Morning filtered into Anna's room in winford mantion , the pale softness of autumn light. The chill clung to the windowpanes, leaving faint silver lines of condensation as if the night itself had breathed against the glass. She sat at her desk, the same one where her hands had scratched into paper until dawn, leaving two letters finished, folded neatly, and sealed in envelopes that looked heavier than they were. One letter she had written as Anna the diligent young teacher of literature, a woman with a carefully constructed quiet life. The other she had written as *A.M. Harrow*, the name that had begun to carry whispers across England, a shadow-voice whose story
*The Tale of Dorian Veyne*
was both adored and cursed.
Her fingers trembled as she touched the wax seals. Writing to him her own creation, her villain felt like burying a blade into herself. It made no sense. And yet, sense no longer governed her world. Sleep had fled, replaced by words clawing against her skull. The ink stains on her fingertips told a story of surrender.
The letters lay before her like sins, but she dared not destroy them. She whispered to herself, *This is madness.* But she still left them upon the desk, as if daring fate to collect them.
By mid-morning, the rhythm of her teaching life tried to swallow her. At the academy where she lectured on poetry, Anna wrapped herself in her black coat and velvet gloves, standing before her pupils with a voice that was steady though her heart was far from it. The students spoke of Byron, of Shelley, of grief turned into verse. Her own grief was pounding, unspoken, buried.
And then, just after class, as the last of her students filtered out, a thin slip of paper was pushed beneath her books. No handwriting graced it, no signature, no explanation only an address. A library. the letter was in her books this morning after two ragebait letter to him seeing him in presence as jester and then a foreign man I raged and wrote him and he replied me in morning.
The rest of the day blurred. She told herself not to go. She told herself this was her own imagination playing cruel tricks. Yet as twilight fell, she found herself walking through London's damp streets, her steps echoing against the stone like a drumbeat of surrender.
The library was old, built of gray stone, with arches that seemed to hold centuries of silence. Inside, the smell of dust and oak shelves wrapped around her like a cloak. The place was nearly empty, a scattering of scholars lost in their own pursuits.
She found it. A book. Slim, unassuming, its title pressed in faded gold leaf:
*The Feelings.*
Her hand hovered before daring to touch it. When she opened the worn cover, a folded letter slipped from between the pages and fell into her lap.
The moment she lifted it, her chest constricted. The paper carried a scent an unmistakable oak wood fragrance, sharp yet earthy. The same scent that had clung to the air when the man, her villain, had stood so near at the party, whispering as if he had torn himself out of her imagination to breathe into her life.
Her hands shook as she unfolded the page. The handwriting was elegant, almost beautiful, though it seemed to cut rather than flow.
""""''My mother of mystery…"""""
Her breath stilled. The words crawled across her skin.
////////I do not want anything from you no coin, no salvation, no pity. I only want to speak, to press my voice into yours, to exist in the same silence that birthed me. Chat, if you will. Talk. You wrote me, but you denied me breath. You, who strung my veins with ink, left me starved for air.//////
Anna's throat tightened. She wanted to fold the letter shut and run, but her eyes refused to obey.
/////Do you realize what you've done? You made me ache without giving me a name. You left me faceless, nameless, a shadow that the world could love or despise without ever knowing me. Do you not think I deserve more than this? Or is your cruelty so sweet you savor my anonymity?/////
Her heart pounded, each beat louder than the last. The air felt thin.
/////And feelings,...ha! You dared to write a tale called
*The Tale of Dorian Veyne*,
where every soul bled with desire, rage, longing, but you gave your villain nothing. No warmth, no sorrow, no trembling. Am I not worthy of them? Am I to be forever a husk because you were too afraid to admit that you wanted me to *feel*?"*
Her hands gripped the page as if she could strangle it.
Then the words shifted, sharp as a knife sliding beneath her ribs.
""""""But I know you, Anna. Better than your friends, your colleagues, better than the faces who clap when you lecture of poets long gone. You think a pen name hides you? You think A.M. Harrow can mask your pulse? I know the truth you buried with your books, the name that burns you still. RICHARD.""""""
Her eyes went wide. The room spun.
RICHARD
a flashback came to her a tree , breeze she is reading a young man in his nineteens looking at her smiling face is unclear yet a kind smile....
Her childhood friend. Her secret grief. The boy whose laughter once haunted summer afternoons until it was silenced by a rope, his own choice, his escape. She had never spoken his name aloud in years. Never. Not even to herself in prayer.
Her knees went weak.
The letter carried on, relentless:
"""You flinch, don't you? His name cuts you still. Did you ever think why I know it? Because you put him in me.
His shadow walks in my veins.
You tried to kill him in silence, but your ink betrayed you. You want to bury your grief, but you gave it a body mine.
Oh no no , your sorrow made every man a villian, the boys unleft words made you into a cruel author
If you can give me that, why deny me more? Why deny me a face, a voice, a kiss, a fury, a tenderness? Tell me, Anna do you want to feel things, or are you too terrified of the truth
Her hand trembled so violently she almost tore the paper. The oak-scented words coiled around her like vines, tightening, pulling her down.
She wanted to scream, to throw the letter into the fire, to deny every word but part of her was bleeding in recognition. He was right. She had poured secrets into her creation, had hidden pieces of herself in him, and now he demanded what she had refused to give.
Her pulse hammered as she folded the page back with careful precision, though her fingers were shaking. She slid it back inside
*The Feelings*
but pressed her forehead against the cool wood of the reading table, gasping for air.
The library around her remained unchanged, silent, serene, as if no one else could smell the oak, as if no one else could hear the voice whispering from her pages.
But Anna knew. The game had begun.
And though she whispered to herself, *This is madness, this is madness,* she also knew one terrible truth, she would write back.