thought —— dragon.

The dreams mean something; they must, don’t you think? I feel the connection is just out of the reach of

Your

Hannah

Inktober 2019, Day Nineteen: The Oracular and Confounding…

Inktober Prompt: Sling
GoldspotPrompt: Heart

19 October, 2019

Bridget, dear Bridget,

You are ~ you always are ~ kindness itself. Even with our long friendship, I don’t know how you tolerate my moods. I also don’t know I’d tolerate the world without you. You are the one person who will never sling my heart around.

Dr. Torres seems genuinely to want to help, but she is Sibyllic in her utterances. The riddle is in the parted ash? What might that mean? Are you as confused as

Your puzzled,

Hannah?

Inktober 2019, Day Eighteen: Fit and Miss…

Inktober Prompt: Misfit
Goldspot Prompt: Parasite

18 October, 2019

Bridie,

There was no letter from you today. The low-tending part of my brain says you have every reason to ignore me, that I am a weary, wearisome parasite sucking out your energy when most you need to conserve and hoard it for yourself.

But this line of thought is unfair to you. I have been several kinds of misfit in my life, and never have you made me feel

Abandoned,

Hannah