INTRODUCTION
From a collection of letters found in the von Stein estate, dated 1892–1925.

I’ve come across them again—the letters.
The ones he wrote. I found them tucked away, where the dust collects, buried beneath the floorboards of the east wing. So many years have passed, and still, they seem to hold the weight of everything between us.

It’s strange, isn’t it? How a few sheets of paper, some ink, can capture so much. So many of them were addressed to me, though I don’t remember when I last responded. Some were for Mother, I think, though I’ve never been able to bring myself to read them. And then, there are the others. The ones that don’t make sense. The ones that never asked to be seen.

Do you ever wonder about the things we leave behind? The little scraps of ourselves that we think no one will notice? Lou always had a way of writing as though he were speaking to someone—something—just beyond the reach of anyone else.

Perhaps you’ll read them. Or perhaps you won’t.
But there is something about these letters that pulls at me, even now. They are fragments of something we could never quite piece together, a story that lingers just beyond the edge of understanding.

I never fully understood him. Not then. Not now.
But these letters—they’re all that’s left. All that he left.

There are things we keep, even when we don't know why. Old ribbon, pressed leaves, a marble you haven't seen since you were a child. And letters. Especially letters.


I found them again—folded pages, smudged ink, little fingerprints of time. Some of them were never opened. Some were never meant to be. But they're all here, and they ask to be read.


He always had a way of making paper feel like skin—soft, bruised, breakable. These are his words, the ones he left behind, the ones he sent, and the ones I think he wrote only for himself. Maybe for me.


I don't know what you'll see in them. A story, maybe. Or a slow unraveling. Or just a boy, trying.


I kept them. And now, for whatever reason, I'm letting them be seen.


Notes Before The Letters