Letters to Elise: A Peter Townsend Novella

by Amanda Hocking

He came down from the deck an hour ago, only to disturb me, I’m sure. He spends a great deal of time above ground, and far too much time with his young human companion.

  He’s lonely, I think, and has been for some time, but traveling has always made him feel more contented, more human.

  “Are you writing her again?” Ezra asked, splayed out on his small twin bed next to the writing desk. He smelled of sea salt and his hair is damp. He always stands right at the bow of the ship, trying to get sprayed by waves.

  “You know very well what I’m doing,” I told him, catching the inkwell before it slid off the desk. I’ve lost more ink in this trip than I have in my entire life.

  “Isn’t that a waste of time?” Ezra asked. “You’ve already lost three or four letters. ”

  “That doesn’t mean that I’ll lose this one,” I said, and held the paper tighter, as if he meant to take it and toss out the window.

  “Come now, Peter. ” He propped his head up on his elbow, staring at me severely with his dark eyes. Sometimes I think he has the same power that you hold over me, the power to hypnotize me into doing anything.

  “Come where, Ezra?” I asked. “We’re trapped on this godforsaken vessel for at least twenty-two more days. I can’t go anywhere. ”

  “You can’t stay holed up in this room any longer. You’re gaunt and pale. ” Ezra sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “The crew is beginning to talk about your condition. ”

  “Let them talk,” I muttered. “I can’t get them sick. ”

  “We don’t need any more scrutiny,” he said.

  “You’re only concerned that I’ll scare your friend away,” I said, referring to his young companion. She spends every waking moment with him, and I’m presuming the only reason she hadn’t followed him down here is because it’s well after midnight.

  “I would prefer if you didn’t chase off dear Aggie, it’s true, but I’m only concerned about your welfare. ” Ezra stood up and put his hand on my shoulder. “You’re not looking well, brother. You must eat. ”

  I would’ve continued to argue with him, but he dragged me to my feet and pulled me out of the room. Ezra took me down the hall to where his dear young Aggie shared a room with her twin brother. While Ezra occupied the girl, taking her up to the deck for a midnight stroll, he left me alone with the boy to do some convincing.

  I only feel mildly better after feeding. The nausea hasn’t faded, but at least I’m not so weak. Ezra thinks that if we have to wait a week or two between feedings, we won’t have to branch out farther than Aggie and her brother.

  Of course, none of the seasickness even compares to being away from you. I know this is what is best for us, even if it’s hard. For me, being apart is agony, but I know for you to leave the farm that you have loved is the greater agony.

  The neighbors have grown too suspicious that you haven’t aged past sixteen in the past ten years, and they’ve become older and wrinkled.

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  We will have a new farm in America, one with plenty of land for Hamlet to run. The trouble he’s been causing with the neighbors’ sheep is no good. But in America, they have acres and acres of land for a big dog like him to roam.

  It’s been so long since I’ve been home, too. I’ve heard how New York has changed. I would love for you to see where I grew up. We didn’t live right in the city, but I’ve been told that the city has grown so much, it’s swallowed up many of the farms around it.

  This will be a brand new start for us, Elise. We will be as newlyweds all over again. We will build a new home, start a new life. We can leave behind all the worries you’ve made in Ireland.

  I haven’t wanted to say anything, out of fear of upsetting you. But even Ezra has noticed the change within you this last year. He’s called it “darkness. ”

  Sometimes, when you and I are sitting there, talking, I see it come over you. Like a shadow across your face, and I know that you’re not there anymore. You’ve gone, and left behind something that looks like you, talks like you, but it’s simply not you.

  When I was still home, packing up my trunk in the bedroom, I heard you in the kitchen talking to Ezra. I couldn’t even see you, but I heard it in your voice. I heard when you left, and the darkness came in.

  “That darkness is getting stronger with her,” Ezra said on the carriage ride to the port. “She’s hardly even there anymore. ”

  “I know,” I sighed, unsure of what more to say on the subject. I’d already thought of everything I could think of, said everything I knew to say. Nothing seemed to help.

