To Elsa,
I have been trying to do everything in my power to reach out to you since February, but I haven't been able to hold a quill or see another human being up until just recently. I have faith in the belief that you're safe and sound in Arendelle because I rowed all the way out to sea to speak to one of your captains the other day. He was kind enough to give me a warm drink and a blanket while we sat in his cabin. He's probably going to tell you that I cried my heart out before he could finish telling me about you and Anna. Quite frankly, I'm always afraid to tell you about me. I know what happens when I tell you horrible news, and I know what happens when I try to keep it away from you.
I also know, with the way things are right now, that you can't help me more than you already have, which has been tremendously. You have done more for me and Isolde than I ever could have asked for. You've been extraordinary. Really extraordinary. You have been absolutely, positively perfect… . .. .
It's just that . .. . everything has been less than perfect this winter. It's been one of the worst winters of our lives.
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I have laid eighteen children to rest ― small, innocent children who didn't do anything to anyone ― from December 20th to January 31st with my own two hands in the freezing cold snow. Their immune systems couldn't hold out against the weather, so the unimaginable happened to almost half of the island orphanage's nursery. I've never gotten on my knees in front of a bishop before, but I got on them then. Those babies had no one. They had no family to cry for them or even acknowledge that they were gone; it was just the orphanage, a kingdom of strangers, and me.
I haven't come back from any of it. How can I? How would you? Maybe in twenty years, I'll be able to lie in bed and stare at my ceiling without seeing hundreds of faces screaming at me, but right now, these faces are all that I have at night. I can't even see Rapunzel's anymore; it's buried underneath the mob of lost souls.
I now have to close my eyes and think about Isolde and all of the people who are still alive in order to keep something that at least resembles sanity, but most of them are screaming at me, too. My very small, and very short, coronation was scheduled after the national funeral, along with my daughter's birthday, which is also the day that Rapunzel left me.
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I can't believe she's gone. She promised me that she'd never leave me all alone. Now I'm stuck here, in this castle, alone with people who don't want me anymore. I can't even put on paper how hard it is to breathe, but I can describe how still breathing has made everyone else react. I was blamed and heckled at my coronation for the loss of Corona's sick infants just like I was blamed for our losses in Hohendorf.
People started repeating everything that everyone else in the world thinks:
"If Corona hadn't given Eugene the throne, then other countries would still care about our hardships."
"If Eugene wasn't our king, then those children would still be here."
More people than I ever thought possible defended me against them, but the people who echoed those accusations still had me thinking about options I'm too ashamed to mention... . .
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I feel like I'm a murderer.
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And maybe it's time that I accept that I am one.
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