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<font face="Helvetica">The argument ended when the father seized the slender left wrist of the son, lifting in a fluid movement to put a plaque of silver before the boys eyes.
A moment stopped and cold in time. The eyes of the father burning frustration for being as helpless before that piece of metal as the boy, steeped in sorrow for having to face his only son to that harsh reality once more.
The son, oh, he'd forgotten it again. And again and again and again. Forgotten it and there it was again, sneering argent reminder.
Tears burned. Blinded. Tearing his wrist from his fathers grip felt like a knife across them both, yet that time, he couldn't fall into the comfort, the shared pain, of his parent.
Everyone has to grow up. It would be years in the struggle.
Your sister can't go with you this time, Des, you know that.
I don't want her to. Don't you understand? I've taken enough of her life, of your lives, I want to live my own life.
The mother, the father, they both watched him so carefully. As they had all his life. What freedom they could give him was his.
It wasn't enough.
Not even what more the elder sister could grant, wasn't enough. It was freedom forever with the quiet of a guardian never out of arms reach.
It wasn't freedom.
I can do this. Please. Let me go.
A plea without pleading. The son taller than his father now, thin, wiry, a deceptive strength of both body and will. The mother seemed so tiny, so active.
The elder sister a gamins game of curves and chilling smiles. The younger all eyes, eyes as strange as her brothers but more lively.
He thrust his left arm upwards. This time, he showed it to them himself. No more forgetting. No more would he be managed by it, he would manage it. Even if they kept him there. They could, he knew.
The pup was only a month or two old. Tiny bit of fluff and nonsense, white Maltese with her heart of a star. Laying in his little sisters lap, she began to bark.
Barking regular and intent as a metronome, just as he knew he was seeing it before him. Water, then spots of hazed color. All discussion ceased. All movement ceased.
Everything.
He forced himself to sit, dropping to the floor, dark head lowered to his ankles. Waiting.
Inane thoughts spun lucidly in the eternity of instants.
Not now, why now, not when I was trying to find my own path...
Yet in the morning, on the same kitchen table, there rested the acceptance for the internship at the observatory. A credit card, his name, his parents account. The reservations for two months stay at a rooming house. The number for a small experimental lab nearby.
Because of the dog?
Because he stopped hiding from the bracelet...?</font>
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First Entry, eighteen fourth.
I started this a bit late. A lot late. I suppose I should recap as I remember. It wasn?t easy, convincing Mom and Dad I could do this. Get my own place, work, on my own. I suppose I didn?t want to pick this up again because I didn?t want to document my own failure. It?s been several months, now, though.
I had, I know, a bad habit of forgetting my condition. I didn?t really. I just tried to pretend it wasn?t there. That it?d gone away somehow in the spaces between. I still look at the Medic Alert bracelet and wonder that, if I just threw it away, if everything would go with it, and I would be as normal as I pretend to be.
I know that?s silly, it?s a fancy I?ve had since I was old enough to realize what that bracelet meant.
I guess I must have proved my sincerity to take care of myself. Mom and Dad just stopped one night. The next morning, there was a Visa in my name on their account, a few phone numbers and addresses. Mom just asked me if I wanted or needed help getting there, and I really wanted it, I probably needed it, but I said no.
I know it wouldn?t have been too late to turn back and say I did need help, but I was so afraid that I would and she?d be crying that I didn?t. I?m not sure if that?s growing up or cowardice. Jacqueline?s left home already, a long while ago, but that was all so different.
I make them both cry so much, I have, I mean. They try not to do it in front of me, but I know. I hate that. It?s not me, it?s the condition, but it really doesn?t change things, does it? Their tears are in my name. I can?t dry them.
Then I did it again, leaving. I wanted so much to be independent that I did it again. When I realized what I?d done, I was too afraid to go back. I can feel it there, still, when I look at Mom. I don?t know what to say. I don?t want to make her cry again. I should have done it all differently. But I only know that in retrospect.
Pride. Fear. Anger. I know it?s not justified. It?s there. But who can you be angry at when there?s no one to blame?
It?s so hard to be grateful for what I have when I know it?s so little. It doesn?t ease the sting when someone stares at me in disbelief and says ?you can?t drive?? when all I can say in response is ?no, but I?m alive.?
But on another night, it?s everything. I am alive, it can be so hollow or so full. It just depends on how I feel. I get so jealous to see other people and they don?t even realize how much they have, how fortunate they are, how blessed; then I remember those that didn?t make it alive.
All I have to be is happy. I know that. I believe it. I know my family accepts me any way I am. No matter how this would have turned out.
There?s more, I know there is, past quietly and placidly existing under my parents roof. I wanted to find it. I want to.
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Is he blind?
