Mia was ten years old when she found the letters.
It was a rainy Saturday. She had nothing to do.
She was in the old back room of the house. Her mum called it the “junk room.”
Mia sat on the floor and felt a board move under her foot.
She looked down. One plank was loose.
The nails had rusted away.
She pulled at it. It came up with a soft crack.
Under the floor was a dark, dusty gap.
Mia reached inside. Her fingers touched something dry and soft.
She pulled it out. It was a bundle of old letters, tied with a thin red string.
The paper was yellow and thin, like old skin.
The ink had faded, but she could still read the words.
The first letter started with “My dearest Clara.”
Mia sat very still. Her great-grandmother’s name was Clara.
She read on. The letter was from a man named Thomas.
He wrote about rain and mud. He wrote about missing home.
He wrote about a war far away.
Mia counted the letters. There were twenty-two of them.
Each one was sent from a place called the Western Front.
She had learned about that in school. It was from the First World War.
The letters were almost one hundred years old.
Mia’s hands started to shake a little.
She read every single word Thomas had written.
He talked about his friends. He talked about stars at night.
He said he thought about Clara every single day.
The last letter was short. Only a few lines.
Thomas said he hoped to be home by spring.
But there were no more letters after that one.
Mia felt a sad, heavy feeling in her chest.
She took the letters to her mum in the kitchen.
Her mum read the first one and went very quiet.
She said Thomas was Clara’s first love. He never came home from the war.
Clara had never talked about him. Not once.
But she had kept his letters. She had kept them safe under the floor.
Mia thought that was the saddest and most beautiful thing she had ever heard.
That night, she sat by her window and looked at the stars.
She thought about Thomas looking at the same sky, so long ago.
She thought about Clara, waiting and waiting, and never seeing him again.
Mia made a quiet promise to herself.
She would not let Thomas be forgotten.
She would tell his story to everyone who would listen.
And so she did.