Chapter 5 Letter
Letter
My dearest Jonas,
Despite your overwhelming confidence towards the contrary, I am doing quite well in my new home.
The garden is rather dismal due to lack of care, but I have found a joy in wandering through the maze at night.
The ocean breeze is quite refreshing, and the waves against the cliffside sound a bit like screams when they hit just right.
Perhaps not to everyone’s taste, I suppose, but I am sure you and your rather macabre interests would find the sound lovely.
You shall have to visit once I've finished settling in.
Perhaps you will hear the music in the wind and find inspiration for your next composition.
I have yet to find the time to visit the little village at the base of my mountain, as you would call it, but Allard assures me it is a strange place.
What he meant by that, I could not say. He was rather tight-lipped about it all—had that bothersome look on his face he always got when one of the maids turned our beds out wrong when we were younger.
You’ll be amused to know that he has decided the day trip to the nearest city is worth the trouble in tending to our needs and has yet to visit the village again since, even for our correspondences—and truly, brother, must you send two more letters before I've even responded to the first? Surely our father’s home cannot be so boring without your dreadful sister around to haunt its halls.
One would think you would flourish in the additional attention my absence has no doubt granted you.
Nonetheless, your letters arrive to me safe and sound thanks to the little helper you’ve hired for me.
The young Mister Theodore is doing quite well under Allard’s careful eye, and I find him an interesting conversationalist on the rare occasions our paths cross in the day.
You would like him, I think. He’s a skittish thing, but there is a bite to him beneath all his propriety and manners.
I look forward to seeing his teeth one day, should I manage to goad him into baring them.
You will forgive me for not including more.
With how often you write me, I fear I will run out of things to write soon.
You know how I get when inspiration strikes, and this strange place seems full of it.
You’ll find enclosed a few recent sketches I’ve done for you to compensate for my lack of words.
I have always been better with charcoal than with ink, you remember.
I do hope you like them. Please give my love to our siblings and Father. I look forward to your next letter.
Yours, most sincerely,
A. Darling