Dear Leonard,

I hope this letter finds you before you leave.

I’ve finished moving in. After my first night’s sleep, I felt my dreams retreat from me without the world dragging me from my slumber. No rattling wagon wheels on poor roads, no perpetual stench of manure, no tightness in my chest as all of creation seems to fight for my attention. I don’t think I’ve slept this well in years.

I want to say I could spend the rest of my life here, but a life without community is lacking something, and no shul and synagogue will be built here. Henshaw is neither particularly cruel nor kind towards our faith; it is a determined sort of apathy. I dared to wear a yarmulke out yesterday and it went almost entirely without comment. Only the divinity student made mention of it, and only to say that he would not hold it against me if I don’t attend any sermons here. Toleration but not celebration. We’ve dealt with far worse.

The divinity student is why I’m writing. He’s recently returned from an education in the East and his research’s gone further than most in his field. He has a constant nervousness about him which I suspect I resemble, and he learned a bit of Hebrew in his studies, so I’ve been talking with him regularly. He’s a curious subject. His father and grandfather were both pastors here, and his brother runs the church now. His brother and sister still live in the house he grew up in, to the North of town. He, however, is getting free room and board from this brawny woodsman who got wealthy off of an expedition a few years ago. Most of the townsfolk remember him from before he left to study but they’re distant; he’s almost as much of a stranger here as I am.

Naturally, I assumed that the true reason he left town may be the same reason that I left Pennsylvania. It would explain his current housing situation. I sought to commiserate, but he was utterly bewildered by my hints. He instead spun me a tale about nearly being locked in an asylum for life. He’s convinced that his family’s house slave is, ah, ontologically evil, and possibly immortal, and can order any animal to kill a man. He insisted that she’s shrugged off two attempts on her life so far. He sounded like he should have been sent to the asylum, but Reynard does keep disappearing for hours on end. Normally, I’d assume he’s doing some mischief, but there’s far fewer people around than in Chicago, nobody’s been complaining about ‘my slave’, and he keeps playing coy whenever I ask. He hasn’t been coy with his own secrets since we started sharing a bed, but he might be coy with someone else’s.

Lament says her name is Lilith. I am certain I’ve read it somewhere, but I can’t remember where. Are you familiar with it?