  “She has the worst melancholy I’ve seen,” Ezra said. He stared out at the window, at the green countryside that rolled past us. The lush scenery that I had come to love, as I had come to love you.

  “What’s the treatment?” I asked, watching him. “How do you alleviate melancholy?”

  “Purpose,” he said simply. “Every living thing needs to feel a purpose, even if that purpose is only finding something to eat and somewhere to sleep. Elise has everything. Her only purpose is to make you happy, and you’ve been happy. ”

  “Do you think this will give her purpose?” I asked. “Starting a new life in a new country?”

  “Only time will tell. ”

  I am doing this for you, Elise. For us. Together, we can create a life with new purpose.

  Saying goodbye to Ireland was harder than I’d thought it would be, and I know it will be hard for you. It is the land where your family is buried, where we fell in love, where all your memories are.

  But that’s the true joy of this voyage. It will be like being born anew. All your old memories and fears and concerns will be left behind on that farm. And you and I and our love can spring forth in America.

  Remember before we got married, and I told you of the time I’d seen a foal born on my father’s farm? I feel that way again, the way I did before we wed. That I’m on the precipice of a grand beginning. Together, we will create a new life again.

  Leaving Catherine behind will be difficult, I know, but her heart is Ireland. Ezra talked endlessly with her about coming with us to America, but she refused. I am lucky to have the heart of a woman that is so open to change.

  But I’ve always been lucky to have you, for a million reasons. I know you will not think less of me for hating the sea so much. And I know that despite your melancholy, you love me as much as you ever did.

  I don’t deserve your love, and I know that. I don’t make you as happy as I should, try as I might. I’m an imperfect man filled with imperfect thoughts and capable of imperfect deeds. I hope to be a better man when I see you again.

  Please write me soon. I already miss you so, and it will be months until we are able to see each other. I will send for you as soon as Ezra and I get ourselves established, and you set the house in Ireland in order.

  I am counting down the days until you and Hamlet will join me. Until then, I will be half a man, living half a life. My heart is with you, where it always will be, and I won’t be whole until I am with you.

  You are my love, my true, my only, my Elise.

  Eternally yours-

  Peter

  April 28, 1863

  Elise, my love –

  Have I done something to offend? It’s been over a month since your last letter, and I used to be able to set the calendar by the arrival of them. I’d expected to hear that you were on your way to America, or at least close to leaving.

  Perhaps I’m only being paranoid. I’ve had this bizarre illness that I cannot seem to shake. It started about a month ago. I was walking down the street one night, and a spasm came over me. I collapsed to the ground, unable to stand, and waited for the pain to abate, but it never truly did.

  Since then, I’ve felt this odd loneliness that I don’t quite know how to explain. I’ve been without you for so long already, missing you terribly this entire time. But something about it feels differen
t. The distance between us feels more vast than ever before. I am so lost without you.

  So perhaps that is what is talking, driving me to write this. My own paranoia and malaise. Your absence always leaves me half a man, and I fear that I’ve left both my brain and my heart in your possession. I will be unable to think or feel until you return to me.

  In your last letter, you sounded better than you have in such a long time, more like the girl I’d fallen in love with. The darkness had faded, ebbed back from your words. Was that not true? Are you not as excited to join me as you claimed to be?

  I do believe you’ll find New York as lovely as I do. The flat we have has an amazing view of the park. I know it’s not a house, but you’ll love this place, and we can search for a house together.

  How are things with Catherine? The last you told me she’s been agitated about you leaving. I hope the two of you have managed to make some peace before you go. You have been together for a long time, and I’d hate to see your history destroyed over this.

  I’ve been thinking a lot about the past. I looked up my younger brother Joseph last week. Ezra had always encouraged me to avoid my family, but I couldn’t help myself. Being back in this City, even though it’s changed so much, still reminds me of home.

  Joseph only lives a few blocks away from my flat, in the same brownstone my elderly aunt once owned. She’s long since passed, and her home went to my brother, who had cared for in the years before her death.

  Obviously, I couldn’t go to his home and inform him that I’m his long lost brother, unchanged from the last time he saw me a quarter of a century ago. But I had to see him. I wandered the street around his address, waiting for a chance to bump into him.

