Letters from Fernhollow
The attic was dusty.The boxes were older than she was. And some of the newspaper wrapping around chipped porcelain dishes still smelled faintly like ink and autumn air.
Lena hadn't meant to go looking for anything.She was just organizing. Keeping her hands busy.Trying not to remember a certain voice, a certain silence, or a man she used to dream about.
What she found instead was a small wooden box. Locked, but the clasp was rusted enough to break gently. Inside were a bundle of yellowed envelopes tied with ribbon and a note written in faded, loopy cursive:
To whoever needs to remember where they come from.
The first letter was dated 1946.
Her grandmother had been eighteen. A farm girl from a village in what was once the western border of the old kingdom.She had fallen in love with a boy who promised her the stars and disappeared before he could even give her a sunrise.
Each letter was addressed to "Myself."
They weren't for anyone else. Not for the boy. Not for her husband. Not for Lena's mother.They were a way for her to speak to the version of herself that wanted to give up.
Today I walked to the edge of the forest and thought about leaving. No money. No job. Just the sound of birds and the weight of heartbreak. But then I remembered—my life is mine. He didn't take it with him.
Lena read for hours. On the kitchen floor.With tea gone cold beside her.
She learned things she never knew—how her grandmother had worked as a seamstress in a city far from home, sending money back every month.How she had been humiliated at parties for not knowing which fork to use.How she was once told she "wasn't fit to be loved" by a man she almost married.
And how she smiled anyway.
The final letter was the shortest.
If you're reading this, then you are my future. And you've made it this far. I don't know who hurt you. But I know you are strong, because you are mine. So get up. Breathe. And love again when you're ready. Just promise me you'll never forget how much I survived to give you this peace.
That night, Lena folded the letters back into the box and placed them under her bed—not to hide them, but to keep them close.
Because the quiet peace of Fernhollow wasn't just escape.
It was a legacy.
And for the first time in a long while…
Lena felt like she belonged.