Fixed and Consequent

Journal Entry 71, Eighteen Five

It?s kind of funny, I see Aurora almost every night, we get to the observatory a little early to open up the gift shop and the exhibits, but when I saw her get out of her car at the dance club, it was like seeing her for the first time again. She wore a rose colored dress, silk, and heels, her hair was pinned up, I was stunned again.

If it hadn?t been for Teddy poking me with a claw, I?d probably still be standing there like an idiot. Aurora smiled, too, a lot, and she blushed. I don?t think as much as I did, but she didn?t say anything about it.

She dances so well. She moves to the music like nothing I?ve ever seen. I felt like some dumb clod who managed to ask Ginger Rogers to dance. She had this... incredible, exquisate expression on her face when she was dancing. I don?t know how I could dance. Then she said I was the best partner she?d ever had, and I was completely astonished.

The place was closing before I realized it, which embarrasses me still, I don?t usually lose track of time like that. Aurora said she didn?t either, but she was having such a good time. She really seemed to mean that.

We ended up getting breakfast instead of dinner, and she offered to give me a lift home since she?d kept me out all night. I kind of balked. She?s so bright and vivid that I really didn?t want to come off as some morbid creep and tell her I live in a cemetary, but she already knew, and she didn?t seem to think it was odd.

I hope not, anyhow. So many people think there?s something wrong with it, or me, that I do. Aurora just said her aunt told her I was from a family of morticians. Which kind of ...well I guess that still confuses and alarms me. Either Dr. Geemis is volunteering information about me, and I really don?t know what she thinks of me; or Aurora is asking, and... I don?t know what Debbi thinks of me.

I had her stop by the pond because the sun was coming up, and there?s a lovely veiw of it there. It was hard to watch the sun once the light hit her face. I wonder if she always had that golden aura and her parents named her for that.

Aurora said she thought the cemetary really was pretty, and offered to give me a hand if I needed it. The window boxes were blooming, and she bought more plants, the cemetary would be one big garden to work on. Which is how I see it, too.

I was tired or in a daze going in, I don?t remember getting into bed, but I did. Even now, if I close my eyes and am quiet, I can still feel her in my arms dancing. I keep doing that. I?m such an idiot.

I really want to know what Debbi Geemis is saying about me though. It alarms me, on one hand; it?s... I don?t know what it is. It?s a strange feeling, I?ve never wanted to be anything for anyone, and I certainly never cared what that lunitic thought of me. Now I?m terrified she?s telling Aurora what a psychopath I am.

Or worse, telling her about where I?m from, my disabilities, what happens to me. How often. Aurora?s never seen it. I?ve been lucky.

I don?t want to tell her. I don?t want to at all. I?m just another guy. I?m normal as far as... Well, I assume Aurora knows. I guess I can?t expect that the first thing out of her aunts mouth wouldn?t be ?he has seizures, darling, randomly, you?re going to be terrified the first time he collapses at your feet.?

Damn it. It was so nice to at least pretend she didn?t know. Pretend it wasn?t there at all.

I don?t even know what I?m thinking! She?s so... normal. Aurora is... just so normal. And here I am. I hide everything, and it never does any good. All I ever manage is for people to get to know me before this facade of the quiet normal young man shatters into its componant pieces. Mage, disabled, not quite human, astrologer.

Will o? whisps and ghosts. Bogle, shadow dragon, and familiar. Nightmares you can touch. A witch for a team leader. I live in a cemetary. I get depressed.

I guess Jackie was right. I wear this mask so doggedly, and I?m so scared when it comes down. Some people couldn?t look past all that once they learned it. They couldn?t see past it and see I?m still me. They would be angry and ask why I hadn?t told them in the first place, and I never have a good answer.

?Hello, I?m Desdenova, I use my mothers maiden name, I?m a mage, I have siezures without warning and partial mobia syndrome, I have several beings ascribed to fantasy on my person as familiar and protectors, I live in a cemetary, I work for an interdimensional research and developement facility, I can and do callously kill those that harm my loved ones, my sense of smell is as good as any blood hounds, and though both of my parents are human, only one is homo sapiens.? Yes, what a wonderful way to introduce myself.

I don?t want to tell her. I don?t. I want to just be another guy.

It never works out like that. I always betray myself just because I am myself. All I can do is hope that she likes me well enough to accept the rest.

Journal Entry 71, Eighteen Five

I didn?t think my opinion of Alec could get any lower. I?ll say this much for that two-timing lying bastard, he?s got a lot more balls than I?d have ever dreamed any neutered girly boi could ever have.

He went crying to Zane about how I have been rude to him. I have been rude to that sack of mouse droppings. I?ve hurt his little feelings and made him feel bad.

I was so stunned by the audacity, I couldn?t even think. That whining little creep tattled. Not only that, but he lied to do it.

The worst part was that this mature adult didn?t come to me to discuss his problem with me. No. He went sleazing to Zane to whimper about how big, bad, mean Des was hurting wittle him.

That after I hear the little creep simpering to his lover Havock or whatever it is about how ?if people can?t accept me as I am, fuck them?. I loved that, I don?t know how I kept from laughing hysterically. ?If people can?t accept me as I am...?

Yet he refuses to accept other people as they are. I can?t dislike him for the way he treats Zane because oh, he?s a sexy made for sex sexual sex machine, and everyone has to respect that. And he does not have to respect that other people find his actions to be vile and disgusting.

I shouldn?t have been so shocked, I all ready knew he was a bald faced liar and hippocrite, but I was. And I?m sorry, but I?m not going to change my morals to make it okay for him to be such a hidious prick.

It?s not wrong for me to not find him lovely and sweet and adorible. Sorry, if he can?t accept me as I am, he can just fuck off.

Actually, no, I?m not that much of a self centered creep. I know that people have different ways. If they are worth knowing despite having objectionable habits, they will reach out when you reach out. They won?t insist on being accepted unconditionally any more than they would accept unconditionally things that they find objectionable.

They certainly wouldn?t force their ways on someone else, or worse, knowing already that their ways are objectionable, demand that someone else take up and enjoy their ways.

I tried, more than once. Several times. To reach out to him. I did so when Zane was there, and when she wasn?t. Every time I tried to get to know him better, I was rewarded with coarse sexual remarks and humor. I know I told him, and I know Zane told him, that I do not enjoy that sort of humor in the slightest, particularly if it?s suggesting that I am trying to be sexual.

But apparantly, I have no right to find that objectionable. I have no right to not want to have that aimed at me. I have to accept being the brunt of filthy innuendo and outright sexual suggestion, I have to think it?s funny and cute, or I?m bad.

I?m not bad. I still find it objectionable.

That was, evidently, the main part of my ?rudeness?. That I don?t like those sorts of jokes, I don?t like it when he?s trying to get an orgy on the porch going with all his little glitter fag friends, and I don?t like it when he?s petting and nuzzling over the half dressed skank girls.

Sorry, I don?t care what he is. He agreed to be Zanes? one and only, what he?s doing is worse than disrespectful. And that?s just what he does in the public veiw. That?s not counting after he and his good ?cuddle buddy? of the moment have gotten each other all thrilled and panting and suddenly they have to go.

I don?t automatically assume that they?re off fornicating, but it?s rather difficult to think they?ve gone off to the Christian Reading Room to brush up on their Gospel.

Alec whined to Zane that I would go out of my way to avoid walking by him. I was really surprised at that one, because I had, just a few nights before, said hello, responded to everything he asked me or in general, and politely pretended not to hear when he started making me sound like an utter monster to his new skank girl.

Though I remembered that yes, there were a few times that I went over the side of the porch rather than to go down the steps, and only one of those times had anything to do with him. That was when he had started a grope-fest on the steps, and there was no way I was going to go in reaching distance of that.

They were grabbing and pawing at everyone that went by, there wasn?t any way on earth I was going to get within range of that. I don?t think there?s any reason for me to feel bad for not wanting strangers and people I know are willing to molest others to touch me.

The other few times had nothing at all to do with him, and if he was stupid enough to think that I was going to use the steps when there were altercations in progress there, then he?s a bigger idiot than I thought.

The thing that just really blew me away, though, was when Zane said ?well, Alec isn?t very perceptive about people?.

He?s plenty perceptive. It?s just that you either love him entire, or you suck. I don?t suck. I?m sure he?d love it if I did, though.

I thought he was supposed to be empathic, too. Not to mention he flings around magic like a drunken prom queen, and it?s all pulled out of his ass with the rest of his idiotic remarks and actions. He?ll be invisible, and I mean, literally that, invisible, in the corner, and then suddenly appear, and start whining about being ignored. Or he?ll pop up, insist he?s been there for hours and been ignored, and he wasn?t there at all prior.

All this as if no one else in the world is capable of knowing things like that. Well, I may know when he?s there and being invisible, or in another form, but I?ve been taught that when someone is trying not to be seen, and you don?t have a hit on them, to just let them hide. You could endanger them by pointing them out.

Besides, in general, when someone is hiding like that, they don?t want to deal with you.

He?ll also show up and then go inside, or a long ways away from the tavern, and I?m not following him. I won?t follow Cam when she and Bren go inside unless they need something. But that?s being rude and ignoring Alec. Nevermind the fact that it?s rude and ignoring me to walk up and by without a word. When someone ignores me, or is brusque and marches by to get away from me, I take that as a dismissal, not an invitation.

Mainly, I was just shocked that this supposed adult male with all these wonderous powers and skills within his complete control was not able to walk up to me and talk to me about my ?rudeness?.

I?ve been trying to be polite, I?ve been going out of my way to be polite. I don?t have anything else to talk to him about because it?s already been ignored when I said that I don?t care to be in the middle of his sexual innuendos. Obviously, it?s beyond his ability to respect that, so I don?t try to aggravate the issue.

I don?t like the way he treats Zane, but that?s between them. I know Zane has said that if he?s really fucking around, then one of her friends should tell her, but that never goes over well. She feels that if no one tells her, they?re not really friends.

The trouble is, even when I?ve started to tell her that there are a lot of suspicions, she quickly explains them away. Oh, sure Alec was kissing and fondling this person or that, and they both left in obvious sexual excitement, but Alec never would cheat when he said he wouldn?t. I don?t have any proof, and frankly, I don?t think she?d believe it if I did have proof.

And then I think she?d hate me if I did.

I tried to tell her, anyhow, but she just kept explaining it away. No, no, Alec?s just really affectionate and he?s allowed to do things that would infuriate anyone else if their lover was acting so.

So what else could I do? I was hurt. A lot. But there wasn?t anything I could say because she was just trying to protect the man she loves. I can respect that, if nothing else.

All I could do was to say that if Alec really had a problem with me, he needed to pull on his big boy underpants and talk to me instead of putting her in the middle of it. She agreed to that, at least. I felt bad, because now he?ll whine at her because if she?s not doing his every bidding, she doesn?t love him.

There?s nothing else I can do. Just nothing.

[Interlude -- Break Fast]


The first rays of morning slanted through the gaps in the sprung hinges of the barn doors, managed to press through the soot blackened windows. Charlie ruffled her feathers, dimmed to a pale, lightless gold in the night.

Silent for those few moments of rising sun, though another dawn, she would have blazed to morning bright and swoop glad fire-trails through the dark and dusty space. Not this morning, no. She was hungry, and watched the old grain bins and hayloft keenly from her rafter perch.

Rats and mice were easy prey as they scuttled back to their lairs, and the phoenix watched closely for them. The pair of owls that lived over the loft had already fed their hatchlings and were done with their hunts for the night, however, and Charlie realized that so long as the parents were feeding two little beaks, she wouldn?t have much luck in the barn.

Trilling to herself, Charlie launched from her perch, blazing sunshine, easy acrobatics to squidge through a broken out windowpane. Fluttering to rest on the lightning rod and to let the sun admire her fires, the phoenix contemplated the house.

Her boy would be up shortly, and he wouldn?t mind feeding her. In the cold thing, he had chicken and rabbit giblets, and fatty pig parts, as well as the eggs he collected from the scroungy hens she wasn?t supposed to snatch up.

Charlie almost decided to mooch a handout when she spied a young, fat ground hog snuffling along the side of the greenhouse. Tilting her head back and forth to get a bearing on breakfast, the firebird was oblivious that there was another predator watching the ground hog.

Preferring shadows to the open air, the other regarded the ground hog reflectively. Just the right size for a meal and perhaps a few choice bits left over to impress a female with.

Then in a flurry of fire and a sharp squeal of protest, the ground hog was gone. Scratching his head and chittering annoyance, the raccoon surrendered cover to try and find out where his breakfast had got to.

Perched on an ornate tomb, the phoenix merrily tore into her meal, chortling and singing to herself. No matter how sweet her boy was, reheating ones repast just couldn?t compare to fresh and warm.

The raccoon swarmed up the tomb, at first intending upon driving off the interloper from his ground hog, and then halting, absolutely transfixed by the shining fire colors of the phoenix?s feathers.

No female in her right mind would ever turn one of those down, but he?d have to search high and low for one that he?d want to offer a feather like that.

Charlies? back was to the bandit, unaware that there was larceny affixing to the graceful span of her tail feathers. Busy eating, quick gulps of meat taken with every duck of head, the phoenix was hungry enough to forget to keep an eye out for other predators.

Or theives...

The raccoon lunged with paws and teeth, quickly seizing Charlie at the base of her tail. Charlie let out an outraged and infuriated shriek, startled into flapping madly to escape her tormentor.

This resulted in a bare butt and a running bandit partially clothed in stolen plumage. Charlie was stunned, plopping to the ground like a wet hen and keening her head off.

Worse, her boy came running out... and started laughing. Laughing!

Charlie scolded through her misfortune, flapping and hopping. Instants later, however, Bea shot through the open door and plowed into the larger raccoon, barking. A sharp burst of energy caused the theif to squeal and drop the stolen tail feathers before beating feet from the cemetary as fast as his stubby legs would carry him.

Bea whuffed and scuffed her paws, stiff legged, strutting over having driven the raccoon away, and Desdenova still laughed. Finally, he staggered to the fuming phoenix, and gathered her up, trying to soothe away her indigneties.

Charlie wasn?t having any of it, however, she sulked and struggled to get free of his arms and fluttered back to the tomb where she chewed him out seven ways till Sunday while tearing at her ground hog.

Desdenova listened, lips twitching with his amusement, dutifully to the tirade until Charlie seemed to run out of steam. Finally, giggling softly into his hand, the youth turned and gathered up the fallen tail feathers.

Phoenix feathers. He knew that in the shop, even specimens in poor shape fetched incredible prices. There were dozens of spells that specified their use, none that Desdenova had ever really found need for.

Curiously smoothing the feathers in his fingers, he glanced between them and Charlie. They shone like flame, but didn?t burn. They remained warm, but not hot, never bursting into the real fire that Charlie was quite capable of igniting.

A kings ransom in his hand, Desdenova reflected, smiling in a gentle fade. Certainly, at least that. But they were pretty. Why ruin them for a spell?

That?s really all that mattered. Desdenova coiled them carefully in his pack. His friends would like them.

Finally, Charlie forgave the youth when he walked back out holding up a tin of silver nitrate to soothe her bottom and a chunk of fresh baked gingerbread to apologize to her stomach. Better, he was singing a song that Charlie hadn?t heard yet.

It wasn?t worth having her glorious plumage torn away, but Charlie allowed that it did make up for laughing at her misfortunes. Settling onto Desdenovas? shoulder, the firebird took up East Side of Heaven along with him.

Journal Entry 72, eighteen five

No?Chok is his name, I don?t know why I was calling him other things. I probably haven?t written it the same way twice. Oh, well. I?m sure he?d just laugh and pick me up to hug me.

He?s the ...Lion-taur. Wemic he says sometimes, it?s a little hard to understand him often. He doesn?t speak much common yet, and I don?t like using translators or translation spells, because those can delay learning the language you?re trying to understand.

That ticked me off a few times. Alec just BAM casts a translation spell on No?Chok without even asking. Rome was just managing to get words from her translator, we were doing fine, but no, here comes Mr. Super Mage to the rescue.

No?Chok didn?t mind, but that doesn?t make it okay.

I envy him so much, No?Chok. From what I can understand, he is one day to be a shaman, and he has decided to learn about the world around him before he does so. Learning tales, or gaining them to tell again later or... Well, I?m not really sure, but he is determined.

He loves feathers, and beads, and puts them in his mane in specific ways. It seems haphazard, yes, but there seems to be stories in just how they are arranged. I gave him one of Feathyres? feathers, and he was delighted. It wasn?t one of her biggest feathers from her wings, but still he said that she must walk long on the wind.

Well, eventually she will, I said she was still young and would learn. She will.

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I envy him, though. He has decided that he will learn of the world, and in turn, it shall learn of him. And, he just... went. Packed what he would need for the body and soul and started out.

It seems like he?s on some sort of pilgrammage. There?s a ...I don?t know. It?s a kind of good humored defiance in his tones when he speaks of his journey, but I haven?t really figured out why yet.

No?Chok speaks of the plains, and his ways and speech remind me of the plains Natives. Cherokee, maybe, one of the great tribes. He has that air of watching into the sun, of minding the sky.

When you?re a friend, he picks you up and hugs you. I like to tell him when people are friends, and then not tell my friends that they?re going to get picked up and hugged, and possibly licked. It?s funny.

There?s no chance in the whole world that No?Chok is harmless, after all, only a fool would take his sweet nature and kind heart for that. But he wouldn?t hurt anyone that was a friend.

I like it when he just plucks me up and hugs, though he usually makes me squeak when he does. One morning, he was in a particularly gleeful mood, and I was right there, he kept picking me up and hugging, and I kept squeaking.

Actually, now that I think about it, the ladies were there giggling that I was squeaking, and I think he was playing off of that. It?s easy to think of someone like him as being stupid, but he?s most certainly not. I?ll bet he dips the girl wemics tails in inkwells, too.

Anyhow, Paige drove me to work, because Maria had given her a list of things she needed for her Santoria, and she insisted that I didn?t need to help her, she?d get on fine with Matilde working the register. I really really should have suspected. Or at least been paranoid of Matilde and Paige chatting amiably without me standing there listening.

I don?t think that would have stopped them, but at least I?d have been better forwarned.

They made a little Desdenova-doll. It SQUEAKS. Matilde used MY toymakers first artical spell and made a DOLL of ME that SQUEAKS. And Paige gave it to Elly to GNAW on.

Women are evil.

[Interlude: Black Dog]

Yawning fit to shame the Grand Canyon, Shadow made her presence known. It was the first indicator of her mobility in the morning. Second was the bed head, which she always had. Just worse at this point in time. Shirt rumpled, pants wrinkled, she just rolled right on out of bed and started walking.

?Sun,? she squinted, lucid as a cave girl, ?Bright.?

Beautiful dog, yes. Elegant, flying trot carried the large black and white Borzoi from the woods, bounding after a red ball. Upon capturing the ball in jaws, the animal turned and launched back. Only to follow, barking gladly after the flight of the ball thrown once more.

This throw took it further towards the porch. Ball caught, the wolf hound poised, pointing, and finally, fringed whip tail waving, loped to the porch.

Running a hand through her hair, which made the rest stand on end too, Shadow meandered in patterns that made as much sense as she did. Precisely none. Until a dog with longer legs than she scrambled in her path up the steps. Give her roughly a few seconds. The motor was slow, and the oil was sluggy.

?Good morning,? To the canine, of course.

The hint of a grin tugged at the corner of scarred black lips as Patch approached the tavern, faded, lifeless gaze set on the borzoi engaged in play.

Dog-smiles on the wedge of head, the dog pranced the last few steps to the porch. Whines, churrs and chuffs behind the ball, bright and shining blue and green mottled eyes. Perhaps a mutation. The ball was set down and the animal barked, brightly, looking from Patch to Shadow, wagging yes, and a neat white-booted paw tapping at the ball.
Patch hunkered down as he arrived at the porch, that?s what one is supposed to do to appear as less threatening to a dog, yes. A hand slowly entended for the pup to sniff.

?Yes, I know. Just let me wake up,? Shadow soothed the dog blearily, and smiled to Patch, ?Good morning.?

?Whuff ruff bark!? The Borzoi was a talkative fellow, yes, and fearless, it seemed, a skip to Patch, forepaws up and rested on the outstretched hand after a cursory sniff. A lick of cheek! Dog-breath kind of smelled pancakey.

Patch chuckled at the lick and touch of forepaw, then replied to the red-tressed woman before picking up the ball, ?Good morning.?

The ball was tossed towards the woods for the dog as Patch spoke, and barking in delight, off the dog raced, flying through tall grass and nimbly shooting through trees. Sight hound rather than a retrievor, but boy was this fun! It wouldn?t dawn on the dog that he?d been playing fetch ad naseum. Did that ever occur to a dog?

Shadow opened one eye, closed the other. Repeated it, as if testing to make sure all systems were go, watching the ball bounce merrily into darkened underbrush.

?You know. That?s how they enslave you,? Shadow remarked, sliding feet toward the serving window, ?Want anything??

?No, but thank you,? Patch replied amiably to Shadow, ?And I can think of worse forms of indentured servitude.?

Returning, the dog stopped and danced a circle around a short, orange, felinish bogle, only to bound back to Patch, sans ball. Seemed Teddy was tired, and had confiscated the damn ball.

The Mantra of the Dog went as thus, after all: ?Oh boy, a Walk! My favorite! Oh boy, dinner! My Favorite! Oh boy, a ride! My favorite! Oh boy, sleep! My favorite... Oooh. Bummer. The Vet.?

Shadow nodded, and pondered. What was that approaching? She didn?t really stare at Teddy but okay well yes, she was staring.

?True,? she responded, abstracted, to Patch.

Rising to his feet, Patch walked over to the corner of the tavern and around it, returning a short time later with a bucket of water, which he set on the ground near the porch.

?Thirsty, there, pup?? he smiled kindly.

The feline seeming goblin, bandy legged and ill tempered, well, Teddy was actually in a pretty good mood this morning. Carrying the astronomers case, the creature hissed hello and simply parked his furry butt on the swing to chill out.

The Borzoi nosed the bogle only to turn and dance circles around Patch. Oh Boy! Water! My favorite!

Patch had thought as much, that the dog might be thirsty. He looked to the bogle with one side of the shelf-like brow arched.

?No pet today, Teddy??

Teddy simply chortled and pointed at the Borzoi slopping water gaily as he drank. Shadow tossed her head back a moment, between the curmudgeonly creature and the dog, it startled laughter.

