The night was wet with the sigh of rain.
Lady Anna Whitford sat in her study with the windows wide, the fire whispering low.
The letter she had received
That cursed letter written in a hand she did not know, yet knew all too well had been burned earlier that day. Its ashes still clung beneath her nails, black and stubborn, as if refusing to release her.
She had told herself it was madness, some cruel prank, perhaps even the twisted trick of her imagination. Authors often saw their characters move beyond the page, after all. And yet, when she dreamed, she heard the villain's voice speaking softly words that were not written in her manuscript, words that should not exist at all.
"Do not think me a monster, My Anna . I was a child once too. I only learned to survive the way the world taught me."
The echo made her shudder.
So she tried the only thing she thought might save her ,destruction.
That evening, after her students had left the daughters of merchants and minor noblemen who came to her for instruction in poetry and English literature
Eleanor gathered every manuscript she owned into a wicker basket. Pages upon pages of her novel, carefully inked, months of sleepless nights, years of bleeding her soul onto parchment. She carried them into the garden, her slippers sinking into the damp earth, her candle trembling in the wind.
Her hands shook as she lit the flame.
One by one, she fed her creation into the fire. A page about the villain's childhood his hunger, his grief curling into smoke. A page about his first crime, his fall from innocence blackened and gone. Her chest ached with each crackle, as if she were burning her own heart.
But no matter how many pages she destroyed, the story grew stronger in the world beyond her.
By the week's end, her name was everywhere. Lady Anna Whitford, the noblewoman who dared to write a tale so raw, so merciless, that it turned parlors into chambers of debate. Women wept over her words; men scoffed and declared her villain too human, too pitiful. Newspapers carried whispers of her name, and pamphlets of her chapters were copied without her consent, spreading through coffee houses and academies.
And with the fame came venom.
On the streets, whispers followed her. Some called her a genius, others a corrupter of morality. One clergyman, red-faced and trembling, had even written a sermon condemning her villain as a devil that should never have been imagined into being.
Anna tried to retreat further into her private life. She taught her students with a forced smile, attended to her household duties, sat beside her ill mother during long silent evenings. But the unease gnawed at her ribs. Her household staff noticed her sleeplessness. Her students whispered about her trembling hands when she read aloud.
And then came the second letter.
It appeared not on her doorstep this time, nor in her postbox, but on her pillow . Folded neatly, as if left there by hands she could not name.
Eleanor froze when she found it, her chamber door locked from within. The night candles were still burning no servant could have entered. Her pulse throbbed in her throat as she touched the paper, her hands cold.
The letter read:
"Why do you try to kill me?
Do you not understand I live because you made me?
You give me fire, you give me breath, and then you dare to weep when I speak to you?
Burn my pages, my mysery, burn every word but the world remembers me now. They carry me in their mouths, in their hatred, in their fear. You have made me eternal. You cannot unmake me, for you are only flesh, and I will not forgive you .
I am what you wished I would be.
Do not run from me. Do not silence me. You and I , we are bound. And the day will come when you must answer for what you have written.
The paper slipped from her hand. She staggered back, breath caught in her throat, her corset biting cruelly into her ribs. She pressed her palms to her face, fighting tears, fighting terror.
For the first time, Anna began to wonder if perhaps she had indeed done something unholy
if in weaving his story, in crafting each wound of his childhood, each cruel twist of his soul, she had *summoned him*.
And outside, the rain wept harder against the windowpanes, as though the sky itself sought to drown the fire she had failed to extinguish.
I feared death, I feared the unholyness I feared everything , iam also a girl who is afraid of this society. I tried to put the mask and slept through...
From now on I will endure your haunting yet I'll prentend I do not care this merciless misselette
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