Chapter 5
Deliverance
Dear Mr. Finch,
I hope you are doing well. The weather has been dry and cool here, although I understand from the way the servants talk, that we are predicted to get early snow. Therefore I determined I would get a letter sent off before the weather becomes difficult to venture out in.
My husband, Mr. Nightshade, says during the winter we are often cut off from the rest of the county for weeks at a time! What a queer feeling, to be so isolated in what is already a very remote corner of the world.
I was curious, Mr. Finch, about my new family the Nightshades.
I happened to be in the library recently fetching something for my husband and I looked at the family Bible.
It was very difficult to find, all hidden away and spine turned around, but when I carefully turned the fragile pages, I saw nothing in the names of his ancestors that was familiar—nothing to connect our families.
Pray, could you tell me in which way he is my kinsman?
In what ways are our families connected? Thank you.
Also, do you know anything of my husband's line of work?
I wondered, since you seemed well-acquainted with him during his introduction to me?
Why do I not ask him myself? you might wonder.
Perhaps I am a foolish goose, but I find myself a little.
. . afraid. Oh, not of him, of course, just of doing anything improper or wrong, or seeming too forward.
And he is a very busy man, going to his workshop for hours each day or out in the woods.
Perhaps he is hunting. I have only ventured out a little into the grounds, for I am not yet accustomed to the moors—back home trees were soft, gentle things, and here they are rough and gnarled as they loom over me.
My sleep has been poor, and I can't shake the notion that the branches are arms—reaching out to me for what purpose I know not.
I have found strange things at the edge of the woods, too.
Bodies of small creatures, twisted and bloody.
Surely if an animal killed them, they would take the body, too?
What sort of animal kills only for the pleasure of it?
Please return an answer as soon as possible.
Your obedient servant,
Deliverance Nightshade (nee Rosemond)