Subj: The Letter
Date: 7/15/99 12:50:24 PM Central Daylight Time
From: Daphne

The Letter

My husband,

By the time you find this letter, the nightshade will have completed its task..I will be dead, but in death I will find the peace that life no longer affords me. When does life become unbearable? When you realize that love is merely a cruel illusion that fades with time’s passing? When your home becomes a prison that keeps you a slave to your pain? When you watch your children die, only to find that one of them has been resurrected as some sort of unholy monster whose existence you can’t comprehend? I haven’t truly lived since I was a young girl, too naive and sheltered to understand the way the world really works. I can only vaguely remember those days now--they seem to be part of a distant and beautiful dream, and sometimes I wonder if they ever really existed. I wish we could return to those days of our youth, when we were happy together but it is both futile and foolish to waste my time thinking of such impossible dreams. You spoke of a curse that has been placed on Barnabas, but you are quite wrong. The curse is on all of us. The whole Collins family has been destined to suffer...you, Barnabas, myself and even our little Sarah. Our fate was written long ago, by whose dark hand we will never know, but the evil is here at Collinwood just the same. There are two things I dare ask of you, but if you ever loved me at all you must do them for the sake of my eternal rest. First, care for Daniel as if he was your own son. With Millicent falling deeper into this family’s tragedy with each passing day, he has no one now; he is the future of the Collins family. Please do your best to see that his future will be brighter than our past have been. Secondly, my charge to you is this: please be strong, Joshua. Know that I will be with our Sarah somewhere just beyond the veil of this life. When it is your time to join us, I will come for you; until then, try to remember the past and think of me only as I was when we first met, when we knew nothing but happiness and light.

Always your faithful wife,
Naomi

7/15/99

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