A logical question, so many asked it. Eyes with pupils seeming forever fixed open, lightless but not dead. Not blind, though with drawbacks and advantages alike. Movement tracked easily. Details in daylight faded away.
Born differently, you never know that there is something different until it's pointed out by others. Until then, like any other child, parents can do anything. It was a strange moment stopped in time when they couldn't.
They could make everything else happen. Almost.
Running through the cemetary with the other kids, was it like the other kids? Called out to play at twilight, tag, hide 'n' go seek, kick the can, hoops, marbles...
Games kids hardly ever played anymore, with Tonka, Mattel, Sony, and so many others vying for a childs attention. Laughter always sang from the shadows of the dark graveyard. Lights winked, fallen stars, fireflies in a climate that had never seen their like.
Wishing on the stars, watching the lady in the moon, and listening to the kind whisperings of the old, old man when he drew pictures in the sky, dot to dot pictures and told their tales. A constellation so distant that you needed the eyes of a lynx, and with his eyes it was a thread of jewels in a short strand, the Lynx springing from dark to light.
A sighting, as if a brush of soft pelt across his hand in the night. He could only follow.
Not even the stars remained the same after he knew he was different. Years in a single passage of 365 days, years passed without him in them. Waiting research that never could give a clear answer, yet bringing him inevitably into the fascination of such study. The time had to be passed somehow while time passed him by.
To begin all over again knowing too much. From the playgrounds of a cemetary to the schools. Strangers and alive. Another prodigy uncertain of how to deal with those of their own age, but determined to learn.
Is he blind?
A blousy old woman ran the rooming house. Clean and decent, housing, as such places will, a strange collection of beings. Nothing was outlandish here. A new degree in chemistry and the right contacts brought him to the Four Winds.
They knew he wasn't blind.
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Journal entry 2, eighteen fourth
I was offered the internship at the observatory, but it doesn?t pay. It?s all volunteer work. I wanted to work at the Four Winds, too, a lot, but I hated the thought that I could walk in and they?d hire me the moment I said my full name.
I don?t want to be there because of who I am. I want to be there because of what I am. It bothered me a lot. It bothered me enough that I didn?t apply there for over a week, which meant I had to use Mom and Dads card.
I got a room at a little boarding house. Spirits what a place. It was literally a loony bin run by the patients. Mrs. Bleecher is the sweetest thing in the world, but she?s insane. She can?t distinguish between reality and fantasy, but I came to discover that this is very common in RhyDin.
I know, Mom and Dad and Jacqueline told me all about it, but seeing it for yourself really is something else.
It was clean and decent; however, my room was inhabited by the meanest, most annoying sack of ectoplasm I have ever run into. I could not get through to him at all. Every night, he whined constantly; every time I was out, he tore the place to shreds; he tried to possess me; he was in general the worst roommate anyone could hope to have.
The other ghosts couldn?t stand him, either. They didn?t even empathize with his ire at the living, that?s how bad he was. He finally tried to strangle me while I was sleeping, and I was so fed up that I dealt with him. I?ve never done that before. Dad always said I would run into ghosts like that, but I suppose I didn?t really think of what that would mean.
I don?t like it. It was easy, but I don?t like it. I spent two or three weeks drinking gin straight like the lush Rocky was before I finally could banish the influence. That scared me too, that influence, but Dad was right. It was only temporary, it didn?t give me predilection to becoming an alcoholic.
I only kept what was useful, and there wasn?t much there, sad to say. Rocky tended to hysteria, obsessing over people, hideously needy, manipulative. He wasn?t a suicide, remarkably, but was killed by the angered young man he had last been obsessing over.
I could see it was the only way to keep Rocky off of ones back once he started in with his weird mind games, so really, I didn?t even have the inclination to avenge his death. Logic overrules much more than I ever dreamed.
So all that was left was a brief urge to drink gin and the realization that changing my name would allow people to think I was someone else, no matter who I look like.
I talked to Mom and Dad about it. They agreed. So I changed my identification. Mom?s maiden name is Jones, I use that now. Desdenova Jones. I practiced for hours, my signature. So I wouldn?t accidentally sign my real name. I did, a few times, but it wasn?t too hard to redo.
People don?t really look at things like that, anyhow, and if they do, many times, they still see what you told them they would see.
I met a lady. I don?t remember her name, but I don?t think I?ll ever forget her. She was one of the languid women that come through the Medieval Tavern in droves. Very beautiful, very elegant, very cultured, very boring.
I don?t like to go inside, and she didn?t seem the sort to want to be outside, but she came gliding out to chat with me. She seemed nice. She was intelligent, but she kept asking me about my plans for the night. She told me I looked like a bright and healthy young man, that I must be quite strong. A lot of flattery, really, and inquiries about what I really wanted.