?Aaaaieee...gods! Not enough coffee to prepare one?s self for this place,? she decided, and stuck her head in the window and caterwauled for caffeine, before leaning a hip against the wall. Pointing at the chortling cat - creature, she looked to to Patch. ?Who is that?? Not ?what is it?. Good girl.

Teddy was revelling in irony this morning, excuse his horridly smug manner.

?That is Teddy. He?s a bogle. Don?t ask me what that is, because I don?t know, and I?ll end up just pointing at him,? Patch explained, reasonably.

?Ehhhhhhhh!? Fonz-like, the bogle spread his paws out to indicate the splendor of Him. Shadow stared. And stared. And stared. Until she had her coffee, and a long drink helped.

?Good morning Teddy,? she responded politely to the FurFonz.

?Need I say more?? Patch noted, ever elegant in contrast to his rough hewn appearance.

Wet muzzled, wet chest, wet paws, the Borzoi managed to probably get more water on him than in him. A vigorous shaking and the cheerful animal bounced to the porch, looking for dog-suckers. Teddy, he grinned showing a mouthful of possum-sharp teeth and wiggled claws in greeting. This is better than his usual one-fingered salute.

Indeed, the wave was better. Not to mention flying the bird probably just made chicks dig the bogle. Shadow held up her cup of sludge to look at it under the light.

?Mmm. Don?t see anything swimmin? in it.? So far, anyhow.

?Wrrf huff wff??The Borzoi looked up appealingly. Quick to push a wet nose... and head, really... under Patches hand. Petthedog? Freshly groomed, too, except for a few burrs and a lot of dew picked up in the morning run.

?Arf,? Shadow solemly replied to the dog, sprawling on her favored bench. It did sound like it asked a question, after all.

Patch reflected on his luck, and oh, all right, he?ll pet the nice, wet Russian wolfhound.

?Woof,? the dog agreed, apparantly, and wagged well enough to shake his entire arch of body. Bright and talkative dog, yes, but it was more cat-like, the push against the pettins. Spoiled dog.

?Yes, yes... you?re just a big ol? baby, aren?t you?? Patch noted, cueing the inane human-to-dog baby banter. A pleasant groaning sound from the Borzoi, eyes squeezed shut, the wagging threatened to go super-nova.

?WrrrrOoOooo.?

Patch was also trying to plumb the depths of a mystery, that mystery being out of all the people on the porch, he got suckered into petting the dog. The Borzoi did have a collar under all of that fur. And currently was oozing from one sucker to the next potential sucker: Shadow.

?Incoming,? Patch announced cheerfully to the carrot-top.

Like most large dogs, totally unaware of his size. Too elegant to really be intimidating, yes? Well. One might hope. Neat paw-pad at Shadow with an appealing whine, a quirk of silky ear. She wanted to pet the dog, yes? Of course she did!

Shadow blinked. Owlishly. Apparently, whatever day dream had carried her skittered away a moment as eyes focused on Patch, then the prance-pet-me-I-am-so-preeeettty-dance and tail wag.

?Mmm. You?re wet,? Pointing this out to the dog, before dangling elbows on her knees in a lean forward to scritch at the back of an ear. The dog smelled like some expensive shampoo, too, yes. But... was damp. Adoring gaze with the ear scratching, promptly mooching closer. Look at that silky glossy coat. Just begged to be petted. As if the dog wasn?t.

Patch was cleaned and groomed, too, but no one was petting him. Patch pondered the fur discrimination darkly.

Oddly, though friendly animals had a weird sixth sense about picking out the people that least wanted to do with them, the dog seemed content with pestering select people. The wolf hound murbled and groaned pleasantly, bulldozing in on Shadows? space.

Shadow didn?t mind. Half here and half not -- obviously. Ear scritching soon turned into full out back fur-burying-scritch-rub. The kind of petting for the dog that?d make pedigree owners who?d just spent a fortune grooming their
precious pookums, faint. Dogs loved it.

?Wrff. Wff rooo-rooooorroo. Wuff.? Well. Not quite adult and summer-coated, the Borzoi was perpetually shaggy to begin with. A lean in before going boneless, oozing to flop to his side. Doggy heaven.

Huge stretch. Huge. White socked paws out over head and fanned out with the white tipped tail. This was not to indicate the white-blazed belly that could use scratching, too. Really. Honest. Tail wag.

Patch brought Shadow another cup of coffee, silent and amused as she fulfilled her own prophecy and became a human scratch slave. Further mussing up the glossy black and white coat of the dog. Who was having more fun? The dog or the woman? Chicken or the egg? So many questions.

Tune in tomorrow for the answers on ?The Ways of Our Lives?...

?Arrrrroooorooouff.? Road-kill dog, yes, flat out, head back, tongue lolling upsidedown. The tail wag became a body-wag. Tuxedo pattern of fur. Matilde liked to pick species and breeds that had that particular coat coloring, prim white markings on black. Yet he would graciously allow Shadow to get her coffee. There were other dog-petters in attendance.

?Thankee kindly,? Shadow noted, setting the cup down on the benches arm. One hand idily mused through fur.

?Where did you come from?,? she inquired of the dog of course.

Well, when a lady dog and a gentleman dog love each other _very_ much.. ...And Timmy cries...

The dog couldn?t laugh, no, but dogs can have laughing eyes and laughing expressions that translate to a lot of wiggling and odd little puppy-sounds. He might have answered so smart assed to Shadow, his response was rich and chatty barking, ?Woof wuff huff rrrrrrooo Arffa wff.?

When a strange woman walked up and started, without a word of warning, to scratch behind the Borzois? ears, there were some signs of who the dog may belong to... May be? He didn?t know the woman and rolled promptly to sit, leaning back and eying her quite cautiously.

Shadow raised eyes breifly, watching as the stranger belatedly tried to make friends with the dog.

?Ought to be careful. Not every dog?ll be friendly like,? Shadow murmured to the woman.

?Animals don?t scare me,? the stranger spoke to Shadow, but she looked to the dog. A nose lick, anxious appearing, the sight hound looked up and back to Shadow and then Patch. Slight whine, a paw lifted in concern. Shadows? advice was well given, but so far, the Borzoi seemed harmless.

?Whassamatter, fella?? Patch frowned, blinking and looming over. That seemed to comfort the dog, oddly. Shadows eyebrows began to raise as she regarded the strange woman.

?That?s all well and good. But I?m not talking about you. Some animals are afraid of humans,? she explained patiently. Shadow pondered if the woman walked up to strangers on the street and petted them, too.

?Alright, alright,? the strange woman stood up and looked to Patch and would have glared at that stupidhead know-it-all Shadow if she had any backbone, ?I think I upset him.?

For the moment, the wolf hound remained sitting at Shadows feet, arched posture as elegant as some Tzarist figurine. Patch glanced from the dog to the stranger, shrugging.

?I don?t know, he hasn?t been upset by anyone else this morning.?

Fortunately for everyone, this dog didn?t happen to be snappy. He was considering this, however. Until Shadows fingernails titched a spot riiiiiight at the top of doggy ?eyebrows?, before bridge of nose. A good place to scratch.

?Rrr-rrrrrr. Meow,? the dog sighed pleasurably. You didn't hear that. Patch, however, peered curiously at the animal. What was that? The dog stared back as if trying to blame the bogle.

The strange woman stomped off with a muttering about stupid women under her breath, and abruptly...

?BARK. BARKBARK BARK BARK BARK!? The Borzoi was up on all fours, hackles up, stiff legged, glaring venomously at the womans back. Patch and Shadow both stared in surprise at the so far sweet tempered dog.

?Something wrong, Teddy, did Des fall in the well?? Patch inquired of the bogle.

?Des wouldn?t fall down a well,? Shadow decided, resolute. And if he did, and he died, she?d kill him.

Disgusted sounding sneezing, rolling growl, and the dog sat once more, ears perking and quirking. Solemn-sad stare. Unless there was more pettins involved, then the doggy smile would return. Teddy, he grinned toothily to Patch and just indicated, with both paws, the Borzoi.

?Sffrraazzttt.?

?You pushed him in the well, didn?t you,? Patch demanded of Teddy through narrowed lids. Teddys yellow eyes opened wide, a paw laid over furry orange chest. Moi?

Shadow smoothed fingertips along ears. Dogs like that, too. Swivelling her head around to narrow eyes at Teddy.

?Yes. You,? Patch rumbled.

The dog found many women to be idiots, really, and did not feel he was sitting beside one of those now. Teddy wasn?t sure how to explain the stupid mutt was offended by the idiot strangers words about Shadow, so he opted for a meltingly innocent gaze. As far as that went, for bogles.

?Mmmm,? Shadow mulled. Striking how many times she?s seen that expression Teddy made... On her own face. Time to look innocent. Look! A dog! One hand curiously swept at a -- collar?

The bogle snickered, and hopping from the swing, marched his furry butt over to the Borzoi. A few scritches to the dogs chest before Teddy pointed out quite an expensive silver collar around the dogs neck.

?Wait a minute...? Patch frowned. That collar had a plaque just like Desdenovas? Medic Alert bracelet. And the dogs eyes, and coat pattern and... ?What did you do to... Des??

Shadow fixed a stunned stare on the dog. The Borzoi promptly looked up to Patch.

?Woof.?

Shadows? nimble fingertips caught up the silver collar to ease it ?round the dogs neck toward her and Patch -- so they could read it. Sure enough, it read ?Desdenova Jones? along with a lot of numbers. His rabies shots must be up to date. Which was sad, they could have had fun sicking him on people.

?What the...?? Patch protested, jumping to his feet and staring incredulously, ?What did... how did... what happened?!?

?That?s impossible,? Shadow noted, sanely, ?No one can turn into a dog.?

Nice and calm, Shadow. Caaaaaaalm. Beautiful day. Lalalalalala.

?Did Paige have anything to do with this?? Patch asked because, well, the keeper generally had a hand in most of the evil mischief that took place ?round them thar parts.

?Wff,? And the dog shook his head. Teddy, mind you, was having boglish conniptions of laughter from his canine perch.

?Paige?? Shadow noted blankly, ?Des.? Zzzrrrrip. Record skip. ?Dog? Des...?

The Borzoi craned up to lick Shadows? cheek mournfully. Simon was going to be mad at him. Shadow, though, flapped a hand at the moogle. Beagle. Bogle. Thing.

?You turn him back, right now. You hear?? she snapped, looking for the broom while absently patting Des?s head. And then she blinked. ?Wait. Did he want to be a dog??

Because, despite the impossibilities of the entire situation, she hadn?t stopped to think that maybe that was Des? thang, and perhaps he was enjoying his hairball romp through never-never land. And it wouldn?t be polite for her to be all, flailing about if Des was enjoying being able to sit and...

Nevermind about the licking part. It hadn?t dawned on Des, the licking part. Blessedly. But he?d figured out the peeing on trees!

Teddy almost toppled from the Borzoi?s back laughing, but seated back on the dogs shoulders, apparantly went about explaining. This involved a lot of gesticulation and hissy fit sounds. It wasn?t Des? idea to be a dog, no, but seemed comfortable enough in the dogs? skin. The Borzoi crooned, tail wagging.

?...I?ve left my Hiss-aurus at home,? Shadow told the bogle.

?I hear that bogles are crunchy...? Patch growled with a snapping of teeth for emphasis.

Teddy, fearlessly, waved his furry butt at Patch.

?You?re going to have to mime,? Shadow decided, idly wondering, Can Teddy do the wall? Though mimes were worse than goblins, so one of the signs of the apocolypse must be a miming goblin. The world would then implode.

While Shadow was trying to maintain sanity, one of Teddys? middle fingers slooowwwwlllyyy raised under the waggling crooked tailed butt.

?Snnnek Fooo!? Teddy chortled.

?Why you little -- C?mere, I?m gonna have me a bogle aperatif!? Patch sputtered, outraged.

Shadow had quick hands. She made an attempt to grab at an appendage. How nice Teddy offered one. Teddy yawlped, siezed by the tail!

And an evil, evil grin ensued from Patch.

?Nice work, Red,? he purred, lumbering up onto the porch, cracking his knuckles and flexing his fingers. Catch a Teddy by the tail...

?Very good Mister Teddy. Do I have your undivided attention now?? Shadow inquired politely. She leaned forward. There are times where she wished she had claws, giant beak, or anything else frightening. She did, however, have one super power. One horrible, inhuman, unholy super power...

?Bah fenzzik Meeme gdorf!? Teddy complained, dangling. He folded his arms over his chest and huffed. The dog looked up, limpidly, and licked the hanging bogles face. Awwww.

?I don?t care how he turned into a dog. I don?t care if you did it. I do care that Des be returned to his usual state, as soon as possible. Or I am afraid...? Shadow gave a Dramatic Pause before issuing her ultimatim, ?I will have to sing the entire Beegee?s greatest hits.?

?Warf!!? The DOG complained!

?Yes. I know,? Shadow murmured to the dog, ?It?s supposed to be torture.?

?I think that I can manage something marginally more painful than that,? Patch offered politely. He stopped next to Shadow and Teddy, bending way over to peer upside down at the bogle.

Teddy was a goblin, after all. He might like Shadows? singing. But, either between the threat of aural torment or Patches implied hurting, Teddy spilled, or, appeared to spill, arms waving again as he hung there. Hissing his brains out.

Shadow held him up a little more to Patch. For close inspection. She probably wasn?t aware of the nature of Goblins. And that Teddy no doubt allowed her to hang onto him. How kind.

Finally, huffing, the goblin was reduced to, yes, miming. For paper and pencil.

?Patch? Would you be so kind as to find paper and pen?? Shadow smiled serenely. Later, back at the farm, she?d make sure to take alllll her medication.

?All right,? Patch agreed, and headed for the door doing the whole bend-duck-turn-enter thing, then made for the bar to swipe one of Bess? order pads and a pencil.

Teddy wasn?t so bad. He adored his pet human, anyhow. And the human turned dog wasn?t stressing over the bogles? actions. ...Though it was kind of fun to nose at the dangling goblin... Nose nose nose... Teddy muttered and swatted at the Borzoi. He was not a pinata!

Exiting in the same manner that he entered, Patch returned to the bogle and extended the requested items to him.

?Thanks,? Shadow hummed, swinging Teddy closer to Des. Dogs noses -- cold and wet.

?Zzrrrtiz!? Complaining, the bogle reached for the offered pen and paper... As he swung.

At this point in time, panic and the inability to understand how Des got caught in a puppy suit, was forgotten for amusement. Shadow seated the goblin once more on Des? shoulders.

Patch straightened up and loosely folded his arms across his torso and peered expectantly at the bogle.

?This had better be good,? Patch warned.

?Award winning,? Shadow agreed.

The dog settled and watched limpidly before a happy-dog smile heralded the hang of tongue. Teddy flailed momentarily before settling on the Borzois sloped shoulders. Licking his thumb, the goblin began to write. Actually, beautiful penmanship... for a bogle.

Finally, the pad was proffered back out with a chuff, Teddy tossed his round cattish head. It bounced back onto his neck okay, though.

Shadow leaned in to peer, also known as reading over one?s shoulder. Annoying, wasn?t it? Really hoped it wasn?t boglese, or whichever. Then Shadow paused -- Did the bogle do what she just thought she saw him do?

?Patch, you do the honors.? She was afraid to read it.

?Hmm,? Patch reached down and took the paper to read... English, and very nicely scribed... ?Dummy here insulted his supervisor, who happens to be a very powerful witch and in the midst of PMS. She?ll change him back after we get to work... Is this true, dum... eehhhh, Des??

Desdenova roooooed and hunkered under Patches gaze. Baaddddddd dog.

?All right, you?re off the hook,? Patch decided, peering evenly at the bogle and folding the paper up to stick it into his pocket. Shadow made a note to herself: Don?t visit Des at work. Ever.

The trouble was, it?s FUN harrassing his supervisor! The Borzoi hunkered more, and more, until he had his head on his paws, belly on the floor, butt up slightly though. Biggg sadddddd eeeeyyyeees. Teddy nattered and kicked at the Borzois? butt lightly before marching over to get the youths dispatch case.

?You do that well enough when you aren?t a dog,? Shadow murmured, petting Des?s head awkwardly. The next time she saw him, she?d offer him a Milk Bone.

Desdenova teethed on those, you know. They hold up better to baby drool than teething bicuits. That still didn?t explain a lot of things. And yet, some.

?Wrrf,? a few wags as the Borzois? head came up. There might be method to his bosses madness, actually. Into animal hide, the astronomer was a far more expressive creature. One just had to pay attention, closely, for such things, when he wasn?t a dog or cat. They were far more subtle in his usual form.

?Work, yes. I suspect you have to go to it eventually,? Shadow nodded. One of these days she hoped Des turned her into a newt. Revenge and all that.

Teddy clambered onto the Borzois? back once more, hanging onto both case and collar. The uttered words were alien, of course, but held the ?go walkies? Go walkies?!? inflection that sent the dog prancing gaily in a circle around Shadow and Patch. Paw-pats and affectionate licks with the whipping wag-tail.

Shadow ought to be frightened. Or babbling inconsolably somewhere. She?d spent too much time here, it seemed. A nod of her head gently, with a last ruffle of the d..Des?s ears.

?Yes, good morning to you, too. And no doubt you?ll see me soon. I expect to see you on two legs. Teddy, perhaps stop and get his supervisor some chocolate?? Always best, in such cases, to approach the ired PMSing witch with chocolate in hand.

?Have a pleasant ... walk,? Patch rumbled, giving the bogle one of those ?I?m still watching you...? glowers.

?Snok nrk,? ?No problem?, lazily grinned to Shadow, and the bogle eeled out his tongue at Patch. Fortunately, only instants before the Borzoi perked and took off like a shot towards the city.

The Moov. file came to a halt on the flight of the dog, and Desdenova, staring stupidly at his computer, abruptly smacked his face into his keyboard, scarlet from his hairline down.

Smirking sweetly, Matilde dropped a shoulder to his open office door frame.

?Did I tell you I developed a little spell to allow the recording orbs I use to trace and archive to transfer their data to Moov. files? It?s just they have to be entered on the network server. So everyone in the company can access them.?

(adapted from live play)

Journal Entry 73, Eighteen Five

Oh, I guess I deserve it. What goes around comes around, and all that. And I do tease people a lot when I know they?ve got a new girl or boy friend. When they don?t blatantly repell me, and I guess sometimes even then, too.

Just the whole drowgraine thing I did with Cam means I?m going to hell, I know. I?m not trying to be mean or jealous or something, it?s just... well, I blush easily, and that?s the one time I can finally get back at some people.

Sometimes. But then I get it back!

Tyg was pretending to be all horrified because I?d gone dancing with Aurora, and we didn?t get back until dawn. I mean, we were just dancing. I wouldn?t ask someone to go out and then try to well I?ve never kissed anyone, on the lips, anyhow, so I guess it?s a moot point.

I just like to be with her, that?s enough to make me happy. And act stupid, evidently.

Well, they were all just teasing me. Tyg and Paige and a lot of the ladies. I don?t know if they were getting me back or thought it was cute, I guess some of both. It was funny.

Ace got all freaked out because they were teasing me, I guess. Like that was going to make me go gay or something. I don?t think very many people here realize that being gay isn?t a decision or a weapon. Then again, most think being gay means being really effeminate and swishy, too.

Anyhow, Rick asked me if the teasing bothered me, and said if it did, he?d put a stop to it. It doesn?t, and I guess I just was staring at him, he said something about Ace and them, and I was just... well... No. I mean, why would it? I tease people I care for all the time.

He took me up in the DC-3 finally, and well, I seized during takeoff. It?s a good thing he?s a good pilot, but he said he just locked the co-pilot controls and I couldn?t get the belt unlatched. It just really ...I was so exhausted, I couldn?t enjoy it as much.

But he let me fly it a little. I... wow. I mean, every move, and it?s this huge aircraft you?re controlling... It?s incredible. It?s loud, and the engines vibrations go right through you. So I gained altitude, and turned it, and then just flew level for a while.

Rick said straight and level flight was more important than anything else.

All you can see is the sky... Just the sky. If there wasn?t glass, you could reach up and touch it.

Then I was just a wreck. Scared, upset, nervous, angry, everything. I wanted this so much, and I seized before the stupid plane could even get off the ground. Story of my life.

Rick said don?t worry, it?s not like I?d never have another chance to go up, I remember, but I was pretty hysterical, I guess. That doesn?t usually happen around other people, and it just made it worse, I started thinking he?d call my doctor or an ambulance or just take me to the ER.

He didn?t, though. I know he sedated me, but I don?t know if he called for that, or if Teddy told him to or if he just figured that was best. I woke up at their house, anyhow, I felt like I?d been beaten flat.

I played with Elly because most everyone was busy. I sing to her, and she gurgles back. When I had my dulcimer, I played for her and she ?sang?, and I recorded that to give to Rick for Fathers Day, like it was from her. Well, it was.

I give things like that to my Dad, he really seems to like it a lot. I can?t play violin a bit as well as him, but when I?ve recorded my playing for him, he has the recordings near him all the time, listening to them, too. Even the silly recordings Alice, Jackie and I all made over time. I guess it?s a Dad thing.

I guess I?d like the silly ones, too. This year, I gave Dad the research we got on the manannaggals guts and toxins, though.

I?ve been trying to teach Elly to say ?Des rules, Sin drools?, but she just gurgles a lot and giggles. So I made a song of it. I can?t remember how old Alice was when she started talking, so I figure I better start now.

I apologised, because... Well. I don?t know if I was apologizing for making a fool of myself or making so much trouble. Rick just laughed a little and said it was all right. He understood. He told me why he has scars on his wrists and ankles.

It?s weird to think he knows what it?s like to be shackled.

Journal Entry 74, Eighteen Five

I didn?t see Shadow soon after the whole dog thing, though. I still have the moov. file in my computer, I guess a lot of people do. There?s still people I don?t know that will walk by, and on seeing my ID badge, start woofing. It?s embarrassing, but funny.

When she started coming around after the whole ogre thing, I don?t know, I... Well, I?d never seen anyone like her there. It kind of gave me hope that there were people who I could talk to and flirt with and even go out with and they wouldn?t decide automatically I wanted to marry them or something. Mainly ?or something?.

I tried to ask her out one night, a while ago now. I was so embarrassed, though, and then I was angry, but... Well, I guess it doesn?t really matter. Now, or then, either.

Actually, I was just ...stunned, really. I tried to ask her, and she said oh, she was engaged to Simon. Simon! He?s old enough to be her father. He?s a stiff backed and ultra proper gentleman sort, I mean, he makes me look laid back.

