Daughter,
You’re turning two today, and your mother says there’s no point calling, because we’re too deep in the jungle and you won’t remember anyway. She’s right, but I still feel bad about it, because you’re our little girl and it feels like we ought to be there. I want you to be old enough that we can explain why we left you with my mother, but I don’t know. I don’t know when I’ll send this letter, how old you’ll be before you can read, or understand any of this. Maybe I should write you a different letter, one that you’ll actually be able to understand when you get around to reading.
I talked to your mom and she agreed that we should treat these letters like a retrospective, for you to read when you’re older, and you can see where we were when we wrote them. Like reading our diaries. Maybe it will make things better, somehow.
Hello, older Nadine! I wonder how old you are now, reading this. Are you ten, or twelve? It’s like I’m writing you a letter through time! I don’t know much about you, because I’m in the past. Do you look more like your mother, or like me? I hope you look like her! Your mom is very pretty, and very clever. I’m sure you’re pretty and clever no matter who you take after.
I just want you to know that we love you, and we wish we could be there with you. Unfortunately we have a lot of work to do still (which we will hopefully be done with by the time you read this!) and the only way to stay together would be to bring you along. I’m sure it sounds like it would be a lot of fun, but it wouldn’t be! You might get eaten by wolves! Or chimps! Or giant plants! Don’t worry, your mom and I are okay. But you’re too little, and it would be too dangerous. We love you too much to put you in that kind of danger. Instead you get to stay with your grandma! I’m sure you had a lot of fun (I keep forgetting this letter is for the future!) and it all worked out in the end. Hopefully we can spend a lot of time together to make up for the time we’ve lost.
Love,
Dad
Daughter,
I haven’t written you one of these in a while! I keep trying but it’s very hard to think of something to write to you about. I know the last few letters have probably been boring. Science is very cool and our research is very interesting but it is mostly interesting in the aggregate. I would like to try and explain it to you but I’m worried it would sound like watching grass grow! Watching grass grow is actually very fascinating but your mom isn’t sure you’d appreciate it the same way I do.
You must be five four now! I’m sorry we haven’t called, we don’t have many phones and we don’t want to call during school or anything. I hope you know that it isn’t because we don’t love you! Your grandma sent me a picture, and everyone agrees you are the cutest little thing girl we’ve ever seen. You’re as pretty as your mom. Did you know you got your eyes from me? Your mom says that I’m where you get your eyelashes, but I’m not sure my eyelashes look half as pretty as yours!
I forgot again that you won’t be reading this until you’re 12 but I’m sure it’s all still true.
I thought of you today because we found a Madagascar tree! Na Other doctors in our party disagree with my calling it that, as they do not want us getting confused with cryptobotanists and cryptozoologists, but I think N these doctors are perhaps being bit petty. I’m aware that these more fantastic creatures do not necessarily fit within the scope of our original research plan, but they are nonetheless fascinating! These doctors also feel that it likely works via “unscientific means”, which between you and me is code for magic. I think that we’ll never know unless we investigate! Imagine if it evolved naturally, without the intervention of outside forces! There would be all kinds of implications for both our research, a creature evolved to blur the distinction between ‘animal’ and ‘plant’!
I am hoping to convince Nad these other doctors that it would be a valid subject of research. It’s not like I’m asking to research Dryads, after all, which we all know could not function without the external influence of magic. The Madagascar tree, for instance, eats meat and cannot walk! This accounts for the primary necessity of magic for the Dryad, which is that the sun and soil does not provide enough energy for a mobile being. Who are we to say that the Madagascar tree does not obtain its energy in the same manner as ordinary animals, as carnivorous plants?
Wish me luck!
Love,
Dad
Daughter,
Your mother was right. I shouldn’t have tried to research the Madagascar tree. As it turns out, it was utilizing some form of magic to maintain its existence, its astonishing fluidity of movement. It had not sap, but the blood of those it had consumed running through it. I collected some for later examination, but when I found the sample after it was all was done, it had turned black with the rest of the tree. My silliness has led to some drastic delays in our research, and the loss of some important data, but hopefully we can recover soon enough.
