To whomever finds this letter,
If you are reading this, then it means that someone has found this page, and that I am gone. Where have I gone? To the Deep Woods. My story is a long one, but I have not the time here to tell it in full. I shall tell you in brief what happened to me.
They say the Fairies must pay a tithe to Hell once every seven years. I do not think this is true. For Hell is a place beyond human death, somewhere the Fairy Folk cannot reach. But still, every seven years the Fairy Host in the woods near my home takes a human child away. They demand we give up the child willingly, even allowing us to choose which child. This is cruel of them, but they see it as a kindness and do not understand what pain and anguish being forced to choose inflicts upon us. There is no option to not choose, for they would simply take another, and we dare not let them choose for themselves. But the horror, the shame, the guilt. We feel so much when the child is led away into the trees.
But where do they go? To Hell? No. Even did the Fairies pay a tithe to that infernal place, I do not think the souls of innocents can be taken that way. But then what is their purpose? I didn’t like to think on it, preferring to forget such questions as long as my own family was safe. But then came the sickness. It swept through the village. Some said the Fairies sent it, but why would they? We had done nothing to arouse their wrath. To my mind it is simply the way of the world to be full of suffering.
My wife and child took ill, and though I strove to nurse them back to health, when we ran low on food in the tail end of winter, just before the spring, I had to bury them in graves laid side by side.
So I was alone, and yet...Not alone. A village is a community, a family. Even divided as we were by the Fairy demands, we could not help but feel the bonds of kinship with one another. That is why, when the girl was chosen for the tithe, I offered to go in her stead. Her name was Adelaide. She was the daughter of my neighbors, and had been the close friend of my own daughter, Irene. Seeing the grief her family had for a daughter they had not even lost yet, it undid me. I offered to go in her stead.
The Fairy Ambassador was greatly taken aback by my offer. But he accepted it. He told me that I would be allowed seven days to put my affairs in order, say goodbye, and do anything else I desired. On the seventh day I was to go to the woods.
So I write these words knowing that tomorrow I must go. I will seal the letter with wax to preserve it and leave it behind at the forest’s edge. Do not grieve for me, stranger. Grieve for those I leave behind. The weight of grief and guilt grows greater with each passing day. Who knows how long they will be able to bear it before they break at last? I go willingly to whatever fate lies before me, whether Hell itself or some other dark unknown. I beg you, stranger, think of me. Remember me in times of grief and suffering. For whatever comes tomorrow or the day after, tonight as I write this, I am thinking of you.
Sincerely,
Alban Fürst
-A letter found at the edge of the old woods. Sealed in beeswax it was in near perfect condition despite being half buried. There were the long ago remains of what might have been a village. But no one else remains, only the ghost of Alban that lingers in the letter he left behind.
