Letters from Skye

by Jessica Brockmole

  The fisherman, pulled beneath the surface, could never come home. The sprite would never have to fight for Lucinda’s love again. But her song rose above the thunder and crashing waves, and the sprite knew what he had to do. He dove beneath the surface.

  He made it to the side of the boat just as the water horse reared up with saltwater dripping from clawed hooves. The sprite kicked his legs and shot out of the water like a fish, between the water horse and the fisherman crouched on the bottom of the boat. The claws of the water horse sank into the sprite.

  With all of his power, the sprite blew a wind that pushed the little fishing boat back toward shore. He knew that no gift could draw Lucinda away from her home. But, by sending the fisherman back to it, he’d found the only gift that mattered.

  Isle of Skye

  17 August 1917

  Davey,

  This man—this stranger who appeared on my doorstep—is not my husband. When he left three years ago, my husband was strong and arrogant and preoccupied. The smouldering in his eyes that I mistook for fanaticism I now know to be the smouldering of jealousy. But this man, this strange man you sent to me—he’s thin, nervous, starving, apologetic, tentative. He’s none of the things that Iain was. I don’t know who he is.

  He said you planned some grand escape. That you stitched up fake uniforms and planned to just walk out of the front gate of the prison camp. That he was the only one who made it.

  I want to know, what right do you and Iain have to make my decision for me? What would make you think I would choose to take him back? What would make you think I wouldn’t be waiting for you?

  I don’t know what to do with him. He sits in the cottage all day, seemingly ill at ease. He smokes and twitches and weeps when he tries to make love to me. When I pull on my boots to go outside, he grabs on to my apron, as if he expects me to walk out the door and never return.

  I’ve thought about it. But, really, where would I go? I don’t know whether you’re still a prisoner. I don’t know why you sounded so cold in the letter you sent with Iain. I don’t know if you are still in love with me. I don’t know if you will even open this letter and read it.

  Every time I’m in Portree, I stop in the Catholic chapel. I pray you are safe, wherever you may be, and I pray that everything will right itself. Nothing is the way it should be now.

  Davey, I need you. You have no idea how much I need you. Nothing is right without you. I need to make my own choice.

  Sue

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Margaret

  London

  Friday, 20 September 1940

  Gran,

  I’ve found her! Oh, my mother, looking so small and pale in that hospital bed. The doctor said that she was in the Langham when it was hit, but she escaped without too many injuries. She has a few broken ribs, a sprained ankle, and a touch of nervous exhaustion. They were afraid of pneumonia, but she seems to have escaped that.

  I went by the hotel first, thinking they’d have no idea where she was. But Mother’s been there for two months, going out for walks every day, stopping at the desk on her way in to ask if there’d been anything in the post for her. They know her. The clerk gave me the name of the hospital and wished her well.

  She was sitting up when I walked in, her hands pressed to her temples, crying. But the moment she saw me, she said, “My Margaret. There you are,” and lay right down. The nurses said she hasn’t been able to settle since she was brought in, but after she saw me, she slept for almost a whole day.

  I’ll stay with her and write again to let you know how she’s doing, but the doctor doesn’t seem concerned that she’s in any danger. He’s glad that she has family come to care for her. All she needs right now is time and our prayers.

  Love,

  Margaret

  London

  Friday, 20 September 1940

  Dear Paul,

  I’ve found her at last. And she’s as well as can be expected. She was in the Langham when it was hit, though she’s not too badly hurt. She wants to go back to Edinburgh something fierce. They need the bed in the ward, what with more injured coming in every day from the air attacks, so they’re willing as long as she’s not alone.

  Right now she’s asleep. She lay down straightaway when I arrived and fell asleep with a smile on her lips. The head sister could see I’d come a long way—I was still in my grey traveling suit—and she let me sit by Mother as long as I was quiet and didn’t disturb the other patients. She thinks Mother will sleep better with me here.

  They said that, when she was taken from the building, she was clutching a suitcase. Only one. She left the other behind but wouldn’t let go of the brown suitcase. Even without opening it, I knew why.

  Mother snored and murmured in her sleep, and that brown suitcase watched me from under her cot. I knew that I shouldn’t. That obediently filial part of me felt guilty even considering opening the suitcase. But the part of me that tossed caution to the wind and wrote to an estranged uncle, that set off for the Isle of Skye with nothing but the name of a house scribbled in the flyleaf of a book, that rushed down to London to dig for my mother through the rubble and bring her home, that part of me kissed Mother’s limp hand on the blanket and opened up the suitcase.

  They wrote to each other for years, Paul. My mother and Davey. And every letter from him was in there. From the first in 1912—an admiring fan letter from an impetuous college student—to the last in 1917—a scribbled note, grimy from a prison camp, that ended their relationship. Just like that. One moment they were looking to the future, the next he broke it off with a fairy story about a fisherman’s wife.

  The story was about her. Her husband, Iain, was a fisherman on Skye. He went missing during the war, was declared dead, and reappeared. Turned up on her doorstep with Davey’s letter in hand. She didn’t even get a choice.

