I hate this time change. I feel exhausted. When I woke up at my usual time and the clock said eight thirty, I wanted to throw my lamp at it. The hell it is eight thirty.
Excerpt:
I opened the windows in the library. They were heavy and jammed, but I slammed them up with the heel of my hand, wedged it with a book. There were no screens. At once the cold morning air poured in, with the sound of birds and faint in the distance, the sound of steady hammering.
In the desk, I found a pad of lined paper and regular fountain pens. In the shallow top drawer there were stamps, envelopes, even a book of checks with his name on it. I saw him sitting there, writing out his monthly mortgage check, licking the envelope closed, fixing the stamp, almost as though he were a normal person.
Grimly, determined, I put the pad on the desk and uncapped the pen.
“Dear Mom and Dad,” I wrote and then was stuck. Completely stuck.
"Surprise! Stephan isn't human after all, he’s a crazed faerie warrior and blacksmith,” I tried out in my head. “He is taking me to the Faerie Realm to do battle for his bloodthirsty brother who has ambitions for the throne. But don't worry, it's totally not a big deal; he's still that charming person you met at dinner.”
I tried again.
“Stephan and I are madly in love. We have run off to get married and will live in Paris. Don’t expect to hear from us, despite the obvious fact of telephones. It's just, we're going to be too wrapped up in one another to bother. For several years. We have taken a ship, I have left the car at the coast. Please come and pick it up when you can.”
I almost went with that one. But I knew they wouldn’t believe me.
“Dear Mom and Dad,” I began again. “You won’t believe a word I’m writing and that’s ok. Just when everything starts falling apart, I want you to remember this letter and get it out and reread it. I think then you might find the truth more comforting than anything else.