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  As I waited near the flower shop by his home, watching his front stoop, it occurred to me that I might not know what he looks like. He’d been a scrawny boy of fourteen when I saw him last, and now he would be a man of forty.

  Then I spotted someone. A tall, slender man in a dark suit. He walked with a cane, though he didn’t appear to limp. He stopped at the flower shop, admiring some daisies, and I couldn’t help but gape at him.

  His thick hair was peppered with salt, and his face was lined with age. A dark moustache grew below his nose, hiding features that might belong to my brother. When he looked up from the flowers, his eyes meeting mine, I nearly gasped. He had the same green eyes I see every time I look in the mirror.

  The emerald of our eyes is something our mother passed down to us – both Joseph and I, and our sister Caroline have that same shade of brilliant green. Only our older brother Daniel had gotten our father’s murky brown eyes, like the color of dull mud.

  “Can I help you?” Joseph asked, the baritone of his voice sounding much deeper than I remembered. He narrowed his eyes at me, but I’m not sure if this was because I stared at him so intently or if he recognized me.

  “No, I…” I had no idea what to say to him. In all my plans to see him, I hadn’t thought of a single thing I’d say once I found him.

  “Are you alright?” Joseph asked, and by the concern in his eyes, I’m certain I had paled.

  “Yes, I’m quite fine,” I nodded, and I hurriedly grabbed a bouquet of wild flowers from the stand. “I was getting flowers for my wife. ”

  “As was I. ” Joseph turned back towards the flowers, but he seemed reluctant to look away from me. “Or I was considering it, anyway. We had a bit of a row last night, and a bright bunch of flowers always seems to help. ”

  “Oh?” I asked. “How long have you been married?”

  “Twenty years last September,” Joseph said with a smile, and his eyes twinkled with pride. His eyes had always sparkled like that when he did something well. “They’ve been mostly happy years, but if I’m an honest man, I’d say that has more to do with my choice of bride. Mary is a saint. ”

  “Most women are,” I said, matching his smile.

  “What about you?” Joseph asked, and I didn’t understand his question. “How long have you been married?”

  “Only just,” I said, answering the same way I always do when people ask. I look far too young to have been married for almost a decade. But this time, when I said it, I meant it. We’re going to be newlyweds, you and I, as soon as you join me.

  “Marriage is a spectacular thing,” Joseph assured me. “A family is about the best thing that can happen to a man. ”

  “Do you have children?” I asked.

  “Four,” he grinned. “Two girls and two boys. Alexandra, Michael, Peter, and Pippa. ”

  I wanted to congratulate him, to say something to that, but the lump in my throat became too large for me to speak around. He’d named one of his children after me. I could barely even work my mouth into a smile. I had nieces and nephews I would never meet, could never meet. I hadn’t missed my family this much since right after I turned.

  “They’re a handful,” Joseph went on, since I said nothing. “Of course, mine are almost grown now, and I was fortunate to have my sister help with their care. ”

  “Your sister?” I asked, and my heart skipped a beat.

  All these years, I’ve never known what became of Caroline. Ezra thought it would be best if I didn’t see them again, so I left without knowing if she’d survived.

  “Yes, my younger sister Caroline,” Joseph said. He raised an eyebrow at my reaction, but continued with his explanation. “She was injured as a child and never quite recovered. After our parents passed away, she moved into the city to live with me and my wife. ”

  “Your parents…” I reached out to steady myself on the cart next to me. The wind had been knocked out from my lungs, and my stomach twisted in knots.

  Of course I’d known I would outlive my parents. Even as a mortal, I’d known that. It hit me so much harder than I’d expected it to.

  “Are you alright?” Joseph asked and put his hand out, as if to catch me in case I fainted.

  “No. ” I shook my head. “I mean, yes. I’m fine. I felt… a bit ill for a moment, but it’s passed. ”

  “Do I know you?” He leaned in closer to me, narrowing his eyes again. “You look so familiar to me. ”

  “I… no, I don’t believe I know you,” I said.

