The Night Country

30

Dear Alice,

Soon I’ll need a break from magical things. I’ll want to walk through a door that’s just a door. I’ll want to talk to a stranger who’s in no way mysterious. If you could see the view from where I’m writing this, you’d understand why.

Fuck it, I think I want all that now. Right now, I want to read books that stay on the page and ride the subway and eat dim sum and I want to hold your hand. I wonder if I’d be brave enough to say this to your face. I think I would. I asked you out once, remember? I kind of want to take that sentence back, but that’s not the way the magic works.

I’m almost ready to come home. I’ve got a way to get there, too, or at least the promise of one. There’s just one more wonder I’m out to see. It’s something out of a book again. It’s called the Night Country, and I don’t want to explain it till I’ve seen it. Someone called it the “very last secret,” whatever that means. I guess it means I won’t know what it is till I get there. It’ll either be heaven or it’ll be hell, but either way an adventure.

I want to write to you again, but what I want even more is to watch your face when you look up from a book one day and see mine. One day soon. I’m gonna be so shy when I see you again. It’s just, by now I’ve said as much to you in letters as I did in life.

Be patient with me, okay? When I see you and my tongue tangles up. Be patient.

I’ll see you after the Night Country.