( december 18th )

[firegap]

Must I be like Ophelia and wait for my branch to break, she wrote to him and meant, when does the suffering end?

It was a beautiful letter, her maid said so herself. Her handwriting was elegant, softened by swirls, though she had not been careful enough, perhaps she had not cared at all. The paper was stained at the bottom and at the top, where the date had been marked in smaller lettering. It almost looked like she had underlined the month, november, november, All Hallows' og Saint Martin's Eve. Goose and ghosts.

With a line from their poem, till a' the seas gang dry, she had signed herself, as well as with her name that was no longer his to dictate. That was where the second splatter of ink stood out, starkly.

A mistake for prosperity.