Finally, she told me that she had everything I would ever need for five hundred dollars. By this point, if she was any closer to me, she would have been in my jacket. I gave up moving away from her, she just followed. But I told her I have insurance, which I do, Blue Cross, and she started laughing. A lot.
She was a lot nicer like that, because she had a real laugh, not the weird pigeon cooing sound she?d been making, but a really loud guffawing. She finally said no, she wasn?t selling insurance, she was a prostitute. Which kind of surprised me, I think she?d sell insurance better.
I told her I was sure she was worth more than I could afford, which I hope is a compliment to prostitutes, she thought it was sweet, or seemed to. I think she did, because she stopped following me so closely and just sat back and talked a bit. She really was much nicer like that, I think she could probably get more business, I suppose, as herself, but I?m not really an expert in the subject.
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Journal Entry 3, eighteen four
You?d think after all I?ve been through, how many times I?ve sat on a razors edge waiting for test results and knowing already they weren?t going to come out like I wanted, that waiting for the Four Winds to call back would be a breeze.
But I realize now, it was a lot different. This wasn?t a test, it was me. The sum of me. Everything I?ve learned, how well I come across, and I know I don?t, really.
Someone laughed and said Bea had all the personality between she and I, and that really isn?t that far from the truth. It?s just that I couldn?t very well set Bea in my lap to charm the interviewer.
He was a nice man. Barnaby or Barnabus or something; he wasn?t a vampire, but he had the whole tormented by inner demons and morose part down quite well. He alluded of his tragic former life before coming to the Four Winds, but he started laughing when I said I just didn?t want to be an undertaker.
I don?t think he realized that Dad and my sister are. He was a lot more interesting after he stopped being what he was for the straights, too. I?ve noticed that about a lot of people.
Everyone wears masks, Jacqueline told me. That even I do. She said my mask was so perfect because I was so afraid so often that I probably didn?t even realize it was there at all.
I don?t know. I have to hide some things. That?s just the way it is. I met another woman here, in RhyDin, who virtually introduced herself as a witch. She was fascinatingly ill equipped if she actually is one. Perhaps she meant she was a Pagan.
She tried to look past a mask that wasn?t there, and came up with a few things that rather amused me. Reading words that would never be written, or, as Jacqueline said, seeing what she hoped might be beyond the quiet young student facade.
Which would be a quiet young student.
Can shyness and social inexperience be a mask?
I got the job. The pay isn?t too bad, and the hours are nice. They just ask for at least thirty hours a week from me, and they really don?t care when I clock in or out as long as I give them that thirty. They put me under Matilde West, she?s a middle aged woman, divorced with kids.
Matilde set me on my first project. Mainly, explosives, which I enjoyed quite a lot. Sometimes, I will hang out with the other younger employees, but they smoke a lot of... They smoke a lot, and I can?t identify half of it. Apparently, young Miss Fern is keen on genetically engineering cannabis. I get contact highs just walking by her lab.
I don?t usually have to work the cash register in the little apothecary, which is nice. The man that?s supposed to do it full time is usually tearing drunk by noon, and quite vulgar, which upsets me. So Matilde usually lets me off. She likes to work the counter anyhow, since she?s ...Pretty much a good match for the Wicked Witch of the West. It?s funny when the born again Pagans come in and see her behind the counter.
But, having a steady job meant I could finally look for my own place. The rooming house was nice, but they were still looking after me. Taking care of me. That wasn?t what I wanted.
I started working with real estate agents. The first one was a young woman who kept showing me beautifully scenic lots without houses. At night, so I couldn?t even tell if the ground was stable. She seemed to have a serious problem with regulating her tempature. She would stop the car and start unbuttoning her blouse, claiming she was hot. Then she would insist she was cold but just stared at me when I would give her my jacket.
I suggested she see her gynecologist and discuss the possibility of early menopause, and she slapped me.
The next agent was no better, male, older, and constantly insisting we stop at bars before looking at anything. He got into a knock down drag out fist fight with some man he was calling ?Baby? before Baby threw the first punch, and I decided I would take my chances with the newspaper.
While I was walking to the observatory, however, the ghost that exists on the bridge caught up with me. She?s very sweet, I like her. Her name is Anna, if you give her a ride, she?ll direct you to where she used to live and then disappear from your back seat. One of those.
I told Anna what had happened, and she said well, no one lives where I used to live anymore. So we went there, except the place had all but fallen into its own basement. I told her it must have been longer than she thought, but she was very upset by it.
I asked her where she was buried, and the next day I walked there before work to find her grave so I could clean it up and leave some flowers for her. That usually cheers most ghosts up.