  The Next Morning

  I wrote that to you and then, as the sunrise came orange through the window, I fell asleep too. When I woke, Mother sat propped up in her bed, watching me covered in her letters.

  “You’ve read my story,” she said. I asked if she was angry, but she shook her head. “It wasn’t right of me to keep it. It’s your story too.”

  My mind was full of questions, but seeing her there, pale against the pillows, eyes still on the letters, I couldn’t. Instead, I asked how she was feeling.

  She straightened, but I caught a wince. “So much better. I think I’ll be going home soon.”

  I told her I wasn’t sure about that, that the doctor might think it best that she stay and rest awhile longer, but she blinked and sighed. “I just want to go home, Margaret. I’ve been away for too long.” She wiped her eyes with a thumb. “I never should’ve left. I need to go back to Edinburgh, go on my walks, go sit in the quiet of the cathedral. I don’t know how better to build up my strength. Home.”

  “Elspeth,” said a voice from the foot of the bed. “I’ll take you home.”

  If you can believe it, Paul, it was Uncle Finlay. He came.

  Love,

  Margaret

  London

  Saturday, 21 September 1940

  Dear Gran,

  Uncle Finlay came here, to London. He arrived this morning and has spent all day with Mother, catching up on the past two decades without saying much of anything at all. He’s taking her home tomorrow, back to Edinburgh.

  I don’t know how you did it, convincing him to come down to London, to finally talk to Mother, but thank you. For the first time in a while, I see a moment of peace on her face.

  Love,

  Margaret

  London

  Sunday, 22 September

  Dear Paul,

  Last night, before she fell asleep, Mother told me that I had only half the story. I had Davey’s letters but not hers.

  So, instead of heading to the train station this morning with her and Uncle Finlay, I went to the Langham to see if they’d unearthed her other suitcase. Inside, she told me, were her copyboo
ks, where she jotted drafts of all her letters. Ever the writer.

  They had her other suitcase, full of the copybooks. Her half of the story. But, oh, Paul, they also had a letter for her.

  To one of the many letters she sent out over the months of waiting in London, someone had sent a reply.

  And I don’t know what to do. It’s her letter, to be sure, but I saw her spread out on that hospital bed, tired and defeated, saw her limping to the train station on her brother’s arm, just wanting to put London behind her. What if this reply is nothing? Or, God forbid, bad news?

  I’m back to Edinburgh on the next train. I’ll have seven and a half hours to decide whether to give her the letter or open it myself.

  Love,

  Margaret

  Detroit, Michigan

  September 10, 1940

  Dear Mrs. Dunn,

  I apologize for not replying sooner, but your letter was forwarded on to me from the secretary of our central branch of the American Field Service Association. They thought I would be in a better position to answer your questions.

  I wish I had better news for you, but I do not have any contact information for David Graham. He’s never sent updates or news to our bulletin, nor has he attended any of our reunion dinners.

  I do have a little bit of information, though, that may help you. Some of the other men kept in touch after the war. And I saw him in Paris. Ol’ Dave, he made it through the war. He always was a lucky one.

  Dave—we called him “Rabbit”—was in a prison camp for a few years. He must have been taken prisoner in ’16, before the United States entered the war and the Red Cross took over the Field Service. He didn’t write to any of us, other than his good friend Harry, while in the camp. But I know he did make it out after the Armistice. After the war, we all saw him in Paris.

  They’d tucked him in a hospital in Paris to get his strength back before sending him home, but Rabbit snuck out. He caught up with us at our headquarters at Rue Raynouard. Imagine our surprise! He was in good shape for having spent time in a prison camp. He begged a spare suit of clothes and our pocket change and all the chocolate bars he could carry, then said he wasn’t going home, not yet. He had to go up to Scotland after his girl.

  You see, Mrs. Dunn, I recognized your name. No disrespect intended, but Rabbit could never shut up about you. He was head over heels. To hear him talk, you were every fairy-tale princess wrapped up in one. Harry kept mum about the whole deal, but the rest of us, we knew something had soured during those years he was at the camp. And then Rabbit turned up at Rue Raynouard, begging money so that he could go up to Scotland and apologize for something. I guess that was the last time you saw him too.

  But some of the other guys kept in touch after we all got home to the States. Rabbit went back to teaching. He stayed in Chicago for a while, then went to Indiana to be nearer to his sister; I’m not sure where he ended up from there. I do know that he published a book, a fairy-tale book for children. You should’ve seen all of us old guys grinning like kids when someone brought it along to an AFSA reunion dinner. Our Rabbit, a published writer!

  I’m sorry that I don’t have an address for him, but I thought you’d like to know that he was doing well last I heard of him and that he had a book published. And, although I don’t have Rabbit’s address, here’s Harry Vance’s. He’s much better than Rabbit at keeping in touch. Harry has been teaching at Oxford. That’s not too far from London, is it?