He?s not what he seems for all he tries so hard. There?s things he does and says that just don?t add up to a man raised to and bred for the gentry. I guess Shadow had asked him to help her learn more, to get something of an education, and it got to be a lot more.

I remember it really kind of repelled me. It was more like he was grooming her. Otherwise, he?s all right, but he?s not someone you really ought to trust with a lot.

Anyhow, well, I tried to ask Shadow out and then, well... She didn?t seem to understand that it wasn?t right to date people while you?re engaged. I mean, it?s not like I was going to try anything, but that doesn?t matter. I think I just made her think I didn?t trust her all that much still.

I didn?t mean to, but I was so mortified, I don?t know how I managed to talk coherantly at all.

Feathyre really doesn?t like Simon, but I don?t really know why. She seems to feel he pretends she?s not there, because she?s a hippogriff, but... he does sometimes. I guess that?s it. He sometimes does seem not to see her.

There was another night, it was kind of weird. I was talking about Anna. Which I was doing a lot, just to shut Ace up and make him think I had a girlfriend. I was telling... someone, I don?t remember now, that Anna and I had been dancing down by the bridge, and Simon was suddenly all over it.

He gave me the strangest look, too. Before he started asking all these questions about Anna. He finally said ?ah? or something, and let it go. It was so creepy, I went and asked Anna if she knew him or something, or if pushed her out of the cart in the first place.

But Anna hadn?t ever seen him before, so I guess it was maybe he knew someone else named Anna. Who wasn?t supposed to be dead, I hope.

Well, anyhow, I think that was the last time I saw Shadow. When I was a dog that time. She was fine. I watch the moov. over and over sometimes, trying to figure out if there was anything different or wrong, and... She just seemed her normal self. She even said she?d see me again soon.

Then Simon took me aside and said Shadow had just vanished without a word or trace. A lot of people were trying to find her and everything, and I offered to help, too, if I could, but it seemed that it was all covered.

I worry about it. I mean, she?s human and doesn?t have anything, really, besides her own strength of will and soul, to defend her. That?s a lot, it?s a lot more than people realize. It?s kept more people alive in worse situations than anything else. It?s ...sad, I guess, that few seem to realize the worth of being ?just human?.

Maybe they would if they knew what had been before, but I doubt it. It?s like that line of Agatha Christies... That a dead herring shines, but it stinks.

Paige said later that Shadow had been on her own a long time, and she could take care of herself and all, and it was quite likely that she simply decided that everything she was getting into was more than she had intended or wanted.

That sounded right. I mean, she?d come wandering out of the woods like Columbine following the wrong song, and ...You know, it really was a lot like that. Columbine trying to find Harlequins? song and then confused by the mortals? song, and getting stuck where she wasn?t supposed to be.

I don?t know. Paige said that Shadow sometimes went off for long whiles, and she, meaning Paige, had a lot of contacts on the street, and none had seen her. That she probably needed to go look after her ?rats?. I guess she meant other street rats.

I just hope she gets back all right. People come and go around here so much, and sometimes, the ones that means things to you vanish, and then all you have left is the memory.

Journal Entry 75, eighteen five

The other chemical I found in my desk was a primitive, nasty toxin with hypnotic properties. Along with the cocaine, which was in the typical seven per cent solution before it crystallized over time, it didn?t make a lot of sense.

At first, I just thought that maybe the mortician there was trying to make his own business. I talked to Dad about it, too, and he said, you know, particularly cholera has a comatose stage from which people often recover.

Meaning, a lot of cholera victims during epidemics were buried alive. Either in mass graves or in coffins. The age of everything in the house puts it before the 1860s, which is when mortuary science really took off. Civil War victims were often shipped back home, and the undertakers of the time struggled to try some form of embalming so the departed would arrive home at least recognizable.

Which was really only when there were available preservative supplies and the undertakers weren?t being pressed into service as field doctors. I can?t imagine what that must have been like. Such... horror. Real horror. Dad will sometimes mention seeing battlefields during World War Two, and even he will shake his head and mutter what a waste it was.

What he never talks about, though, is the slaughter house he ended up in. Just that the damn thing blew up, and he had it remade into a garden memorializing the people who had died there. Which ...I don?t know. It doesn?t seem like something Dad would do, but it does. Forgive, but never forget is the proverb, but Dad doesn?t forgive or forget some things.

Anyhow, the point being, a lot of cholera victims were actually still alive when they were buried. And coming to, if they were not in a grave, but in a sepulchre or tomb, the caretakers of the dead often freaked out as bad as the victim.

But, well, Dad?s had his share of the dead raising on the work table. He says it?s no skin off of his teeth, as long as the bill was already paid. Morticians don?t have a money back guarentee, after all. Dad said the second chemical may have been kept handy to make sure the dead stayed dead.

It seemed logical, but you know, if they are alive, then you have the fees, and later, you?d get it again when they really did pass away. Besides that, it was in the desk. I?d think it?d be in the work room.

I haven?t found the work room, honestly. It could be in the basement here, like ours is at home. There?s a few outbuildings here, one I?m pretty sure was a non denominational chapel, which I haven?t tried to get into. The green house, of course. An outhouse. The barn and carriage house, which I?ve only been able to get into the barn. They?re both about as big as each other, but the carriage house is lower, of course, and built onto the back of the barn.

Against the back wall are a pair of cottages, I guess, those were probably for servants. They?re both dilapitated, and I haven?t tried to get into them, either. I?m afraid they?re going to have to come down for all they seem to have been built as the same time and with the same materials as the main house. Their windows were open all this time.

I suppose they could be the work room and perhaps a veiwing room, after all, there isn?t one in the house, and there should be. But, then again, back then, veiwings were generally done in the home of the deceased.

Dad did point out that judging from the house -- estate, really -- that, damn, the mortician living here was wealthy. Any undertaker will make good money, but serving a small town, a lot of them had the proverbial day job. Even renting out their hearses as ambulances, which is why so many small town owned vintage hearses are painted in lighter colors, or are even white.

The town the cemetary served wasn?t that big, it?s gone, pretty much, now. Just a little hamlet of maybe one hundred and fifty, and they don?t really know this place is here at all anymore, except for a few fragments of boogie stories.

I can mark a few epidemics that went through the population by the death dates, but even the largest of those only put fifty into the ground. The ghosts aren?t much help about it, but I don?t expect them to be. It takes time between death and the lifting of the veil for them to become aware of what?s going on, and sometimes they never do.

So, perhaps the mortician was well off to begin with, and had this place built over the original caretakers home. You know, what I need to find is the oldest grave here. The map and records are so poorly kept and so disorginized, I don?t think they?re going to be much help.

This place reminds me more of a ?Boot Hill?, that is, a western cemetary, where a piece of waste land that was high and dry and not feeding groundwater into the town, was used to bury people. There wouldn?t be anything but the graves, sometimes a split rail fence. Western boom towns had widely diversified populations, usually, and if they were lucky, they had a church.

Usually, there were brothels before churches or holy people.

But when they had to bury someone, there weren?t any niceties of religion or color or cast, they all got buried in the same place out of necessity. No outside the fence because you didn?t have last rites, no whites only, no Potters field.

So maybe the town was like that, in which case, the oldest graves could be verging on prehistoric and been marked by stones later used to build the walls or cut for other tombstones. Then there?d be wood, which wouldn?t survive well, if at all. I?ve been watching for signs of where they could have been, sometimes the portion buried will remain.

In this climate, though, I?m afraid only stone would survive.

But... I don?t know. The toxin is nasty, it?s a sort of neurotoxin, and it could have caused paralysis, or could have killed. Very primitive, and I?m guessing that it?s more stable in its suspension now than it ever was when it was made.

I finally really got a good look at that block of ebony, and it?s just a block of ebony with something metallic embedded in its heart. Like the tree grew around a key or a piece of jewelry or something. Matilde said that she?d heard of particularly alchemists taking blocks of rock or wood or what have you, and using some formulae or another to embed within it things that they want to keep safe or hidden, but it wasn?t that widespread a practice.

There isn?t a spell to open or close the case, it?s a matter of returning it to the same formulae to make it porous enough to fetch out what you?ve hidden. I can?t find a spell on this, anyhow, and well, it was pretty well hidden.

I don?t know.

Cam found the most amazing ruby and pea

Journal Entry 76, Eighteen Five

Irina... I don?t know. The first time I met her, she seemed really neat. Like the other girl, Cass. I really was hoping both would hang around more. But they didn?t.

I remember talking to her, and... well, she had a boyfriend. So did Cass. Which always just annoys me no end. It?s like there?s this ...welcome wagon of guys who are just waiting on the outskirts of RhyDin ready to run in and suck any ?new? girl they see into an instant relationship.

And, of course, they promptly vanish after doing that. But you can?t point that out to these girls, because they?re going to deny vehemently that it happened to them. They?re trusting their feelings and following their souls and...

Why does a perfectly intelligent young woman turn into an utter cheese brain at the sight of a potential engagement ring?

I mean... Okay, now, I guess I understand some, but... it?s been so much more fun to just... see Aurora when I see her and ...well, moon around like a moron when I don?t.

Then again, Aurora?s not pushing or pressing me for anything, she?s not making me feel like if I don?t declare intentions now, she?s going to move on for someone that will.

I don?t think Aurora would be half as interesting if she did act like that. It wouldn?t matter, there just isn?t anything I could do about it. I?d have I?d have to b I?d have to say okay, move on.

I guess I wouldn?t like it at all if she said she was going to go out this weekend with someone else, but if she does, she doesn?t say that. I wouldn?t, either, that?d be rude. It?s not my business if she does.

Jackie dates one guy for fun, wacky parties, another guy to go to cultural events with, another to go surfing or skiing with, and all, she?s got a different guy for every mood, almost, and even though they?re all a lot more secure and mature than the guys around here, she still doesn?t make a point of telling them about each other. Though they do the same thing.

But for whatever reason, the only person I?ve ever heard doing that here is my mother. Before she picked Dad.

I like Irina, but she just... Ugh. She has an inborn mage ability, it?s not really like mine, but it?s related. It?s more wild magic trying to be tamed than sit down and learn spells and either have aptitude or not. More fae-like.

I brought her some vegetarian recipes, because her boyfriend is a vegetarian. She?s really touchy sometimes. She gets really threatened if you say anything negative about her boyfriend at all.

She had this ...enormous meltdown one night, and I was just... Well, as it turned out, she was hearing Tyg, Nathanial, and a few others speaking of women who allow themselves to be victims, and she ...seemed to think they were speaking of her.

I didn?t know why. She finally told me her boyfriend had been killed. Which no one else knew. I wonder if she got so offended because she was hearing herself and denying it.

The people she fell in with are just going to keep repeating that cycle. I?ve watched them almost a year before she met them, and they do that. Meet, love, vanish, dead. Sometimes return from the grave and condemn the love for moving on, get a new lover, usually gay, vanish, die. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I guess she?ll just have to see for herself, but she?s just... I don?t know. She likes all that drama. She?s a comic book artist, so I suppose it?s a natural for her, to be able to live that ?big? as it were.

It?d be nice if she was less of that. She really is nice, and interesting. But she?ll just end up burnt out and struggling to pretend she?s not. You can?t save or even help some people.

Journal Entry 77, Eighteen Five

I had Alice stay with me over the weekend, so I finally set up my computer because she was going to PERISH if she didn?t have her Zoo Tycoon there to play on. Which, of course, she didn?t touch the whole time she was here.

At least I got that stupid laptop set up, I connected to the Four Winds network, which will let me work from wherever I happen to be. I just prefer to go into the office, because all I can really do is enter data and do reports and such otherwise.

She was all over the place, I had Flinx running shotgun on her, and I think she actually wore that poor shadow dragon out. I took her to meet the Halliburtons menagerie, she vanished into that fray, then she had tea with Dame Arlene and I. Well, dinner, really, but Dame Arlene recieved us in her little parlor, which was dazzling enough; and to Alices? eyes, it was a fairy tale castles? main dining room.

Mine, too, honestly.

So, a real butler served us on these tiny dishes, salad, soup, filet mignon and steak fries... It took me a while to realize he was using Dame Arlenes? childhood china play set. Oh, she was so lit up. Dame Arlene and Alice, both. I started getting all teary eyed. Because she got to play with her tea-set again.

I?m such a sap.

Then Dame Arlene had us ride in her old Cord, so her chauffuer could drive, and I love her to pieces, I really do, but I was so glad the chauffuer was driving. Alice was just... Well, she called Mom and Dad the moment we got home to tell them she had tea with her fairy godmother. I promised Alice I?d take her back. It was more like promising Dame Arlene, she seemed so happy to have Alice there.

I kind of wonder if she is. If Dame Arlene is Alices? fairy godmother.

Well. We did work the next day, Alice went around to pull weeds, and of course, any weed that had flowers, she not only did not pull, but she collected the seeds of and scattered around even more. I got her to make her wildflower ?garden? towards the back wall, where Anna?s buried, so I would have half a chance of restoring the original gardens.

I got a bunch of chickens, hopefully, they?ll get the weeds. That was kind of funny. I was walking to the observatory, and I went through Wolsons Hole. Out of the blue, one of the men came running past me like the devil was on his heels.

So, I looked back, and had to hit the dirt when I heard gunfire. I figured Brother Cousin had been at a cousin he shouldna oughta. Sure enough, he had a plenty mad woman chasing him. She was riding a bicycle. And shooting at him.

She probably would have gone faster running, but I wasn?t going to suggest this to her. She was drunk and stoned out of her mind.

As it turned out, he ran right home to Mama. Mama came out, clobbered the hell out of her erring son and marched into the back of the shanty and came stomping out to thrust a cage of hens at the woman on the bike.

This was, apparantly, her sons dowry. Mama wasn?t giving such a fine dowry to the little slut-cousin sonny boy was cheating with, so the woman on the bike got the chickens, but not the son. The slut-cousin could have the son, but not the chickens.

But the virtuous-cousin on the bike was a good and proper lady, she didn?t want anything to do with any of them now. So, cussing up a storm, Mama marched over to me while I was trying to slink by and shoves the cage in my arms.

This apparantly restored honor all around.

And I had eight scroungy hens. Angel brought me a rooster the next day, I was so overjoyed. I stuck a muffler whistle in his tailpipe to get even.

Anyhow, I was working on one of the crypts. Patch came by and helped me with that one, it was dug in as a sort of psuedo-catacomb, with a limestone face and walkway below ground level. Over time, the walkway filled with dirt and debris, and had to be dug out again.

There?s a line of those. I?m slowly getting their porch spaces, as it were, cleared, but they?re sunk six feet down and they haven?t been maintained in decades if not longer. I?ve seen these sorts of tombs before, but they?re still rather rare, and usually are to emulate church or city catacombs.

Patch got the door off for me, too. It?s a family tomb, of course, but the last seal looked like it?d been pressed twice. It was really nicely done, it?s a limestone barrel vault and the gypsum plaster over the bricks was painted in a rather Eutruscan manner, but with pastorial scenes of heaven.

Patch is incredibly intelligent, and I think it?s a lot like Dad, where the patchwork of individuals making up the whole contribute their experience and wisdom into the whole. His aura is a lot like Dads?, anyhow. Well, Patch suggested that they weren?t earlier Christians, as I assumed, but perhaps were late Eutruscans, who civilized considerably after the rise of Roma and remained well into the Christian era, adopting the customs they preferred from the incoming Romans, Greeks, and Arabic peoples.

His point being that there were male and female figures shown together in Grecian peplos, and other than the typical ray-style halos, no real early Christian imagery.

So, these may be the original graves. But they seemed to have either been in use all that time, or the original deceased were removed and the crypts reused.

This one, though, was incredible. The seal was perfect from its last entombment, the gypsum was open and porous enough to absorb and wick off moisture to the limestone, and the bodies had mummified.

The eldest aren?t in as good a shape, of course, since the tomb was opened and closed periodically over time, but still. I was absolutely thrilled. I threw a preservation spell over it entire, and got to work.

When I find bodies like this, I take them to work so they can be studied and recorded and cleaned and all, but I bring them back once their burial place is repaired and cleaned. It?s wrong to remove any of them from their rest, unless it?s necessary, and then they should be reburied as best one can to their customs.

Only a few were in actual coffins, several were on shelves. I reached over to lift one, and ...It was really easy to move. Because I had stuck my hand clean through a knife left in the body! I just stood there staring at it the longest time, and Patch says, politely, ?I think we?d better have that looked at.?

So, we went to the ER, and the doctor had an utter conniption fit, but it was fine. It didn?t hit any bone or tendon, and we brought the knife -- left it in until the doctor saw me, in fact. It was clean.

A strange little mystery, really. The man, by his clothing, was well off, but not in his Sunday best, which the rest were buried wearing. He had all of his personal effects, including a pipe and tobacco. And a ?honey-dew? list, which I can?t think anyone would be buried with. There?s no way he can ?stop by and leave a card for Dear Old Mrs. Cook?.

The list did ask that he stop by Mercy Dale and speak to ?Jeoff? about getting that ?dreary ivy away from Mamas grave?.

Forensics took custody of that mummy, they?re borrowing him for their law enforcement training. They said, surprise, he was stabbed in the back to the heart, and was probably the cause of the doubled seal mark. ?Jeoff? is a suspect, of course. I think Jeoff is buried in the main grounds, in any case, there is a ?Jeoff Whitherburn? buried there.

Which just makes more questions. Was Jeoff the caretaker of the grounds and the owner of the house? Did he work for the owner? He couldn?t have been the mortician. It had to be about the same time as the house was originally abandoned, judging from the deceaseds? clothing.

But, Patch cleared out that line of sunken tombs for me. That?s a huge help. He asked if I wanted the big capstone on the first removed, it?s an actual capstone of tan basalt. I said no, though, because there?s things carved on it I can?t decyper. They?re faint, but there.

It would be a bad idea to remove it until I know for sure what they mean.

[A Friend In Marble]
[Written by VktrsCurse, "Patch"]

Although it was not of common knowledge, Patch liked to roam through graveyards and cemetaries. He'd always felt an odd connection to such places, well, perhaps not so odd considering who and what he was. Lumbering between the rows of headstones and about the various mausoleums and crypts, he would invariably take time to admire the craft of the sculptors and masons who left their permanent mark and influence on the various markers and stones. It was during one of these walks that he happened upon a familiar figure.

Up ahead was busy a studious, fastidious fellow, one preoccupied with his examination of a particular crypt. The fellow was neat in his appearance, quiet and somewhat solemn in his demeanor, and always, always unfailingly polite, if somewhat disaffected. At the moment, the fellow's neatly pressed, if somewhat plain clothes, were slightly soiled, what of his activities. The meticulous young man was so caught up in his perusal of the crypt door that he didn't notice the cadaverous colossus quietly ambling up towards him.

"Hello, Des."

The young fellow didn't give a start, even with Patch's hulking form looming over him. The giant's voice, deep and dark as an oceanic trench, held no hint of malice, and Des seemed equally unaffected by that voice as he had been by the giant's stature and sudden appearance. He merely craned his head about, and gave the monster a brief, muted smile, a smile that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

"Hello, Patch. What brings you out to and about this place?"

"I was about to ask the same of you."

The brief smile reappeared, and the young fellow seemed pleased that Patch was interested in what he was about. "I'm cleaning these crypts and the catacombs beneath them. They appear to be of early Christian influence, but I'm not entirely convinced, hence my investigation. I was looking for a way past this door when you happened along. Do you suppose that you could help me with it, while you're here, I mean."

Patch returned Des' smile, albeit his was gruesome as it split his ruined, cadaverous features. "I'd only be too happy. May I?", he asked, stepping around Desdenova and moving towards the crypt door.

"Please do", Des replied with his customary quiet cordiality. He stepped aside and gestured towards the door with a small sweep of one hand.

Whomever had sealed the crypt had been serious about the business of it. The door was of solid stone, and massively heavy. Patch set his hands to either side of the door, and slowly, carefully exerted his strength. This wasn't about the crude, simle application of brute power. The door had to be moved with great care; he knew that Des wouldn't have wanted it damaged in any way. There came a slight grating sound, then a soft whoosh of musty air as the door was hefted away. Holding the door aloft and at arm's length, Patch very carefully set the stone portal to one side of the crypt. Before stepping inside, Des graciously invited him along, and Patch happily accepted. He hung back a bit as Des entered the crypt, and then squeezed through behind him.

Because Patch never used his size and stature to intimidate or bully anyone, most folks simply "forgot" how large he was. In his bare feet, he stood 8' 8". Shod with his heavy boots, he was a shade under 9' even. His shoulders were slightly better than 5' across and were laden with layer after layer of thick, dense thews. While Des could move about fairly easily in the dank, musty catacombs, Patch had to walk stooped over and turned partially to one side. Still, he did not complain. He was happy to get to spend some time with someone that he considered to be a true and valued friend. As they engaged in their subterranean expedition, they exchanged ideas and opinions as to the origins of the graves and places of interment that they encountered.

In one of their explorations, Des cut his hand, and rather seriously. They were forced to temporarily suspend their crypto-archeological pursuits for the time being. While they waited in the hospital waiting room, they continued to talk. Des quite explicitly laid out his plans, intentions and methods, and Patch listened quietly and carefully. After a time, the giant began to draw too much attention. It was not the most comforting sight to see a bipedally ambulatory conglomeration of previously deceased body parts sitting about in a place of healing and medicine. Frankly, he made many of the patients nervous. Excusing himself, Patch made his way back to the cemetary. Once there, he began to work his way through the various systems of tunnels and catacombs, shoring up potential structural hazards and clearing away obstacles and extraneous detritus. Working from memory, he followed Des' proposed course through the subterranean mazes. As he emerged from the last such activity, Des returned from the emergency room, his hand cleaned and neatly bandaged.

The wound neither dampened nor hampered Des' desire to see his studies through. After a time, they came upon a truly spectacular door, a slab of tan basalt. Patch offered to lift the cover away, but Des politely waved him off. There were some very intriguing carvings and figures evinced on the slab, and Des, who was much more familiar with the ways of magic and things magickal than Patch was, decided that prudence was the order of the moment. Patch nodded and quietly deferred to Des' judgment on the matter, and left the basalt slab where it was. If and when Des wanted him to move it, he would.

<font color="#528442" size="1">[ January 14, 2006 08:45 PM: Message edited by: Desdenova ]</font>

Journal Entry 78, Eighteen Five

I didn?t get a chance to tell Aurora. Not in words. I kept putting it off. I see her smile and... I want her to smile. I want to make her smile. I had every chance in the world to tell her, every night she came in to work, but I just couldn?t do it. And my luck held for this long. A few weeks. A few dates. Dancing, the movies.

