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Description
March 15 2XXX
Cousin my Cousin,
This is the first time for me to write you, cousin.  You are the twenty-sixth cousin I will have written since I began seven years ago, when I was nine.  I'm sixteen now, and still I write my thoughts in my cousins.
As I always do, I will make this first letter one to describe myself better to you.  After all, you must wonder about me, who writes you, mustn't you?  My name is Aoibhheann Miyuki McCabe.  As stated before, I am female, sixteen, Boar, Pisces, A-.  I was born in Japan, by my mother's request, in her family's birthing home in Kôchi prefecture to the northwest of Ryûgadô cave.  It's a tradition to have one's first child there, even if you live in California.  Mother is, you see, Japanese.  But Father is a native Irishman, down to the stereotype.  This has made me a strange sight indeed.  At four feet, eight inches, I have inherited almost all of my mother's height.  I also have her smooth, olive skin and the Japanese physiognomy.  My hair is silky and straight, as is Mother’s.  But my body has its influences from my father.  My hair is Irish red, as can be my temper, and my eyes are the green of shamrocks.  I’ve been told the combination is…unnerving to some.  When they realize that it’s natural.  Mother and Father have been married nineteen years, and plan on going on their fourth honeymoon in March of next year.
Father is a Jack-of-all-Trades by profession, and his entrepreneurial talent and skill has gained him an incredibly large income.  Incredible when it’s considered that he ‘hasn’t held a single real job for more than two months since high school,’ as he is quick to boast.  He does freelance programming for various software companies from our home here in Orange, a few miles north of Santa Ana.  He also brews his own alcohol, works as a scab for nearby restaurants, substitute teaches, is a Computer Repairman/Information Technology advisor for a modest fee, and is a novelist, college textbook writer, editor, songwriter, actor, stuntman, gourmet chef, tinker, automobile/airplane mechanic, fisherman, carpenter, electrician, plumber, and bounty hunter.  He speaks over a dozen languages (English, Japanese, French, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin, German, Russian, the Gaelic tongues, Hebrew, Old English, Latin, Navajo, and Greek) fluently, and knows standard sign language and reads Braille.  He’s lived on every continent, including a six month excursion on Antarctica with a research team as (after a few months), the resident geologist.  He held five different jobs during that trip.
Mother is the embodiment of Yamato Nadeshiko, the ideal Japanese woman.  She’s quiet, reserved, and elegant, able to calmly move through any situation.  She is the perfect housewife, incredible at cooking, cleaning, and so on.  She can cook anything.  Show her the recipe once, and she can make it.  She has great musical talent, sings, and plays the koto, piano, violin, harp, and just about every woodwind instrument imaginable.  She teaches music out of our home.  She keeps an herb garden in the back yard, and dresses in a way that is both practical and elegant at the same time.  She has many beautiful dresses and kimono, and wears kimono as often as ‘western’ clothing.  Mother says she prefers a tsumugi and zouri to a skirt and heels, but she does tend to wear shorts or jeans while she’s barefoot in the garden.
These two are my only family, my entire world. We don’t keep pets, except for the occasional fish.  Mother will buy them live and keep them until she needs them.  She always says, ‘The fresher the fish, the better the dinner.’
Our house is built into a hill, and Father gave me a special den for my thirteenth birthday.  It is dug under the hill, behind my room in the basement.  A short crawlspace leads to a small, low-ceilinged room with a dirt floor.  It is a four and a half tatami mat room, about nine feet by nine feet, with bookshelves as two of the walls.  They hold my twenty-five other cousins who came before you, as well as some of my favorite books and whatever else I’m reading.  In the center of the room is my kotetsu, a low table with a blanket draped to the ground to keep my legs warm.  Since there is no electricity running into my den, I write you by candle light.
