ANNOUNCEMENT: 

The Letter Game is currently on hiatus indefinitely while Brynne and I figure out where we want it to go and try to organise things. 

Thank you for reading. 

-Layli

Port Matilda, PA

Dear Vi,

Saturday through Wednesday, huh? I hope you have a good time with him! Jason, that is. I’m sure you will. He’s fun to hang out with.

The Washburn boys spent ALL DAY yesterday at our house because their grandparents had some thing they had to go to. All three of them. They basically sat in Grandpa’s living room and played card games. I can’t sit on the floor very well, because of my cast, but it’s okay. Brennan brought his iPod and plugged in a pair of speakers. The boys have pretty good taste in music—they all like this group called Drosophilia Endobranchia (at least, I think that’s how it’s spelled…I guess it’s the name of a fly or something?). I dunno. But they’re burning me CDs. I guess the band has three albums. If I like them enough I’ll get them to give me copies I can send to you, too….

God. I miss you, Vi.

Hang on, mail’s here…

I got a letter from Mom! Hang on, let me open it…

…

Oh God. VIOLET! You’ll probably have got yours by the time this gets in the mail. This is what mine said:

Dear Abby,

Things aren’t too good with your dad and me right now, so you might be staying with your grandfather longer than I expected. I didn’t want to tell you this—I wasn’t going to—but you’re a big girl. I’ve written to your sister as well. If the stay lasts even longer then you can either go to school there or stay home with a distance curriculum. But it’s probably not a good idea for you to come home right now.

If that’s the case, I want you to seriously consider attending the area high school. I went there, it’s not bad. Staying home wouldn’t be ideal for a variety of reasons.

Please don’t listen to closely to Dad. He’s getting old and sometimes he mixes up reality and fantasy.

Love,
Mom.

I don’t even know what to say. My head is exploding. Seriously. All that stuff about Dro-Soph seems pretty stupid right this minute and—

GAH.

I don’t know what to do.

Love
Abby

Batesville, Arkansas

Abby, in case you haven't noticed, I've decided to jump on the Facebook bandwagon. Jumping is fun! Anyhow, I found Luke (Turner) and added him as a friend. Talking to him is kind of weird. He's really nice, and usually I can forget exactly who he is, but there are times when I'll remember, and it's a bit awkward. But we talked on the phone for over an hour a couple of days ago, and I think we'll stay in touch. Especially since he has Facebook. 

Jason's staying with me from Saturday until Wednesday, which should be fun. I have yet to look in the drawers under Aunt Zinny's bed, because I've been babysitting and volunteering at the library. I would call Aunt Zinny and ask her about a bunch of stuff, but she's at some sort of conference on the West Coast, so that'll have to wait until she gets back. 

When Jason gets here, we're going to do a bit of poking around. And I'll think of something to tell him when the time comes. I've always had your dose of blarney in addition to my own, and it shouldn't fail me now. 

I'll write more when later, now I have to run! 

Love, 

Vi

Port Matilda, PA

Dear Violet,

I was going to wait for you to reply to my last letter before I sent you this, but then I was looking through the drawers in my bedroom and I came across some pictures.

Seriously. You should see these. I scanned them in to the computer and I put them on Facebook, but a) I’m unreliable on Facebook due to Brennan’s flightiness (okay, it was really nice of him to let me use his computer, no hard words) and b) I think you’ll want to see these in hard copy.

Three pictures.

The first one is the only photo I’ve ever seen of Mom’s whole family. I think it was taken in 1979, and oh man, it’s so funny!

Okay, so I kindasorta knew that Grandpa and Gram were hippies back in the day – that’s why I was so surprised to find that Gram came from an Amish background. But when I found this picture, I about threw up in my mouth. I mean, after I got over the fact that it even existed. I have never seen a picture of my uncles. Have you?

I brought it to Grandpa and he looked at it and told me who was in it. I wrote the names on the backs of my copies, but I don’t know if you want me to do that with yours, so I’ll just tell you here.

On the left, with his foot on a box and a mullety hairstyle, is Uncle Max. The uncle who died. Gramps said he was seventeen that year. Next to him in the horrible horrible short shorts and muscle tank is Calvin, who was thirteen…GOD. I’m so happy those short shorts are out of style on men. Hideous.

Next to him, obviously, is Gram, her hair already going gray (I’m not so fond of the cut!). She’s holding Susanna, our aunt who I didn’t know about either. Then is Grandpa (don’t even LOOK at that hair!) and then is Mom. She was fifteen. She looks so much like you!! Seriously. I’m diggin’ the baby poop green shirt/dress thing, too…and next to her on the end is Joey, who was…10? Yeah, that’s what Grandpa said.