She came over to help with the cemetary, just dropped by, and there I was digging out a crypt into a box screen, to make it worse, all I had on was a pair of grungy overalls and boots, and the straps kept biting into my shoulders so I pushed them off. Which meant my boxers were hanging out and probably my ass.

Bea likes Aurora, and vice versa, and Bea ran to meet Aurora, and I turned around with a skull in my shovel and pleased to have found it intact, and... I wanted to crawl into the tomb with the remains and dirt. So much for the big garden concept, that?s all I could think.

Before I could say anything, Bea squirmed away from Aurora and came running back to me, barking, and... I knew I had maybe ten minutes. Aurora just stared at me. Probably wondering what she?d done to make Bea run away from her like that, why I was standing there like I was.

I didn?t know what to do. I couldn?t tell her to go away. I couldn?t move. I just stared at her. Then I sat down, put the shovel down, I don?t even know if she heard me, but I told her. She didn?t move, didn?t say a word, and all I could see was her shifting around in my aura, and then nothing.

When I came back to myself... She was gone. Just gone. I thought maybe I just imagined it, but I found the tire tracks and her shoe prints. I could smell her, the car...

It hurts. It hurts so much. The mace was nothing to this.

79 i don't know

Jessica... She was mad. In her eyes, Aurora watched me go down and then just left me there without knowing if I was okay or not. But... I?d prefer that. I think. I don?t know. It always takes me time to come to myself, I don?t even know Bea?s there.

I can?t even imagine if she?d stayed. I ...I don?t know. I?m sure she would have checked to make sure I was breathing, at least. Or maybe it just scared her that much.

Paige smoothed things over. She really seems to have some faith, at least, in Aurora. I can?t expect that everyone would have. I don?t know. I don?t know i I we Th I I need to wo

[Interlude: Nono]

For a moment, the room could have felt warmer.

Granted, the pharmacist was always hot to the touch, just one of many reasons for the family nickname. But the hospital always felt cold to her. She hated it with its bare walls and its empty hallways. The numerous doors you had to go through and the checking and signing in that they did. The nurses didn't care like she did, and the doctors didn't know enough and didn't share enough details.

She wasn't the perfect visitor herself, known too well for barking out orders and growling and hissing at the wards that stopped by with the claims they were only doing their jobs. And then there were the repetitive times she's blown out parts of hospital wings, left more than one night shift nurse in a pool of blood...it was a wonder they allowed her in the hospital at all anymore.

Then again, sometimes when you're tied to underground kingpins, have a heavy last name to drop, and actually did pay for the damages you'd caused, one could see why they did. And in Rhydin it didn't seem so hard to constantly return to the scene of a crime.

But as much as she despised this place, she still knew when she couldn't be the one to tend to him and when Nonno needed outside care. She could tell that he was dropping more weight, but tried to pretend that it was because he wasn't eating anything that she was fixing him. Being pulled out of the ICU would make it easier for her to sneak in the homemade soups, but it still wasn't just the same. Jessica knew that nothing was going to be the same this time.

Tucked away in a single room, a room trying its hardest to make itself seem like a home with its scattered trinkets, flowers from her uncle and half forgotten memories Jessica reminded Nonno of daily, he laid there propped in the bed. Hair was combed, more salt than pepper, and a pair of childlike eyes were looking around in wonderment. The dead weight of his paralyzed right hand was held in a sling across his chest and Jessica tugged on the cuff of his blue paisley pajamas.

Voice was barely at a whisper, soft and not in a tone few would ever hear from her. "...wanted to share the feather with you. And the train he brought all the way from California. He said he would stop by to play for you tonight. I know I don't offer many people to see you, and you understand why. He's not going to say anything about what you used to do. Stop interrupting..." Light banter back to his garbled speech, stuck on the 'd' syllable as he bubbled up in a tongue that Jessica really was the only one to understand after so long. "Now you need to stay awake long enough for him to come by and --"

Odd enough, but her heart sank when the old man burst into a sudden sob. Leaning against the side of the bed, her hands weren't smooth and free of scratches or bruises or broken pieces, but they still slid across his face to brush off his tears. "Look at me. Look into my eyes. Tell me, do you see that I am always by your side? Or has the world got you down on your knees? Come to me. Shhhh."

His left hand's grip was white knuckled on her arm as he latched onto her, overcome with emotion as he released it soon into her shoulder. Both of her arms wrapped around the old man, smoothing his hair as she continued with the same bit that usually calmed him down. "Cuz when you cry, all your tears I will wipe away, and when you laugh, who you think got you that way? And when you dream, when you wake up, is it me you want to see?" Tilting his head back and down to the pillow, she left a kiss across his temple and a finger tip to dot his nose. "Don't you want to be happy?"

Calmed down, Nonno's faint smile matched Jessica's as she looked down to him. "I don't think he'll play her, but maybe when I can get the splint off. Now what do you say when he walks in the door?" Testing for the only word her minor speech therapy had been able to teach.

"Hellllllllllllllllllllllloooooo."

"Perfect."

Desdenova might have never realized just what it meant to her from the offer of him playing for Nonno. But she was sure that the cold hospital room felt warmer when the music started playing.

Oh...

Desdenova knew the hospital. So well. Not that one, but another. He had grown up, practically, within the determined cheer of a childrens specialty ward. It held all of his fears and none of them. It was a strange juxtiposition.

Bea was a service dog, he admitted that without hesitation there. Not a seeing eye dog, but rather, she scented or sensed Desdenovas' seizures before they could happen, and was trained to sit on him until the displacement ended. They couldn't take the Maltese from him, they couldn't protest. More clean than most of the humans entering, in any case, she was.

The youth had changed back into a sober and dark suit. He entered the small room quietly, a flickering warmth of smile given as he offered the pup for the old man to pet. Silky and calm, and trained for just that sort of therapy, Bea was a drop of joy for the stroking.

The violin was old, but nothing special. Desdenovas' ways with it, his movements and care, clearly he had been taught by virtuosos, though he was not one. He played well, seeming to place more of heart than actual skill into the instrument.

And would play for as long as allowed.


[Written in part by JessicaLucino]

Journal Entry 80, Eighteen Five

Tyg and Paige were planning a huge ball at Dunns? Palace. I guess he?s a king or something, but he?s nice. He looks human, but he smells like a bear. Like Knight. Paiges? grizzly. He sometimes shuffles by the cemetary and bawls until I bring him out something. At least he?s clean, usually.

...I mean Knight does, Dunn doesn?t.

But it was a surprise party for Ricks birthday. He?s going to be a hundred and five.

I wanted to go, I wanted to take Aurora... I thought about it a lot. Everyone was talking about it. The ladies about what they would wear, teasing Tyg because they thought Dunn might propose to her then, just... well.

i I... I don?t know. i want but I?m afraid im afraid to talk to her So

I don?t even want to go into the observatory. I keep calling in sick. Brent Geemis answered the second time, and I just hung up. But he called back. He asked what was wrong and what can I say? I don?t want to tell them. I said I just wasn?t feeling well. Then Debbi called and said ?baby, just come in?, and I couldn?t. So they sent Theresa, and I just ...cried. She said she knew I would and didn?t mind. I know they?re worried. I just can?t.

I just want to work. I don?t want to feel anymore. It makes me sick. I can?t keep anything down, and then the doctor ordered me on sedatives so I could eat, and that depressed me more. But I?m not throwing everything up. Yay.

Matilde wouldn?t let me stay at work, and the next thing I knew, she?d put me on medical leave. I was so mad. But what could I do? I know she?s right. I just ...told everyone they made me take my vacation. I don?t think Paige bought it, or Matilde called her, she packed me up and took me to the castle to stay.

I slept a lot the first few days. I still look like hell. They took all my suits away. All of my clothes away. I scrounged a Hawaiian shirt and some sweat pants and snuck out anyhow, I don?t know why, Matilde would just send me home. I guess just habit.

But Sin stopped me. ...It was night. I think... Eliza was there, and... She didn?t notice... never does notice... I couldn?t live like that.

Sin hurt, a lot. He wanted me to turn him into a cat. A cougar. For a while. I asked... what was wrong. He and his housemate slash lover, Red, Roja... They fight. I guess Roja?s a vampire hunter and... Well. I guess when they get into fights, it gets really nasty.

Sin wasn?t doing much better than I was, so I brought him back to the Halliburtons, too. We agreed, he?d talk to Roja and I?d talk to Aurora before Sunday.

But I turned him into a cougar anyhow. And whenever he opened his mouth, a water balloon would pop. It was neat. Weird. Well.

All of the pages and squires came back that night, I guess from Paiges Dads. Patch caught a megadalon, and turned the skin into a really big play house. So we all camped out there. We told ghost stories and I fell asleep with Oz and Timmy.

[Interlude: Twilight]


The last rays of the sun couldn?t cast her in silhoette. She gleamed, the golden haze intensified rather than to put Aurora into shadow. Quiet, pensive, waiting by the doors to the observatory.

He knew he would see her when he finally went back. There wasn?t any choice. They both worked there. Thankfully, not together. Yet still. It was nearly a physical blow when his head lifted, the mottled blue and green of his eyes catching the light, holding it. Reflex to smile at seeing her remained, slaughtered in the hack of all too fresh memory.

She seemed to fall prey to the same impulse, the impulse to smile at the sight of him, stilled whether by her own memory or his visible flinch, the jerk of his gaze downwards, uncertain. Both.

An errant breeze toyed with the red-gold of her hair, turning the thick waves etheral. It only washed the black of his across his face, rippling curtain he hid as best he could behind.

?I?m sorry. I scared you. That I didn?t tell you,? he finally managed, soft depth of his voice little more than a harsh rasp, measured in the tightness of his chest that didn?t allow more than a few words with each drawn in breath.

For a moment, alert as a doe. He didn?t see that, nor the way her head lowered, her lips pulled into a grimace.

?Aunt Debbi said... you don?t always remember. I... was hoping you wouldn?t. She thought... It would be easier if I just... left.?

?She told you.? Curt, cold, harsh.

?Not before you did,? she whispered, delicate boned hand pulling and toying at the gauzy multicolored long skirt worn. Demure as it was pretty, a tunic of yellow gold silk hung over with a wide and bright macrame belt.

His gaze lifted to regard her through the fall of his hair. So cheerful, such color and light, and he... Was so dark. So much of the night. Weight lifted, but only enough to give him more breath to speak. Pain still pulsed hard against his heart.

?I?m sorry.?

?Don?t be, Des. Please don?t be. It?s not your fault. It?s just how you were born, isn?t it??

The gentle tone held regrets rather than encouragement. Though it was meant to be soothing, the regrets nagged at him. He couldn?t find reason for them.

Poised for too long, tearing apart words that weren?t there, he abruptly stopped himself. Took a tremendous leap of faith, and believed in the words she had spoken.

Slow, but he nodded, his gaze raising once more to peer at her through the fall of black hair. Tenetively hopeful, uncertain and fighting against a dull roar of fear in the spaces of his mind.

?They?ve... never been able to find what it is. Or to really control it. I just live with it.?

?I hope you can forgive me. For leaving like that. I didn?t know what else to do. I called Aunt Debbi, and... Well... I was afraid. I wanted to call an ambulance, to take you inside, or... something, but... Debbi said to just make sure you were breathing and go home.?

?There?s no reason to be sorry. I didn?t tell you. I should have,? he sighed, soft escape of regrets of his own ego.

?Why didn?t you...??

Why didn?t he... Silent again, for a long while. Watching the shadows creep longer, feeling the fading heat dry his throat, his eyes.

?I... I just wanted to be... Normal.?

The admission was hard. Crushing under its own weight. Rooted in place though he wanted to escape, chilled to the bone despite the warmth of twilight. If he looked up, would he see pity...?

Delicate as the touch of a passing milkweed seed across the back of his hand, fingertips. Lethargic, his gaze turned, a dull stare fixed on Auroras hand; as lethargic the stiff flexing to allow her to take his.

After a moment, she ducked down, drawing back her own hair as it belled out to look up into his face. Uncertain before she smiled. Somber and still, he regarded her, a slow and trembling lift of his hand finally resting light as a spiders touch on her cheek. Catching her hand over his, Aurora simply straightened, drawing his hand with her, watching until slowly, a smile began to show at his lips.

It didn?t last. But for a moment, it was there.

Journal Entry 81, Eighteen Five

Zeth took me back to Disneyland. To be precise, he took a strike team. Rick, Paige, Tyg, Tess, himself, and a zombie named ?Minion?. And me, though I had told him that I wasn?t welcome back there after everything with the last time I was there with the girls.

I mean, when three seven year old girls and one thirteen year old want OFF the Small World ride, they want OFF of it NOW. It?s not like they didn?t have it fixed in fifteen minutes, and they couldn?t pin a damn thing on me. But they connected us with Matilde, who was chasing all their princesses.

Zeth insisted that I not worry about it. And you know, he?s really about the first person I ever met here. It?s like he?s the first adult friend I?d ever had that wasn?t in some way connected to family and told to keep an eye on me.

I worry anyhow. He?s a garou, and seems to be one of the glasswalkers, which it?s always a good idea to be wary of. Though, he doesn?t seem like he?s willing to do anything for the Ol? Mighteh Dollah. Which is good, that?s a fast track

That wasn?t the problem though. It was technomancers, he said, who had infested Disney and were using it as a base of operations to rule the world or something, and I could have told them that that never works, Mom says that the spirits of the old Dutch and Swedes that first settled there never let their land go, and they can?t stand anything that disturbs their peace.

You?d think Disneyland would disturb them horribly, but then again, they likely see it as peace and order from chaos.

We got in and these... well, they were the Tiki birds. They attacked us. I took one of the heads, I have to figure the best way to use it to horrify Cam with it. Except she doesn?t really like birds all that much, except for Charlie.

Then a lot of princesses -- and Alice! In Wonderland, Alice. I guess I should have seen it coming, but still, it startled me. They gave me a Tommy gun, and I finally gave up aiming. I figured if I ran out of ammunition, which I was afraid of, I could use one of Dads tricks on it. Which I?ve never tried, never had to try, but desperation makes for some powerful magic.

Sleeping Beauty turned into the dragon, I guess it was a Transformer or something. Right under me, practically, some of those stupid cards grabbed me from above, and I really really need to remember not to cast spells that are going to remove the things holding me up.

Well, it was a lot tougher than everything else. I managed to cut into it and cast a feedback loop. It was really cool when it blew. Though I thought Rick was going to beat my ass, he yanked me clean off the dragon and thumped me down out of the line of fire.

As it turned out, the opening doorway for these Nexus Crawler things was right in the middle of the Small World ride. Fitting, yes, I always thought it was a portal to hell.

So while we were trying to figure a way in, the speaker system started up. Blaring ?It?s a Small World?, and something else. It was this screaming hetrodyne in my ears, but apparantly, it had a subliminal coding of ?kill your friends?.

Next thing I know, Paige is all smiles and blasting that huge BAR rifle of hers at everything. Even Rick! She shot him in the ass twice. Tyg heard it, but she didn?t get the coding, she was just totally engrossed in the happy-tra-la part, and skipping about. Paige shot her in the ass, too. I finally managed to dampen the sound, but not before I caught a round through the shoulder.

That hurts. Not as bad as some things, but I could have lived without knowing that. It?s funny, now that I look back on it. There?s been times that I didn?t even realize I was in pain because I?d lived with it for so long, and when they were finally able to right the things causing it, I?d be delirious for sometimes a week.

It was all physical. I?m told that the pain from the Mobius when the muscles flex involuntarily should be at least remarkable, but I don?t notice it, and that any sinus infections I get, or even a stuffed head, should be blinding, and well, I notice it, but it doesn?t usually stop me.

Migraines will stop me, but I don?t know anyone that can shrug those off, really.

Aim at my heart, my emotions, and I?m a wreck. I guess like anyone else. I guess it?s not really all that funny. Just... human. That?s kind of strangely comforting, and it?s terrifying. I don?t want to be hurt like that again.

Anyhow, Rick ...wove the... power the Net Crawlers emitted. It was... incredible. I?ve read about Weavers, but... Wow. It?s said that it?s a lot of power because none of it is truly theirs while all of it is.

Zeth had me jack open a doorway through or from the Nexus, it pulled us in there, and if I?d been more cognizent, I?d probably have been screaming in terror or something. The things in there... Well, Mom said never go without protection, I guess you can?t do much better than a garou and a Weaver.

I?d never done that before, I was just glad that it worked. Desperation is powerful magic, after all. I didn?t have anything to draw a rune into, I had to just ?see? the glyph in the midst of Rick weaving order into chaos, and chaos having a shit fit. I?m really glad I was pretty out of it with all the blood I lost and pain.

It?s the real bitch of studying magical arts. You can?t just sit at home and practice things like that. You have to do it. You have to need it. You only get that one chance, and if you blow it, there?s one less novice mage in the world. I know I have to learn to see those runes and glyphs and sigils before I draw them, without anything to etch them into, and I don?t usually need to.

It?s more useful to learn patience than almost anything else in magic, but I?ve rarely met anyone that had. It?s all Now now now now. Don?t ask, don?t bother to conceal, don?t try finesse, just hammer the problem with the biggest spell you?ve got at hand and forget those things can blow up in your face, body, mind, and soul.

But, it worked. Whatever happened, I passed out after everyone got out. Passed out and seized, at least that I know. Like clockwork. Too much power, too many spells, and I?m down. Blood loss, not always. Sometimes.

It makes me wonder if it?s not physical at all. But even when I didn?t know magic from what?s on the television or movie screen or story book, I had seizures. I was just made this way.

It... doesn?t seem so bad, since... Aurora doesn?t

Journal Entry 82, Eighteen Five


Talking to Paige sometimes is like squirming before you can even open your mouth. I know I should have told Aurora everything, but I can?t... I mean, I can?t just meet someone and spill out my life story. It?s too much like bleeding on their shoes.

It?s not... I mean well so I...

I don?t know.

I mean, yes, the first moment I saw Aurora, it... it was ...different. I don?t know why. Maybe it was just that I was startled. That she didn?t open the door and shove her boobs in my face.

Or the sun...

It was streaming all around her... It was so beautiful. She is... She...

It?s... this shining place in my mind. ...My heart, I guess. I... It seems so stupid when I ...But when I look it?s

It?s just... beauty. Beauty. And she... I scared her. But... it was all right. I hope it is. So much, I pray, and... You just don?t get answers to those prayers, you just get the same thing as you get from people. Warm smiles and the sense of ?oh, isn?t he so cute, he?s sopping in puppy love.?

Love... I... don?t know, I... I want but I

It... It?s not the same, I don?t think, it?s not how Mom and Dad are, Paige and Rick, Nathanial and Miyuki, it?s... It?s not that big but it?s so... ...It shines. It?s warm. I

I want... I want to know, but... It?s all subjective, and it?s all just so cute, and... no one has any answers. Not any they can truly give. They can only say for themselves. I know... there?s friendship, and I think we are. Friends.

It?s like we have everything in common, and ...I ...I don?t know. I know my family won?t like her much. She?s perky and blonde and always chipper and bright. If she has a dark side, I can?t find it. Not even a shadow.

...what if they don?t...? Really... don?t? Like... I... but I never even the morons my sisters date I don?t say... I?d never say, him or me. but... If they ...I

It?s so hard. My family is always my family and I don?t care what anyone says, you can?t be a whole without ...without them. Even if you have to make your own family from friends. ...Especially. What they think is... maybe not always what?s best for you, but... it?s what they think. You trust them enough to call them sister, brother, mother, father... you should trust them.

I don?t know. I say it and write it so much. I don?t know. There?s so much I don?t know. So much I?ll never know. I can?t. That... That scares me too. That she?ll ...want... more. More from me, I

I don?t have more.

It feels It feels so... I don?t know, it?s... more than good. It?s... Like when they give you vicodin, kind of. Everything is... just... I can?t even explain it better than that. Vicodin.

That?s enough, isn?t it? It is for me. I... I could watch this sunrise... forever. And be happy. I can. I can

I... don?t know if she can. I told her everything. Everything. ...shewas so... so quiet. I ...felt like I talked for ever. Talked my soul. I... everything. Everything. What I don?t even like to write down.

She was so quiet. So She was... It was like... talking to an image in ... a hologram. Light... I Oh Spirits. Why did this have to happen to me? Any of it. All of it. I

It?s never mattered before! Maybe it still doesn?t. Maybe it?s still okay. She didn?t seem disappointed. Just... She just nodded. I said... It... It could change, because... it could. It just... wasn?t then. What a wonderful thing to say, too. Your company fails to move my I wonderful. ?I can hold you naked and never give offense and... that would probably be... offensive.?

I can?t win.

?Don?t you get it, Des? The bad guy never gets the girl.?

my dad did. My mom... isn?t that good of a girl. Maybe. Maybe.

I want to believe so much that I can?t help but to believe. Like tonight. I lay in bed and stared at the cieling and... I wanted to believe I want to believe and... it hurts. It terrifies.

When I can see her, it?s okay. I believe. I It?s... when I don?t. When I... have time to think. When I ask myself, why would someone so perfect want anything to do with me...

Oh, they tell me... You?re sweet, Des. You?re charming, you?re thoughtful, you?re giving, you?re affectionate, you?re honest, they?ve even said I?m sexy. I can?t argue. But the voice in my head reminds me

You?re disabled. You?re disabled. You can?t even drive a car. Ride a bike. Rollerskate. You?ve never even kissed a girl, and you still don?t want to.

Those things... they... My family, my friends, they say... It doesn?t matter. But it does. Oh, I can always be a brother.

I don?t want to be her brother. I can?t be her lover. I ...I won?t... hold someone in limbo. For nothing. A maybe.

I don?t want to be her brother. I don?t want to stand and watch some other man give her everything I can?t.

I?m afraid... I will have to.

I will have t

Journal Entry 83, Eighteen Five

Sin sent me a message. Via Charlie. It made me happy, because, well, it meant he wasn?t going to ask for her back. But on the other hand, it was...

I don?t know. Charlie came back with a letter, and Zip-Lock baggie with an oyster in dirty water. She flew into the house, when usually, she sits on the porch and screels for me even if the doors and windows are open. This time she came right in the kitchen window and screeched. She startled me half to death, too.

The note?s here...

"Dear Des,

Apparently this thing's got my soul. All of it! What if it makes it into a pearl?

I don't know what the crap to do with it. What do mollusks eat?

With love,
Sin."