The atmosphere of my den is serene.  Dim lighting and utter silence, but for the scritch-scritch of my pen, creates a calming effect.  This is aided, no doubt, by the soft brown of natural dirt walls and floor that, while visibly appealing, more importantly give off a warm, earthy smell that makes me feel secure.  The den is comfortably warm and dry, and I often become so relaxed that I fall asleep here.  As I love citrus fruits, I keep a small crate of mikan oranges beside the kotatsu.  That adds a citrusy smell mixes with the odor of earth, old books, and the India ink I use for writing to create the smell I love so much.  It’s the smell of home, to me, and here it’s strong enough that I can often even taste it.
You are my twenty-sixth cousin, whom I write lovingly and will one day place beside the twenty-five before you in this room.  You are a thick, hard leather-bound cousin, slightly larger than a pocket dictionary with a metal chrysanthemum on the front cover.  I found you yesterday and had to take you home.  You called to me, as only certain books do.  There was a harmony between us, cousin, right from the start.
And we will only grow closer as time progresses.  But no more for today, I’m afraid.  The candles burn low, and it must soon be time for dinner. I will write you again soon.
Aoibhheann
March 16, 2XXX
Cousin, my Cousin,
I hate school.  I have no friends here.  Usually, this doesn’t bother me, since it’s always been this way, but for a short time, I had a bit of hope.  There was a girl, Emily, who transferred here at the beginning of the semester, back in January. She and I met in the school library, where I spend my lunch period, since I’m alone anyway.  We met over a book, a small book observing time travel and such phenomena through a mathematical perspective.  A fascinating study.  Those are the kind of books I love, paranormal and advanced theory.  Things that are true but currently impossible to prove.  They have to be true; they’re too wonderful to be lies.
But I digress.  Emily, she and I both went for the same book and, unfortunately, there was only one copy available when we went to look for it.  And it wasn’t where it should have been.  We both looked around for it for a few minutes in the same area, but separately.  Then she looked over and started talking to me.
“You’re looking for a book, too?” she commented.  I nodded.  “Well,” said she, “as I see it, if we look together, we may find the books together.  I’ll help you, and so you help me at the same time, okay?”
And that was that.  I had no place to argue against it, she wouldn’t have it.  It’s the way Emily is.  After she realized we were looking for the same book, she giggled and said we should just give up, since we had both been looking together to begin with, to no avail.  She told me we were fast friends, and that was that.
At first, I wanted little to do with her, but she followed me at lunch and talked to me until I was resigned to it.  Then I started to like it.  Someone had befriended me despite how much I stood apart.  And we had the same interests.  Ghost stories, unexplained events, pseudoscience.  I finally had someone to share my stories with.  For a little while, I was happy.
Then she betrayed me.  Maybe I can explain better in the future, but right now, the pain is too fresh.  Suffice it to say that I am now less one false friend.  I will eat my lunch alone again.  But for a little while, at least, I was happy.
I’m sorry to be so depressing, cousin, but thank you for listening nonetheless.  I feel better now.  I’ll write you again, soon.
Aoibhheann
March 17, 2XXX
Cousin my Cousin,
Last night, I had a dream.  In it, I was boarding a plane as my parents saw me off.  As the plane lifted off, it flew over the ocean and into the clouds.  I watched myself as I ate some snacks and drank something the stewardess gave me.  She was the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.  I saw myself stare out the window sadly, as though something was happening that I had no control over.  Then the plane began to shake.  The pilot said something, and the plane leveled off and stopped shaking.  Then the shaking began again, the pilot spoke, and everything was fine.
This happened three times.  Then the plane started shaking again, but more violently than before.  I saw myself, never good on planes, vomit into one of the little bags they keep for that purpose, and pass out.  The shaking continued, even after the pilot spoke.  People around me were crying and screaming.
Moving out of the plane, I saw that it was careening straight toward the ocean, and one of the wings was gone.  The other was aflame on both engines.  Terror filled me as I realized that the plane was going to crash.  Then it did.  Water surged up around the area where the plane crumpled into it.  There could not have been survivors.