We must, however, look on the bright side! I’m not we don’t You will be happy to know that your father now looks like a very fashionable pirate, and will save a fortune on socks. I am also a very good woodcarver – though only of fallen wood, I assure you! I am no barbarian, cutting down trees in the prime of life to carve their corpses into morbid shapes. This skill has proven useful, and when we see you again – perhaps when you receive these very letters! – I will be able to show you my fine new leg, carved from the black wood of a fallen Madagascar tree.
You should also know that your mother is some kind of absolutely just the bravest woman you shall ever meet, and she pulled me from enemy clutches unassisted before felling the tree! She hasn’t You will have to ask her to relate the story to you when you see her next. I have learned an important lesson about trusting her instincts when it comes to magical business. She is much better at recognizing that sort of thing than I am, I think. Sometimes I feel that she’s smarter she has a more scientific mind than I do, and is better able to notice when things do not fit. I hope you take after her that way! It would be a good skill for keeping you safe. It’s okay if you take after me, though. Just be very careful.
Love,
Dad
Nadine,
When in doubt, use an iron or silver stake to whatever seems most like the heart. If it’s human, it’ll die. If it’s an animal, it’ll die. If it’s magical, it’ll usually die. Silver can be reserved for things relating to the moon, for reasons obscure. Iron is more all-purpose. If it doesn’t die at that point, you’re probably fucked. Usually you should just try to avoid magical bullshit, as it makes no sense and will kill you.
I’m sorry if Bijou’s straightened your hair.
– Nadia
Daughter,
This letter probably isn’t going to be as long as the other ones I’ve been writing, but maybe it’s better that way. They were kind of I don’t know how interested you are in our research. Maybe you don’t even like science! I hope Mom hasn’t tried to turn you into a linguist. I hope you do. Science is wonderful. It’s been three months since my last letter, so you must be seven now! I’m sorry we still haven’t managed to call. It will only make it more exciting when I finally get to hear your voice! Your mom thinks you probably got my singing voice. I think that would be great! Maybe your grandma can get you some singing lessons. I think Nadia could probably sing pretty well, too, but she’s never tried around me.
Don’t tell your mom, but I think I’m going to try and convince her to have another baby. Imagine if you had a baby brother! I think if you two had each other, it would make not having us a lot easier. Wish me luck!
Love,
Dad
Daughter,
Your mom I am no longer I’m afraid you won’t be getting any siblings unless we adopt. I don’t think any adoption agencies would give us a baby, though. We’re pretty terrible parents. Our research is on hold until I’m out of this field hospital, so I don’t think I’m going to be sending any letters for a while.
Love,
Dad
Nadine,
If you ever get a chance for cosmetic dentistry, get your teeth sharpened. Grow out the nails on whatever hand you don’t use, and sharpen them. Even if you’re naked, you’ll be able to fuck people up. This is important for when men don’t understand that ‘no’ means ‘no’, no matter the subject. You should learn anatomy, so you know the best ways to do the most or least damage, according to circumstance.
Kids aren’t puppies, and if one is lonely, you shouldn’t have more. If you’re smart, you’ll get sterilized.
– Nadia
Daughter,
It’s your tenth birthday, and I don’t know how to feel. I thought we’d be home with you, by now. If you’ve been reading all my letters, you know it can’t be helped, we can’t make plants grow faster or animals breed quicker, but it still feels wrong. I feel like we messed this all up.
Hopefully we’ll be there for your twelfth.
Your grandma sent some pictures and things through some of our colleagues! I wish we had more to send back. I don’t think it would be right, sending these letters back yet. It feels like a story without an ending yet. It’s not good enough, yet, to justify nine years gone when you don’t remember the first.
Your mom thinks I’m being silly, and you won’t care, but I care. If I called, would you even want to talk to me? Would you even care who I am? Probably not. I hope so.
We’re so, so proud of you. Our little straight A student! Mom Your grandma says you’ve been reading a lot of comics! I think you got the nerd gene from me. I don’t know if your mom was ever into comics and stuff like that. When I ask, she just gives me A Look. When we get back, you’re going to get well acquainted with that. Don’t worry, though! Dad will always be on your side! Even if Unless you’re wrong. I don’t want to set a bad precedent.
Fingers crossed that we’ll see you in two years! I think that will be a pretty great birthday present.