It was a little cemetery, it?s very old, and it?s not been in use in a long while. Anna was probably one of the last buried there. It was, frankly, a mess. I was shocked. The caretakers cottage was there, and in good shape. It actually looked like it?d been abandoned in the middle of the night, and never returned to. Everything was still there.
Including everything in the pantry, which was far more terrifying than anything the dead could come up with. I took the jars to Fern, she was delighted. She probably made some new form of LSD.
I found the holding company that was supposed to keep the cemetery in perpetuity, and the lawyer just stared at me and said ?you want it? Fine. Take it.?
Ten minutes later, I was standing outside of the office with a folder, deeds, agreements, tax bonds, title, transfer of deed, and... everything. I really don?t know what happened. What else could I do? I took it all to Dad.
Dad has the most marvelous poker face in the universe, but he failed to use that with me. He laughed. Hilariously. Fate was determined I keep a hand in the family business. I told him I wanted more little brothers and sisters and would enlist Alice to my cause. Two kids whining has more power than one, after all.
Dad does buy old cemeteries in danger of falling through the cracks, as it were. He usually makes deals that ensure that they pay for themselves, of course, he?s not that altruistic, but he wouldn?t dump one for not being able to work some deal with the local community to keep the cemetery well kempt.
I have no idea how that works. Dad straightened out the paperwork, though, and said it was a pretty sweet deal all said. What it means to me, though, is that the fund pays me a certain amount monthly to keep up the grounds, and I?m sure it?s in Mom and Dads estate now, but technically, it is mine.
It?s a disgraceful mess. There was a reflecting pool, it was pretty much a swamp. The two will o? wisps that live there, Ogopini and Gus, were upset when I had a dredger run through it, but I had the dredger leave their little lair be. They?ve become loyal and affectionate friends.
Almost too loyal and affectionate, they misconstrued Fae?s visit and led her right into their lair. Fortunately, however, Fae thought it was funny and of course, she didn?t drown.
I?m getting a little ahead of myself. I suppose it doesn?t matter, I sometimes wonder why I keep these at all. It?s embarrassing to go back and read my older journals, but I promised Mom I wouldn?t erase years ago when I first started to keep them. She said that eventually, I would be very glad I didn?t.
I suppose I?m borrowing hindsight. I try to keep all of my promises, this one is not too difficult to keep. Most of my promises have been like that. I never gave it a second thought. But I?m getting ahead of myself again.
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Journal Entry 4, Eighteen Four
I met Fae, and I met Zane. Fae reminded me so much of Mom, it was scary. And sometimes embarrassing, because I don?t think she much saw me as a son. Zane doesn?t remind me of anyone I know already, but she almost always could make me laugh, but she never set out to do it. Which is probably why she can do it.
I broke my ankle, and Fae fixed it. It hurt, though, her healing. It triggered a mild seizure, but she either didn?t notice it or didn?t remark on it. Either way, she didn?t go hysterical that I did so. That was one of the nicest things anyone?s ever done for me.
After I got the cemetery and house, I found a lady I really had only met once telling me she would go shopping with me and she would pay for everything. That really scared me. I hardly knew this woman, she was old enough to be my mother, she had a daughter, and here she was, virtually setting up house with me.
I asked Fae about it, and she said it was common. Some people feel they can one way or another buy your affections. She said I should just let the woman buy whatever she wanted for me and continue about my business as I liked. That was a little too creepy for me, though I do think I am sufficiently mercenary to do so, the lady apparently was experienced enough in this sort of ?courtship? to know how to get her intended's address.
No, thank you. I don?t need anything so badly that it would entail having a woman like that on my front step. Especially since she thought it was so awful I was living in a graveyard. I don?t see what?s bad about that. I admit, it?s in bad shape now, and probably will be for a while, but it once was very beautiful, and will be again.
The strangest thing was that when this woman saw me talking to another young woman, she became angry. I try, and I try far too hard, I know, to see people who are becoming more affectionate than friendship can account for as friends anyhow. Yet still. I hardly knew this woman. I was no more anything to her than anyone else.
She left, I haven?t seen her since. I dread writing at all about her in the fear she will pop up again and start making the dreadfully maudlin comments about all whom she has loved leaving her.
How can she love someone she doesn?t know? It just doesn?t make any sense. If I am one of those horrible men who has broken her heart, I?m sorry, but that?s all I am. I didn?t want or ask for her love. I just want friends.
It is very easy to strike up acquaintances with the women here. I thought it was nice, but alarming. It was always alarming. How many times have I made friends with a girl only to suddenly find her boyfriends fist in my face, after all? Those are some old journal pages I don?t want to see again.
