On behalf of...

He doesn't know where to start and despite not wanting to give him a beginning, I know I have the means. It doesn't mean it’ll be the response he’s hoping for, but there’s no knowing unless we try. I won't give him false hope, I'll just inquire - see. Once, long ago, I received a reply to a question I’d been asking… though the response was not one I wanted to receive. In fact, I pretend it never happened, rubbed it from memory.

Like now...I pretend to tire early and retire to my room. Daniel's perplexed, worried that I'm taking ill again, but I assure him I'm not. I'm fine. Two words he needs to hear and hear often. We are family now and it's only him and I. There is too much to do for me to get sick and we made promises, vows. Paris, we were moving to Paris so we could leave all the sad behind.

But...before we could forge ahead, there were things that required doing...and the longer I waited, stalled - the farther off Paris would get.

So...I open old wounds, peer through old notebooks with carefully scrawled names, names with boxes where letters could go. I pause when my index finger finds the White King and I smile fondly, sadly. It's so strange to attempt to write the living, when they've been instructed to treat me as though I were dead. But as my Aunt Clara would say...sometimes there are those on the other side who enjoy a good haunting from a familiar ghost. Aunt Clara was rarely wrong and through all my years of chosen exile, the White King had always entertained a haunting from a Departed Queen. After all, as he once teased, ghosts weren't contagious...the dead, they carry no germs.

* * *

Dear Caleb Crosswell:

While my memory faintly lingers only in the light of the communities past, please do not dismiss this letter as I am writing to you on behalf of Daniel Trevor Kessler...who I know to be a mutual friend. He is in need of council and knowing your great wisdom when we were children, I have a feeling it's still something you possess as a man. Should you take an interest in a missing member of the flocks’ plight, please send carrier pigeon and I shall elaborate on the details of this inquiry.

Many Blessings,

A Departed Queen

Old Ghosts

I don't want to be selfish - I don't.

I want to be supportive. I want to champion his request, but...I'm having issues. Problems. It's not that I don't understand, because I do. Once upon a time...it was my home too. But, I don't want him to go. Not back there. Not now…and maybe not ever.

Does this make me a bad person?

I can hear him pacing the living room at night. If I close my eyes, I can trace the steps he makes through our maze of cardboard boxes. His anxiety is a tangible thing - thick, heavy. His grief something he allows to pace behind elaborate constructed doors - big locks, sturdy chains. His barriers like my own. He is feathered with loneliness, but his is a hungry kind, one that I know I can only distract rather than heal. He needs something I can't provide. Something I'm unable to give.

We made promise, a pact. But…when she asked him, pleaded with him…he forged a contract and contract trumps promise in this scenario. I know it's selfish. I know it is. I feel it in my heart...to my toes. We’re making our escape to London, our bags are packed, affairs in order. If he leaves, I’m afraid he’ll stay.

I thought being alone didn’t bother me. I thought I’d toughened up, but with Aunt Clara gone and Daniel needing to return to a place I once called home...a place I’d have liked to remain, but I’m unsure now if those are gates I could allow myself to pass.

Beyond the gates there are ghosts…and I’m not sure my heart could stand the haunting.