What do you think the dream meant?  I mean, I suppose it mightn’t have meant anything, but.  I know I’m afraid of flying.  My father is a licensed commercial pilot, and has taken me up in a few Cessna planes once or twice.  He had, of course, meant to rid me of my fear of flying before I went for some overseas trip, but it hadn’t worked.  Especially when he stalled the plane and we nearly crashed.  It doesn’t matter to me how many times he assures me that the stall had been faked and he’d only done it to scare me.  I have never stepped into a plane since then.  I couldn’t even wear the clothes I wore on that ride again.
Do you think it has something to do with school?  I mean, I am, of course, afraid of failing my classes.  And I only have three months to go before the final.  Maybe it’s just stress related.  I hope it’s nothing else.  But then, what else could it be?
Aoibhheann
March 18, 2XXX
Cousin my Cousin,
I have just been informed that I will not finish this school year with my class.  My parents decided that they wanted me to go to Japan and study abroad there.  Since the Japanese school year starts in the beginning of April, I leave next week.  I’ll be staying with Mother’s younger sister, Yuki, in Hokkaido.  I’ll be taking a jet there.
Dou you think the dream is a premonition or a bad omen?  I had it again last night, too.  I told my parents about the dream as soon as they told me about my upcoming trip.  Father got mad.  He doesn’t believe in superstitious things.  He says they’re a waste of good thinking, despite his time as a sailor.  He didn’t say I was lying, he trusts that I had such a dream.  He just thinks it was something I ate or saw on television.  Mother didn’t say anything, but reassured me that I would love Japan and living with my aunt.
I’m afraid.  But not too much so.  I am superstitious, and I am terrified of flying.  But Father assures me that the pilots will not pull any stunts like he did, them being ‘professional’.  He uses that word so contemptuously.  But if he says a thing is one way, I can be sure that it is so.  He’s never lied to me, even when it would hurt.  I may as well start packing.
Tomorrow.  Tonight, I’ll rest and think things over.
Aoibhheann
March 19, 2XXX
Cousin my Cousin,
The dream came again.  And knowing now that it is something possible, it was that much more terrifying.  I begged my parents not to make me go, but could find no excuse worth even moderate thought from them.  They know I have no friends.  I speak Japanese as often as English at home.  I will know people where I go.  The things I enjoy can easily be had there as here.  And they will be over every few months to check up on me.
Really, if not for the dream, I would be excited.  Aunt Yuki is my favorite aunt.  I’ve seen her a few times during past summers when she came over to visit.  She’s twenty-three, and is what some people would call the ‘fun’ aunt.  I’ve been back to Japan once before, when my parents took me on a summer cruise, and I loved it there.  I love Japanese food, thanks to mother, and I can fit in.  Also, it will be my first time to actually see the cherry blossoms.  That will be nice.
Only the flight scares me.  I’m going to pack now.
Aoibhheann
March 20, 2XXX
Cousin my Cousin,
The dream came again.
I’ve finished packing.  Four sets of clothing and some books.  My computer and a few other odds and ends that I would miss.  My other cousins will stay here, and I feel I am losing something for the separation.
I’ve never lived in any house other than this one, though this one has grown and changed quite a bit from the start.  Sometimes it feels like a different house, but it still has the feeling of home.  I will miss sitting at my kotatsu here in my den.  Aunt Yuki has promised me my own room with a kotatsu there, but I know it won’t be the same.
I’m still terrified of going.  The fear eats me up inside.  I lose my attention in class, missing when I’m called on.  I barely eat.  All I can see is the plane crashing.  It runs in my head throughout the day, and I just go through the motions.
My classmates know I’m going to be leaving soon.  I accidentally responded to a question my teacher asked me with “I’ll be leaving school at the end of the week.”  I still don’t know what it was he asked.  But since it was math class, I’m sure my answer was wrong.  I’m sure no one at school will miss me, anyway.  All I will miss from the school is the library and its many books.  But there will be libraries in Japan, and I will make do.
Four days until the flight.
Aoibhheann
March 21, 2XXX
Cousin my Cousin,
I have cleared the things from my locker and returned my schoolbooks.  It’s only Wednesday, but there is no longer a trace of me in the school as soon as I leave the building.  And there is nothing from the school to be found at home.  I feel numb.
