I accept that someone is leaving messages for me in the woods by Alexander’s farm and barn. I’ve found an inkwell, an old bottle, some farm implements, and a marble grave marker that I have had cleaned and restored. I’ve brought it to an old historical cemetery for study and safe-keeping. We are certain there are no grave sites out in these woods.

I am thinking of Alexander, imagining him now.  It seems to me he walks the woods every night looking for his wife and children, walking the path, back and forth, through these dark woods. I imagine that he is tired, worn, seeking release.

I believe these things – they could not have been lying in the foundations all this time without having been found or seen – were brought to me first, by Rose, who drew attention to the site and to Alexander in various ways, and then, by Alexander’s wife, who wrote him letters while she sat in the house above these foundations with her three dying children.  All stricken with fever, she was telling Alexander, who was away in the state militia, what had happened, perhaps saying goodbye. I have talked to Ida, who fashions herself a witch, and to others who study ghosts, and they all tell me the same thing: these messages have come from Alexander’s wife, an educated woman from New York City, who is calling upon me as as a fellow writer to release Alexander from his perpetual and agonizing search for his family.  I only saw him once, five or six years ago, and I do remember his haggard and worn face.

There are a number of suggestions about the way for me to do this. One is to write Alexander a letter and leave it in the foundation. Another is to walk the path and call his name, and tell him he is free to go, that his family has released him. He can leave the woods in peace and good conscience, knowing he has done all he can to find his family. I want to do this soon, as I don’t like the thought of him walking out there alone for so long. Do I believe in ghosts, in this story? I don’t know, really. I just know how it feels.