Springvley, 26th winter 227
Dear Khami,
I am sorry I did not address your letters earlier. Things have been rough, lately. I am still devastated by Clouds’ disappearance; I cannot quite wrap my head around it.
I have been asking about them everywhere I could. Yet, the reaction is always the same: frowning, vague grumbling answer, empty gazing eyes and change of subject. By the spirits, even the town’s administration seems to have forgotten about them! How can an entire town forget about one twenty-year long resident?
Of course, I despise all the more my living quarters. I do not know, nor remember what happened. I just cannot help but feel like it took them. Hell, part of me feels like I was the one who fed Clouds to the house, though that does not make any sense. Does it? I simply invited them over, and they were gone. Does that make me responsible?
To answer your concerns, I did try to sleep at the inn once or twice, to see if it helped. It did not: As soon as I closed my eyes, my head was filled with shifting corridors and empty cupboards. As much as the house seems to haunt me while I am awake, it lets me rest at night, Besides, I do not stand well the looks of concern people have when I come to work from the inn.
In a recent fit of rage, I tried to destroy a wall of the flat. I would like to say I aimed at the one where the corridors were coming from, but that would not really mean anything. The entire layout of the house changed several times already since the last letter I sent you, I would not even be able to tell which wall I entered from a few days ago.
In any case, I swung the mace once, twice, thrice. It broke through, puncturing a large hole in the wooden frame. Yet, as soon as my gaze turned elsewhere, the hole was gone. Like it had never even been there.
I suppose people notice my ill being at work, too. I am much more rarely bothered than I was before. In fact, people sometimes seem surprised to notice my presence in the office. Almost as if they do not expect me there. Or rather, as if I had slipped out of their mind, and they were just remembering about me.
I miss you, Khami. I miss home.
Plume