Description
In every old town there are strange stories. In towns as old as ours, where magic lingers, sometimes the stories are stranger still. Everyone knows the tale of the Havondales, and the curse that dogged them through the centuries. No doubt you will have heard it at the knees of your nurse, and in the whispers of the servants long before you are old enough to read. No one tells it the same way - and yet I have found that all tellings have a kernel of truth. I know this, my darling, because it is your father's story, and mine. You are far too young for it yet, but if I do not record it now, I fear that the details will fade like your father's magic. It is a comfortable forgetting, but it is our history, and if you grow to be anything like me, you will be sorely disappointed if we cannot recollect all the minutest details when you are old enough to hear it. So I have dug up or hunted down the old letters, and taken up my pen as you sleep, your aureole of curls ruddy in the sun, to tell you what our world was like before you were born.
Isabelle Havondale to Alice Havondale
