Hello, my dear son. A long time has passed since the last time I tried to write a letter to You. And as I have known my whole life, I am not much for writing letters. Truth be told, I have no idea if any of my letters ever reach You, I have no idea if the Northern boys who have gathered their trucks and built their barracks at the edge of the town forward these letters or not. I don’t even know whether You read them at all or throw them straight into fire. That’s why it might be better to send you this letter using the way of my father. By using fire, like the secret elders of the Institute did before the Great War, by smoking the letter in the fire with secret herbs and unutterable words.

It has been twenty years since You last visited me. Twenty years since Your mother went to alone in the Devil’s Fen to gather berries and never returned. You never forgave me for letting her go, for not going with her. For not thinking anything of the stories the villagers told of drunk soldiers. I would like to hope that you have forgiven me and only important day-to-day business is stopping You from visiting me.

*

My reason for writing You a letter is that last night something strange happened to me. I saw Your mother. Contrary to what You might believe reading this letter, I was not drunk nor have I taken leave of my faculties in my old age. Just like You have not managed to forgive me for losing your mother, I have not managed to forgive myself either. And so for years now when the sky gets pink, I head to the bog to walk, and pick berries when possible. In the same place me and your mother had ourselves gone for berries and mushrooms since we were children. When the Devil’s Fen lied in its old place far away and the place we were going to was known as Heavenmire.

In that same place, between those familiar mounds and raised sods, on the edge of the fen. Where You never wanted to go to and where You refused to return after your first and last visit… We never understood why. I picked berries much like in times passed, when your mother joked that going to pick berries with me is a waste of time, because most of the berries ended going into my mouth rather than into the basket. It is weird, how I am still doing it now, just to hear… or imagine… her laughter ringing out…

By the time the sun and the evening glow had fallen below the horizon, my little cone made of tree bark was also full. And it was time for me to head back home. The air cooled and heavy mists of the day’s heat started to rise from the bog. But then, in that mist and fog I saw something else. It seemed as if the mist was raising from between low walls of stone. Also, the area no longer looked like a bottomless pond but rather a place I could actually walk in without my feet getting wet.

I know for sure that it had no connection to the Boys from the North and the mysterious games they played. At that time, they were nowhere nearby. In damp weather and during pouring rain, they were usually at the Substation, trying to capture lightning strikes at the top of the radio mast and every time they managed to do it, the whole town lost electricity for half an hour.

But the sky was clear. I could even see stars. As if the stars were illuminating the fog with their faint glow in a pitch black of night. Having looked at the fog a few minutes, it started to seem to me that it was flowing unevenly. In a certain section it was very thick and on the other hand, at the edge of the bog, where I stood, I could see a trail leading to the remains of the stone walls hidden in the lower ebbs of the mists. It seemed so strange, that a plan formed in my mind to go and check it out, whether my eyes were playing tricks on me or was there really a manor house sunken into the bogs of Heavenmire as the legends told.

I proceeded with some caution, finding solid yet soft ground instead of waterlogged turf. I could even see a stone footpath torn up, with the corners of large tiles jutting out from the ground in odd angles. A few dozen steps further and the low blackened walls of stone and moss still looked like a mirage and made of mist rather than any material more solid. But as I came closer and closer, I became certain that it was stone. Cool and damp to my touch. The corners worn round by moving water. The mist had let up from my immediate surrounding, but elsewhere it was still impenetrable. Thus I could not see if only this little island was unique or but a part of a larger structure still hidden. So maybe remains of a chapel, rather than a manor. The highest part of the wall which looked like a section of a small and simple arched window, seemed to support that idea.

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I started towards it, still unable to see the ground in front of me. Feeling stones and rock under my feet which had one been part of a wall. But also thin roots of bog pines and junipers crawling between those fallen pieces and looking for a way for life. For that patch I was looking for, where the mists rising from the mosses were strongest.

I touched that piece of low wall, which finally convinced me that it was real, not an interplay of shadows and starlight. I turned around and I saw… her. Made of that same mist and starlight but somehow more definite and with more recognizable features. She glided soundless through the fog, forcing it to retreat, but I could not see her touching the ground. She glided towards me and placed her hands on my cheeks as she always used to greet us.

Gentle and cool, yet a faint touch, but I knew it was her. It was her face, made of mist, looking like she did long ago as a young maiden. Her head and eyes were covered with a hood, which seemed to drape down her shoulder and become one with the rest of the figure.

“You have become so old...” I head her voice in the distance, whispering as if all around me.

For a moment I was certain I had totally lost my wits because the figure in front of me did not speak, only stood there with a distraught appearance, having now lowered her hands.

“You have become so old… ...but I?”

“Krista...” I finally dared to ask, now sensing how old and tired my voice was compared to hers.

“Jaak?” the voice around me asked. “You should not be here… What are you still doing here? You should have been gone a long time ago...”

“What happened to you, dear?” I asked.

I tried to touch her hand but all I managed to do was to break that misty form of hers into small vortices.

“I should not have come here… I cannot see you any more. Never. It is not good. I do not want to see you come here ever again...”

Rain started falling all around me. Moments later I saw them hit her form, every drop was like a small explosion, tearing her apart.

“I have to go. I have to go before...”

Suddenly I heard a deafening lightning strike, more powerful than anything in the skies. This could be only one thing, the bolt had hit the tower.

This very same flash made the fog figure definite, drawing out the face of Your mother, her face as if she was alive and corporeal. This seemed to frighten her and before I could grab her, she dissipated into mist and steam which in turn became invisible. The only thing left of her, was a piece of fabric from when I grabbed her, a piece that looked like it had been in the bog for years and in final stages of decomposition. And wrapped inside that fabric was her gold necklace with her astrological sign.

I don’t know what happened next. I only remember waking on a bed of moss next to a bog lake. When the sun was already high in the clear sky, shining brightly over the whole swamp. The cone had tumbled over and the berries were in a neat pile right in front of my face. There was no sign of an island in the middle of a lake, even less of any stone trail or low walls.

However I did notice something catching the sunlight and reflecting it at the edge of the bog. It was a stone tablet, perhaps even an old gravestone, partly covered in plants and moss. And at the bottom of it, tied on a section of root jutting out from the ground, were the gold chain and the piece of old cloth. Just as I had found in my hand during the night.

*

The gold chain and the cloth are still here, by her photo. I don’t know what she was talking of. What did she mean by her words. But I know I won’t be returning to the mire. I don’t want to. I cannot. Your mother is dead, my son. Maybe I am only now understanding it… I do not expect your forgiveness to my thoughtlessness. I only hope that this letter makes it to you, that you will take it into consideration and come to visit me before it is my time to dissipate into the fog.

Warmest regards

Your loving father.