Dear Thomas

**Dear Thomas** is a song from the perspective of Alice Healy speaking to Thomas Price. It was written in March 2007, long before the publication of the InCryptid series. It was publicly released in the 2011 musical album Wicked Girls.

## Lyrics

Source: http://seananmcguire.com/songbook.php?id=149

Dear Thomas, I'm writing tonight

Just to say that I hope you're all right;

I haven't heard from you since I went away,

I was sorry to go, but you said not to stay,

So I went to the station and boarded a bus for tomorrow.

Dear Thomas, did you ever know

I was praying you'd say not to go?

Were you really that blind to the hope in my eyes,

Was my love that unclear, was my heart that unwise?

I paid for my ticket with tears, and my change came in sorrow,

And the signs at the station all read "you can never go home."

You can never go home to the land that you loved

When you thought that a day was forever;

When the wind was a bridle to hang on the sun

And the moon was a toy on a tether.

I can never go home to the girl that I was

When I thought you might tell me to stay,

'cause the past is a road where the bus doesn't run,

And there's no station called "Yesterday."

Dear Thomas, I wish I could lie

And pretend that this wasn't goodbye...

But I can't live my life on a wish and a prayer,

I was reaching for you, but you never were there,

So I packed up my bags and I went to where you couldn't follow.

Dear Thomas, I'll always be yours,

But the past is a room with no doors.

There's no second chance, no, there's only regrets

And the ghost of a heart that's not quite broken yet.

I'd sign this with love, but we both know the words would be hollow,

And the signs at the station were right: I can never go home.

You can never go home to the land that you loved

When you thought that a day was forever;

When the wind was a bridle to hang on the sun

And the moon was a toy on a tether.

I can never go home to the girl that I was,

So it's time that I put her away,

'cause your heart is a road where the bus doesn't run,

And there's no station called "Yesterday."

And the signs at the station were right: I can never go home.

And the signs at the station were right. We can never go home.

## Analysis

 **Spoiler warning!**
Ahead are significant plot details from the Patreon stories. Read at your own peril!
This song is likely set after Alice goes away to college at the end of the Patreon story Halfway Through the Wood. In the story, seventeen-year-old Alice is put in mortal peril and, in her delirium, tells Thomas that she was going to marry him someday. Thomas makes his bargain with the crossroads to save her life and realizes the extent of his own feelings for her. Alice doesn't know of the bargain, or that he is trapped in increasingly smaller territory within Buckley. She turns eighteen, and visits him before heading off to college. She wants him to tell her to stay, but he doesn't, not wanting to trap her with him. She boards a bus and leaves Buckley, and Thomas, behind.

* "I was sorry to go, but you said not to stay ... was my love that unclear, was my heart that unwise?"
	+ Refers to Alice visiting Thomas before she leaves.
* "I went to the station and boarded a bus for tomorrow."
	+ Alice takes the bus to Ann Arbor for college and her future.
* "You can never go home to the land that you loved."
	+ Perhaps due to her ancestry, Alice has a fierce love for the woods of Buckley...and they love her back.
* "So I packed up my bags and I went to where you couldn't follow...the past is a room with no doors."
	+ Unknown if she is aware of the bargain keeping him in Buckley at this point.
* "The ghost of a heart that's not quite broken yet."
	+ Possibly a reference to their mutual ghost friend, Mary

## References

1. ↑ https://seananmcguire.tumblr.com/post/171943143790/is-the-dear-thomas-track-from-the-wicked-girls-cd
2. ↑ https://seananmcguire.com/songbook.php?id=149
3. ↑ https://seananmcguire.com/albums.php