LETTER FROM ANNE BOLEYN TO ALEC GRECO 2014
I can’t very much start this letter with anything but the truth: I love you; for as much as I may have doubted it for a moment, if at all, but it is the sole truth. I write this because I am aware that you may doubt my words, too aware, perhaps, especially when you realise that I left you behind by means of my own survival; you must believe me, the hardest part of this whole thing is leaving you behind. But I couldn’t risk it, my guardian; you must believe me when I tell you that to you I trust my deepest secrets, my whole existence and unbeating heart are trusted with you as they have been for some time, but if I ever had doubted I’d have a thing to hide from you I have regretfully found it. When your words made clear the loyalty you held for the coven, my initial plan to ask you to run away with me broke into uncountable pieces, for I realised I could not attempt to make you choose between it and me; the amount of time you’ve spent in this group you call a family has been greater than the one you have spent with me, and I simply cannot bring myself to make you choose, it would not be fair to you or I.
If everything goes how it should, then I will be miles from here when you read this. I must apologize, for I am either too weak or too strong, whichever your opinion may be, to have chosen this path for me on my own. I beseech you, my love, try to see things the way I do, as a member of this guard of the lowest rank, as you, whether you might have meant it firmly or not, reminded me the last time we spoke; to live in fear of being eradicated if I do wrongly upon my masters, or to be forced to feel a bond to a coven I barely just joined. You must understand, I already lived in fear once, and I am not as willing to do so again; not when the first time the terror ended with my death, and though I have you, which you must know is more than enough for me, we both know that no word is more powerful than that of the king, or kings in this situation. And again, if I were ever to be put in that position between life and death, I would rather not burden you with the choice of the place you’ve called home for longer than I have lived, and me.
I must thank you, for you saved my life in more ways than one; you taught me how to be what I truly am, and your coven, as wrongful in some means as they may be, gave me the opportunity to be myself one more time. You showed me that though our past will forever remain in our minds it should not completely control us, and you gave me a light in my life that I never even thought or considered I’d ever see again. A wise person once said “If the ending of your story is a happy one, why should how it started matter?”, and this I say to you: I do not care if the love I felt for you was not genuine from the start, all that matters to me is that this is how I feel now, how I felt for the time we spent together, and as I leave, know that I leave a piece of me with you; and if you must think of me at all, I only ask that you remember me as the woman who loved you with all her heart, and, in danger of sounding egocentric, I must ask that you not worry about me surviving in the big bad world, because remember, I learnt from the best.
From she who will forever remain yours,
Anne Boleyn.