Love,
Dad
Daughter,
Happy twelfth birthday! I’m sorry we couldn’t be there, still. There’s just been so many damn setbacks – the fire I told you about in my last letter, and the monkey that made off with all that paperwork. I know that doesn’t seem like a very good explanation, when you’ve been looking forward to this you haven’t seen us in so long. Sometimes I forget, that I haven’t been able to send these letters. I know it’s a silly thing, wanting them to be good enough. I should just send them, let you know what’s going on. I feel like it would be better to wait, until we’re actually there. It seems further away than ever, though. Who knows if this book will be worth it. We should have just become professors, but Nadia we always felt like that should wait until we were old. Field research is for the young, and we didn’t want to lose our chance.
It will all be worth it, in the end. I promise it will. You’ll turn out better for having been raised by my mom. She’s a good parent, better than we would have been even if we’d been there. Maybe it doesn’t seem like it, now, but I promise it’s true.
I wish time didn’t go by so quickly. It doesn’t feel like we’ve been here for eleven years, it doesn’t feel like we haven’t seen you grow up. It feels like we’ve barely been gone, you should still be a little baby.
We love you very much. I hope you’ve been happy.
Love,
Dad
Daughter,
I don’t know if you’re ever going to get this now. I was going to send the letters to your new school, after Mom told us how much you’d been missing us. We hadn’t even gotten back into town when Mom called again and told us what had happened.
Nadia said we shouldn’t have let Mom send you to that school, and I should have listened. I just want you to know that we’re sorry, and that I believe you. It’s not your fault. None of it’s your fault. Nadia says you’re still alive, and she thinks you’re fine, and I’m going to believe her. I hope you’re okay. I hope we see you again.
I wanted to run back home, I wanted to find you, but Nadia says that would be dumb. If we abandon our research now, there’s no point to any of it.
We had Mom send one of your pictures to some of our colleagues at the local university, and they’re going to send it to their friends, and so on. You’re too clever not to end up at college someday. Hopefully someone will recognize you, and we can be a family again for once.
I’m just so sorry about everything.
Love,
Dad
Nadine,
I’m going to make a lot of assumptions in this letter. There’s a lot of nature vs. nurture bullshit and I don’t know how I feel about it.
I am 99.9% confident that you are completely fine.
I haven’t told Marcel what I think, because I think you’re a lot like me in all the ways Marcel doesn’t notice. I think you lied to the cops. I think if you’d actually been hurt that way, you wouldn’t have said shit. You’d have sent that school up in flames and disappeared. That’s what I would’ve done. That’s what any Said would have done. Perhaps it is something intrinsic to our blood, this loathing of weakness.
My theory depends on you being a damn good liar. That’s good. I gave up trying to lie long ago. Maybe it’s my ruthlessness with Marcel’s emotional range. He was always better at socializing. If he wasn’t so nice, he might’ve been like you.
I don’t think you fucked around because you missed us, either. I think you were just being yourself. You’re genetically predisposed to various forms of autism, to ADHD, to clinical depression, to manic episodes. I wish I could’ve sent you to one of my neurologist friends.
When I got pregnant, I wanted to let you be raised partially by apes. Marcel thought we probably shouldn’t be allowed around kids. I know he fed you some bullshit about danger, but I’d rather be honest. We wouldn’t have raised a productive member of society. Maybe that would’ve been better. Your destructive tendencies would have been isolated to the jungle.
It would’ve been fascinating to watch.
I was never a delinquent when I was a kid. Never saw the point. My family came with a lot of freedom, a lot of restrictions. Said’s have shit to do. We don’t have time to fuck around. We’d rather not get the cops involved. We are a family of too many secrets, of too much to do. Would I have been like you, if I’d been raised by a different family? Maybe that’s where Bijou went wrong, assuming you’d be like Marcel. She gave you the same freedom she gave Marcel, because she didn’t think you’d abuse it. Marcel was too clever to be egregious, too loving to abuse a trust too brutally.
Somehow you’re this weird combination of the both of us. I wish I knew you. I want to meet you, my clever, wicked daughter. I want to observe you in the wild.
I do love you, as much as I’m capable of that shit.– Nadia
Nadine Pascal-Said 