The worst part of that was never the fist. It wasn?t even when Jackie would swoop in like some avenging angel and beat the snot out of the boyfriend. It was the way the girl would always turn away from me.
It was always more important to have even the most idiotic bone head as a boyfriend, a lover, than it was to have a friend. By the time I started to see the people I went to school with growing out of it, I just didn?t want anything to do with them.
I suppose that?s harsh, but so is a cracked jaw for talking to someone about that nights homework. Some apologized. Some tried to pretend it was just kid stuff, and others insisted they didn?t remember. I just don?t care. Loyalty is more important than anything else, and mine was rewarded quite literally with the back of a lot of hands.
Perhaps I need to do the growing up and forgive and forget. Realize that there was some strange hormonal thing powering their outbursts, which it probably was, but I just can?t. Maybe it?s because I?ve never felt that.
I can?t fathom that much of a loss of control. I see it all the time, now more than ever, and it repels me. I suppose in the repelling there is a fascination, though it?s like picking through a puddle of slime.
I met Lola, she?s like a corvax, but not. Her skin rips open to show the wings, feathers, but I don?t know if she has other forms of raven. She was undergoing some sort of oestrus cycle.
I could smell it, of course. People with noses less sensitive than mine could, a few were-wolf sorts, mainly. It was... I really can?t see how anyone can exist like that. She seemed in control of herself, thankfully.
I have to remind myself that they are different beings, though it still confuses me. Most weres take great pains with their human appearance, they use it to their advantage, and yet one sniff of pheromone, and it?s all gone out the door.
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Journal entry 5, eighteen fourth
Lola is nice, though, I like her. She gave me a shadow in the form of a dragon for Christmas, I named him Flinx. He and Bea get into a terrible lot of trouble together, and have a wonderful time with it.
I was glad it was a shadow, because Dad?s got that phobia of dragons. Even after all these years, but I suppose you don?t just get over being bitten in half by one. He doesn?t mind so much when they?re dead, of course, and he just snorted a bit at Flinx. But he laughed a few times when Flinx was playing in the tree.
I sometimes wonder a lot about what Dad really feels about me. This. I know he loves me and would do anything for me, but I sometimes feel like I?m an utter betrayal just by what I am. I don?t want to be a mortician. I don?t think I can carry on the family name.
I?m a mage. A wizard. The very thing that got Dad stuck in that dragons mouth however long ago. What yanked Dad out of his life and into a literal hell.
I have to keep that hidden to begin with, that?s just the way it is. Even so, I don?t even do anything in the house, out of sight. I took courses in chemistry to match alchemy. So it would be more normal for Dad, really. Though the chemistry helps the alchemy and vice versa.
I just don?t like knowing I?m more trouble than I have to be. I wonder what kind of a son Dad really would have wanted, if you could just go and pick out precisely the child you dreamed of. Jacqueline is, has always been, exactly perfect.
Maybe a male Jacqueline. Interested in the family business, self confident and outgoing, brilliant, stylish, sensible. No magic. Healthy.
Sometimes I wonder if that?s not why I?m always nagging for more siblings, but I?m sure they?re afraid that whatever happened to me is genetically linked to my sex. There?s been no proof of that, but there?s no proof of anything else, either.
I just wish I was brave enough to ask. So many things, but I never have the nerve. Jackie always seems to know when I?m upset over something, sometimes she waits until I say, other times she speaks up, and she says, Des, we?re family. There?s nothing in the world you can really hide from us.
So Mom and Dad probably already know all this, and maybe they?re just waiting for me to be able to bring it up. They do that a lot. Builds character, I suppose. I suppose mine wants a lot of building.
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Journal Entry 6, Eighteen Fourth
Sometimes, I feel like I?m documenting the people I?ve met. As if maybe that?s going to define who and what I?ve been. I guess it does, in ways.
Dr. and Dr. Geemis are in charge of the observatory. They own it, run it, everything, though it is supported largely by a grant from a large university. It?s smartly up to date and it?s well away from any light pollution.
It was kind of annoying that I was set to doing what I?m already good at, which is reading and interpreting charts. It?s good on one hand, because I do get a fair amount of money from drawing astrological charts, and those are the charts I need to define the astrologies; but it?s irritating on the other hand, because I want experience with other facets of the science.
The Geemis?s are Barbie and Ken. That?s not their names, but they should be named that. It?s Debbi and Brent, which is close enough. They look like Barbie and Ken. They try to act and talk like a couple of Star Trek Vulcans, and then they fight like Punch and Judy.
They fight a lot. Loudly. Screaming. Throwing things. I can ignore it for a while, I?m usually the last one to walk out in disgust, but it?s incredible to me that they would let their personal issues follow them to work like they do.
