A letter to Laurie: First news in two years.

Dear Laurie,

I'm writing to tell you of the dreadfully interesting events that have befallen me and my group of misfit friends in the recent past.  Also, I have not written you lately and have grown ever so guilty after receiving letter after letter about the life in the country that I miss since coming to the city.  You remember the Burbanks fellow who came back with me that one summer and we went on the carriage ride to the mill with when you'd run out of flour at your house?  Well, it turns out that he had an uncle down in Tillsbury that had recently kicked the bucket as it were and left a single suitcase of his to my friend that the family eventually got around to writing him about.  Me having nothing to do at the time as I'd lost my job in the paper business the week before, (a dreadfully boring story that involved a certain lady and her cat, I would have wrote you about it, but I anticipate to be back in the workforce shortly, and was waiting for good news to send back with the bad) I hopped on the train with him and rode down to see his section of the country.  Much less of a cheery place than out old woods and fields, I can tell you that.  Everything has a foggy shady quality about it, somewhat like corner pond, but all the time instead of after hard rain when it gets mucky and steams up the place so that you lose your way and have to call out into the mists.  Still, it was charming in its own way.  Little carvings into the tree-trunks and mossed over signs pointing to landmarks like "withering crown fountains" were just wonderful to see, as well as the quiet beauty of the place itself.  Waking up in the morning and seeing the mists slowly ebb back from the house walls and then around sunset creep back in to the point that curtains were almost superfluous was just grand.  I am not sorry to be back in the sun however, and when we were back at the inn that the gang takes its free time he finally consented to open the package considering that it was a nice and sunny day out.  I must remark that through the trip he had been as quiet as the weather, and so it was hard to get anything out of him in guidance for a good tour of the place.  He'd refused to open it there on the grounds that he would sleep better if it were sealed until we had come back to the city.  The gang, including Billy Underfoot and Long-Rag Murry were all around and were as interested in the happenings as much as I had been, but they had steel work to deal with that week and couldn't join in the trip.  I wouldn't have even known about it I suspect, but the mail came when I was visiting him and he looked quite glum when he saw the address on the letter that I told him he should surely need traveling company to keep him from going comatose.  His uncle must have been in dire straights for him to have suspected the news so fast, perhaps also because he never seems to have mail from the relations much at all.  More to the point, the suitcase was beautiful black leather, worse the wear for a lifetime of travelling it seemed.  little scuffs and scratches and a big laceration that went down one side but didn't quite penetrate both layers.  His uncle worked with animals I'd heard so it seemed to be a product of his job.  When the brass key turned in the lock and the sun got own into the bag it was a sight to see, let me tell you.  In there was a bottle of old aged rum that seemed to have a peculiar maker's mark that in all honesty I couldn't match with any that I'd seen before.  It was like a stags head but with the detailing of a snake, fangs and scales and eyes, all wrapped in a laurel leaf and molded into the dark amber glass.  He didn't open that, just set it aside and told us that it wouldn't be wise to have a drink, I suppose because it was worth more than it would taste in our bellies.  He never did talk about it again.  The other thing inside was a silver inlaid knife, the type that you would use to cut up a deer or mountain lion after hunting one down and hanging it out in the smokehouse.  It was of fine craftsmanship the type that was just as practical as it was beautiful, and I know that your father would have sold the entire estate to get at something so fine, so I would take precautions to keep this part secret if you relate the details to him over dinner at some time.  Do be sure to give him my regards as I haven't seen him in years, having missed him as you know that summer I came back in the recent past.  The knife sat upon a letter and the whole of everything was packed in snugly with black fur, I wasn't sure of the specific animal, but it was from some sort of predator I'm sure.  I did not get a look at the letter, as he said it was private, but he did pull me aside later that night and tell me that he should be glad of company again as he needed to make a trip to the coast where his uncle had been found before being taken back to his home town.  I leave in the morning, but I am not sure when next I will be given a chance to post of anything of note that would amuse you as I hope this does.  Little else would interest you in city life as you have always said, it being a stuffy place that is a "drain on the heart and soul of the common man."

Best wishes,

your cousin, Clark Winsington.