25 December 1888

It's been several years since my last entry, but I hope I'll be forgiven for my delayed notes. I have been, miraculously and against every odd imaginable, charged with raising a child. That ought to earn me some good graces in the eyes of whoever reads this, no?

Carroway Andrews looks remarkably like each of his parents, and succeeds in vexing me as much as his father did. He laughs loudly each time he sees my eyes roll or my brow furrow, looking at and trying to determine how to clean whatever mess he's gotten himself in. When he's older, perhaps, I'll teach him how to garden. Heaven knows he loves rolling around in the dirt enough. His bright brown eyes sparkle the way his mother's did, when she was toiling away in my garden for the mere pleasure of getting her hands dirty. His auburn hair catches the light like spun copper, brightening his face when he laughs at me.

I have never suspected myself capable of bearing children, but I know, when I behold this mischievous and sparkling face, that I love this child as if it were my own.

In the weeks that followed the hellish escape form the Radcliffe house, I found myself in the care of Mr. Thomas, the much-grieved father of my suddenly dead friend. Looking at him most days was enough to bring me to tears, but still reeling from the death of his wife and daughter, the presence of tears was never far from him, either. The months following Evelyn's unwilling departure had brought only more grief - Jack had grown ill and succumbed to the heavy cold the end of the year brought, leaving Mr. Thomas with only two of the smallest children to care for. The business had been flagging because of the weather, and with funerary expenses to oversee, the last competent adult of the family had grown haggard and sleepless. Even the day I found myself on his porch, weakened from my extended state of sickness and the violent rush to leave Cambridge, his reaction had been sluggish at best. Only once I was inside and the baby had begun to scream for its mother did he wake up.

That was all so long ago, it seems. If I had not the responsibility of keeping Carroway, so lovingly named for the man who'd been instrumental in his freedom, I would have likely dwelled eternally on the pain of not only my friends and their fates, but being so completely incapable of assisting them. Anything I was able to do after sending Atticus his final coded letter was reduced to useless once I fell ill. It was a horrible feeling for a better part of the last year, the guilt and the shame, but since Carroway has begun to speak and walk about, I find I have less time to torture myself with what cannot be changed or undone.

More than just a baby came out of the mess of that year. Atticus, unbeknownst to anyone else, had been transferring my notes and his experiences living with the doctor to a lawyer and a man in the newspaper business. An investigation had begun during my unintentional slumber, and once Evelyn had passed away, the snooping proved sensational enough to incense the townsfolk. Even Lord DeCourt's fate was mentioned, and I heard nought but outcry (from the safety of the Thomas house, as I dared not leave the house for some time) from the post about his unjust treatment. Leaving as I had, it did not learn of the true ends of either the Lord or Atticus until the seasons had changed six times.

I had hoped, and hoped foolishly, that they would both be alive and free in the world, no longer prisoners of the doctor, but my desires were nothing more. The Lord, I learned, was taken to a hospital, but his illness from the past year and the terrible condition he'd been left in that fateful night proved too much for the doctors and nurses.

As for Atticus, my heart only grows heavy with sorrow when I think of him. Because he was the father of Mr. Thomas' only grandchild, several members of town had been looking into his history, had been tearing apart the newspapers hoping for information. He was, we all learned one evening, as the sky wept a hundred times more fiercely than usual, grieving right along with us, very dead. Mutilated, I believe the report stated. His body was only recognised by the hair that remained, bright and angry red. There was a void in my chest that I knew could never be filled again upon hearing this. The punishment for betraying a man who had been the very picture of cruel was not to be meted out lightly. Perhaps Atticus would have approved of his own death, surgically extreme and guaranteed to cause a spectacle. A natural one was too plain for him, anyway, and that was all I had left to cling to.

In regards to the matter of dearest Evelyn's body, to this day, it has never been found. The only thing that I can think of when I consider is that perhaps the doctor had eaten her.

A very strange thing to think of, but I am irreparably damaged by the final bloody scene at the Radcliffe house (which is now restored to the original family's name! I really ought to stop calling it after the thief!). I suppose a more poetic ending would be her being buried in the garden, but watching Dr. Radcliffe press his bleeding hand to her mouth fills me only with questions I cannot answer, fears I cannot assuage, and nightmares I cannot banish, no matter how many silly remedies for poor sleep I take.

I know, however, that I must move on. I cannot let the doctor hold such a vile influence on my life forever, always wallowing in misery and regrets. Far harder words to write than live by! Now that Carroway is of a (just barely) walking age, I intend to take him back to his family home and clean. Time to sweep out the messy history and build a place to live in! I don't want for the house, but it is his right to live there, and I know all too well the dangers of depriving someone of their natural home for any amount of time. Going back will seem a hindrance to my moving on, but I know, buried in the hard work of fixing the house up and the care needed to keep Carroway strong and healthy, things will turn out for the best. The only hiccups, I suspect, shall be my own failings of health, but I will be all the more prepared for them in an actual house and not running about, chasing adventures for causes I cannot fix in the cold.

That snowstorm was a portent if ever I've seen one - by far one of the worst I've ever been in, and one of the worst the country has seen in quite a long time. Foolish, foolish me! Nothing should have prompted me to leave the house on such a stupid, unplanned journey, but I needed to know.

I know one thing from it all; I ought to keep my nose buried in a book, either scribbling in one or reading how better people than I know when to get tangled up in things they can't explain or fix. My father would laugh if he heard of me wanting to rush around a foreign country with no idea where to go or how to start. I can't say I blame him for that, but there is something, I feel, that tells me this is no longer a foreign country. At least I have that reason to stay! Something is binding me to this strange, heavy soil, a desire perhaps to learn the truth about what I saw in the house two years ago. I cannot access the answers, but Winnifred Yulia Peterson is not a creature easily dissuaded from such sentiments! Every obnoxious impulse I have to ask questions and snoop (qualities I have always fancied would aid in my writing interests) still burns when I picture the last moments of Evelyn Thomas.

I shall be leaving this journal behind for good once I am done here. With the doctor missing, it is only a matter of time before he discovers where I've gone and where I'm headed, and with who. Once I move Carroway back to the house where his father should have grown up a happy boy, I will hide this journal for whoever has the misfortune of meeting the doctor, and for myself, should I have the mercy of old age and forgetfulness.

In fond regard, in thanks for abiding by my side in trouble, in love and sadness and all that mushy nonsense, Winnifred

the end

Epilogue

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