Letters: Emily to Liam 5

Response to Liam’s 5th letter.

Dear Liam,

Thank you so much for your letter! Lenora is definitely right; you are a really smart, wise and nice grandpa! Well, you’re not exactly a grandpa to me, but something like that. Not that I know what it’s like to have one. I mean, I never knew any of my grandparents. My adoptive parents’ still living parents do visit sometimes, but they live in different towns so we don’t see them that often. My point is; you’re really awesome and I like you a lot. And I’m glad you’re always ready to talk to me about stuff. Even stuff that’s difficult.

It was cool to hear more about Mathilda too. I’ve heard that there’s plenty of gods and goddesses, but it’s still a very great honour to become one. I guess being a god or a goddess is important work at least if one has lots of power. How did Mathilda become a goddess? Does she have worshippers? She has to if she’s a goddess, right? And you know, being afraid to die isn’t anything to be ashamed of. It’s pretty normal, from what I’ve heard. Mathilda just had the power to stop herself from dying without causing much harm to others (I assume), and did so. Somehow. I’ve heard that lots of people try to stop themselves from dying, and many do it in ways that aren’t ethical at all. That’s really awful.

Anyway, thank Mathilda for the gift! I got the gem she sent me and I tried it. And it worked! At least kind of. I did as she told and haven’t used it all the time, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I think it’s because some of my nightmares aren’t just normal nightmares. They’re caused by this thing that happened to me and… well, they’re old and powerful. But the normal nightmares have stayed away when I’ve used the gem, and I’ve been sleeping really well! So thank you! And Mathilda especially! It’s an honour to get such a gift! And to be liked by a goddess… I don’t think I have spunk, but I guess I can come across a little braver in writing or when you tell someone about me. But still… thank you. 🙂

Can you ask Mathilda if I can let someone else use the gem too? My brother has nightmares too. I can tell him it’s a mystical space rock and he’ll probably try it then even though he isn’t that aware of magic.

Oh, you have a great-great-granddaughter? And she’s in the Project too? I knew it! Your entire family will soon be in this :D! And a ghost is in the Project too? Then my uncle being in it might not be THAT weird. That’s right; I talked to him about it again, and he agreed to participate! He was all awkward about it and said that no one would want to write him, but now he already has more than one pen pal! When he talks about it he looks pretty happy, so I think nothing’s going wrong and that it’s all good. And reality hasn’t been broken!

Oh, I’m jumping all over the place again with my writing. But yeah, ghosts… I know a bit about them. Especially about the in-between place! You see, that’s my uncle’s domain. Realm. Home. He says that in his home there are lost souls who don’t know how to get to the proper whatever comes after death, and he gives them a place to stay until they do find the way. And there are also those who can go back to the living as ghosts but are stuck and can’t move on. Some of the ghosts can get so lost that they can’t even find their way back to Uncle Tad’s place, but some are sort of shuttling between the living world and my uncle’s home.

I don’t know if getting forward from there always has to do with being good or bad. My uncle says that there are so many possibilities for what happens after dying and so many reasons for people to go to different places (he himself is totally impartial as to who goes where. He’s just there to make sure they go somewhere). If there even really is a different place for different kinds of living things. I don’t know. Anyway, my uncle says that the only one who can usually really figure out how to get a ghost unstuck is the ghost him/herself. I hope your great-great-granddaughter’s new pen pal will eventually find her way.

I also know a ghost, but I don’t see him that often. He lives with a friend of mine, but he can only come to the world of the living at night. He seems nice, though. I wish he’ll eventually find his way too.

I’m glad your time as a dead person was good and worked out for you, and that you could visit the living. And I’m glad that you’re here now.

So here I go again with the morbid stuff. Okay, now happy things… happy things… well, I mean, you mentioned teleportation and a Stephen King -story. It sounds cool; I’ll see if the library has it. But teleportation… I’ve heard that people at least around here need a permission to do it. If they even can pull it off, that is. My brother once said that teleportation would be impossible, at least with science.

“I mean, it would mean the body has to be broken into atoms and then be reassembled,” he said, “I don’t think anyone can go through that without dying. Even if it did somewhat work, the person who got to the other end wouldn’t be the same. They could have the same memories and look the same, but they would still be a new person.”

It sounded really creepy. But I guess (and hope) it’s different with some really advanced magic.  I’m not surprised you guys can teleport without ill effects. My uncle can do it too, though he says that in his case it’s not teleporting but just that he can be in all the places at once because of what he is. And if he wants to move someone to a different place he’ll just convince reality that said person is in the other place. It’s weird and I don’t get it, but as long as it works…

But man, I bet it would be cool to travel by broomstick too! Though it sounds a bit uncomfortable. Do broomsticks have some kinds of seats nowadays? Like a bike saddle?

And yeah, the wedding! It went really well, and I’m still kind of hyped and scared about it. Like “did I really do that? Play in front of all those people?” But I did and it was pretty nice. The whole party was nice. Also I bet you can already guess who the one who gave me advice to combat stage fright was: it was Lenora. 🙂 She’s so cool!

Your Aurora is also a musician? And she’s destined for greatness? That sounds mysterious and fairytale-like. I’d love to hear more about it! She sounds really skilled and amazing. Maybe someday I’ll hear her sing. And yeah, I think Uncle Tad harmonised with himself, but if you’d ever call him talented to his face, he’d get all embarrassed and say that calling him talented would be an insult to those who have real vocal cords and who actually need to practise so they can do stuff like that. He says that his voice gets echo-y and many voices at once because that’s what people often assume Death sounds like.

I don’t care what he says, though. Hearing him sing is still great.

So yeah. Music sounds like a good way to end a letter. Music and food. Again. My sister is doing fine with her veganism and getting all the nutrients she needs.

She’s one of my idols. She’s been through a lot, but she’s really tough and isn’t afraid to try to change things. I mean, both of my sisters are doing a lot to help people, and so are my parents. But the sister I’m talking about does it with such attitude and openness and isn’t afraid to call other people out on being mean or destructive. I heard she just arranged a big protest at her university. It was against plans to put up a mostly unnecessary, polluting factory near our town. She’s really good at talking and can manage to be mostly friendly about her values even when she’s loud about them.

“You can be badass and stick to your values, but just don’t be an ass about it,” she often says, “Then people will just shoot the messenger and ignore the message.”

I’ve been thinking of maybe going at least vegetarian too because of her (and my uncle’s – he refuses to “eat corpses”, as he puts it) example. But I can also understand the charm of meat and potatoes especially if it’s a part of your culture. I like meat too, especially the organic kind mum always buys, but I also like my veggies. We’ll see what I’ll decide.

I don’t mind your long letters, Mr. Liam. It’s always great to hear from you.

Oh, and I started looking for magic and mysteries in my hometown! And pretty sights too. It’s a lot of fun. And your Lenora invited me to your upcoming super-royal-fairytale double wedding! I’m seriously thinking about coming, but I’m a bit scared to travel alone and I’m not sure if my family would be ready to let me meet my pen pals yet. But I’ll let you know when I know for sure. It would be awesome to meet you guys, so I’m really thinking about it.

Until then, I’ll be glad to hear more from you. I hope things keep going well for you.

Regards,
Emily

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Author’s Note: Yep, for those who haven’t already noticed, Tad is also in the Pen Pal Project now. If you’re curious about his letters, you can see them and his profile here.

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