  I wish you the best of luck, Mrs. Dunn. And, if you see Rabbit again, please give him my best.

  Sincerely,

  Billy “Riggles” Ross

  Secretary, Midwest Branch,

  American Field Service Association

  Edinburgh

  Tuesday, 24 September 1940

  Dear Mr. Vance,

  I am writing on behalf of my mother, Mrs. Elspeth Dunn. She has been trying to locate the whereabouts of David Graham, whom she knew years ago. I was given your address by Billy Ross with the American Field Service Association. He thought that you might have current contact information for Mr. Graham.

  Please, anything that you can tell me would be welcome. My mother has been looking for Mr. Graham for quite some time. We would both be more grateful than you could know.

  Sincerely,

  Margaret Dunn

  Oxford

  27 September

  Dear Miss Dunn,

  I debated whether or not to send you Dave’s address. Old recluse that he is, he values his privacy. But he’s spent far too long alone, feeling sorry for himself. He’s spent far too long wishing he could change the past.

  His address is below. He’s been living in London, at a flat around the corner from the Langham Hotel. He always did say that London was full of memories.

  Harry Vance

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Elspeth

  Isle of Skye

  1 May 1919

  Dear David,

  You’re probably surprised to be getting this from me, but with my newest book of poetry out, how could I forget one who was once my “fan”?

  Not having heard from you these two years past, I have no idea where in the world you might be. I am hoping that, by sending this parcel to your parents’ house, it will get to you somehow.

  How have you been since the war? I wrote to you in the prison camp, soon after Iain returned home, but you never responded. Have you been well?

  It’s very odd, but a few months ago I thought I saw you, standing in the road across from my parents’ house. I glanced down and then the image was gone. You do know that this island is populated by the spirits and ghosts of memory, don’t you?

  Iain’s recently passed away. Of all the ironies—he makes it through Festubert, through captivity in Germany, through escape and flight, only to die of influenza back at home in his bed. He hadn’t been strong since he returned, though, and he fell ill so easily. It was not too surprising when it happened.

  Do you know, I think he was waiting to die. He always believed he should have fallen with his friends at Festubert. Things just weren’t the same for him once he got home. I don’t think he felt as if he fit in. He never seemed to know what to do, especially when it came to me. We tried. We really tried, Davey. Everything was different, but we tried.

  I haven’t been able to write any poetry in years. “Repose” was one of the last poems I wrote. I couldn’t figure out what the problem was, but then I realised.

  It was you, Davey. It is you. There is no poetry in my life without you. You have been my muse all along. Before I met you, I wrote poetry with my pen, and my readers loved it. It meant something to them. But after meeting you, I wrote poetry with my soul, and I loved it. It meant the world to me.

  I understand I know nothing of your life now. It’s been two years since I’ve heard anything from you. For all I know, you could be married, have a family. But I’m going to take a page out of your book. I’m going to close my eyes and run right over that trench wall.

  Davey, I can’t be without you. I can’t be without you. Do you remember all of those promises and dreams we made back during the war? Come and make them all again to me.

  We’ll go wherever you want, live wherever you want. Edinburgh? Skye? Urbana, Illinois? I could go anywhere with you by my side. I’ll be your wife, your mistress, your lover. As long as I am yours.

  I am closing up my cottage and heading to Edinburgh. Nothing has been right for Màthair since Finlay left. Maybe if I go too, he’ll come back. I can do that much at least for her. Will you come to Edinburgh? Will you come to get me?

  I’ll go to St. Mary’s every morning to wait for you. I don’t know when you’ll get this letter, but I promise I’ll wait. I’ll wait every morning, as long as it takes. I gave up on you once, that day when Iain, instead of you, walked through the door. I won’t give up on you again.

  I have never stopped loving you, Davey.

  Sue

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Margaret
>
  Edinburgh

  Tuesday, 1 October 1940

  Dear Mr. Graham,

  I hope you won’t think me forward, but I wanted to write to express my admiration for your book, Favorite Fairy Stories for Favorite Children. Although it has been many years since I’ve been young enough for fairy stories, something made me look beyond the words on the page. Each has a story beneath. Allegory, to be sure, but also magic and poetry. These are not tales just for children.

  I especially was taken with the last in the book, “The Fisherman’s Wife.” That one felt so real, as though it was written from the heart. How like life, where we fumble our way through love only to find that it’s simpler than we think.

  I find it interesting that you changed the ending of “The Fisherman’s Wife.” Originally, you had the story end with the water sprite sacrificing himself so that the fisherman could swim safely to shore. A very noble ending. But here, in the published version, you have the water sprite fight for Lucinda’s love. He gives her a chance to choose him of her own free will. Perhaps not as noble, but real, steeped in regret and hopefulness.

  Of course, the tales in this book aren’t the only ones you’ve written. More than two decades ago, you wrote a love story in letters, a love story just as magical as the fairy stories—even more so because it was true. It’s a story without an ending, though. A story that breaks off in one noble moment, leaving questions for all the moments that came before. Questions that remain twenty-three years later.