EPILOGUE


Mon cœur,

Is it silly of me to still address you in letters, when we have not spent more than a few hours away from each other for some time?

(I lose track of time here, as I suppose all mortals would, for the sun sometimes seems to go many days without setting, and then many days without rising. But it has been some time, I think.)

Perhaps some habits are difficult to break. Perhaps because long ago I once wrote to you in the guise of a figure from a romantic novel, and now I have, in a way, become that girl that I once dreamed of being.

Will you touch me again tonight, mon cœur, in that way that transports me momentarily out of my mortal body? And will you let me touch you and claim you as eagerly as you have claimed me?

I must have gained some newfound immortal strength from my time in this world, for I find that I do not want for sleep in the way that I once did. And I also find that I quite enjoy feeling you pressed up against and inside me when we are both standing, perhaps with a view out of one of the castle windows, or against a tree in the forest, when you lift me up easily and we move as one until you cry out every bit as loudly as I do.

Perhaps I write these letters still because I love to imagine your breath catching when you read them. You may be the one with magics, but I enjoy this little power that I can have over you.

Is it depraved of me to go on wanting you like this? If it is, so be it—I am grateful to no longer be beholden to the mortal world's judgment.

Write to me, mon cœur, and tell me what you would do to me in the night, or in the day, or whenever it takes your fancy.

The waiting is sweet agony.

Yours eternal,

Sarah


AUTHOR'S NOTE:

And we're done! Thank you for going along on this journey with me.

I've been fascinated by epistolary stories for a long time, maybe since I read Griffin and Sabine as a child. That book had the added joy of actually including physical envelopes that you could open, with hand-written letters and postcards inside, which might have inspired the details at the end of this story about auction items and archived proclamations. This story also owes a lot to Dangerous Liaisons, Dracula, and Gothic romances like The Castle of Otranto, though I couldn't help ending things a little happier than typical Gothic romance often ends.

It was also a fun challenge to see if I could convey everything secondhand (through letters and other documents). I might try that again in a modern setting.

This story took a VERY different turn almost as soon as I started writing it, and it was a challenge to resolve the threads that I'd started as things shifted. As usual Jareth never seems to stay dark in my longer stories, and this one ended up being much longer than I'd planned.

I agonized a bit over the identity of the "third party"-who exactly was meant to be reading all these letters and random bits of writing? The publishers, in the beginning, but what happens once Sarah & Jareth find out the letters have been stolen? In the end I just tried to wrap things up as best I could and focus on the narrative. No, it's probably not that realistic for Abigail to be able to get a hold of ALL of those letters, but I hope you'll forgive the occasional leaps in logic.

Mainly I'm just happy that not only Sarah but her mother and Roger got happy endings. Ladies who love ladies need more happy endings in nineteenth century stories, and I also found that I couldn't just leave Roger behind.

Thanks as always for all your reviews and kudos / favorites, they've really meant the world to me!