It startled me worse, as soon as I read the note. I just stared at the oyster for I don?t know how long. I snagged up the largest Tupperware bowl I had, and used it as the basis of a spell. I etched it on the base before turning it and filling it with water. I put the oyster into that.

As far as the oyster is concerned, it was once more in its bed, peacefully sifting seawater for its food.

A soul... in a pearl? That wouldn't be too bad, no. Some believe variations on that already. In the oyster. So I watched it, it opened to begin flushing water through its gills. That was a good sign.

I mean, pearls are irritations covered in secretions from the oyster. Maybe the soul was the irritation.

Once the oyster seemed to be doing better, I went and wrote back.

"-Sin-

I'm not quite sure. It's safe right now. The oyster. If it's made a pearl of your soul, you may have to peel it open. Or perhaps take it as a pearl. Perhaps eat the oyster. I'll have to look it over more. I think you will have to call it back to you and bind it back into you. Don't worry. It is always yours. I have it in sea-water again, it's all right.

I still think you just wanted to see what I'd look like with horn rim glasses and a lightning bolt scar, but I like Charlie very much. Thank you.

-Love,
Desdenova-

I sent Charlie back to Sin with that, and well... It suddenly dawned on me, what I?d done. I put a mans soul into a Tupperware bowl.

I laughed so hard, I thought I was going to faint.

[Interlude: twilight]


Twilight shone in golden hues over a sky so blue it seemed polished lapis lazuli. The woods were alive with summer, verdant and vigorous, the river rushed by almost warm from the beat of sun. Fruit ripened, plums on a nearby tree, growing black and bloomed day by day.

Laughter, clear, strange and alien, sounded, and fearlessly, Desdenova turned an easy step from the dirt rode to roll over the old split rail fence. An errant beam of sunshine, Aurora stopped to watch the youth, her hands over her lips as if to stifle peals of bell-like laughter.

?Oh, if you get caught, I?m going to throw you to the wolves!? she threatened, delighted with his audacity.

?There?s no one to catch me, this orchard?s abandoned,? Desdenova retorted, pushing through the branches of one of the trees. Critically picking only two of the plums.

Almost as soon as he had spoken, a shotguns? report sounded over head, along with a gruff womans voice yelling.

?Get outta mah trees, ya punks!?

Startled, Desdenova sprang back over the fence agile as a stag, seizing Auroras? hand on the fly as they fled the scene. Soon enough laughing once more, though Desdenova cast a dark look over his shoulder when finally, they slowed to a walk.

?Well, no one lived there last summer, anyhow.?

?At least it?s not one of the scary people from Wolsons Hole,? Aurora giggled. She crowed, delighted, when Desdenova offered her one of the plums. A shotgun blast wasn?t enough to deter him from a little petty theft, no.

?It might be, sometimes one gets a hankering to not marry a cousin, and moves off to be uppity,? Desdenova offered, amused, watching her as she carefully stepped up the remains of an old, low stone fence, her arms outstretched for balance. He held a hand up to her, and she rested her fingers on his palm so she could eat the plum he?d given her.

She was so lovely. A living angel in a patchwork bright dress, arms held out, golden hair fanning to the fancy of the occassional breeze. Desdenova couldn?t help but stare as they walked, she a foot higher, and more, the wall she walked along was less broken down as they approached the river and bridge.

Aurora peeked down at Desdenova from time to time through the blonde tresses, laughing eyes and shy touches of smiles with a fleeting blush that ran across her cheeks each time she did meet his gaze. Such a somber creature, he was, and so exotic to her eyes.

Not just another goth. His ways were antique and simple, his knowledge was real and not blank repititions. He walked away from the easy path his parents had cut for him. An anomolous and strange young man to a debutante of a small, extremely exclusive private school.

And handsome. In an entirely different manner than she had ever considered. Slender, almost fragile seeming, deceptively powerful. Such pale skin and dark hair and eyes.

Everything about him was different. Fascinating in that. Even the damning bit of silver he wore around his wrist.

?Will Anna be at the bridge? You know, I could send my sorority sisters down this way to pick her up, they would scream hysterically,? Aurora offered from the comfortable silence, a trilling laughter smothered. Desdenova answered that. He laughed so much when he was with her. Real laughter. Not hushed away and concealed.

?She should be, and she would love that, yes.?

Almost as he spoke, Desdenova stumbled over a rut in the road. Aurora was quick to grasp his hand and pull him back to balance. Giggling roguishly, she hopped down, lightly tapping his chest with her fingertips and running for the bridge.

The stupid stare was precious written across Desdenovas? features, but it was gone in an instant, replaced briefly with a flaring of smile. He dashed after the girl, and abruptly ducked with a laughing yelp when Charlie swooped down from the sky like a falling torch right at him.

Turning swiftly, he swatted at the firebirds? flame of tail, calling ?You?re It!? before tearing across the bridge. Squeals of girlish laughter answered him, and both Anna, the ghost, and Aurora ran before him. Charlie warbled, beating air a moment with vaned wings, and promptly dove after the fugitives.

A batter of wing flexed through the dim ectoplasm of Annas? head, and she flailed uselessly at Charlie as the phoenix fluttered away. Drawn, though, by the commotion, Ogopini and Gus came shining through the woods, glowing purple and gold respectively. Anna charged for Gus and tagged the wisp before running away.

Gus wavered, confused seeming, but game, and rushed a slaalam course through the trees after Desdenova, but, when he turned and abruptly yanked Teddy from his dispatch case and flung the baffled bogle into Gus, well, Teddy was now ?It?.

Cussing in outraged goblin, Teddy swarmed after Aurora. The girl screeched merrily as she dodged through the trees, and that brought the little shadow dragon, Flinx, to see what was about. Teddy triumphantly tagged Flinx and fled the scene.

Flinx winged after Charlie, then Ogopini, then Gus, confused as a hound dog in the middle of a rabbit warren, and when he turned his attention to those on the ground, it was worse, they all scattered and rushed through the darkness of the woods. But, it was easier, for Flinx really was little more than a shadow.

Looming from the shadow of the cemetary wall, Flinx reached for Desdenova, and complained in unheard laughter when the youth thrust Bea into his talons. Bea wiggled and yapped gaily, bright as a moondrop, rolling in a tumble with the shadow dragon to the soft forest mould.

Off like a shot, Bea went, to leap into the air and pass through Ogopini as the wisp wondered who was ?It? now. Well, she was.

So the game went, filling the woods with laughter and shining light as the sun set. Movement that was human and fae-like at the same moment disturbed the shadows, glowing light and dimming, an enchanted scene, to be sure.

Gasping and rushing from one of Charlies? passes, Aurora abruptly ran cleanly into Desdenova. His gaze flicked from the flight of the phoenix downwards, instinctively catching arms around Aurora.

She was so close. In his arms. He could only stare, wide set of eyes, lips parted faintly. A rush of scarlet leaping over his skin. Too stunned to even pray it was too dark to see the blush.

Aurora gazed up, shyly, it seemed, and almost nestling closer to him. Pink cheeked with the running, and now, well. She shrugged a bit to his utter still, lowered her eyes and smiled. Finally, she peered up at Desdenova once more.

?Well, if you wanted to dance, you should have said so, silly.?

?...Y-you... ran into me... so... You sh-should have,? he retorted with a soft stuttering, dipping his head quickly, veiling his eyes, as much of his face as he could, with the fall of his hair.

?Okay,? Aurora chirped with a soft laugh, moving back a bit and carefully taking his hand. Desdenova smiled, faint, shy, and simply settled a hand to her hip. Drawing her into a waltz as the last light faded away.

Journal Entry 84, Eighteen Five

Llyluna showed up again. It?s ...really just... Old. Well, it was old a long time ago. She flies in, knocks people and vehicals spinning, and then waits for something to piss her off. Anything. Everything. Usually Dillon.

He obliged, of course, and though I didn?t leave, I stayed in the woods, on the edge. And watched. Most people just got disgusted and walked over to where I was. Paige, Cam, Zane, Chris, Cianan, I think. Just trying to wait this all out.

She?s developed a new perversion, so to speak. She roars. As loud as she possibly can, preferably aimed at people. After the second one, I couldn?t hear, and I thought my head was going to explode. No one could hear. So much for getting out of the way of the fracas and trying to enjoy the evening. Well, we could have played charades, I suppose.

I don?t understand the attitude at all. I just don?t. It?s not great pride or dignety or anything like that, it?s just sheer... spoiled brat. It?s not like she?s there because she?s loney and wants company in her old age, it?s not like mistrust, it?s... just... mean.

I try to be nice. I really do. I keep hoping that it will occur to her that no one but a few are trying to get at her, and that all you have to be is polite and people will respond. She insists she is polite, but I don?t think she?s bothered to look at what she?s doing. A lot of people have really tried to befriend her and all, but she still just blows like a frog in the microwave at the slightest things, and doesn?t stop to think that there?s other people there.

Well, it was weird that time. I couldn?t hear, but I can read lips and I can use sign language, and some others can, too, but Paiges ears started bleeding. Which scared me. But what really scared me was that she was scared. She was afraid. Not at Llyluna, Llyluna usually just ticks Paige off.

Then there was something, but I couldn?t tell what, pulling at the back of her neck, and I tried to grab for it, but it was gone. It was some sort of a magical attachment, and it was creepy, when I looked for it, there was nothing. Nothing, almost like... a nadir, an entity of nothing. I don?t know, it scared me. All Paige could say was that she?d been at the docks and she?d felt a little funny ever since.

Well, I went home with her and woke Rick up, and it wasn?t like last time, when Jessica asked me to heal Frank.

That really surprised me. That Jessica trusted me that much. But when we were going to see him, someone opened up firing on the tavern, and I got hit in the leg, and Paige in the shoulder.

I did it, though. The spell worked, and I?d never cast it before. He was really bad off, so I knew the little one I use wasn?t going to cut it. I really think the wound helped me focus, like it had at Disneyland, because it forced me to ignore the pain, and just on what I was doing.

I do not want to have to shoot myself in the foot just to learn new castings. Great spirits.

Well, I took Paige back home to Rick, and I couldn?t just say ?Hi, Dad!? and try to run like last time. Anyhow, he?s fast for an old man, he can catch me if I can?t get a little lead time.

He was worried. I don?t like that. It?s scary. When the people who should always have everything in place are afraid or worried... I guess that?s why Mom and Dad tried to hide it from me, or watered it down a lot. If Mom and Dad can?t handle it... who can?

I don?t know. I told Rick what I knew, and I knew I was going to have nightmares no matter what.

Journal Entry 85, Eighteen Five

The last thing you ever want to hear someone say when you get into a truck is ?hang onto your boo boos, folks?. Especially when there?s seatbelts.

Once again, Zeth gathered up a strike team to go back to Disney. Because the technomage or whatever running all that hadn?t been there when we went in, I don?t know. I guess if it?s Disney, there?s going to be a sequel, but spirits!

This time, they met us going in. I just hung on, mainly to Minion and Tyg, and stayed low. I couldn?t quite see what was going on, and I wasn?t sure I wanted to. Tyg said ?Stitch Sinks?, and I was just... Oh great. There was a Herbie charging at the truck, and something sliced off the top of it, and I thought Rick was going to explode.

He threw Oscar, the fae he?s got attached to his truck, at Herbie, and it crashed, and I guess it dunked the Stitch. When we went in, though, we were met by the Country Bears from the Jamboree ride, which I thought was totally unfair, because that ride?s closed.

Then this... skinny little geek -- I know, pot, kettle, but he was. He was playing with one of those old Star Trek ?teleporter? toys, and sent out a lot of thugs in costume at us.

I was able to get a tracking spell on the geek, but the next thing I know, Minion and I were in the old ?Incredible Shrinking Man? ride, or whatever it was called. It looked like it was neat, it?s too bad they closed it.

Before we could figure out what happened (that stupid teleporter toy really worked!), there was a Micheal Jackson and a monkey coming at us. I freaked. It looked like it was from when he was still black and had most of his face, but still.

I just fired at the stupid thing till it stopped moving, and the monkey jumped on Minion, I grabbed it and threw it, and he shot it. I made a lot of the little impact grenades, and used one of those to open a door and get the hell out of there. Ugh. I?m still shuddering.

Well, Rick and Paige caught up with us then, and he was ...wow. Scary. I don?t know where they?d gone, but he had the top of an R2D2 and Paiges BAR. He yells at us and I said ?if we don?t behave, you won?t take us to Disneyland??. Well, Paige laughed, anyhow.

The spell led into the New Orleans Square, and right to the Haunted House. Tess and Tyg caught up with us, then, and Zeth had been in Fantasy Land, I guess. So, we went in. It?s my favorite ride, and since there wasn?t anyone to tell me not to, I jumped up to see the pictures in the elevator get longer.

Except the gargoyles started attacking. And the hanged man. And the entire elevator just... dropped. I fell onto the floor and just ducked all the gun fire.

When we got out and started walking through the halls, it was very odd. Something was happening. Like we went without knowing it from reality into the Umbra or something, and I guess we did. We were inside of one of those Nexus crawlers. A giant spider.

I got everyone to go ahead a bit so I could banish the thing, but I only made a very small hole, so we?d have time to get away before it was banished. So it was kind of a flushing. I didn?t know where else to banish it to, and, well, Jareth did invite me in, so, I banished it there. Maybe he?ll think it?s neat. Well, I?ll apologise next time I see him.

We got out of that, and we were in the grand ballroom. And there was the geek, sitting at the organ. He turned around and just... Great spirits. He started talking about using us as characters in some action show. And said Elijah Wood would play me. ELIJAH WOOD!! He doesn?t even look remotely like me, and he?s creepier than I could ever hope to be, and not in a good way. I just -- UGH!

I don?t even know who killed the little geek, everyone pretty much launched at him at once. Except Rick who just stared and said ?but Sean Connery doesn?t have any hair?.

That wasn?t the end of it, though. I guess the geek body was just a puppet or something. Doubles of ourselves attacked us, but they were cartoony. And whatever we did, they did. I got hit bad that time. I didn?t realize it was going to do whatever I did, and I ran the Tommy gun across mine.

It really scared me, but I got pushed back, just a little. It slowed the bleeding almost to a stop, and I was able to cast another spell to destroy the stupid thing. After that, all I could do was wait for Zeth.

Everything was hazy after that, everything just seemed off kilter. I just wanted to go to sleep and rest. They took me home and put me to bed, I... I don?t know, even now, something just doesn?t seem right.

Journal Entry 86, Eighteen Five

So, I talked to Llyluna one night. What a night. I think it would have been easier if she?d just torn me apart and left me for dead. It feels like that, anyhow.

She?s old, she?s cranky, she?s alone. She?s afraid she?ll die alone and be forgotten. No one cares if she lives or dies and most prefer that she would die.

Kind of a classic case of dying as you have lived. I tried to explain that you don?t have to lower yourself, but you do have to give to recieve. I told her she?d recieved a lot without giving, but I don?t think she believed me.

I know a few meetings would never change a lifetime of strife, but she?s not stupid. It?s more than a few times that she?s seen people delighted to see a dragon. And she changes their minds every time.

Dillon always gets mad and complains ?she?s a RED DRAGON, she?s EVIL?. So are a lot of things, but not all of them burn me. Besides, if you can turn something from evil, isn?t that better than just killing it? I would think that was more a show of the strength of good. That it can corrupt evil as well as evil can corrupt good.

Well, either way, she?s never seemed evil. Just... spoiled.

But, we talked. A long time. It was like talking to Horam when he was wounded. When I knew that he would ... When I knew I would be a disgrace and worse, because I?m disabled. I?d be dead, most likely.

I don?t know. Is it an artificial piece of culture, when it keeps even it?s most disabled members safe, loved, and alive? Perhaps an overwhelming parential instinct that insists on keeping all of their children alive at nearly any cost?

They say that many of our most influential leaders were disabled, and if not cared for well past what the average child needed, many would have died in their youth. So can it be said that it weakens us? Or strengthens? I don?t know. I?ve seen people who were useless simpering little blips on the radar of society emerge as powerful and insightful proponents for this or that cause or research after they?ve been given a disabled or worse child.

Better medical care, that does strengthen the race. But it doesn?t weaken us to add wheelchair ramps or hand holds or braille signs.

It might weaken when an otherwise healthy and strong parent will refuse to leave a disabled child. Or like the one lady who kept having babies even though she knew she was carrying sickle cell anemia. I knew all of the kids, too, and I couldn?t ever regret knowing them. They?re all gone now except the youngest. So far, the bone marrow transplant has held.

I couldn?t ever regret them. Even though they knew they?d be lucky to turn twenty. Though they?ll never be part of society, they are. Always will be. We all knew them, and the ones that lived, their lives touched ours. Made us into what we are.

It was awful knowing how much pain they were in sometimes.

Though what are we? Bad genetic material. I make it sound like we?re nobly running around inspiring the healthy. We?re not that. We?re no angels. ...We?re normal, but... well, nothing outside is normal. Sometimes, not even inside, like the mentally retarded and Downs kids.

Well, maybe they?ll never design a better mouse trap, but... They?re happy, they make their families and friends happy, and... Well, what?s wrong with that? Maybe they?re back to being a blip on the radar of society, it just doesn?t matter if they?re happy.

There was little Skye. Fairy-girl, everyone called her. She was tiny, like a midget, and had duck-fluff hair. Her eyes were far too big for her head, they were out of proportion, and she had a similar syndrome to mine. More like Alice, less constricted, more involuntary movement. Her teeth were all pointed, the front ones, and she never really got molars. Or they kind of crumbled out.

She was very fragile, her bones, they could break at a touch, almost. I don?t remember what they called her disabilities, I guess it doesn?t matter. She also had a form of autism. She didn?t want to be left alone, nor did she have a problem with being held, in fact, she loved that. She just... she didn?t exist here with us much.

She never really spoke, she rarely was able to communicate any of her physical needs or even what was in her head. She was... she was like a flower. A flower in a vase. You knew it wasn?t going to last forever, but you enjoyed it while it was alive.

Her older brother, Ben, he was one of my best friends for a while. He was big, and you knew he was going to be the biggest guy in school, football player, all that. And he was kind. He was a jock, but he wasn?t an ass.

He went through his treatment bam, just like everyone knew he would. I remember sitting in the family room with him and Skye. She barely knew or cared that we were there, and we?d talk for hours, wondering what the world in her head was like. Sometimes, I would look, and I?d tell him what I saw. But it changed. It was always green and growing, but never the same.

We?d talk about how beautiful she?d be when she grew up, but we knew she wouldn?t. He cried once when he was telling me about the crap he was going to put her boyfriends through when they wanted to date her. Just... cried, all the while talking about how he?d grab them and slam them to the wall and say things like ?you know when ten o?clock is, right, punk??.

Skye was Jackies first embalming. It was so perfect. She made a mask, too, we made it into a doll. Ben gave that to his first daughter.

Ben grew up. I sometimes go and see them, they?re all so healthy and happy that his wife once called me in tears because the second daughter got a bad ear infection, and please do something. I didn?t laugh, even though I knew how much worse things could be, and even how much worse it was for Ben. I begged Moms fixer from her and she understood.

It would be so nice if it was ever just ear infections.

I don?t know why I?m dwelling on all this. I talked to Llyluna and it just opened up everything. How I can be worth anything when I?m not perfect. How someone perfect can be worth anything when they don?t feel.

It just tore me up. So much. I didn?t want to let her see that. Not because I didn?t want to hurt her, or because I didn?t think she needed to know, but because I didn?t think she?d care. I don?t think she does, really.

I think Jhael found me and took me back home. She?s drow, or half. She just pretended she didn?t see the state I was in. She said she had brothers, and they all eat pride for br

Journal Entry 87, Eighteen Five

I thought I?d be so thrilled the first time I went more than a few days without having a seizure, a week, two, but it scared me. I don?t know why. I guess, horrible as it sounds, it?s familiar.

I?d be someone else, I think. All these doors would open. Everything would be different and it was so overwhelming to think...

Except it just felt wrong. Like I was still stuck a little out, and... I guess I was, I can?t remember drawing back in after I was shot, I ... I must not have. And sometimes, they screw up my medications, and they had, one of them, anyhow, and I was really... I was afraid.

I knew it would be really bad when it did come.

It was. Really

Nathanial and Jhael were with me, I was at home.

Journal Entry 88, Eighteen Five

Meeting Auroras? parents could have gone better. I suppose it could have gone worse, but only if I?d seized while I was there. It was so easy introducing her to my mom and dad. Just... Walk in and say, ?this is Aurora?.

Mom smiled and said hello, dinner will be on in a bit, why don?t you go listen to the radio with Des?s Dad? So we went into the livingroom and sat with Dad and Alice. They were listening to ?Inner Sanctum?. We had dinner, we talked about mainly our respective jobs, and Alices? school, of course. Then Alice played harp a bit for us, Dad played violin, and then we left.

Mom said Aurora seems like a nice girl, Dad kind of laughed and said the gigglers will get you every time.

Aurora?s parents, though. Great spirits. I know that my parents probably have more money than they, but it?s not really a big deal to mine. It is to hers. A very big deal.

The butler looked me over like he?d scraped me off the bottom of his shoe. Then he said that he was sorry, but madam and sir were not interested in buying anything I might be selling. When I said I Aurora had invited me, he snorted ?surely not? but at least went and asked.

A two hour trip on the bus for that, and another half an hour at least walking. I know she told them she?d asked me to come and meet them. I should have left then. Finally, he lets me in, only to announce that pets are not acceptable in the house. So I know she told them, because Bea was in her case. I said I?m sorry, she?s a service dog, she?s very small, and I won?t take her out.

That?s such a mark of forced gentility. When your servants run your house to their liking, but I got the feeling he was given full blessings to be an asshole to me. And he makes me wait in the foyer again.

Finally, he takes me to a downstairs parlor, or should I say, their shrine to Aurora. It was the creepiest thing I?d ever seen. Photographs, paintings, awards, certificates, everything that she?d ever done was memorialized in there. I mean, it was neat seeing what she?d done and all, but...

Mr. Beemis was waiting in there for me, and I thought the butler looked at me like I was something disgusting. He gave me Auroras? life story, how intelligent she is, how much potential she has, her social position, her achievements and aspirations. Kind of like he was preaching gospel, in fact.

Then he gives me this glare and says ?Anyone who comes into contact with Aurora is of course bettered, but it will not be tolerated if her betterment is to her detriment.? Fancy way of saying ?you have good taste, loser, but you?re out of your league?.