  “Strange. ” He looked thoughtful for a moment, then stuck out his hand to me. “Joseph Monroe. ”

  “Ezra Townsend,” I said, taking Ezra’s name since I couldn’t very will give him my own. I hadn’t gone by the name “Monroe” since I’d been human, and it felt strange hearing him say it aloud. My own name had become the name of a stranger.

  I took his hand, shaking it firmly. His skin felt rough and calloused, the hands of a man in midlife who’d worked hard. My skin was soft and smooth as ever, the firm hands of a young man. He was my younger brother, and he was so much older than I will ever be.

  I left after that, wandering back to my flat in a daze. The streets felt winding, and I got lost several times. I couldn’t seem focus on anything.

  I hadn’t thought to ask of Daniel, and I regretted that. But Caroline and Joseph were fine. They were thriving actually. They’d done well without me, as they should.

  But seeing Joseph, knowing he’d grown old, that he would die in time, and I would not. I would not even change or age. These are things I’d known for so many years, but it was almost unfathomable to see.

  Time moves so strangely. I think it moves just as quickly for mortals as it does for us, but we have the luxury of being timeless, of being untouched by it. Or at least that’s what I’ve always believed.

  But now I’m beginning to think that it touches us even more than it touches them. It erodes, causing decay as harmful as the humans, but ours isn’t visible. It’s hidden away, tucked inside our hearts, where all our memories eaten away.

  I can never be sure if this life, this thing that Ezra bestowed to me, is a curse or a blessing. At times, I think it would be completely unbearabl
e without you. I don’t think I could handle this on my own.

  Even as I write this, I’m still shaken. Not just from the visit with my brother, but from the illness I had last month. It won’t go away – this strange feeling of doom. I wake up in a cold sweat most days.

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  Please, Elise, I need to hear from you soon. Ezra has tried to assure me that everything is fine, and I wish I could believe him, but I can’t. I won’t, not until I hear it from you. Tell me that you still love me, that we’ll be together soon, always and forever.

  Do you remember when we were on our honeymoon, and we arrived in Prague? We stood on the bridge, looking out over the Vltava flowing below us. The sky glowed blue as twilight came upon us, and the first star glowed brightly above us.

  “Should we go back to the room?” I asked you, my arms wrapped around your waist. I nuzzled your neck, my words muffled in the soft of your hair. “We could sleep…” I said sleep, but we’d slept on the train, and we hardly ever slept when we were in bed, at least on that trip.

  “Sleep?”  You laughed a little at that and turned to face me. Your hands went to my cheeks, stroking them lovingly, and you stared up in my eyes. “To sleep, perchance to dream. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come. ”

  In that moment, I loved you, and you loved me. I heard you say those words, and I thought you meant death as in our lives, since we are truly the undead. You smiled as you said it, and I thought surely you must mean that we had been sleeping in this death until we met each other. Every moment we spent together had been a dream come true.

  I thought you had misquoted Shakespeare as a declaration of love. But now I wonder… were you ever truly happy, my love? Did you mean the soliloquy by its true intention? Even on our honeymoon, had the melancholy taken hold, so that you were thinking of suicide even as I held you in my arms?

  Or am I thinking on this too much? Elise, my true, return to me quickly, and tell me what dreams may come for us.

  Yours, forever and always, in this life and the next –

  Peter

  June 15, 1863

  Peter-

  By now you must know that something has happened, and that’s why I’m writing to you instead of Elise. I’ve gotten all your letters, and I’ve read them all, even though most of them were addressed to Elise and not Catherine.  

  I pray you haven’t gotten on a ship to return back here, the way you said you would in the last letter. Not hearing from Elise on your anniversary had to be a shock, and I am certain she would’ve written to you had she been able.

  I should’ve written to you months ago, and I know that. I just didn’t have the words to say to you, and I was in mourning myself. You had Elise for eleven years, but I’ve had her for fifteen.

  Peter, I love you as much as I loved my own brothers. There isn’t a person on this earth I cared for more than you, other than Elise. That is why it is with such despair that I have to tell you this, and in such an impersonal way. This is not how I meant for you to find out, but I have no other means to tell you.