29 December, 2004

Dear Simon,

Merry Christmas! How are you? It’s too bad you couldn’t come home this year, we had a nice time. Claire and Hannah came a day early to help with the preparations, since Meg’s been busy with the baby. Can you believe it, we didn’t even get our Christmas tree up till then. We’ve all been pretty busy in our own ways. Once they got here it started to really feel like Christmas, though. We missed you a lot. Sam’s great and very funny, but he doesn’t have as many good stories.

Thanks for the fishing set. It’s awesome, and it might come in more handy than you knew. There’s a chance I might be living off the land for a while. Anyway, this set is really nice, way better than the one I lost in the fire.

It’s been noisy around here with the baby, but she’s cute when she’s sleeping. I’ve learned how to feed her. It was weird at first, I didn’t know how to hold her and I was afraid I’d break her or something, but Meg kept telling me she’s tougher than she looks. She tells a lot of stories now about when me and Julia were babies. Is it true you once took me out in the boat while Mom and Dad were away? She laughs about the stories now, but I’m pretty sure she’d kill us if we did anything like that with Maisie.

I hope you can come visit for Easter, Meg would really like to see you. I’d like to see you too, but I probably won’t. Will, Julia, and I are going to be out traveling. We haven’t told Meg yet, and she’ll probably flip out about it, but Julia and I are adults now and Will thinks he’s one. That’s the reason this card is so late. I wanted to write and tell you about it, but not till after we’ve told Meg. I don’t want you two ganging up and trying to stop us.

Here’s what it’s about. You know all the stuff that happened to the family while you were in Portugal? There’s a lot more to it than you ever heard. We don’t really understand all of it, and a lot of it’s just plain weird, but basically, we were hunted for about six weeks. We couldn’t stay anywhere, or it burned–burning the old house was just the beginning. They came after us in hotels, in police stations, anywhere we were. It was crazy. We don’t know who was after us, and we don’t know why. We just ran and ran. And then they stopped, and we don’t know why that happened either. We’ve looked around for clues, especially Will, but I don’t think any of us want to look too hard, because we’re afraid of making it start again.

So me and Julia and Will are kind of stuck. We can’t even talk to people about it, because we don’t understand it ourselves, and nobody would believe what we could tell them. That’s why we let the cops think Paul was somehow responsible, and why we let Claire and you think it was Gaby. Hannah should know better, she was there and she knows it wasn’t Gaby any more than it was me, but she freaked out and doesn’t want to think about it. You only saw her the one time, last Christmas, but I’m telling you she’s really lost it. She tells all her friends her hand was mangled in a car accident, and then she tells you and Claire that Gaby burned down the house and killed Dad and all that crazy stuff, and when we try to tell her that doesn’t make sense, she just changes the subject and pretends she can’t hear us. I don’t blame you and Claire for believing her, because we never tried to explain what really happened, because we can’t. We told Meg about it, as much as we know, and she believes us.

Anyway, all three of us–me, Julia, and Will–want to figure out what it really was. We have to do that. Right now, the way things are, we can’t talk to anyone about what really happened to our family. Even Julia doesn’t have any real friends, because she can’t tell them about herself. We can’t live like that forever, and we can’t start making up stories like Hannah. So we’re going to head off pretty soon and start doing that. Will has some plans, he understands what’s going on better than Julia and me. Anyway, by the time you get this we’ll be gone, so don’t try to change my mind or anything. We’ve got to do this, or we won’t feel safe ever, and we won’t be able to live a normal life. You’d do the same thing if you were me, trust me.

I guess this letter will probably make you worried, but I wanted to let you know what’s going on. We’ve thought everything through very carefully, and I know this is the right thing to do. And you can’t deny that the three of us will make a good team.

I sold the truck and bought a van. It’s cool, Julia and I fitted it out with all the stuff we think we’ll need. If I remember to print them before I mail this, I’ll send you some pictures.

I hope you’re doing well. Are you still seeing that girl? She was cute. Don’t get married or anything without us. I hope we won’t be gone too long, and anyway we’ll be keeping in touch with Meg, if she doesn’t disown us for running off. Maybe we can all be together again next Christmas.

Love,

Nick