Mother showed me the uniform I will be wearing at the school in Japan: a dark blue skirt, white blouse, and a grey blazer.  Mother assures me I look good in them, but I’m too preoccupied thinking about the flight to get any pleasure out of it.  They don’t understand how afraid I am of this flight.  I feel as though my world will end soon.  I don’t think I will actually see Japan, Aunt Yuki, or the new school where I will need to wear this uniform.
I have had no other dream since the first night, and every night I wake in terror, sometimes only minutes after falling asleep.  I am obsessing over this, poring through my books about dream interpretation and prescience.  I pray I could just know the cause of this insight, if insight it is.
Three days remain.
Aoibhheann
March 22, 2XXX
Cousin my Cousin,
Today I took the final tests for passing class, just to get them all out of the way.  I hope I did alright, but wouldn’t be surprised if I did worse than usual.  I couldn’t focus on them at all.  Every question drew my mind in some way to the approaching journey.  And of my impending doom.
Oh, I wish you were able to speak with me, cousin!  To give me some small condolence.  But you are mute or I am deaf to your voice.  So I must find solace in telling you of my woes.  I’m scared.  Truly and utterly, I am scared.  Soon, the day will come when I see what it is that will be of my plane ride.
Two days.
Aoibhheann
March 23, 2XXX
Cousin my Cousin,
It was my last day of school in America, today.  I was surprised to see how many people seemed genuinely sad at my leaving.  I didn’t even think they would notice, but many have said their farewells to me in the halls and in each class.  Suddenly I wish I had more time here, wish I had gotten to know these other people.  I didn’t even know most of their names.  I didn’t even recognize many of them.
But I will not have more time to get to know them.  I left school slowly, with more regret than I had imagined I would leave those doors with.  I had always thought I would be happy to be done with this stage of my life.  Now I only look back longing for what could have been.  I’m sixteen years old, and I fear I will never see seventeen.
I am too young to be looking back on my life.  I am too young to be thinking of the it might have beens than could have come from small changes.
Tomorrow.
Aoibhheann
March 24, 2XXX
Cousin my Cousin,
Today is the day.  I write you in the airport waiting area.  We board in half an hour.
I am no longer afraid.  Last night, my dream changed.  When I watched myself just before the final shaking and the crash, I (the dreamt) turned and looked right at myself (the dreamer).  We two myselfs met gaze and watched each other for a moment, then the shaking began.  I (the dreamt) closed my eyes and rested back, instead of filling one of the airplane-provided bags.  The plane continued to shake, then plummeted into the eternal ocean of my dream.  I saw myself as being so calm and peaceful this time.
This time, I did not wake in terror, but continued to watch the disaster as parts of the plane sank below the water.  Bodies bobbed up to the surface, corpses with faces frozen in dread, and then they slowly sank back under the waves.  I (the dreamt) rose to the surface, face serene, as though I was merely asleep.  Then I, too, sunk beneath the waves.  I (the dreamer) watched where I had sunk until the ocean settled and was still.
Then the plane rose out of the waters that had destroyed it.  But it was once more intact, and everyone in it restored to life.  I saw myself once more in the plane, smiling quietly to myself as I continued on to Japan wearing now, instead of the old clothes I had sunk into the waves in, my new uniform from Japan.
I am wearing the uniform now, as a sort of ward against the negative fate of the dark dreams of my recent nights.  Whether this will save me or not, I do not know, but I will use it nonetheless.  I have renewed hope that I may live to see Japan.  And if I should happen to die, I will die calmly and without regret, instead of fearfully.
This is the last I will write you for a while, cousin.  I will write once I have settled in at my new home, be that tomorrow or in a week.  I may begin writing in Japanese instead of English, so I can get used to it for the beginning of school in a few weeks.  Perhaps, but I will not know until I begin.
The plane is calling for passengers to board.  So I go to my death or to my new world away from all I know.  Wish me luck, cousin.  I go to face my nightmares, destiny or dream.