Finally, Aurora and her mother come in. Aurora was glad to see me, just as she always is, but her mother... If looks could kill, all that would be left of me would fit in a Zip-Lock freezer baggie.

?I thought we were entertaining Brandon, dear, who is this?? her mother announces, and I could tell Aurora was embarrassed, and I know she?d told them, but... well. All her mother has to say to me after Aurora reminds her that she?s not seeing Brandon anymore, and Desdenova is her friend is ?my dear, I?m sure he?s nice, but he certainly is not Brandon.?

I really wanted to leave then, but I didn?t want to run out on Aurora. I just smiled now and then and pretended I didn?t notice. They didn?t invite me to sit, had tea brought in, but didn?t offer me a cup. Even though Aurora did, I just ... They don?t want me there, they don?t want to offer hospitality, I?m not going to take it.

So I stood there for about another hour while they detailed Auroras? relationship with Brandon. Brandon?s father is a Judge, his mother is CEO of a chain of exclusive hotels. Brandon?s going to college to become a business lawyer.

Brandon and Aurora started dating when they were sixteen, and they share every interest, they expected an engagement when Aurora came back from a tour of Europe with her duenna, but Aurora recieved a prestigious invitation to the college where her uncle and aunt work at the last moment, and it was wiser to hold off on such things.

Brandon?s a football player, he was offered the chance to go pro by his sophomore year, but of course, though he still plays in college, it is his intention to join his mother in her business.

Brandon has always been like a son to them.

I think that burned me the most.

I never would be.

Then they announced that they had to get ready for dinner, Brandon would be joining they and Aurora, and Aurora started to protest because she?d invited me to dinner, and here they were not only dismissing me, but had invited someone else in my place, but I just shook my head and told her it was all right, I should get home anyhow.

I just wanted out of there. I don?t know why I stood there and took all that for as long as I did. Well, for Auroras? sake. I could have slapped them down for their poor manners, but really -- why? Quietly accepting would prove I was a loser, protesting or stomping out would prove I was a boorish pig.

I have my dignety. They couldn?t take that. I just thanked them for a nice afternoon and left. I could see tears in Auroras? eyes, but there wasn?t anything I could do.

But... She caught up with me. She drove me home. Aurora did. She only said ?if I say anything, I?ll start crying and I won?t be able to drive?. So I didn?t say anything.

I told her she should go back. Mainly because I could see them calling the police because their daughter disappeared with some transient sort right before having dinner with her almost-fiance. But also because they are her parents, after all, and she loves them dearly.

I don?t know. It... just gives me a lot of pause. They really don?t want me around. I?m completely objectionable to them. Just by breathing. Aurora just said they?re still mad that she decided to change colleges, and they don?t really like Brandon all that much, they were just really irked that she?d found friends away from where they lived, and they?d treated her new sorority sisters just the same.

I don?t know. I don?t know them. I see their pictures in the papers sometimes, they?re politicians and social lion sorts. Meaning only people they all ready know or who are somehow famous in an approved manner will ever be able to associate with them.

Well, Aurora went back home. She called me once she got there, too. Brandon wasn?t coming after all, which she thought was hilarious, I guess it was. He called at the last moment and said ?sorry, the guys on the team want to go to the pub, so I?ll take a rain check.? Her parents were furious.

If that?s their idea of a son, I suppose the world should be glad they didn?t have one. I mean, they raised Aurora, they can?t be all bad. Just really overprotective.

I don?t know. They don?t like me or want me around Aurora. I shouldn?t be around her, then. I know they don?t know me, but... they don?t want to know me, either.

I know most of my family will be very angry if I told Aurora I couldn?t see her anymore because of that, and it?s not fair to her, either. I just don?t know what to do. If I knew what it was I was doing or not doing that antagonized them so, I would try to right that, but the only thing I?m really doing that?s objectionable is... being Desdenova, not Brandon.

I wonder, though. If I?d been like him. If they still would have protested. Another GQ uberrich athletic going into a high profile business profession that was all ready in the family. Another upper class drone. Never good at anything except in the social sense, never able to strike out on my own, never able to be my own.

It seems like that?s a worse handicap than I could ever have. Never shining. Never feeling. Never... nothing. And what?s terrifying is they don?t know they?re handicapped like that. They don?t know until something happens to kick all the supports out from under them, and then they?re utterly at sea.

Sometimes, people tell me not to dwell so much on my disabilities. Or not at all. But pretending they weren?t there is what kept me at home for so long. It was only when I sat down and worked out ways to deal with them, in private, alone, and in public, in the workplace, everywhere, that Mom and Dad let me go.

If I didn?t know how to deal with that, if I wasn?t constantly alert, constantly asking myself ?if I seize now, what??, I wouldn?t want to be away from Mom and Dad, either. It?d be too dangerous.

I don?t know. It?s just really difficult for me to realize that her parents don?t think well of me at all, and I suspect that the more they know, they less they will like.

[Interlude - Summer Night]

Daylight surrendered to the twilight songs of the phoenix. At least, Charlie believed it was so. That the rapturous song she gave to the setting sun brought the night in its slow graduations of summer.

A long and hot day, it had been. The green house, he had to shade before the plants within started to cook. Getting the blinds up had been backbreaking, exhausting work under the summer sun, and even though he had worn a long sleeved T-shirt and hat, he felt as if he?d been sunburnt to a crisp.

But, the fair white skin showed only the pinkish glow of life. Perhaps a tinging of red on his throat and hands. Vain, the youth could be, he stood before the full length dressing mirror in his bedroom, nude, to paranoically inspect for any signs of sunburn.

Giving his reflection a wrinkle of nose, humorous recognition of his own vanity, and he turned from the mirror to take up a towel, his robe, and stepped downstairs.

Still too hot, and humid, even as the sun sunk lower; Desdenova padded through the tombstones to the pond, lifting his head, then his voice, amused, to join in a stanza or two of Charlies? night song. The phoenix swooped and dove through the still air, she enjoyed the weather, to be sure.

Tossing out his towel to the grassy bank, the robe beside it, Desdenova walked to the waters edge. A smile flickered at his lips, his head tilted, a slow stretch worked from his heels upwards, arms raised to loosely lock and fold over his head.

Caught in some daydream or another, the youth simply poised there at the waters edge, the usual still of his features taking on a gentled aura. In his eyes, mainly, dark and lightless as they were.

A pair of spheres plipped from the waters surface, energetic light in the fade of day, purple and gold. Those hovered a moment before playfully spiralling around Desdenova, joined in a swoop when Charlie buzzed by. Shaken from his thoughts, the youth laughed and swatted at the whisps.

?Oh, stop, I?m just thinking,? he murmured, a somewhat sheepish insistance, because Ogopini and Gus knew well enough that his thinking usually turned towards the last he?d seen Aurora. Silly, innocent thoughts they were, as simple as a childs? realizing that one person outside of family made them happy. It was a lot, for him.

A single, fluid movement of dive. Sheer elegance, powerful, as if Desdenova truly had no business at all on dry land, and forever was waiting for the chance to return to water. Little splash and ripple to mark his passing, the pond was deep and wide. Immediately after him, Ogopini and Gus followed with even less disturbance, though under the water, their gleaming light was eerily vivid as koi sporting about after feeding.

Blessedly cool water, it revived as he swam, lazily through the reeds for a moment before shooting swiftly into the open, tagging at the whisps and darting away. A strange aquatic game of hide ?n? seek that set the ponds? surface rippling. Occassionally, Desdenova or the whisps would break the surface, apparantly for air, or to escape pursuit, though it wasn?t often.

Soon enough, as couples will, Ogopini and Gus flittered off to be alone. That was fine with Desdenova, rolling to float upwards, and sprawled back, chest arched and arms outspread, simply lazed in the water, watching the moon rise through the last hues of twilight.

Catching himself starting to doze, Desdenova moved, rolling slowly in the water to swim for shore. Almost ungainly as he clambered from the water, but he didn?t care, simply dropping to his knees, then his hip and side on the towel and stretching out once more.

Moon-tanning, his mother jokingly referred to it as, and the youth had a fine one, indeed. His head fell back, his eyes closed. Falling into sleep there as he often did over the course of the summer.

The bizarre, almost terrifying gasping gurgling and tension abruptly wracking the sleeping form brought Ogopini and Gus promptly to hover over Desdenova. A seizure, one of the easier ones to deal with -- not enough to awaken him, he simply moved aimlessly as if trying to run, and finally, fell into a profound sleep.

Ogopini moved in closer, brushing against the astronomers cheek, as if giving a fond kiss. Checking to assure herself he was all right before spinning upwards to join Gus once more.

The whisps flickered away to their own business once more, though clearly, they would be quick to reappear if Desdenova was disturbed. After a seizure, however, when he did fall asleep, it was difficult to awaken him.

There was a lot learned of his condition in the months Aurora had known Desdenova. From what he told her, her aunt and uncle, her own observations. It was rare that a seizure was powerful enough to exhaust him into sleep, and even so, he had a handful of odd little guardians to watch over him.

Rarely alone. Even now, the whisps weren?t far away. They wouldn?t go far from their pond, she knew. Though Desdenova considered them neighbors, they were quick to watch for him. The ghosts often paid her no attention, usually, she couldn?t see them at all. They would summon help, if needed, too. The phoenix seemed to have retired to the barn. Bea hadn?t followed her boy out, nor had Teddy or Flinx. The bogle, shadow, and dog likely were taking a break, watching television, it seemed. The generator was running.

Aurora learned all that. Because otherwise, Desdenova wasn?t alone. He had said she could ask for that, but when she had, he had been so uneasy of it. He wasn?t used to it, much as he spoke so wistfully of being so.

Quietly, cautious indeed, Aurora stepped from the concealment of an overgrown hedge near a tombstone. Her eyes wide as she stared at the sleeping youth, entranced.

Beautiful. Slender without promise of filling out some day, pale as fine marble in the moonlight. Muscle defined itself clearly, etched under the youths? skin without the deception of clothing, or even his own ways. Murmuring reverent appreciation under her breath, Aurora slowly sank to her knees beside Desdenova.

Auroras? hands lifted, and she paused, once more, giving an intent look around, over the grounds and to the house. All was still. She reached out to carefully glide her hands down the youths? throat, his chest, her gaze steady on her hands.

Smooth, supple, everything she had fancied. Aurora chewed her lower lip, then bit into it, settling back on her heels. Those gentle touches didn?t so much as disturb Desdenovas? breathing.

Bolder passes of her hands ran over the youths body, careful exploration, Aurora stared glassily. Desdenova hadn?t lied, even so vulnerable, he didn?t react to the sensual touches, but that didn?t matter at the moment. That was just touch.

Slowly, Aurora leaned over, dragging golden hair over Desdenovas? bare skin, drawing her lips from the hollow of his upper chest upwards.

?What are you doing??

The voice, female, was hardly strident, quite the opposite, it was quiet and gentle, confused; yet Aurora nearly came out of her skin. Anna tilted her head, a demure vision, almost solid in the night.

Aurora gaped at the spirit, her face scarlet, and scrambled quickly for the proper pre-considered reasoning. It was Anna, after all, a girl from an earlier age, an innocent who had died so and never learned more than that.

?Oh uh uh oh, he had a seizure, I was making sure he was breathing all right,? Aurora explained with a bright, guiless smile.

?At his throat...?? Anna responded doubtfully. The living had become strange things to the girl-ghost. Though she remembered that she could see the life force of the living, and most living could not, they were still very odd sometimes.

?Well, and his pulse.?

?With your mouth?? Anna demanded, her lashes fluttering. Aurora rolled her eyes and simply smiled sheepishly, inviting amusement at her own failings.

?Well, yes, my hands were shaking, so... I know, it?s silly.?

?Oh. He?s all right. He?s sleeping. He?s all blue and green and not scrambled at all. Are you sure he had a seizure?? Anna inquired, gliding closer and peering down at Desdenova with a warming smile. She remembered sleeping like that.

?I think so. I just stopped by to drop off some files for him, and I guess he?d been swimming,? Aurora responded, doubtfully, however. Damn the ghost, she hadn?t realized that Anna would be able to see spectral evidence of his siezures. Well, she knew now. She?d have to work around that.

?Oh. Well, he?s all right. If he had one, he won?t wake for a while yet,? Anna smiled brightly, settling with a flumph beside the youth. After a moment, she began tugging at the robe, though it seemed to flutter over and around him on its own.

?True. Oh. Well, I?d hoped to talk with him a bit, but I suppose I?ll just go home and get some sleep. I?ll come back tomorrow,? Aurora decided with a little pout. She leaned over, smoothing Desdenovas? hair from his brow, then kissing it sweetly. Quickly wiping as if to rub in lip gloss, she giggled conspiritorily to Anna.

?Don?t tell him I did that, he?ll be so embarrassed.?

Anna giggled in response, and agreed, but, when she realized that Aurora had walked quite a ways before the engine of the Opel started, she frowned. She wouldn?t have to tell Desdenova that Aurora had kissed his brow, he would be able to scent her over his...

Skin.

?Why didn?t she cov...?? Anna whispered to herself, her brow knitting. Instants later, she raised her voice, calling for Teddy.

Teddy hissed, cattish ears lain back, with Annas? tale given. It could be nothing, it could be bad. Anna was not blessed with a dirty mind and healthy paranoia, part of why she had been murdered as she was. But it didn?t matter, really, Desdenova had a horrible crush on Aurora, and this would, innocent or not, devistate him.

From a cat sized creature to one pushing ten feet, hairy and monstrous, Teddy oozed from one form to another and carefully lifted the sleeping youth in powerful talons and arms.

?No one leaves him alone unless he specifically asks again. Charlie, bitchslap that willow into telling us when someone?s around the cemetary,? Teddy rasped at the small group. Charlie chirrupped and promptly flew to toast the willow into paying attention, at the least. Bea and Flinx followed the bogle back into the house.

Teddy simply bathed the youth and put him into bed. It was a bitch sometimes that Desdenovas? sense of smell was so keen.

Journal Entry 89, Eighteen Five

Thorn showed up, a little after Shadow left, I think, and she just seemed kind of quiet and retiring. She?d talk with Simon and another man, Baziou or something, who it really seemed like she had a big crush on, but he wasn?t paying attention to it.

I know how that goes, though. I mean, I?ve seen so many with crushes on me, but they?re just not what I see as... I don?t know when I started thinking that way. Maybe after I met Aurora. See as a girlfriend. Not a friend or sister.

I try not to be mean about it, but sometimes, it?s just really aggravating. I hope I?ve never been that aggravating to anyone that I liked. But I just won?t demand what isn?t given. That?s wrong.

Well, anyhow, Thorn likes to lay on this pile of cushions she?s collected onto the porch. I guess she was kind of living there after finding her way there. She was talking about monsters, and I told her there were a lot around. I mean, I am. No matter how pretty or well mannered.

Someone, I?m not sure, but they reminded me of a story one of my aunts tells about a thing that lives in the sewer, this coelescence of evil that looks for all the world a sock puppet.

So, I started telling Thorn about the sock monster. I wasn?t feeling well, and I was banged up, so I was kind of in the shadows, and doing all I could to look creepy and mysterious.

She just stared and stared. And kept pulling herself so she didn?t have anything touching the floor. Baziou started in, and well, made one of the shadows on the wall look like a big, fanged sock puppet monster.

Thorn came out of her hide, out of her pillows, clean up into the air and onto a table, screaming her head off. I laughed, I had to, it was hysterical. She finally realized we were teasing and read us the riot act, but she wasn?t really mad. Like telling scary stories around the camp fire and your dad comes running back from the car wearing a mask and carrying a chain saw and screaming ?It?s dinner time!?.

Well, maybe that?s just my dad. But it?s pretty funny anyhow.

I didn?t want her to think there were any hard feelings, so I spent some time the next day at lunch making sock monsters. They?re little three legged stuffed toys, they?re kind of primitive looking, I just used socks and stuff I found in the company lost and found.

They?re three legged and steal one sock from every pair in the drier, and are stuffed with the lint of their kills. Well, not really, it?s just that craft shop stuffed animal stuffing... stuff.

Matilde laughed at me, sitting there, hand stitching all these odd bits and peices together, and reminded me that the sewing machine was invented back around the beginning of the twentieth century. I showed it to her and said she was welcome to sew it up on a machine, I couldn?t figure how to do all the turns and such.

So, she did. And in ten seconds flat. She sucks, I swear. So, I finished them and she sewed them up. We made a lot of them before I figured a way to get my toymakers spell to vary the materials and patterns.

I gave one to Thorn, and she laughed, but she really liked it a lot. Everyone did, really. I guess they are cute in a horrible way. Matilde laughed and said we should sell them in the shop, and well, maybe later, because I made them to be gifts. Maybe when I?m out of the ones we made by hand.

I don?t know why that makes them more special, but it does. Though you really can?t tell the difference between the ones we made and the ones from the spell.

They made a lot of people smile and laugh.

Journal Entry 90, Eighteen Five

Cam and Zane meeting Aurora = Disaster.

Aurora wanted so much not to offend, and I know they were waiting for someone completely airheaded. I guess that's my fault, but I don't know what I said to make them think that.

She's not. I can't do anything or say anything to show them differently. I don't know if there's anything Aurora can do. I'm just afraid they'll say they don't want me seeing her, and... I... I don't know what I'll do.

They know better than I do. But I see Aurora, and... It feels good. I mean, I'm not planning on marrying her. I don't want t

What's so bad ab

I don't know. I

I don't even know what Aurora would see in someone like me anyhow, it doesn't matter

Journal entry 91, Eighteen five

I had a very strange afternoon. Very... Very strange. Auroras parents requested to meet me. At this exclusive little tea house. I got the message at work. They had their butler come down to the Four Winds and give me the note.

Matilde was there. She took the note and read it while informing him of why his ettiquette and that of his employers was utterly bourgiesie, and she wasn?t sure she should allow her prodigy to be in the company of such boorishness. She can do that high class Victorian Lady thing better than my Mom.

There?s nothing quite like being morally bitch slapped by a wicked witch.

Matilde drove me. I begged her to please just go home, I?d get a cab, I?d walk, I?d call Rick or Sin or Horz?t, but she just wasn?t having it. She promised she?d just wait in the car while I went in. Meaning if I was the slightest bit upset when I walked out, she?d probably probably turn every person in the tea house but them into starving crocodiles.

So, I went in. This time, they were a lot more courteous. A lot more. I didn?t really say anything, just asked for mint tea. The waiter brought me that, a towel to put Bea on, a bowl of water, and a couple of plain biscotti for her, which really shocked me. But, since they were making the effort, I put her on the table on the towel.

Mrs. Geemis announces that Round Table Kennels produces the finest of Maltese dogs, and I agreed, but I was really unnerved. I know I told Aurora where I got Bea, but I had no idea why that mattered.

They looked Beas? pedigree up. And found out how much I paid for her. That she was a show quality dog and not pet quality, and even so, their pet quality dogs are still pretty expensive. I didn?t get her because of that, or even because of her value. I got her because I saw her and fell in love.

It got weirder. They had tracked down every bit of my history that I made public to get the job at the observatory and the Four Winds. My parents, my sisters, my school, medical... Everything that there was to find, they found.

They were suddenly much more cordial after finding out my parents are authentically old wealth. That I was a child prodigy and had already completed a four year degree in science, and had gone to very exclusive schools to do so. Father?s a surgeon, but only accepts certain cases. Mother?s a research specialist. Jackie an award winning mortician and occassional fashion model.

I had many of the ?right? friends. The Halliburtons, Cam, the D?Kamors, Lola, Debbi and Brent, Dame Arlene... They?re all the sorts of people that the upper class wants to be associated with, but usually are not because though rich and or talented, they don?t give a damn about social position.

And that never sinks in. That the people that the upper class see as the ultimate social stars usually don?t want anything to do with them.

Debbi and Brent had told them about my work with them, they?d sung my praises and were certain that they were training another Stephen Hawkings, which I think is going a bit far. They had met Senior at a cocktail party and they asked him about me, and were shocked to find that he not only knew who I was, but had known me all of my life, and was very pleased that I had hired on. Under my own talents and skills.

They knew all about my disabilities. I know my doctor here would never give anyone that information unless I authorized it, so I figured, yes, they?d put a private detective on me.

They discussed my siezures, mainly, then announced that I?d probably never be able to produce children. I was so stunned I ... Great spirits.

I apologised and told them I really wasn?t comfortable discussing that with anyone, let alone in public. And that I like Aurora, but I didn?t have any intentions. We?re just friends.

Well, they just wanted to get some things straight with me. I shouldn?t be having any intentions towards Aurora, because although I was not the horrid little wart they feared I was, and can actually help with her career, I would become a terrible liability if I forgot my place.

My place. My place is to entertain her when she can?t find anyone better, but discreetly as I?ve always been; I have such good taste about not flashing around who I?m seeing and making it look like there?s romance when there?s not. I should be at arms length in public and private, but in private, we can, of course, be good friends.

Otherwise, I?m a distant chum who can be counted on to take up a dull Saturday night, and, of course, introduce her to my parents more exclusive circle of friends. Who can also help advance her career in more ?subtle? ways.

?Subtle ways?, her father says, and he looks over at Bea. They even found that out. Maybe just that I work for the Four Winds, they hire mages as often as scientists, all for the same purpose of research and development. More likely they talked to people around the tavern.

I have to be very careful, because if anyone ever found out I was using my more ?subtle? ways to help Aurora, she would of course be completely banned from her career path of elected official. Unless I did what was right and took all the blame, exonerating her.

I should be glad to do that, because Aurora is going to be such a powerful and insightful and intelligent civil leader. She wouldn?t really need my aid, except there are so many unscrupulous politicians out there who would do anything to win elections, and I would balance things out and allow the people to make the right decision.

In fact, it would be good if I started now, helping dear old dad with his upcoming campaign.

Shocked just wasn?t the word. I couldn?t say anything. ?We will let you be friends with our daughter and not treat you like trash, and all you have to do is be our pet mage.?

Oh, and I?d be able to stand aside and watch Aurora marry someone who can produce heirs for them. I?d get to be their fairy godfather. How nice. I can go pick up a wand with a glittery star on it. And that tu-tu Fae?s always teasing me about.

If what I?m doing is ever found out, I get to take all the blame. That though I only ever acted like a casual friend, I actually was deeply in love with Aurora and would do anything for her, and of course, her political theories were obsessions of mine and I was so dedicated to them that I had to make sure they achieved their proper place in society.

Kind of a benevolent Rasputin. So while I?m sitting on the edge of this wonderful new order that I will help to create and this majestic dynasty of power and peace, I realize that if I say ?no?, I?m a liability. A serious one.

