To my dear niece, Anne. I am going away for I have done a terrible thing. Your father and I grew up in great competition with each other. He was always so much better than me at most things, it seemed to come to him with ease. I felt like I was always working so hard to be almost as good as he was without any effort at all. When our father died and left us this brewery, Burkhart took over and it seemed as if this was the thing he could not do. With so much responsibility and no fatherly approval to work for, Burkhart became lazy and the business suffered. I was so angry at him, especially with you so young and without a mother. I felt I could do a better job than he was doing, at everything, and so I began to have dark thoughts about how to achieve that. I have a problem with drinking. I've made it into a game, you know. I find myself forgetting sometimes to feed Oatmeal, I had to get help even building him a shelter. I feel like I've been on the edge for so long, keeping it together, making sure nobody would guess but it's drained me. I started 'forgetting' to turn on some of the brewery mash tuns. If your father and I were having a good day, I'd remember again, but as the good days got fewer and my resentment against him grew, I began to forget more and more. The brewery was falling apart. We had vermin everywhere, and it seemed like Burkhart just wanted to make friends with them. I didn't understand how someone could befriend an animal like that, I thought he was just pretending to avoid his responsibilities. One day, he had been goofing around with me again, and I lost it. I pushed him into the mash tun, and I shut the lid and turned away until the noises stopped. When it was quiet, I looked back and realized what I'd done. It was so quiet. I've spent the years distracting myself with running Alegarten and later caring for Oatmeal and it made me understand your fathers ways. Such responsibility is draining, and having an animal companion brings you such joy. I've been growing tired, Anne. I thought this year I could make the tiredness go away with the revamped festival, but all it did was bring it further to the surface. So now I must leave you. I leave you the brewery - it is rightfully yours. I hope you will take care of Oatmeal and learn to love him like I did. Fantine will also be looking in on him while you're busy with work. Maybe next year you can run Neugarten, make it your own? You deserve it. I took so much away from you, I hope one day you will forgive me. Your uncle,

• Gunter