Free Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole Page A

can’t. I’ve hired joiners and everything. Here’s a wee sketch of what I’m planning. I’m going to leave the old blackhouse up for the animals. No more sharing my cottage with the hens!
    I haven’t heard from Iain in quite some time. If it weren’t so grim, I would laugh, as I get more mail from a man I’ve never met than I do from my own husband. But, as they say, no news is good news.
    I know I didn’t say it in my last letter, but I
am
proud that you’ve sent one of your fairy stories off to a magazine. Have you heard anything yet? Please let me know how it goes.
    You asked how I worked up the courage to send off my poetry. It was Finlay. Growing up, the two of us were never content. We’d sit on the beach, he carving, and me either sketching or scribbling. Our eyes on the horizon, no words were needed. But then he grew old enough for Da to take him on the boat. He’d go off fishing and leave me behind on the shore. He always brought me back stones he found, so that I’d feel I was with him. But I knew that, though he sailed away most mornings, it wasn’t an escape. Sure as anything, going out on the boats tied him to the island. He’d never be able to leave. And so he made me promise to send out my poems, to try to send something of myself out into the world. Because he, he was trapped. But the rest of the world was mine for the taking.
    I broke into the schoolhouse every night for a week to use the headmistress’s prized typewriter, pecking away until I had a pile of poems typed to send. In this instance, crime did pay. The rest is, as they say, history! If you can believe it, I was only seventeen.
    My publisher has been amazingly patient with me and my reclusion, but he sent me the most curious letter last week. Ages ago, he had asked for a photograph of me, to be included in the frontispiece of one of the books. He’s finally said that, since I do not have a photograph to send him, he will send a photographer to me! I am waiting to hear a final confirmation, but I believe he is coming in a couple of weeks. I can’t tell you how nervous I am, Davey! I’ve never had my photo taken before; I’ve neverseen myself through someone else’s eyes (or lens, as it were). I have no idea what to wear. We don’t want the world to be disappointed at the one and only photograph of Elspeth Dunn.
    At some point you are going to have to make a decision one way or another about the wedding, dear one. You need to decide if you want to be on the ferry when it sets off or if you are happier back on the sturdy pier. I know that you are not a man content to wait behind and just watch as the ferry chugs away. But perhaps this isn’t your boat. Perhaps it doesn’t sail where you want to go. You’ll make the right decision. I think you already know what it is.
       E
    Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
    May 9, 1915
    Dear Sue,
    You sound like you are doing well, despite not knowing what is happening at the front. Who knows, I may be able to give you a firsthand account if Wilson finally gives in. After the
Lusitania
, everyone here is howling for German blood. Twelve hundred people who had nothing to do with this war died on that ship. What was it you said in your first letter? We’re all cowboys and outlaws here in the United States. If we get over there, the kaiser had better watch out!
    The term is winding down and I hope that my students are leaving my classroom slightly better for it. Many still dismiss the war as a European problem, but a fair number see that it’s bigger.Gone are the days when our countries are isolated. This is the twentieth century. What affects one country affects us all. Now my students see that the world is worth fighting for.
    You really screwed up the courage to send off your poetry when only seventeen? Sue, you’re amazing! And, if you don’t mind me doing the math, younger than I thought for someone so obviously distinguished. Seventeen when you started and, checking the date in the front of