Sister,


I am sure that you have heard the news by now. They have scorned me, and
they have mocked my report. They say that my findings are preposterous,
that the thing that I have seen is impossible. Why do they say so? Do
they not trust the reports of witnesses? They might have investigated
the matter for themselves if they did not believe me, but they have
refused to do so. They claim to love evidence, but they scorn it when I
bring it to them and refuse to search for it themselves. It is commonly
accepted that ghosts can haunt old manors. Why, then, do they reject a
report of a ghost haunting a rivers It is folly. I suspect that politics
are at work.

No matter. The truth exists even if some people avert their eyes from
it. My knowledge does not depend on their willingness to accept it. I
can continue my work without their funding, as long as the family
fortune remains available to me.

I have enclosed a copy of my report in this letter. I know that you are
not terribly fond of scholarship, but I thought you might find it
pleasing to know what your baby brother has been doing with his life.


With love,

Gideon Gale

 

-----

 

It was not so long ago that I found myself in a little valley, one that
was full of snow and ice. A wide river ran through it, a river with a
strong current and a thin layer of ice. The reasons for my journey are
my own, and they are of little importance. Suffice to say that I found
myself in that valley as I made my way to a different destination, and
that I paused in my wanderings only because I was delayed by a blizzard.
I took shelter from the storm in cave, which I shared with several
hunters who were native to the region. They were unwashed, uneducated,
and uncouth, but they shared a rather interesting story with me.

They told me that the river was haunted by the ghost of a woman who had
perished in its waters. That did not surprise me, for nearly every river
is said to host the angry spirit of a dead woman. Such stories are so
common that one could easily be forgiven for thinking that the sole
purpose of rivers is to contain the their ghosts. Nonetheless, I found
the tale to be quite riveting, both due to the lack of other diversions
in the cave and due to the sincerity with which it was told. I can
hardly hope to convey that sincerity on this paltry page, but I would be
doing a disservice to the world if I did not commit the details of the
tale to paper, that they might be spread throughout the world for the
benefit of all literate people.

There once was a woman who lived in an icy cave, a woman who wore only
unwashed furs and had nothing to eat but the flesh of animals that she
hunted herself. She was no pauper, for all of her people lived in the
same way. She lived a savage life, hiding from the elements and hoping
that she could avoid starvation for another day. Outsiders would call
her unfortunate, but she knew of no other life and so she did not
complain of her fate. She lived in that way for many years, until one
day she went fishing by the river. She saw a great fish, not very far
from the surface, and she thrust her spear into it. The spear got stuck,
but the fish did not die. It swam away, and it took her spear with it.
The woman gave chase, for although she could bear the misery of a failed
hunt, she could not bear the expense of replacing her spear.

She chased that fish for the better part of a day, and eventually she
came to a place she had never seen before. It was a wealthy place, full
of wealthy people. She explained her plight to these people, and one
among them gave her wealthy gifts. He was a generous man, a strong man,
and a beautiful man. He followed her to her home, for he longed to see
the strange place from which she came. A blizzard trapped him in that
place, and he spent many weeks living with the woman. Love bloomed, as
it often does, but the man had no choice but to return to his home. He
often send letters to her, and in time the messengers that bore them
turned into traders, and her snowy little home prospered. It was not
enough to allow them to be together, for the man's parents would not
allow him to marry a woman who was so poor. Both of them shed bitter
tears, fearing that they could not be together, but the woman would not
accept her fate. She hatched a plan to make herself wealthy so that she
could marry her love.

The woman began to ambush the traders that came down the river, storing
their gold until she could afford to marry her beloved. The man's nation
soon sent soldiers to put an end to the banditry, and the man went with
them, fearing that the bandits might harm his beloved. The battle was
joined, and the woman triumphed, killing all those who had come for her.
Even her beloved perished, and the woman shed bitter tears when she saw
what she had done. She wailed and lamented her fate until even the snow
saw her sorrow and tumbled down from the mountains.

What was left for her to do? She went down to the river, bearing only a
knife in her hands. She put the blade to her throat and shed her own
blood, and her body tumbled into the river as she died. Her soul could
find no peace, and so it lingered in that river, ever reliving the last
moments of her life. She was doomed to slaughter any man who came down
the river, and she is said to do so even to this very day.

Such was the story that they told me, and they told it with such fervor
that I felt inclined to investigate the matter. I went down to the river
as soon as the storm abated, and I carved a little boat from a fallen
log that was near its shore. When I started to paddle up the river, the
wind grew faster and the snow started to fall ever more quickly. I heard
a moaning and a groaning on the wind, and I do not feel ashamed to admit
that I retreated in that moment. It might have been the wind, and it
might have been an angry spirit. I did not know, and to this day I do
not know. I only know that in that moment I loved my life more than I
loved discovery, and that I fled in terror rather than risk finding the
ghost that I had been looking for.