1979. Oh man.

The second picture was taken in 1986. So Mom and Dad were engaged, which explains why she’s in the portrait. She would have been 22 and Dad was 21…weird to think, huh? And Dad still has that weird tie. Though not the red glasses (with a pink shirt?!), thank God. Then is Gramps and Granny, looking very cute, though Granny’s hair has that feathered look they did back then that I hate. And Gramps has a dorky bowtie. And he was only 48, four years older than Dad is now, but his hair is completely gray!

Then is Uncle Joseph. The one we didn’t know about. Have you any clue yet as to what happened to him? He’s thirteen there, but a pretty young-looking thirteen. And then Aunt Zinny is eleven.

And then the last picture…well, you don’t have to look at it if you don’t want to. It’s of our family. You know…you, me, Mom, Dad, and Sammy. I’m astonished yet again by how much you look like Mom…except you have Dad’s eyes. I have to admit, Dad looks pretty loveable in his incredibly dorky kind of way. And Sammy looking way to skinny for his shirt….

It makes me so sad. What happened, I mean. God, I miss you.

So. About the Cobbs. I’m assuming they’re the Eagle family, the ones cast out for killing off the Sparrows (or whatever they did to them. Pretty shocking really. But I’ll definitely keep an eye out for the Cobbs….

Grandpa says that tomorrow he’s going to show me some of the stuff in his boxes. You know, the old drawings and stuff. I’ll let you know how that goes!

Love,
Abby

Port Matilda, PA

No time for internet café the other day but when I told Brennan about it he said that I could get on his computer! YESS! So I’ll email you as soon as possible. Also, I’m getting a Facebook account because Jason said he wanted me to so he could actually TALK to me…guess I’m caving. SIGH. ;)

This is quick, so it’s probably not worth the stamp, but just wanted to let you know I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth.

Love you,
Abby

P.S. Yeah, got your letter, I’ll answer your questions when I have time.

Dear Abby,

I don’t have a whole lot of time before I have to babysit, so this’ll be short.

I opened the package from Judith. It contained a gorgeous metal hummingbird wall hanging. I think it’s Mexican. And I’ve tried rubbing it, pressing on different parts of it, and saying ‘open sesame’, but nothing happened. I think I’m just going to have to wait until it does something on its own. Fortunately, I can just stick in with all of Aunt Zinnia’s trinkets, and no one will notice it. There are half a million hummingbirds in my room anyhow.

And I think I’m going to try looking under my bed again and seeing if I can figure out a way of seeing what’s under there. I’m sick of not knowing.

And do you remember anything about fog on the day Sammy died? Because Lucas mentioned it being foggy, but Dad never said anything about that, did he? And it wasn’t foggy at home, so the fog must have covered a tiny area…

I’ll write more later.

Love,

Vi

P.S. Jason just emailed me and said that he’s going to come see me next weekend. It’ll be nice to have some company.  

Port Matilda, Pennsylvania

Vi—

Wow, I’ve really been procrastinating this darn thing. There was so much information in your letter that I had some trouble getting my head around it all…mostly because it STILL doesn’t quite jive with everything else I know, but I guess maybe different families, different perspectives, all that.

You’re probably wondering why this letter took me so long. UH. Three whole days. Well, first procrastination, second, a speeding car hit my bike while I was out on ‘roadkill patrol’ yesterday, knocked it over, knocked me under it, I ended up breaking my ankle. So that puts paid to my ‘job’, but Steve wants to see me this afternoon to go over the sketches and talk about them. It makes it sound like he’s a teacher and it’s a school assignment, you know?

So I’m laid out on the couch. Grandpa still doesn’t have a TV (did I tell you that before?) so there’s not a lot to do but read. And boy, have I been doing a lot of reading. One of these days Grandpa says he’s going to go through those drawers upstairs with me, but we haven’t got round to it yet.

I gather the thing with Lucas Turner wasn’t as exciting as I thought it was going to be! That’s okay. Let me know if you’re still keeping in touch with him.

Love,
Abby

ETA: An announcement: Brennan Washburn is driving Bradford, Brandon, and me to the city tomorrow because in addition to breaking my ankle, the brush with the car also caused Blood and Gore (OK, not gore, just blood) and my shirt and jeans are both permanently stained. Nothing to serious, just I scraped my arms and knees up pretty badly. So the long and short is, I need some new clothes, and Brennan was going anyway so he offered to take me along. I’m not particularly looking forward to it…but I’ll let you know if anything interesting happens while we’re there. I might get a chance to talk to the boys a bit more…though I thought the same thing about the roadkill project and it turned out to be a no-go. They just ignored me.

Anyway—

Mall. Store. Possibly an internet café, in which case I will most definitely take the opportunity to email you (and Mom). Until then, all my love,

Abby