Letter 1

I didn’t mean to stay long

Editor’s Note
April 22

I found the letters in the attic of my grandmother’s house, tied with a ribbon the color of dried roses. The paper was brittle, the ink faded in places—but the words felt alive. Like they were waiting.

Each one is signed the same:
—Calliope.

I don’t know who she was—not yet. But I feel like I’m meant to.

So I’m sharing these letters, day by day, as I read them.
Maybe someone out there knows her story.
Or maybe, like me, you’ll feel it before you understand it.

There’s something haunting in the way she writes.
Like she was never expecting to be read at all.

---

April 22, 1947
Ashford Manor

I didn’t mean to stay long.
Just a weekend, I told myself. Just to check on the house.

But the orchard is still in bloom, and something about the way the wind moves through the trees makes me feel thirteen again—barefoot and wild and in love with everything.

The truth is, I heard your name in town today.
It wasn’t even you they were talking about. Just someone who reminded me of the way you used to walk—like the ground rose up to meet you.

I thought I was past this.
I thought memory would soften with distance.

But everything is louder here. The birds. The grass.
My heart.

Maybe writing it down will quiet things.
Maybe that’s all this is.
Maybe this letter is just for me.

—Calliope.

💌 The Ashford Diaries is an unfolding epistolary novel told in real time—one letter each day, beginning April 22.