In Letters Home, the fictional character of Christina Allgood tells of her life through letters to her twin sister, Katrina. Christina, born to great wealth at the turn of the last century, had lived her entire life at The Oak, the mysterious home of the Allgood family where angels sit above windows overlooking fields of wildflowers and the walls seem able to remember the past. Surrounded by luxury and walls built from hopes and dreams, Christina had known poverty in her heart and torment in her soul. In Letters Home, Christina writes of her life and her memories, disclosing her mistakes and the lessons she’s learned, hoping that each letter will prevent another heart from following the same path and making the same mistakes.
July 3, 1999
Katrina,
It was the beginning of our eighth spring, the time of year when the sun begins to shine a bit more warmly during the day but the moon still shines cold at night, that we wandered off into the fields as we had so many times before. In the warmth of the noonday sun, we walked, Whiskers by our side. We walked and talked and laughed about how birds fly and dogs pant and how Whiskers would become still, skillfully searching with his eyes through the weeds if he thought he heard something. We shared jokes we had heard and stories we made up and dreams and plans and wishes.
We stopped for a while, snacking on sandwiches made with sourdough bread and cookies made with ginger, giving bits of chicken to Whiskers so that he, too, could snack. We stayed in the valley that day, the mountain still covered in snow, and stayed away from the water since it was no longer completely frozen and quite unstable. Together, we searched the sky for rainbows though there had not been any rain and we patted the trees as we passed, our way of saying hello to them. And, when we felt the need to sit a spell, we would sit on the small blanket we had packed in the picnic basket. There was a slight chill in the noonday air, but we were comfortable with our sweaters and the warmth of walking. We noticed, at times, Whiskers’ fur blowing in the breeze and, in those moments, he would move so as to walk between us, sheltered from the wind, and sometimes he would be carried by one of us, wrapped up in one of our sweaters like a baby.
It was a good day, stretching our legs and studying the changes that had occurred over the winter season. Lying on the blanket or walking through the clearings, the evergreens in the noonday sun seemed to playfully shake their limbs as if they were happy to be moving about after a long nap, rustling their leaves as if they wanted us to play with them. The few birds that had begun to return home, testing the weather and singing their songs, would pick up tiny fragments of twig from the ground, carrying them high up in the trees, then returning to repeat their activities. Once in a while, a bird would land near us and simply sit, watching us and enjoying the sun shine down from above. As the day wore on, trees that were just beginning to birth new leaves pointed their bony limbs, pointing us, it would seem, in the direction of home, and the birds began to sing songs of warning to us.
But we walked on, certain that we knew the fields well enough to find our way back home before it was very late or very dark. Can you remember, Sister? But, the sky grew dark and the wind began to moan as it blew towards The Oak, blowing a message of warning home. Animals about the mountain and about the fields began to howl and cry, upset at our peril and trying to send a message back to The Oak.
Patting the trees as we passed, our way of saying thank you as we tried to make our way back home, we instinctively followed the direction in which the trees led us. Our breathing grew heavier as the darkness grew colder, our breath appearing in the air before us, and our legs began to tire. It had not seemed to us that we had traveled quite so far in the daylight, but traveled we had and now each step seemed to bring about fire in our feet and rumblings in our bellies.
When we tired of our journey, we sat upon large tree roots, separated from the crying wind by the large trunk of the tree. The branches of the trees and brush about us seemed to enclose like a circle, warming us and comforting us, protecting us like a mother’s embrace. And, we slept for a while, you and I, our heads leaned against one another with Whiskers curled up in my lap and our sweaters wrapped about us. Awaking a bit later to find that night still blanketed the world, we again began to try to find our way home.
We began to see lights, lanterns moving about, followed by shadows as we approached the edge of the fields of clover by the lake nearest the house, a sight shortly followed by voices calling out our names. “Katrina,” the voices would call, “Christina,” until we were finally able to ascertain that it was Father and Mother and Betsy calling out for us. With confidence we then hollered back, voices traveling back and forth until everyone met in the middle of the field, the lights of the house still off in the distance.
Mother and Father hugged you desperately as I unwrapped Whiskers from my sweater and put him on the ground and then received the same. Although angry with us they were more relieved that we were unharmed, taking us home immediately to hot broth and bedtime clothes, sitting us beside the fireplace to warm and to tell of our travels. How we crossed all of those tree roots and all of that territory in the dark without stumbling and hurting ourselves, I’ve never been quite sure. But, how could we have been harmed here, at The Oak, on this property that seemed to know us better than we knew ourselves.
Always,
Christina
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