88.

I have changed so. It feels wrong, somehow, even to hold this pen with my new white hand. The pen is a tool of the living & I have put behind me all such things. Tonight we are at rest, though it is unwelcome, & unsought for. Tomorrow surely we will be loosed. It is quiet here, though they say a battle raged all day. I was asleep, & heard nothing of it. I do smell the smoke now.

My heart longs to go out into the night, to fight, & serve again. I have gained new powers, both of my body, which walks again (& I thought it never possible!), & of the mind. Such things I see now. I see ghosts, Bill, everywhere now about me, yet am not much frightened. Like me they have passed the vale of tears, & we are as comrades…

One power I now possess, which is to raise the dead. Just as you were raised. I will not do it. Yes, even if I am ordered to do so…I cannot bear to see the faces torn, the bodies broken, as yours was.

Beyond this I promise no mercy, to any man I meet.

Tomorrow there must be BLOOD. I did not know, before, that I would dream of it, & in such quantity, & of its taste.

—LETTER OF ALVA GRIEST (UNPOSTED)