Aoibhheann

Description
March 15 2XXX
Cousin my Cousin,
This is the first time for me to write you, cousin.  You are the twenty-sixth cousin I will have written since I began seven years ago, when I was nine.  I'm sixteen now, and still I write my thoughts in my cousins.
As I always do, I will make this first letter one to describe myself better to you.  After all, you must wonder about me, who writes you, mustn't you?  My name is Aoibhheann Miyuki McCabe.  As stated before, I am female, sixteen, Boar, Pisces, A-.  I was born in Japan, by my mother's request, in her family's birthing home in Kôchi prefecture to the northwest of Ryûgadô cave.  It's a tradition to have one's first child there, even if you live in California.  Mother is, you see, Japanese.  But Father is a native Irishman, down to the stereotype.  This has made me a strange sight indeed.  At four feet, eight inches, I have inherited almost all of my mother's height.  I also have her smooth, olive skin and the Japanese physiognomy.  My hair is silky and straight, as is Mother’s.  But my body has its influences from my father.  My hair is Irish red, as can be my temper, and my eyes are the green of shamrocks.  I’ve been told the combination is…unnerving to some.  When they realize that it’s natural.  Mother and Father have been married nineteen years, and plan on going on their fourth honeymoon in March of next year.
Father is a Jack-of-all-Trades by profession, and his entrepreneurial talent and skill has gained him an incredibly large income.  Incredible when it’s considered that he ‘hasn’t held a single real job for more than two months since high school,’ as he is quick to boast.  He does freelance programming for various software companies from our home here in Orange, a few miles north of Santa Ana.  He also brews his own alcohol, works as a scab for nearby restaurants, substitute teaches, is a Computer Repairman/Information Technology advisor for a modest fee, and is a novelist, college textbook writer, editor, songwriter, actor, stuntman, gourmet chef, tinker, automobile/airplane mechanic, fisherman, carpenter, electrician, plumber, and bounty hunter.  He speaks over a dozen languages (English, Japanese, French, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin, German, Russian, the Gaelic tongues, Hebrew, Old English, Latin, Navajo, and Greek) fluently, and knows standard sign language and reads Braille.  He’s lived on every continent, including a six month excursion on Antarctica with a research team as (after a few months), the resident geologist.  He held five different jobs during that trip.
Mother is the embodiment of Yamato Nadeshiko, the ideal Japanese woman.  She’s quiet, reserved, and elegant, able to calmly move through any situation.  She is the perfect housewife, incredible at cooking, cleaning, and so on.  She can cook anything.  Show her the recipe once, and she can make it.  She has great musical talent, sings, and plays the koto, piano, violin, harp, and just about every woodwind instrument imaginable.  She teaches music out of our home.  She keeps an herb garden in the back yard, and dresses in a way that is both practical and elegant at the same time.  She has many beautiful dresses and kimono, and wears kimono as often as ‘western’ clothing.  Mother says she prefers a tsumugi and zouri to a skirt and heels, but she does tend to wear shorts or jeans while she’s barefoot in the garden.
These two are my only family, my entire world. We don’t keep pets, except for the occasional fish.  Mother will buy them live and keep them until she needs them.  She always says, ‘The fresher the fish, the better the dinner.’
Our house is built into a hill, and Father gave me a special den for my thirteenth birthday.  It is dug under the hill, behind my room in the basement.  A short crawlspace leads to a small, low-ceilinged room with a dirt floor.  It is a four and a half tatami mat room, about nine feet by nine feet, with bookshelves as two of the walls.  They hold my twenty-five other cousins who came before you, as well as some of my favorite books and whatever else I’m reading.  In the center of the room is my kotetsu, a low table with a blanket draped to the ground to keep my legs warm.  Since there is no electricity running into my den, I write you by candle light.