They even got into a fight when the university had sent over people to see what they were investing in so heavily. I thought, finally. Someone will take those two aside and explain that you cannot get anything done like this.
No. The people sent out sat down with the Geemis?s and had a group therapy session.
It actually helped, but that meant that the Geemis?s were in their adoring mode for over a week straight, and I decided that I like it better when they?re fighting. Every time I looked over at the VLA controls, it looked like a pair of dogs humping.
One night, Angel, he blew a fuse and was stomping out bellowing in Spanish as I was walking in. He grabbed my arm and marched off with me, right to his church, and I had to sit in a pew and watch him lighting candles and praying for an hour.
The strange thing was that he was praying for me, which I really didn?t understand until Theresa explained that the Geemis?s were fornicating on my desk when Angel came in.
I didn?t ask why Theresa was just watching. I really don?t want to know. I don?t want to know why the Geemis?s didn?t care that she was watching, either.
I definitely prefer it when they?re fighting.
I met a paladin, a lady, older. I had to be very careful with her, because though she was fascinating and all, she was also a Christian paladin of yore. Magic was, of course, evil in her eyes.
That gave me so much to think on. It kept me dwelling on my relationship with Dad, though I know, he?s only religious in his own way.
She was conscripted or consecrated to slaying vampires, which was fine with me. I made her some hand bombs, I made sure I didn?t go technologically too far past what she knew already.
She was one of the few older people I?d met here, and I can?t remember her name, I?m sorry to admit. I know she had a crush on one of the other knights, it was sweet to see. She didn?t lose her dignity over it, and when I told her she looked pretty in a dress she wore, she blushed a little.
I don?t know what happened to her. Horam thinks she?s dead or returned to her place.
Horam is a minotaur. But I?m getting ahead of myself with people again.
I met Cam. I met another girl whose name I can?t remember, but she seemed to follow me everywhere for a while and she didn?t like Fae. I met Greason and Raven. Actually, I met a lot of people, mostly through Fae, and I don?t always remember their names.
There are a lot of gay males here. A lot. Even growing up in Hollywood and then spending a long time near San Francisco did not prepare me for just how gay these males are. I think they would embarrass even Queen Kitty LaBombe.
I remember her funeral. His funeral, really, but that?s not what he presented to the world, so it was her funeral. It was sad because her family didn?t even bother to send flowers. On the other hand, it was one of the biggest funerals that even Dad had ever seen.
Kitty was only in her forties when she passed away, but it wasn?t AIDs or anything like that. She had muscular dystrophy, complications from that finally killed her.
That didn?t keep her down. Death didn?t. Nothing could. Kitty?s incredibly vivid. She would laugh and say yes, hell yes, some nights, it hurt so much just to sit up she thought she was going to die right then, but she still got up and dolled up and went out on stage.
She had pulled off her own veil and was trying to get to her club less than a month after she was buried. I don?t think that surprised anyone. She was disappointed that the condition finally had run its course, though the moment she realized there wasn?t any pain, I swear the entire graveyard lit up like a beacon.
Kitty and the old man that doesn?t remember his name always were my favorites.
Though that?s getting away from what I was thinking. You just can?t get any more flaming than Kitty, and she would be embarrassed in RhyDin. Even dead, sometimes it?s just Vincent, and it?s funny how quiet and gentle he is when you realize he?s Kitty.
The ones in RhyDin, they just don?t seem to understand very much about the entire culture, I guess. It?s not really a seperate thing, it can?t be, I mean, it?s not like they?re from Planet Gay and have no earthly contact with the breeders.
Most are really under the impression that they?re not only more glittery than Lisa Frank sneezing on the Cockettes, but that they?re dangerous somehow. A lot are skinnier than I am, most are shorter, and meeting them, it?s amusing to watch them deciding I?m obviously a victim.
Some are weres, some are vampires. Some are other things that inevitably choose to make themselves as unattractive as possible, and it amazes me that people of actual good looks will assure them they look fabulous. That?s usually women, and I wonder if they?re not just taking proxy vengeance on the head cases that design fashions for them.
They seem to fall into two classes. The ones who are openly playing predator, and the ones who are trying to be fluffy. The predatorial ones inevitably get sulky and creep off when confronted, the fluffy ones will whine constantly if they are not immediately accepted.
Actually, I suppose it?s about the same thing.
It?s fairly common, too, to find people who think you should immediately warm up to them because they?re so nice. I don?t think it?s very nice to insist that other people stop being what they are just so you can prove to the world you?re that nice.
I keep running into that. It bothers me. Not because I think I should change my ways, but because others think there?s something wrong with me because I don?t care to touch people I don?t know well. That I need to know them before I?m open with them.
