Secret Life of Bees Letter

Dear Zach,

            How are you? Sorry for not writing these past few weeks but time elapses so quickly whenever I visit August, June, and “July”. The nights and days go by so fast as we sit in the front porch drinking ice tea in order to cool down from the sweltering heat. As soon as I arrived they all started to interrogate me about our engagement - I’ve missed them a lot.

            Everybody is ok, your mother is great and getting better from the flu she had last week; the rest of the daughters are as fit as a fiddle - everyone here says hello. Lunelle has made me the most outlandish – but simply fabulous – of hats for the wedding. It will be great. Everything is ready for the big day to take place, the decorations have been meticulously made and flowers have been ordered – all we need now is for the groom to get here - I lionize all the daughters for getting everything together in such short time. All is conspiring for us to have an amazing wedding.

Who would have thought we would get married right here in Tiburon – when we met we couldn’t even go inside stores together. I am so glad times have changed, and people have become tolerant. There was such anarchy back then – I can still not apprehend how anyone could think so wrong.

Two days ago I received a phone call about T-Ray. I don’t know how they got my number or how they knew I was in town. The bizarre phone call came with terrible news; T-Ray has passed away. He died during a drunken bar fight, apparently some sort of dissension – people got violent. Five men were injured and there were two casualties. The men involved in the calamity will be arraigned next month. It is so hard to assimilate he fact that the man that shackled me to misery for so many years is dead. I feel such sorrow – even though he was never really a father to me, I guess deep inside I cared. It is horrible that this has happened with our wedding day so imminently approaching.

I can’t wait for you get to Tiburon, and for us to finally get married. Right back as soon as you get this.

Love,

Lily Mellissa Owens

What If?

Ichabod Crane, oh, Ichabod Crane the young, affable, sage, new schoolmaster of Terry Town they said. They all liked him; they all adored him, his singing, his teaching, everything, despite his abhorrent face. And as for me I was okay with him; he was not at all irascible and soon target for my practical jokes. I really had no problem with him until he tried to steal my Katrina`s heart away.

 He was her singing master, you see; and used that as an excuse to visit her at her father`s house. He visited her almost everyday and at the beginning I believed it, that he was only there to help her with her singing lessons. But as he started going more and more frequently, as other farmers started seeing them under the great elm, I realized his intentions. I wouldn`t let him take her, I told myself, I would just scare him off like I had done with all my other rivals. His courtships towards Katrina and her responses would not leave me despondent.

So, when she invited us to her father`s party on Halloween night I was sure to come. I planned to win Katrina over that night, you see. Ichabod it turned out was a fine dancer and had Katrina in his arms all night. So, as I was unable to show her my charms, I generated another plan, a much more ambitious plan. The residents of Terry Town, you see, were extremely superstitious and Ichabod was the most superstitious of them all. The residents all believe in witchcraft and magic and because of this the town is full of interminable legends and horror stories.

So, when Old Baltus Van Tassel, Katrina`s father, called upon all of his guests and asked them to tell their best horror stories I told about the most famous tale of Terry Town, The Headless Horseman. The story tells about a warrior that lost his head during the revolutionary war and now haunts the Sleepy Hollow cemetery in search of someone with a head to chop off. He carries a pumpkin full of fire carved as a head. I also told about my own encounter with the horseman how I had seen him by the graveyard while coming home in the middle of the night, how I had galloped through the bridge where he had halted and disappeared.

After the story telling, the party broke off and we all left for our homes Ichabod stayed behind and I hid in Sleepy Hollow`s haunted cemetery. A while later I finally heard Ichabod galloping slowly in his horse. The forest animals sounds reverberated through the trees and I could just feel Ichabod`s fear growing, feeling that something was amiss, and started to prepare myself for the ultimate prank. I sunk my head in to my suit leaving a small space for me to see grabbed a carved pumpkin I had stolen from Katrina`s house and mounted my horse. As he emerged through the trees I waited quietly until he was in front of me and started to chaise him. He desperately tried for his old horse to gallop faster and he tugged at its reins in a tremulous manner. I followed him as fast as I could, lit pumpkin in hand, impelling my horse forward. I persecuted him until the bridge where he fell of his old horse. I threw the pumpkin in his direction but made sure it did not hit him and galloped of rapidly hoping I had scared him enough to leave town.

The next day the town`s residents found his hat on the ground near the bridge pieces of pumpkin next to it. No one knows whatever happened to Ichabod Crane, some say he is living in another town, others say he was taken by the Headless Horseman, I do not know what happened to Ichabod, all I know is that he was alive when I left. And as for Katrina and I, we are married now and share a profound love for each other but I will always wonder what if Ichabod was still here.