The atmosphere of my den is serene.  Dim lighting and utter silence, but for the scritch-scritch of my pen, creates a calming effect.  This is aided, no doubt, by the soft brown of natural dirt walls and floor that, while visibly appealing, more importantly give off a warm, earthy smell that makes me feel secure.  The den is comfortably warm and dry, and I often become so relaxed that I fall asleep here.  As I love citrus fruits, I keep a small crate of mikan oranges beside the kotatsu.  That adds a citrusy smell mixes with the odor of earth, old books, and the India ink I use for writing to create the smell I love so much.  It’s the smell of home, to me, and here it’s strong enough that I can often even taste it.
You are my twenty-sixth cousin, whom I write lovingly and will one day place beside the twenty-five before you in this room.  You are a thick, hard leather-bound cousin, slightly larger than a pocket dictionary with a metal chrysanthemum on the front cover.  I found you yesterday and had to take you home.  You called to me, as only certain books do.  There was a harmony between us, cousin, right from the start.
And we will only grow closer as time progresses.  But no more for today, I’m afraid.  The candles burn low, and it must soon be time for dinner. I will write you again soon.
Aoibhheann
March 16, 2XXX
Cousin, my Cousin,
I hate school.  I have no friends here.  Usually, this doesn’t bother me, since it’s always been this way, but for a short time, I had a bit of hope.  There was a girl, Emily, who transferred here at the beginning of the semester, back in January. She and I met in the school library, where I spend my lunch period, since I’m alone anyway.  We met over a book, a small book observing time travel and such phenomena through a mathematical perspective.  A fascinating study.  Those are the kind of books I love, paranormal and advanced theory.  Things that are true but currently impossible to prove.  They have to be true; they’re too wonderful to be lies.
But I digress.  Emily, she and I both went for the same book and, unfortunately, there was only one copy available when we went to look for it.  And it wasn’t where it should have been.  We both looked around for it for a few minutes in the same area, but separately.  Then she looked over and started talking to me.
“You’re looking for a book, too?” she commented.  I nodded.  “Well,” said she, “as I see it, if we look together, we may find the books together.  I’ll help you, and so you help me at the same time, okay?”
And that was that.  I had no place to argue against it, she wouldn’t have it.  It’s the way Emily is.  After she realized we were looking for the same book, she giggled and said we should just give up, since we had both been looking together to begin with, to no avail.  She told me we were fast friends, and that was that.
At first, I wanted little to do with her, but she followed me at lunch and talked to me until I was resigned to it.  Then I started to like it.  Someone had befriended me despite how much I stood apart.  And we had the same interests.  Ghost stories, unexplained events, pseudoscience.  I finally had someone to share my stories with.  For a little while, I was happy.
Then she betrayed me.  Maybe I can explain better in the future, but right now, the pain is too fresh.  Suffice it to say that I am now less one false friend.  I will eat my lunch alone again.  But for a little while, at least, I was happy.
I’m sorry to be so depressing, cousin, but thank you for listening nonetheless.  I feel better now.  I’ll write you again, soon.
Aoibhheann
March 17, 2XXX
Cousin my Cousin,
Last night, I had a dream.  In it, I was boarding a plane as my parents saw me off.  As the plane lifted off, it flew over the ocean and into the clouds.  I watched myself as I ate some snacks and drank something the stewardess gave me.  She was the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.  I saw myself stare out the window sadly, as though something was happening that I had no control over.  Then the plane began to shake.  The pilot said something, and the plane leveled off and stopped shaking.  Then the shaking began again, the pilot spoke, and everything was fine.
This happened three times.  Then the plane started shaking again, but more violently than before.  I saw myself, never good on planes, vomit into one of the little bags they keep for that purpose, and pass out.  The shaking continued, even after the pilot spoke.  People around me were crying and screaming.
Moving out of the plane, I saw that it was careening straight toward the ocean, and one of the wings was gone.  The other was aflame on both engines.  Terror filled me as I realized that the plane was going to crash.  Then it did.  Water surged up around the area where the plane crumpled into it.  There could not have been survivors.