It?s hard to think that someone is nice enough to get to know when they?re whining and complaining that I?m not accepting them as a long lost brother or sister in less than an hour.
The worst part is knowing that brother or sister is really the last thing they want. I don?t believe I should sacrifice myself, what I believe and what I feel, for people who are that selfish.
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Journal Entry 7, Eighteen Fourth
Then I met Eliza and her boyfriend, Mite. And one of her ex boyfriends who wanted to kill her or something. The fact that he was still breathing should have told me more than it did.
Because I thought, I really did, that she was like me. She wasn?t, and I suppose that?s really all I should say about it.
I just didn?t, I still don?t, understand. Friends help each other, that?s what I?d always thought.
I can?t, I won?t keep a promise if I feel like the one that asked it of me is only using that promise to keep from getting real help. I tried to keep those promises, but I couldn?t.
Jackie said that I shouldn?t, and no one should ask me for my silence, either. If someone needs your silence, they should be paying a hell of a lot for it, and never do anything that knowledge of would silence you. It was a hellish lesson to learn.
When I was in high school, everyone was whispering about Dorsey Flannery. Dorkus, a lot of the kids liked to call him, which I thought was pretty stupid. He was a dork, but that wasn?t his name.
I wrote all about this, a lot of things, before, but it?s like Mom said. Sometimes, looking back over time brings things more clearly to light. That the glare of the sun can blind you until you let it fade in your mind enough to see detail.
Dorsey was mean, his parents didn?t care, it?s practically a case history writing itself. He couldn?t compete in his bullying against the senior students and it shocked me at the time badly when I came in to school to hear all the kids whispering that Dorsey had his dad?s gun and was going to blow away Mike Henkle.
I remember writing about it. I was so stunned. My hands shook for days. I couldn?t go back to class for over a week. It really scared me.
What scared me, I know, was not that some idiot would or could randomly bring a weapon to bear like that. It was that all those people knew, and all they had to do was speak up. They knew. All they did was hiss and whisper to each other about it.
No one had the courage to tell someone that could do something about it. They all played into a bizarre game of victims, accomplices, denial, and cowardice.
A lot were excited about it. It was terrifying, how stupid they all were. Here was an entire grade, practically, unable to act because they were sworn to secrecy. Fourth and fifth hand, in some cases.
I never knew what I would have done, because Dorsey dropped the pistol out of his jacket right in front of the history teacher. I wasn?t there, but I was told that they thought she was going to drill him full of lead when she picked it up.
I never knew what I would have done, if I had been told before it was discovered. I thought about it a lot. Made up a lot of heroic and dashing escapades for it. It was all fascinating in its own way, but I never knew what I would do.
I?ve been spiteful and mean to people who?ve broken their word to me. I?ve expected no less for a broken word, that?s why I try to never break mine.
I know, now. I know I would have spoken up. It made me feel terrible that I had spoken up. It was worse. I broke a promise to someone I cared for. I had no other choice.
I didn?t really know her then, but no one I did know was there, and Cam was willing to listen. She?s so much like Jackie, it?s almost scary. She even looks like Jackie.
Cam told me there wasn?t anything wrong with what I?d done. That a real friend will know when to break a promise. She said that a real friend wouldn?t cut you down for what you?d done. They wouldn?t ask for silence in the first place.
I was beginning to feel everything I?d learned was a lie. It was good to know that it wasn?t.
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Journal Entry 8, Eighteen Fourth
I was invited to a Halloween masquerade. Five, really. I went as Harlequin to the first one. I didn?t want to unmask, after being Harlequin for an evening... It was so hard to just be me again. No, it was easy. It was heartbreaking, how easy; I couldn?t find the flame again.
Maybe the mask is me. I put on the mask, and I was someone, something, else. Harlequin doesn?t worry about seizures, work, partial mobia syndrome, anything. Harlequin never spent nine or ten hours with his skull opened up, never had surgeons and doctors discussing the oddities of his case until he wanted to scream, never...
Harlequin was never me.
I wanted so much to be what didn?t want to be me, it?s so strange.
When I think of it now, it?s not like I?m remembering what I did that night at all. I wasn?t me until midnight. It?s like I?m watching an old movie, and the actor was so incandescent of life, the film couldn?t hold him.
Incandescent. That?s it, exactly. Light, life. Burning but eternal. Ironic. It?s so ironic.
?Call me Desdenova, eternal light?.
To be that, without a mask, without a costume... I wish I knew how. ?You have all the time in the world? Mom says. Maybe I do, but I still look up at the stars from here on the earth; a little silver chain holds me anchored to a hard reality.
I had to leave soon after midnight. Bea started barking, but I was already seeing my aura. It?s big glassy bubbles of colored light. There?s some real irony. It?s so pretty.