If I say yes, well... No. No way in hell. So, I did what I had to. People are stupid. They know they?re dealing with a mage, but they don?t stop and think that if I can sway someone elses mind, I can sway theirs. They didn?t even pick up something that would protect them from any castings on my part.

I didn?t even try to hide it, I mean, what were they going to do, stop me? I explained it. That actually helps set the spell. It was an aphasic spell. Meaning that whenever their minds get to ?Des is a mage, he can work for us?, everything scrambles.

It?s stopgap at best, but Matilde?s going to help me look for something more permanent and effective. She wants to use a potion, but those are always difficult to administer, I?d rather use a ward, but those can be discovered and defaced or removed.

We?re going to the company library, some of Prince Myrddn Emrys? grimories are in there, and they respond to me. They?re hard spells, they rely on pure magic without a focal point. The only one I?ve ever been able to cast so far is the one I used on Penn, to make him smaller.

It was kind of strange. It almost seemed like it?d been written for me to cast on Penn, it even said ?be sure you know, young mage, all of the variables?, which I didn?t.

Matilde?s sure his grimorie will give us something we can at least work with because every time I have used them for research, they open for me just like a regular book, and I open them right to where I need to. The wards on the princes? grimories are so strange.

They won?t open at all for the arch magus Trevalin, and he?s so holy and good and pure and white, it?s scary. They won?t open for Nesbitt, that?s for sure. Trevalin has me open them, and he can read through them fine. Nesbitt does, and there?s nothing on the pages at all. Matilde can only open them half the time, but never has trouble reading them.

Maybe it?s because our names are a lot the same.

[Interlude: Color]


http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y27...e/journal2.jpg


Colors, colors, colors, all over, every page used. Like another code. And the last one, it was fresh. Pinks, purples, yellows, whites. Sort of a sunset and focused. Maybe too much. Color drifted over color.

Older entries, he supposed they were entries, other abstracts. Thought translated to movement and color caught on paper. Crayon, mainly. Water color. Pencils. Sort of like one of the dreamers Tarot decks, he supposed.

Some seemed angry, fearful, wounded. Others seemed joyous, bright, questing. Seemed an odd way to record ones' life, really, but who was he to say? He chose to use words. And often questioned why he had written them at all.

It wasn't something he could unravel in a moment. Overanalyzing, sometimes under, in any case, it meant something.

What was it? Where was the point of demarcation? A faint knit of brow showed under the fall of dark hair, breif, and he picked the journal up. Carried it to the room he had been put into, to set it on a desk and reach for his own journal.

Deceptive thing, it was, almost as well bespelled as his seldom seen or used grimorie. Opening it to the last written page, turned to a clean one, he reopened Paiges' to the last. Tracing fingertips, careful as they were precise. In the casting of the spell, color bubbled up to the blank white of his journal. Pooled and spreading wet in a precise imitation of the original, and then hazing over dry, a duplicate to the very scratches of pencil on paper.

It seemed logical to leave something in return, but he wasn't much of an artist. Not figural, anyhow. Then again, none of the pictures in the journal were figural. After a moments thought, he got up and wandered through the castles' halls. So easy to get lost, but he simply followed scents.

"I'm betting your parents used to tie bells on your shoes or hung one around your neck."

Gruff and amused remark from the master of the keep, though Desdenova doubted much he'd startled the man as he typed in the upstairs office. A tilt of his head, innocence of his tending to quiet. In any case, it was quite true. Until he'd learned, as a cat will, to walk without making them ring.

"How did you know?"

"Just a guess. What'd you need?"

It was still fascinating to stand before someone declared dead long before he was born. Someone who'd lived a life the youth could only read about and envy. To just... go. Alone.

"...I don't know... Colors...?" A little doubtfully, as if he had never thought to ask for such a thing in his life. Rick seemed amused. To understand, in any case.

"Play room oughta have crayons and paints and what have you."

Desdenova nodded, but lingered, almost fidgeting a bit, gaze flickering almost uneasily through the room. Unaware of the humored sidelong gaze of the older man, only noticing when Rick simply raised an arm. The silent invitation was more than it took to send the youth almost skittering to the offered hug, bulldozing the wheeled office chair a bit before Rick got his feet down steady.

It seemed the pilot was used to abruptly finding teenagers all but flinging arms around him and trying to hide their faces in his shoulder. Borrowing his strength, simply seeking comfort. With a gentle ruffle of the youths eternally rumpled hair, Rick finally spoke once more.

"For a quiet boy, you sure seem to get into a lot of tangles."

The soft irony of tone gained a faint hush of laughter from the youth, an affectionate press of his temple.

"It's... It's that... I..." Stammering, and as he realized it, he stopped, took a breath. Focussed before speaking. Unlike most with the problem, once he did start to speak, it was every thought that had log jammed in his head, not necessarily in linear order, breaking loose in a breathless flood of words.

"Everything I knew isn't what I know anymore, it's changed and I don't want it to but it did and I don't understand any of it, but I thought I did and I don't want to look further I don't know what would happen and I don't want to know what I thought it was, I don't want to be different from what I am, I don't want to be what I'm not..."

And as abrupt as the wash of words, silent, wide eyed. Listening. No sign of laughter in the mans' gentle respirations, simply the heavy thud of heartbeat.

"Are you having fun?" Rick asked without warning, idly and gently petting the youths hair and cheek. A trifle taken aback, Desdenova could only nod, smile reflexively.

"Stop worrying about it then. Stop trying to impose other peoples rules and thoughts on it. Just be who you are, that's all you can be."

"Was that the colors in Paiges' journal?" Desdenova asked slowly.

This time Rick did laugh. Soft and slow, patting the boys shoulder and getting to his feet, drawing Desdenova with him. Shooing him off for the play room with the rest of the children.

It must be. Though Rick didn't exactly answer. Maybe because he wouldn't talk for his wife, maybe because he felt Desdenova was smart enough to figure it out for himself. It felt right.

So, seated at the desk with a childs palette of watercolors, Desdenova carefully painted. Dark blue, purple, green, red, peacock hues in wet black. In a wide, endless swirl suggesting an opening nebula. Before it dried much, he dropped white into the center. Twice, one overlapping the other and watching the pigment bleed into the dark colors. Yellow spattered like stars.

Copied over into his own journal, his own entry, and finally, he returned Paiges journal to where he had found it.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y27...se/journal.jpg

Journal Entry 92, Eighteen Five

Why can?t they see past blonde/cute/cheerful = stupid bint? I don?t understand it. It?s so frustrating. It?s unfair. There isn?t anything she could possibly do to be anything at all besides an airhead ditz ...

And that?s my fault. It?s not what I describe, it?s because I am describing. I say she?s so intelligent, she?s fun, funny, she likes a lot of the same things I do, and it doesn?t matter. I say she makes me happy, and that doesn?t matter. It just doesn?t matter. Blonde, cute, cheerful, therefore she?s an idiot with absolutely nothing to her.

It?s me. It?s got to be me. They just don?t want me seeing her, maybe. I don?t know. Maybe they don?t want me seeing anyone.

Maybe they?re right, but how could I be so wrong? I?m trying, I really am, to see what they are. I see sunshine, they see blonde blonde blonde. I see cheerful, they see airhead.

Well off pretty girls are always spoiled and don?t care about anyone or thing. I?m well off, or I was when I was at home. I?m spoiled. I don?t get it.

I don?t understand. I just don?t. I?m trying. I want so much to ...

I don?t know. I... I want to tell Aurora what I feel, but... I?m not sure what it is. Love maybe? I don?t know. I just... I can?t BE anything. I

It?s not fair to ask someone else for so much for almost nothing. Everything, for what? Maybe they just don?t think I should be asking.

I mean, they try to hide it. Empty smiles. Empty. I ...

I just don?t get it. Now even Teddy and Anna are doing it. Empty smiles, empty reassurance empty empty. Would they tell me if there was something really wrong? I don?t know anymore. I know I wouldn?t. Unless I had to.

Never tell a friend when their love is straying or wrong, baby, they?ll never believe you and get furious that you spoke against their beloved. They?ll get furious that you didn?t say anything, too, so it?s usually best to play dumb all around. Mom always said that.

I forget that sometimes, but I know I shouldn?t. There?s never anything I can do, and no way to turn when it all comes out. Now I wonder if I?m the blind one.

I?m not mad they?re doing this, it just hurts. I don?t understand why. I don?t know if they just don?t want to potentially lose me to someone else or if they see something I can?t or won?t.

I?m just so afraid. What if I am wrong? What then?

[Interlude: Rites]

The slide of twilight tilted well in the dark violets and eerie lit blues, the final shreds of daylight. Still, Desdenova stood by an enormous capstone near the rear south wall of the cemetary. Very still he was, reading from an elderly scroll held open over the stone, weighted down with a few rounded rocks.

Low light was rarely a problem for Desdenovas? eyes, yet he still smiled swift appreciation when Charlie curiously winged to his shoulder to see what he was up to. A hand curled upwards to gently riffle fingers through the little phoenixes feathers before moving to sift through the fall of his own hair.

Though...

Desdenovas? head tilted faintly. In the golden cast of Charlies? illumination, ghostly echoes of the ancient ink etched across the parchment. Eerie and tending to flicker much as smoke might.

The scrolls? title translated loosely to ?In Fires Eye, In Moons Night?, which made little sense -- it was a record of early funerary rites. Yet none of the ancient inscriptions matched the time dimmed scratches on the capstone.

Tilting the parchment to the phoenix, brought more information, and none was specifically funerary. Desdenova looked up reflexively, to the sky, but the moons would not rise till much later. Perhaps another set of writings would be revealed in their light.

Summonings, he had been good at, but only because he was more cautious than even his teachers in casting protection circles and runes first. Desdenova knew better than even those horribly maimed in aborted summonings what danger those could be.

Cthulu wasn?t just another pretty face in a half-crafted mythos, after all. And though it was a joke, it was terribly true that after a morning spent opening a dark portal into a dimension of evil, absolutely nothing worse could happen.

Summonings. In a funerary rite. Desdenovas? brows knit lightly, lifting his head to look over the peaceful cemetary. It had been unconsecrated when he had bought it. All of the holy places and icons broken, smashed, defaced.

The Star of David knocked from a tombstone finial, the prayers carved into a Buddist spire filled in with mud or feces, a Madonna tipped over and splashed over with blood... In fact, any representation from the several faiths represented there, stripped of its power.

Not stripped of their power, Desdenova decided, turning to lift the fragments of a badly decayed labrus from the box where he had earlier collected the pieces from an ancient gravesite. Not stripped of their power at all. He could feel the belief that had so long ago created the double headed ax, shining as true as it had when it was forged to mark a grave.

However, knocked from its place and broken, left to rot in the harsh elements, it could no longer protect. It was not where it was supposed to be.

It couldn?t be the pranks of teenagers and the results of conflicting faiths. The symbols had to have been systematically and purposely been defaced, yet retained their own power enough to keep whoever had done that from removing them altogether.

The tiny Druidic shrine was easily rebuilt, little more than stacked stones chosen for their resemblance to oak. It had taken Desdenova some time to locate a priest who promised to re-consecrate the shrine as soon as was feasible.

A tiny Catholic shrine had managed to survive intact, but all that had been housed within it, for the use of the priests come to give services for the dead, was long decayed and smashed past recognition, let alone use. Cam had sent him to Father Stephens, and the old man had been pleased to replace what was gone, to renew the blessings on the tiny stone church.

An intinerant Rabbi had spent a week helping out, going grave to grave over the small Jewish population, and promised to return before fall to finish matters.

Desdenova leaned his elbows onto the capstone, little more than a slender silhoette in the falling night, shadowed under the glow of the phoenix. Before that, he had stepped into the cemetary.

Unhallowed ground, he knew it at once. It seemed strange that a cemetary, of all places, would have lost its grace. Yet, it was wrong to leave it so.

The earth, air, fire, water, it was all there. The Spirits simply needed to know once more where this place was. It had taken him days, worn him almost into exhaustion; at the same time, bouyed his own spirit. Until he felt as fragile as dried leaves, and yet, if he stretched out a finger, he could have restored the entire grounds with a whisper of spell.

Power wasn?t the thing. It was controlling it. He didn?t know if he could have controlled such a casting, did not know why the cemetary had lost its sanctity, and so, wouldn?t even make an attempt.

It all seemed so willing to once more become clean, even though the ghosts remaining were so old, they weren?t quite sure what had happened to their haunt. Yet, the way it was, Anna rarely returned to her own grave, before Desdenova had arrived.

Anna never really said why, just that it was such a relief that he had come and done all of his weird pagan things to make the cemetary comfortable.

He needed to ask her why.

Shrugging slightly, Desdenova smoothed a hand over the parchment, re-reading the arcane text. It might have chilled anothers? blood, the summonings written in letters of fire, yet he did not give them that power over him.

Calling upon minor, hateful things, these were. Perhaps as vengeance against the dead. Perhaps that was why the rites were detailed in the plain ink of the scroll. That the one casting would know how to desecrate the burial site well enough...

None of the graves there were desecrated well enough, Desdenova realized as he lifted his head once more, scanning over the dark play of shadow and movement of the cemetary. No longer hallowed, no longer consecrated, but the fallen icons had never been removed. The graveyard could not be tainted so long as those remained.

The scroll Desdenova read didn?t spell that out, but it was something he knew, very well. That it was only the cemetary with all of its protection removed that became breeding grounds for evil. Zombie farms, his dad called them. Vampire slums. Prone to becoming dimensional vortexes.

And worse.

Charlie lit off after a rabbit, and Desdenova watched her flight with a faint smile. Sometimes, she would hawk for him, but not tonight. She?d brought him a squirrel all ready, anyhow.

The moons would rise soon, and Desdenova could see then if there was writing that showed in their light. For the moment, the youth stretched hugely and walked a lazy course to the pond. Absently pulling at the collar of the white shirt, intending on taking a swim.

The old willow creaked as Desdenova stepped by, and he paused, regarding her in cautious curiousity. Her temper was only slightly improved by all of his efforts. Getting her to bring up the casket and body she?d been planted to mark had been like pulling teeth. Fertilizers, offerings of gold and song, even planting a young sapling nearby, had failed to sweeten her disposition.

?I?m not going any closer, Lady Willow, you always hit me, and that?s not nice,? Desdenova reminded the willow in a strange whispering language, the soft bass of his voice sounding sifted through the branches of the very tree he spoke to.

Logic never did much for the willow. Not even Fern had gotten very far with her. Yet, the willow did seem to realize that Desdenova wasn?t going into the reach of her branches. She creaked, as if caught in a high wind, but didn?t speak. Desdenova frowned as he watched. It seemed as if the tree was caught in some bizarre agony. One that was welcomed by the senile, demented part of her personality and rejected by what the willow was supposed to be.

It was easy to forget the roots of a tree would extend far past the perimeter of its branches in the search for water. Desdenova recalled that in a flash of horror as the ground rumbled under his feet, in the sudden casting of a wrist thick loop of root over his foot.

The ground plowed upwards, the root jerked the youths? foot out from under him, dragging him to the tree swift as thought. A startled yelp was cut short by the harsh wrap of a branchlet around Desdenovas? throat. A hand lifted to grip at the branch, ruthlessly tearing skin under short nails, an abrupt focus of a spell briefly shocking the willow into dropping him.

Desdenova rolled for his feet, and the lash came down. Imhumanly powerful, the willow slashed a thin branch across his back, deep, cutting muscle and bone alike, felling the youth without a sound.

Fire burst into the sky, and a peculiar keening filled the air as the willow realized that Charlie had turned to rescue her boy. Little more than a bird-shaped dart of flame, Charlie dove for the heart of the tree, trusting that her sheer heat would ignite and char branches swinging for her.

Somehow, though some did catch fire by proximity, several did not. Charlie squawked, literally swatted from the sky and landing, unconscious, several yards away.

Writhing in pain and fury, the willow craned her branches for Charlie, intending to rend her into feathered bits. A hidious roar stopped her.

Ten feet and hulking, sabered claws and lethal fangs, Teddy sprang at the willow. It would not take the bogle any time or trouble to rend the willow into toothpicks, and she knew it. Without hesitation, she wrapped a root around Desdenovas? throat.

Teddy halted, chartreuse eyes narrow and cold.

Even unconscious, the youths? breath rasped. His lips took on a blue tinge. Barely enough air allowed for him to live, but for how long? The bogle wouldn?t hold off forever. The phoenix would gain her senses. The wisps would eventually come up for air.

Bea darted from the house, a milk white fleeting shadow in the night. The willow didn?t notice the tiny Maltese escaping from the gates and rushing down the road. What would it matter anyhow? She was just a dog.

For now, the cemetary was the willows to command.

?His blood, Bogle, as it seeps into the earth. Is mine now,? the willow hissed, rocking and switching branches aimlessly, ?What care you, he is only human.?

?Mine,? Teddy snarled, a slow, dangerous sound, ?And I shall have back all. Release him.?

The threat implied was good enough, and then some, but the willow held onto Desdenovas? throat stubbornly. Stupidly.

Not knowing why at all.

[Interlude: Rites II]


It was nearly bizarre to see Bea running loose and alone from the woods. The very sight of the tiny Maltese, glowing moon drop bright, barking rapidly, could only mean trouble. Thorn promptly went to see what the matter was, taking up to a run as the dog turned and ran back the way she came.

Seeing the flight of Thorn into the woods, this confused rather Naeruu, which wasn?t to say most things did not. A demon, or, she should have been, yet something had gone wrong with what she was. More like an intelligent cat, now. Naeruu tilted her masked head and galloped after Thorns, on all fours. Perhaps it was all a good game.

Cam paused as she neared Mercy Dale Cemetary. Expecting to pick up brother and take him along with her to the tavern for an evening, something was... everything was... horribly wrong. Not a ghost to be seen, not even the whisps flickering over the pond.

Before Cam could step past the gates, Nathanial and Shorty walked by, the greeting and wave stopped short as the sage realized that there was trouble. Sending Shorty to investigate, simply broke all hell loose.

Literally pulling from the ground, but not zombies. Strange, unsidhe-like creations of plantlife. Everywhere. Thorn found herself surrounded before she was even near the gate, and flicked out the claws usually simple rings on her fingers. There wasn?t any finesse, literally, mowing past the things.

Cut down, they swiftly re-grew from the stalks left in the earth. Like weeds. Bea trailed after the woman, biting at the stalks as she found them. Each bite produced a loud snap, searing the roots neatly.

Naeruu was confused by these beings. It never dawned on the peaceful creature that they may want to harm her. When the percieved offer of a hug turned out to be strangulation, Naeruu lashed out in startled violence.

Cam promptly drew her Browning pistol, simply shooting whatever moved, and stamping - hard - on the wiggling roots she found. She didn?t know where Desdenova was, but somehow, didn?t think he was peacefully napping on his living room sofa.

Nathanial realized he was almost picked out to be driven back or worse. Pushing specifically to get rid of him, he could hear the reedy voices of the plants vowing their hate. It was bizarre, and too, carrying an unfamiliar taint. Though, when pressed, the sage had no problems with using weed killer.

Shorty had found, swiftly, the cause of the commotion, and stood, alternately cajoled and beset by the strange attenuated horrors created by the willow in her efforts to...

She wasn?t sure. Hold onto the boy. Let him bleed to death at her roots. To taint the place where she had been planted to watch over a long dead girl.

Teddy hissed and yowled, hoping that this ...new vision of him wouldn?t drive help away. Though Cam stared stupidly a moment, she stepped foreward. That was her brother laying ...pinned down by the willow? And it was moving, violently slashing at the ends of her reach.

Naeruu and Thorn joined the small stand off to regard the scene in astonishment. The logical thing seemed to be to start cutting at the willows? roots, and both were well equipped to do so. The distraction was all Cam needed to rush in and fall to her knees beside Desdenova.

Horror at the blue tinge of his lips, at the deep cut across his back, would have to wait. Nathanial and Shorty began to wrestle, on some intangible level, with the will of the willow. As they gained purchase, Naeruu ducked under the flailing limps to cut Desdenova loose. Thorn quickly joined them, pulling the youth away from the tree.

Then, as swiftly as it began, it was done. The willow shuddered and fell quiescent, surrendering, or... Nathanial wasn?t sure. There was almost a sense of something fleeing. Distinctly to the north. Yet, he couldn?t pursue it, he had to make sure the willow was done with her attacks until everyone was clear.

The irony, he could see Desdenovas? wounds, how bad they were, and couldn?t run to help. Though, as the willow was contained, the ponds? water roiled, and Ogopini and Gus burst upwards like glass floats held underwater. The wisps promptly hovered around the youth, tendering life support while Thorn pulled off her shirt to press against the deep cut.

Finally, Nathanial turned from the willow, leaving her in Shortys? tending. Cam managed to pull Desdenova to her shoulder, watching Nathanial in a mute horror. She?d lost one brother. Not this one, too.

It was peculiarly familiar, healing Desdenova. The touch of arcane energy sparked off easy sight of the youths? aura, mottled blue and green as his eyes. Familiar, but Nathanial didn?t press.

A faint ?C-c...? uttered, the youth breifly struggling for consciousness, as if he knew how worried Cam would be otherwise. He only felt her arms around him and heard the reassurances, and never saw the tears. It was enough to set him purring, soft and faint.

Teddy resumed his usual visage, as if the unholy offspring of Puss ?N? Boots and Dr. Ruth, and quickly managed damage control. Gathering up Naeruu from her confusion, giving her Bea and Charlie to hold, then passing out booze to the ladies. He could no more offer explanations of the strange attack than could Desdenova, but he had more important matters to tend once they were settled.

Namely, all of that blood. It couldn?t be left staining the earth, nor feeding the willow.

Shorty realized that the willow seemed to be having difficulty just thinking straight. That for whatever reason, it was as if part of her mind had been exised, lobotomized, if one could do so to a plant.

It didn?t really matter. Shorty created a small miniture of himself, sending it to join into the willows? trunk. Just to help. Desdenova didn?t want to kill the willow, didn?t really want her harmed, after all; and Shorty certainly did not. The little tree-ent was far more interested in trying to find the problem and correct it.

First things first; she couldn?t be allowed to taint herself in her senility.

Peace returned to the cemetary swiftly. Nathanial shepherded Cam, Desdenova, and Naeruu back to her apartment. Thorn waved and headed for her home. Shorty saw to the willow and followed after Nathanial soon enough.

The scroll that had lain pinned on the rune-carved capstone was gone.