What do you think the dream meant?  I mean, I suppose it mightn’t have meant anything, but.  I know I’m afraid of flying.  My father is a licensed commercial pilot, and has taken me up in a few Cessna planes once or twice.  He had, of course, meant to rid me of my fear of flying before I went for some overseas trip, but it hadn’t worked.  Especially when he stalled the plane and we nearly crashed.  It doesn’t matter to me how many times he assures me that the stall had been faked and he’d only done it to scare me.  I have never stepped into a plane since then.  I couldn’t even wear the clothes I wore on that ride again.
Do you think it has something to do with school?  I mean, I am, of course, afraid of failing my classes.  And I only have three months to go before the final.  Maybe it’s just stress related.  I hope it’s nothing else.  But then, what else could it be?
Aoibhheann
March 18, 2XXX
Cousin my Cousin,
I have just been informed that I will not finish this school year with my class.  My parents decided that they wanted me to go to Japan and study abroad there.  Since the Japanese school year starts in the beginning of April, I leave next week.  I’ll be staying with Mother’s younger sister, Yuki, in Hokkaido.  I’ll be taking a jet there.
Dou you think the dream is a premonition or a bad omen?  I had it again last night, too.  I told my parents about the dream as soon as they told me about my upcoming trip.  Father got mad.  He doesn’t believe in superstitious things.  He says they’re a waste of good thinking, despite his time as a sailor.  He didn’t say I was lying, he trusts that I had such a dream.  He just thinks it was something I ate or saw on television.  Mother didn’t say anything, but reassured me that I would love Japan and living with my aunt.
I’m afraid.  But not too much so.  I am superstitious, and I am terrified of flying.  But Father assures me that the pilots will not pull any stunts like he did, them being ‘professional’.  He uses that word so contemptuously.  But if he says a thing is one way, I can be sure that it is so.  He’s never lied to me, even when it would hurt.  I may as well start packing.
Tomorrow.  Tonight, I’ll rest and think things over.
Aoibhheann
March 19, 2XXX
Cousin my Cousin,
The dream came again.  And knowing now that it is something possible, it was that much more terrifying.  I begged my parents not to make me go, but could find no excuse worth even moderate thought from them.  They know I have no friends.  I speak Japanese as often as English at home.  I will know people where I go.  The things I enjoy can easily be had there as here.  And they will be over every few months to check up on me.
Really, if not for the dream, I would be excited.  Aunt Yuki is my favorite aunt.  I’ve seen her a few times during past summers when she came over to visit.  She’s twenty-three, and is what some people would call the ‘fun’ aunt.  I’ve been back to Japan once before, when my parents took me on a summer cruise, and I loved it there.  I love Japanese food, thanks to mother, and I can fit in.  Also, it will be my first time to actually see the cherry blossoms.  That will be nice.
Only the flight scares me.  I’m going to pack now.
Aoibhheann
March 20, 2XXX
Cousin my Cousin,
The dream came again.
I’ve finished packing.  Four sets of clothing and some books.  My computer and a few other odds and ends that I would miss.  My other cousins will stay here, and I feel I am losing something for the separation.
I’ve never lived in any house other than this one, though this one has grown and changed quite a bit from the start.  Sometimes it feels like a different house, but it still has the feeling of home.  I will miss sitting at my kotatsu here in my den.  Aunt Yuki has promised me my own room with a kotatsu there, but I know it won’t be the same.
I’m still terrified of going.  The fear eats me up inside.  I lose my attention in class, missing when I’m called on.  I barely eat.  All I can see is the plane crashing.  It runs in my head throughout the day, and I just go through the motions.
My classmates know I’m going to be leaving soon.  I accidentally responded to a question my teacher asked me with “I’ll be leaving school at the end of the week.”  I still don’t know what it was he asked.  But since it was math class, I’m sure my answer was wrong.  I’m sure no one at school will miss me, anyway.  All I will miss from the school is the library and its many books.  But there will be libraries in Japan, and I will make do.
Four days until the flight.
Aoibhheann
March 21, 2XXX
Cousin my Cousin,
I have cleared the things from my locker and returned my schoolbooks.  It’s only Wednesday, but there is no longer a trace of me in the school as soon as I leave the building.  And there is nothing from the school to be found at home.  I feel numb.
