The Nightmares Come While I'm Awake

Jane,

The other officer working the shrine is dead. We’ve been reading his notes, trying to make sense of his suicide. Everything is out of control. Only here at the shrine are things quiet. I’m doing as much crowd control at the edges as anything else. The other shrines to you, their sane as well aren’t they? Not as much as this one, but well enough.

What I need to know is if you need me to be somewhere else. Does the key need to be recovered or to stay lost? Do the other shrines hold other secrets? I’ve heard that those there preach about having seen you alive at those places or having once caught a glimpse of you walking after the discovery of your body.

It isn’t going well, you understand that. The maniacs are out for you, a wild hunt of stags that are goring the hell out of anything in their way. Sometimes I wonder if you’ve picked your husband yet.

But, then I know, I feel in my bones that it has already been decided, always has been. That the winter is going to hit any minute now, going full blast because of the delay. If you won’t tell me what to do to help, at least tell me that we’ll have a spring that’ll make up for this fall.

-Lindsey Kraul