Good Morning, Little Ones!

Thank you to Mel, Jill, and Paige!

September 3, 1939

My Dearest Edward,

Time is short, My Love, and so rather than give you all the answers you deserve, I fear I must summarize the predicament we now find ourselves in.

Life was meaningless until I found you. You, who breathed a spark of life in me more full than the last seventy years managed. You see, My Love, I have not been honest with you. It is true I was born in Prague, the daughter of a merchant, but the year of my birth was 1851, sixty-nine years before the date I told you. You would not know it looking at me, and likely even now though you love me dearly, you are doubting me.

I understand.

It is a complicated tale, one I do not have all the answers to myself, but I shall share with you what I know.

When I was no more than fifteen, my parents began introducing me to potential suitors. Rich, powerful, and noble men were paraded in front of me, meant to show me just how comfortable my life could be one day if I fell in line.

I planned to, My Darling, I truly did. I planned to marry an English Duke, and through him, my children would one day hold titles and become important people that would elevate my family's position. My marriage to him would save me from the impending wars breaking out across Prussia.

It was all mapped out.

And then I met you.

No, My Love, it was not you as you are now, for I know that you were born in Chicago in 1918. But the man I gave my heart to was also an American. His name was Daniel, and he was born in Virginia in 1839. I have included in this letter a small portrait of him, for I fear you would not believe me if not for the evidence seen by your own eyes. He was beautiful, charming, absolutely extraordinary, and utterly common. For him, I left my family and all that I knew behind. We left for America and were married as soon as we arrived. I was the wife of a merchant, one too young and too fresh to have established his fortune yet. Penniless after our travels back to his homeland, we spent our first night as husband and wife in a barn.

For a fleeting moment, it was perfect.

And then Daniel took me into his arms and explained to me what was going to happen. What has always happened, according to him. He spoke of ancient curses, of soulmates trapped in eternity but kept apart by fate. He explained that a single night of intimacy would change the course of their lives. The one who waited would die within twenty-four hours, and the one who was new to this world would freeze as they were, doomed to wander the earth until the other was reborn as someone new.

My Love, that is how I knew you, better perhaps than you knew yourself, when we met mere weeks ago. All this time, nearly seventy years I have waited for you, sought you out in your next life.

Now that we have made love, it is only a matter of hours until I die, and my heart cannot take it anymore.

My Darling, I want you to promise me something. Promise me that when I am reborn, whenever that may be, that you stay away from me. I do not care about my own immortal soul, but I shall not be the cause of your death. Never again.

Daniel did not know how this terrible curse started, but I know how it must end.

I must ask of you the impossible. You must break the cycle, My Love. It is the only way for us to be free. Spout whatever venom you must when next we meet, break my heart if you have to. You own it completely, and when our souls are finally free, I will forgive you for any pain so long as we are together in eternity.

You are my love, the reason I live and now die.

And I do not regret a single moment of it.

You have all my love, for all of eternity.

Lina