Mother showed me the uniform I will be wearing at the school in Japan: a dark blue skirt, white blouse, and a grey blazer.  Mother assures me I look good in them, but I’m too preoccupied thinking about the flight to get any pleasure out of it.  They don’t understand how afraid I am of this flight.  I feel as though my world will end soon.  I don’t think I will actually see Japan, Aunt Yuki, or the new school where I will need to wear this uniform.
I have had no other dream since the first night, and every night I wake in terror, sometimes only minutes after falling asleep.  I am obsessing over this, poring through my books about dream interpretation and prescience.  I pray I could just know the cause of this insight, if insight it is.
Three days remain.
Aoibhheann
March 22, 2XXX
Cousin my Cousin,
Today I took the final tests for passing class, just to get them all out of the way.  I hope I did alright, but wouldn’t be surprised if I did worse than usual.  I couldn’t focus on them at all.  Every question drew my mind in some way to the approaching journey.  And of my impending doom.
Oh, I wish you were able to speak with me, cousin!  To give me some small condolence.  But you are mute or I am deaf to your voice.  So I must find solace in telling you of my woes.  I’m scared.  Truly and utterly, I am scared.  Soon, the day will come when I see what it is that will be of my plane ride.
Two days.
Aoibhheann
March 23, 2XXX
Cousin my Cousin,
It was my last day of school in America, today.  I was surprised to see how many people seemed genuinely sad at my leaving.  I didn’t even think they would notice, but many have said their farewells to me in the halls and in each class.  Suddenly I wish I had more time here, wish I had gotten to know these other people.  I didn’t even know most of their names.  I didn’t even recognize many of them.
But I will not have more time to get to know them.  I left school slowly, with more regret than I had imagined I would leave those doors with.  I had always thought I would be happy to be done with this stage of my life.  Now I only look back longing for what could have been.  I’m sixteen years old, and I fear I will never see seventeen.
I am too young to be looking back on my life.  I am too young to be thinking of the it might have beens than could have come from small changes.
Tomorrow.
Aoibhheann
March 24, 2XXX
Cousin my Cousin,
Today is the day.  I write you in the airport waiting area.  We board in half an hour.
I am no longer afraid.  Last night, my dream changed.  When I watched myself just before the final shaking and the crash, I (the dreamt) turned and looked right at myself (the dreamer).  We two myselfs met gaze and watched each other for a moment, then the shaking began.  I (the dreamt) closed my eyes and rested back, instead of filling one of the airplane-provided bags.  The plane continued to shake, then plummeted into the eternal ocean of my dream.  I saw myself as being so calm and peaceful this time.
This time, I did not wake in terror, but continued to watch the disaster as parts of the plane sank below the water.  Bodies bobbed up to the surface, corpses with faces frozen in dread, and then they slowly sank back under the waves.  I (the dreamt) rose to the surface, face serene, as though I was merely asleep.  Then I, too, sunk beneath the waves.  I (the dreamer) watched where I had sunk until the ocean settled and was still.
Then the plane rose out of the waters that had destroyed it.  But it was once more intact, and everyone in it restored to life.  I saw myself once more in the plane, smiling quietly to myself as I continued on to Japan wearing now, instead of the old clothes I had sunk into the waves in, my new uniform from Japan.
I am wearing the uniform now, as a sort of ward against the negative fate of the dark dreams of my recent nights.  Whether this will save me or not, I do not know, but I will use it nonetheless.  I have renewed hope that I may live to see Japan.  And if I should happen to die, I will die calmly and without regret, instead of fearfully.
This is the last I will write you for a while, cousin.  I will write once I have settled in at my new home, be that tomorrow or in a week.  I may begin writing in Japanese instead of English, so I can get used to it for the beginning of school in a few weeks.  Perhaps, but I will not know until I begin.
The plane is calling for passengers to board.  So I go to my death or to my new world away from all I know.  Wish me luck, cousin.  I go to face my nightmares, destiny or dream.
Aoibhheann