Journal Entry 93, Eighteen Five

So. There are these evil little absinthe fairies in some of the fens around here, which I guess is better than some of the other things that could live in the fens, but where you have absinthe, you have trouble. Weird trouble.

I know I?ve seen some of the older cousin-uncle-fathers from Wolsons Hole laying traps for the fairies, and I?ve found them dead drunk or just dead often enough in the ditches around here after that. I?ve offered to bury them, build them a casket, anyhow, and that?s the first time these people have really surprised me.

They?re distinctly welfare trash, but they weren?t going to take anything from that cemetary. Not from me; the cemetary. They didn?t want theirs buried there, and they didn?t want anything made there.

I showed one of the less inbred girls how to knock together a simple plank box, and she?s okay as long as she doesn?t get drunk first. That was fine with them.

Well, that?s how I found out. I found one of the men dead from probably eating one of the absinthe fairies and went and told a group of them. I told them it was absinthe poisoning, and they all made a sort of half-Catholic sign of protection, then went and got ?Old Gram S?frass?.

Old Gram seems to double as witch-woman and priestess whenever they think things like that are needed. She?s not really either, she?s just an old lady who?s lived longer than she wants to and has seen less than she dreamed. She?s more angry at her numberous offspring than pleased that they?ve accorded her such power.

Kind of like a backwards version of ?It?s a Wonderful Life?. Where she realized that everything would be better if she?d never been born. Which is very creepy, but I guess I?m the only outsider she?s talked to in a long time, and she does, a lot, whenever they bring her outside of her hut.

She does a half assed ritual over the ones that have died of absinthe poisoning, if they were catching the fairies. She cackled at me and said ?I?d piss on ?em boy, and they?d think it was holy an? right, and they?s shore deservin? of it, but I never had th? nerve.?

Which... really gave me the creeps. Hate held in check by responsibility. Barely.

They call for the coroner to pick up the bodies, they end up in a RhyDin potters field, usually. A little better, now that they?ve got someone that can build caskets. It sometimes makes me wonder how they can live so unnoticed and die even less. I guess they have their family to remember. They are happy, that?s really all that matters.

But, this... rabbit. It?s a rabbit. I don?t know what happened to it, but it started eating the absinthe fairies. That?s weird enough, but every time it ate them, it got bigger. Until it was the size of an SUV.

Something else made it go back to its normal size, but I?m not sure what that was, all I know was that Tyg was trying to get me to let the damn thing live with me.

I mean, it?s cool and all, but... a rabbit on the grounds is bad enough, one that can potentially get big enough to start digging up the graves -- no way. I managed to talk my way out of that, but still, I?m paranoid it will come hopping by and decided the cemetary looks like a good place to stalk absinthe fairies.

Journal Entry 94, Eighteen Five

It?s really strange to walk up behind Jessica. I did, while she was at the tavern getting a drink, and she suddenly froze and demanded ?Desdenova, are you naked?!?

I had to think about that a while. I mean, well, honestly, if there?s no one around and it?s warm, I don?t always bother getting dressed unless I?m going to go somewhere. Mom said some days, she was really tempted to use a stapler to keep my clothes on me when I was little.

So, I said ?Yes, I am, and I?ve drawn a happy face on my stomach, too, want to see?? And she jumped! I don?t think I?m that scary, naked. I hope I?m not. Well, as it turned out, there were a lot of naked lawn gnomes chasing her around yelling nasty things.

Vampire bunnies, lawn gnomes, absinthe fairies... I think everyone kind of cracked by the end of the summer, I really do.

I was sitting with Thorn, and her friend, Baziou, I was tired and I just wanted affection, really, and the next thing I know, some lady I just met named Charlie was demanding to know if I was gay.

Which, kind of shocked me, I mean, we were talking about Aurora. Well, what she meant to me. I don?t know why. If I?m affectionate with the men I know, it?s almost immediate. Oh, he?s gone gay!

...You can?t ?go gay?. That?s ridiculous. A gay man may date girls to hide his actual preferences, but his preferences weren?t created or made. These people are so 1950s with their attitudes and beliefs of homosexual people, it?s scary. But then again, most of the gay people here seem badly derived from just those same beliefs and attitudes, so I guess it?s about par for the course.

I don?t know why, but after that, Charlie seemed very stand offish towards me. I don?t understand that, at all. I know she complained about me being gay to Tyg and Tyg told her, no, he?s not, but... It?s just very odd. She seems, also, a little miffed that Charlie is what I call my phoenix. It?s not like it?s an unusual name.

I don?t know. I just try to be polite and not bother her.

I keep talking about it. Aurora, and what I feel. Baziou said he envied me, I was lucky, I could reach out and touch what was there. Thorn insisted that it must be, because I?m not stupid, and I?ve known her a while. Aurora, I mean. That the only thing holding me back was me, and that wasn?t such a bad thing.

Maybe. I don?t know. I ... Well, I do, it?s stupid, but I do. I lay in bed at night and... try to picture what it would be like, to tell Aurora... Perfectly, I mean. How do to it so it is perfect. Though I?d probably stutter and drool on myself and end up having to draw pictographs or something.

It?s... I don?t know. I feel stupid writing about it, I can feel myself blushing just... just with writing now. My face gets hot, I don?t know whether to cringe or... I don?t know, it?s another feeling, I?m not sure what it is. I don?t usually blush when I?m just writing, I don?t usually have time to think about it.

I... I think, just as the sun?s going down, and she comes to meet me at the bottom of the hill the observatory?s on. And I ...I can say so much and so eloquently then. I can say what she means to me, how beautiful she is, why I like her so much. And just tell her. Just... like that. So easy.

But I can never... I don?t know. I can never envision her response. I run out of imagination or something. Or fall asleep, usually. Always just... I can see her eyes and they?re shining and bright as ever and... Well, it?s a nice image to fall asleep with, anyhow.

Journal Entry 95, Eighteen five

Naeruu... Well, she?s a spider-demon. An oni, or, if you read her mask, a lillith. A sort of succubi. She?s... Well, she?s very sweet, very innocent. She can?t really speak, I think she?s got a spiders? head. She?s basically a female human form wearing a black mask. On the mask is writings detailing why she?s there at all and wearing the mask.

Apparantly, she was bred specifically of the ?queen? to be her successor. Something went wrong, or right, depending on how you look at it, and Naeruu was born ugly. Well. With a spider head. Though I?ve found that?s common for the lillith genus, they metamorph after a certain amount of time, whereupon they are sent off to their heinous ways.

But, Naeruu didn?t, and they wouldn?t kill her, as she was the queens? special, so, she was imprisoned in the mask and cast out. Only a mortals? hand may remove the mask, it said, and I wonder if she wants me to. Sometimes, it seems so.

I?m not really sure if I am or not. Mortal. I don?t think it?d be a good idea to find out for sure that way. I guess Mom knows. I don?t think we?re supposed to be, but with so few left, and even fewer working in Moms? field, well. Things change, when there?s need.

Throckwoddle, his name is. He?s a grave-digger. I think an embalmer. I?m not sure. He?s older than he seems. By far. I think, a necromancer. But not like Dad. A real one. He seemed to know me, Dad, Jackie. But superficially. As if he?d read our names, which, well, if he is a mortician, he has, Dad and Jackie are well enough known. Naeruu was wearing one of my college sweat shirts the second time he showed up, so, maybe he?s alumni.

He knew Naeruu?s language much better than I, and he spent a long time talking to her. It was kind of funny, he double-talked her into protecting me, then took me aside and patted my shoulder and said ?she?d do right by you now?.

Because, well, I guess he thought there was something going on, if she was wearing my sweat shirt. I was so mortified. I mean, she?s a spider, really, and she came in wet and cold, so I just pulled it out of my bag and put it on her, and she ... Oh, spirits. Well. I told him it just wasn?t like that, and he said ?good lad, leave the demon lovers to the demons?, and I just wanted to go bury my head in the sand somewhere.

At least he didn?t look at me funny and ask if I was gay.

Throckwoddle?s... I don?t know. Sometimes, Dad will talk about his grandfather, and how wise, caring, and gentle he was... and that he was funny and energetic and... I wonder if he was like Throckwoddle. But Throckwoddle?s English, great grandfather was German.

Well. Grandmother was English. I think. I?ll have to ask. Great grandmother Tombs was German, I don?t know if grandmother Tombs was. There were a lot of Germans newly immigrated in California back then, or coming straight from the Pennsylvania Dutch areas.

I should ask.

Journal Entry 96, Eighteen Five

What a morning. I?ve been all day thinking about it. I woke up, and I just... decided. I don?t think there?s any reason to keep on just vacillating, I?m not afraid in the slightest that if I don?t say anything, Aurora will stop going out with me and talking to me and all. I just think, well. Why shouldn?t I?

I can do it. I can tell her.

I can?t WRITE IT oh Hell. I?m

Fine. I love her, I?m going to tell her.

...I will. Well. I decided. I would. And did this in the morning so I could spend all day freaking out over it. I feel... so ... I feel like it?s the easiest, most natural thing in the world one moment, and the next I?m panicking shaking nervous sweating...

But I guess mostly just ...really happy. Even when I?m panicky... It was... I mean, it was... I don?t know if you can be happy and panicky, but that?s what it felt like.

It?s so much easier in my head. I mean, doesn?t she know all ready? But do I know if she does? I don?t, so I shouldn?t be stupid. Though I am stupid about this stuff, I?ve never even thought about it so

I know. I don?t know what she thinks, she doesn?t know what I think. Until one or the other says something. So I will.

It was just... It?s been such a bizarre day. Three girls, who I don?t even really know all that well, they all got so mad at me. Because I told Paige, I was going to tell Aurora. Paige was really pleased, that helped a lot.

But... These girls. Spirits. One, she says she?s Swedish, at least, I think she says she?s Swedish. She sounds like the Swedish Chef, not like anyone Swedish I?ve ever met. I mean, Mom?s Swedish, for crying out loud. I couldn?t understand half of what this woman was saying, and I think that?s good, because the half I could understand was that she was a hot young widow and needed a good man to make her happy.

If she needs someone else to make her happy, then she?s going to be borking idiotically into the night like some love sick duck for the rest of her life.

The other two, one started throwing things at me, but Jessica showed up then and told her to back off if she didn?t want a field demonstration of a liver to brain transplant, and the other got all teary eyed and fled the scene.

...I don?t even know these girls. The Swedish Chef girl gave me this sad eyed farewell of how she hoped I would be happy, and hoped Aurora knew what she had. I don?t know her!! Now I?m breaking her heart and she?s nobly sending me off to follow my foolish whims with some polished city girl and leaving by the wayside the good and true country girl who?s been beside me for so long?

I could have screamed. It was so bizarre. I don?t even know their names.

So. I just went to work. I?m ...spinning my wheels, right now, I?ve got another two hours before I go to the observatory. I wonder if I?ll want to kiss her. I never have. Kissed her, or wanted to. I think she?s wanted me to, but... Well. I don?t know how anyhow. I don?t know what goes after that. I just like to hold her hand. She seems to, too. Mine, I mean.

I don?t know what?s next. The girls this morning made it sound like I was asking her to marry me. I don?t want to get married. I just want to know. Want her to know. I guess so ... I don?t know. Maybe so I?d know it was okay if I did want to kiss her. ...Well, I think. I mean, I wouldn?t just

I don?t know if that?s being boyfriend and girlfriend. Maybe? Jackie?s had a lot of boyfriends she liked but didn?t love. But she never dated them just them. Maybe that?s it. So it?d be just dating one person. I think. I don?t date much anyhow. There?s not a lot of people here I could trust enough to just ask out on a date.

I don?t know if Aurora dates other people, I wouldn?t ask, anyhow. That?s rude. Even when you?re good friends, it?s not polite when you?ve asked them out on a date to start talking about dates with other people. We talk about people we have dated, sometimes, when we?re just hanging around or something,

I wrote her a letter, a while ago. I never sent it. Maybe I?ll give it to her tonight. It?s... it?s silly, I guess, but... I mean what I wrote. Love letter. It?s pretty sappy. I ...

I better go take a shower and get ready. I?m so nervous. Then I?m not.

I wonder if I?ll read this again and laugh at what a dork I am. I wonder if I?ll chicken out. I wonder what?s next. I can do it.

[Interlude] Aurora


It took a lot. A lot of thought, mental preparation, simple determination. He knew what he was, after all. So did she. She hadn?t turned away from it. She said she wouldn?t, he believed her.

It was a childlike faith he held, cherished, and never let what he knew to be factual take from what he knew to be true. Taking in a deep breath, he waited as the sun slowly lowered into the west, watching the glowing golds in the reds, mezmerized.

Waiting for her, he knew she would be skipping up that path soon, she always met him at the base of the observatory and walked him up. He knew she arrived earlier, that she parked the little Opel in the lot and then quickly ran down the drive, up the road a bit, and returned all as if she walked there, herself. It was a cute little charade, he never mentioned knowing very well by the car alone that she?d been there already and was simply trying to make it look like she was running into him by chance.

When Aurora stepped from the path to the drive, he wondered if he was going to faint in his tracks. Emotion wasn?t the easiest thing for him to manage, it overwhelmed and confused so easily. Far easier to obsess over something as distant as stars.

?Angel and Theresa already left, your aunt and uncle are fighting,? Desdenova offered by way of greeting, his tone meant to be off hand and natural sounding peculiarly faint, almost stuttered.

?Oh, dear, it must be a good one if Angel and Theresa left before dark,? Aurora responded with a twinkle of smile, walking to stand before Desdenova, her head tilted upwards. Such a smile, warm and inviting. She knew well enough he would stare at her for as long as he wasn?t distracted. Nothing else in world ever mattered, as long as she was smiling up at him.

?I don?t know, Angel and Theresa were muttering in Spanish and Greek, and I don?t think I should translate either,? he responded, a flicker of smile touching at his lips before it fell away. His gaze was gentled, an almost etheral cast of expression. Aurora watched him, giggling a bit after several long moments.

A little different than how he would watch her. Less of the sense of someone watching some pretty fantasy, more of that of watching what was real and within reach.

?What?? she prompted, reaching to catch his hand. Such elegant hands, he had, slender and powerful, deceptively so. He could fold hers in his without effort, and she watched as he did just that. Always so careful, and this time, to her surprise, lifted hers to very tenetively touch his lips to the delicate knuckles.

Wide blue eyes went even wider at the faint and dry brush of an almost-kiss to her hand, Aurora watched Desdenova, absolutely still and startled for an instant before she gave a soft trill of laughter, her cheeks flushing charmingly pink in the fading light.

It?d been a strange mantra over the past few weeks, but not in his voice. Why wouldn?t she return what he felt? Why wouldn?t...

He wrote it all in a letter he never sent. Wrote, and stared at as if it were her face. Smiling and blushing just like she was right then. Folded up, and ended up pushing into his jacket pocket, where he couldn?t forget about it.

?I... I just wanted to say...? Desdenova heard himself saying, almost voicelessly, still holding her hand in his, ?I mean, I... It?s not like anything I?ve ever known, it?s not like anything I?ve ever felt, when I look at you, it?s ...amazing, it?s sunshine...?

Without warning, or really meaning to, he began to recite what he?d written. On some other level, surprised that he had memorized it so easily, on another, unable to find any other words. Aurora just watched him, expectant seeming, her smile slowly lifting ever more, squeezing his hand when he faltered into a brief silence.

Encouraging him, Desdenova realized in a sudden dawning. She wanted him to go on, to accept what he offered. It became confidence he never dreamed he would ever have dealing with another person. His head lifted from the slight hang, shoulders straightened without effort. Lifting his free hand to lightly rest over the curve of her cheek, a caress of movement.

When she leaned into the touch of his hand, it was as good as the response he couldn?t hear her give in even the dreams he barely admitted to concocting in the moments before sleep. Desdenovas? breath caught a moment, the pounding of his heart loud in his ears. No questions, it was given. All before him.

?I love you,? he whispered, a sudden flare of smile igniting with the words, sweet, almost savoring the very fact he?d said it at all.

Aurora gasped, clear eyes suddenly filled with tears, joyous laughter following swiftly when she abruptly threw herself into Desdenovas arms. Like holding a sunbeam, some etheral being made from that, he told himself, for a moment, almost blinded and overwhelmed. Easily managing to wrap his arms around her, though it wasn?t something he was good at.

?I can?t believe it, I?ve wanted to hear you say that for so long, forever, it?s like all of my dreams are right here, right now,? Aurora all but sang, clinging tightly around Desdenovas? neck, bouncing in place for sheer exuberance. Her hands caught in his hair, running through the touselled black, and pressing to him a moment longer.

?I?ve wanted a brother since I was a just a little girl, and finally, I have one!?

Desdenova froze. Everything went numb. The warmth of the summer twilight was gone, but he couldn?t feel the cold. Shock slammed through his mind in a cacophony of voices and acid laughter.

Brother.

Aurora wriggled in sheer delight, drawing back to cup his face in her hands, seeming oblivious to the stupidly stunned set of his gaze, the mute bewilderment. She smiled, utter gold, her head tilting as her features became fond, almost whimsical, brushing at his hair.

?I?m so glad you told me, I?d have felt so stupid just asking, I know how much it means to you, and I?d hoped you?d have decided I was a sister without me trying to prompt you along,? she whispered, gazing into his eyes, adoring, but...

Not.

?Of course I love you, you?re the best brother anyone could ever hope for,? Aurora assured him. Perhaps misinterpreting his thunderstruck silence for wanting to hear that in return. After a moment, Desdenova managed, somehow, to give her a whisp of smile.

?I?m honored,? he breathed, almost voiceless, a mechanical response and far from the one he thought he would be giving. Completely undone, everything had broken into brittle fragments of what had been dream at his feet.

?Oh, if Aunt Debbi and Uncle Brent are fighting, why don?t we go get some coffee and talk? I?ve missed seeing you much this week, and with school starting, I won?t be able to do more than call till things settle,? Aurora offered with a twinkling affection, gently passing her hands over the lapels of his coat.

Stiffly, quite, abandoned by his usual grace, Desdenova caught her hands in his. Funny, she felt so alive, so vibrant and warm, and he... Even his breathing felt cold and jagged.

?I... I have to go, I?m getting a migraine.? A lie, born of his own morals and ethics. She claimed him as a brother, wanted nothing else of him, he couldn?t tell her that his words had been for her, not a sister.

That decision he had made already. To not demand what wasn?t given freely, to not press unwanted emotion on another. Agony licked dully at the back of his mind against the press of mocking laughter.

And usually, he so loved irony.

?Oh, let me go get my car, I?ll drive you. I?d feel much better once I see you in and comfortable,? Aurora murmured, sympathy moving her to stroke fingers to his temples. His eyes closed, misery welling over all at once. Tears blinded him, and in trying to turn away, only caught her hand and pressed it to his cheek.

?I... I can walk,? he insisted feebly. Though he wasn?t sure he could. His body felt leaden, iced. Aurora kept talking, he couldn?t really understand her. Something about she?d never seen him look so bad, even after a seizure, and wondered if she should call his doctor. But her voice faded. He could feel himself, alone.

The first chill breath of falls? promise wrapped around him as he stood where Aurora left him.

Disoriented, listless, he scarce realized as Aurora helped him into her car, and then out again, walking him to his front door. He murmured some dim reassurance that he would call the next day, and stepped within.

Silence rang hollowly through the house. It almost seemed he could see its very currents. Dusty, grainy, empty. He shattered, utterly, dropping to his knees and bowing over them, gasping and broken sobs racking him.

Spindly, furry arms wrapped around Desdenova. Gentle hisses and as much as Teddy could, rocking side to side. Soon, Bea and Flinx squeezed into his lap.

It didn?t feel like much, not then. But it was everything.

Jour n e ght

Brother. She wants me as a brother. I I still keep waiting to wake up from this nightmare and I?m not going to. Brother. It?s like a drum beating in my head, I can?t shut it up.

How can she Why What did I don?t know, I I never dreamed, I I wish she?d told me before. Before I made a fool of myself. I

It hurts It hurts so much. It takes everything I have not to call and scream at her. I don?t want to be your brother. I?m

I?m nothing. Brother?s fine. What else can I be?

I want to think her parents forced her to it, but they think I?m okay, now. Though maybe they?d still prefer if I wasn?t any more than I was. Am.

I just wanted more. How could I have been so stupid? What was I thinking? I?m such idiot! The one time I wanted to be more, I still didn?t know what it was or why it was or anything and I have to I have to stop feeling this. I don?t know how. I have be a brother, and that?s all I know anyhow.

I don?t know what to do. I don?t want to tell anyone. I never fooled them. I don?t understand! How can they know I liked her so much, and and she thinks brother?

My head hurts. My heart hurts. I don?t want to eat, Teddy says I have to. Then he puts this stupid spell on me I can?t figure out because I kept throwing up. I wish he?d leave me alone. I wouldnt throw up if he?d stop making me eat, I?m not hungry. Nothing tastes good anyhow. Then he makes me sleep, and I?m not tired but he says I am. I?m fine, I?m working I was working, he took everything away

It?s not fair

Journal Entry 98, Eighteen five

I guess I didn?t expect too much from finally having to say Aurora thought of me as a brother. It wasn?t like too many of them thought all that much of her. Probably glad to not have to worry about her and I being boyfriend and girlfriend.

I don?t know how long it?s been, really. Not a week, I don?t think. I just feel... I don?t know, dull when it doesn?t feel like crushing or sharp.

What?s left, she just wants a brother... I haven?t taken her calls. She?s been calling, I can?t bear to hear her voice. Teddy?s been telling her I have strep or something and can?t talk. I guess that?s fine. I don?t feel like talking anyhow.

I went out tonight. It felt like going to wait in a lottery. If your number?s called, you have to spill your guts. I just didn?t want to sit here any more. I should have.

Nathanial kept insisting that if I?d just tell her that I didn?t want to be her brother, it?d all be all right and it wouldn?t be. How could I? What if all she said was out of pity? Or because she felt pressured?

I felt like agreeing just to get away. I can?t do that. I won?t. It?s wrong. I wanted to scream and I couldn?t. And every time I said why I felt it was wrong, he was countering it, like that was going to make me forget what I believe and go and do it anyhow.

It?s so frustrating. If she wants a brother of me, I have to be that, and it hurts so much to do. I?m not good enough to stoically accept it and be it. I mean, why would someone say brother if they want something else?

Why would someone want something other than brother from me? I guess it doesn?t matter. Everything I did that I thought was ...not brotherly, I was wrong. So. Well. Maybe that?s just all.