I knew I wouldn?t make it home, so I went to the Four Winds. Fern came in after me, she knows the look on my face, she says, but she wasn?t able to get to me in time. I smacked into the counter on my left cheek. I hit it so hard, I woke up sometime the next day in the hospital.
I wonder if it was a price to pay. If I had somehow been touched by Harlequins precense, and... I don?t know. Harlequin isn?t like that, I know. It just felt like another big heaping serving of irony.
Take off the mask, and do a facer into reality.
So, for the rest of the parties, I dressed as Eric, the Phantom of the Opera.
Zane made a little angel dog costume for Bea. It was so cute, I put it on her I?m embarrassed to say how many times and took dozens of photos. Sometimes I tell people I?m destined to be one of those creepy people who carries their dog everywhere and dresses it up.
I do, actually. I laughed when Cam got disgusted with another would be boyfriend and insisted that she was going to get a lot of cats and be a crazy cat lady.
At Zanes party, oh Spirits. Horam dressed as a bull fighter. El Matadore. He?s a minotaur. A huge, warrior, prejudiced, mean minotaur. I blamed the results of a brawl on Horam to a cop. I don?t know what was funnier. The fact that Horam would have been pleased with the audacity or that the cop was new and didn?t believe me when I said it was a minotaur.
Horam danced with Miss Tyg a lot. And really well! Miss Tyg is usually a very large white tiger, and she?s terribly nice and very comforting, but she decided to take her human form, and dressed up as a goofy bunny. I thought Horam was going to choke when she unmasked.
I teased him about it until he started throwing salsa at me. Zip, one of Zanes friends, was there, but he?d made himself into Mr. Hyde. He?s a vampire, a Tremere, I think, and for a leech, he?s all right.
I met Zip when we were watching one of Zanes would-be suitors making an ass of himself. I wasn?t sure if I would meet him. I?d heard about him. I knew exactly how far I can throw him. It was useful to know.
I got into a mock arguement with him, Eric versis Mr. Hyde. It was hilarious. I suppose once I put on a mask, it?s just that easy to be what it is.
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Journal Entry 9, Eighteen Four
My birthday is October 31, like dad. Jackie was born on Valentines. Alice was born on Easter, which is why they named her Alice after all. Jackie was already named for dad, part of mine is for mom, Alice got the other piece of it.
I?ve accused them of planning so we were born on days they wouldn?t forget, because Mom can (and has) forgotten her own birthday. They both kind of stare at you if you ask when their anniversary is. June or July second, I?m not sure, they?ve celebrated both days, sometimes in the same year. And on September 13, which is Mom?s birthday.
We were all a little premature, Alice the least of all, so obviously (well, I said) they should have more till they start getting them over term. Mom actually looked a little thoughtful at that, I mean, it?s logical, and no matter how bizarre something is, if you have at least some logic to it, she?ll think it over.
Dad just upsided me and told me to nag Jackie to get married and have babies. Jackie, however, twisted her napkin up to tie it into a noose and held it up where I could see it, but Mom and Dad couldn?t, and I?m not stupid. Anyhow, we?re not supposed to talk about killing each other at the dinner table.
It?s so rare that I will be a year older after a year has gone by. We always celebrate my birthday, but it?s almost like being dead. You?re older, but you?ve not aged any.
I remember being depressed for a long time, I convinced myself that I?d died a long while ago, and like a lot of ghosts, just didn?t remember how or why or when. After all, they?re always the same unless they?re mad.
It was after a long series of illnesses. They couldn?t get me stable, I was in the hospital so long, I almost didn?t remember being home. Something happened, I don?t really know what, but I know they explained it to me.
They always explain what?s going on in Pediatrics, which is good on one hand and terrifying on the other. Knowing what?s going on and then knowing that you know almost as much as they do, that?s not really comforting.
I know I went code blue, and I know they rushed me into the operating room, but they didn?t put me under. I remember the surgeon saying ?I can?t do this?. Another one came in, but it was Dad. Dad?s eyes are vivid green, you can?t mistake them, and I?ve never seen him like that. Grim, like he was ready to gun down the entire East Coast mafia come hell or high water with nothing but his Colts.
He talked the whole time, mainly giving the first surgeon hell. I guess he deserved it, but when you think about it, someone who?s been a mortician for as long as Dad has is going to have steadier hands than anyone. Dad was going to be a surgeon, long ago, and after an accident, dropped out of medical school.
But, that was then. He?s been a lot of things, and I guess Mom convinced him to go back. There?s a photo in one of the oldest albums of Mom, she looks like an angel, and on the back, she wrote ?you?re good, baby, the best, don?t waste it.?
That would have done it, Dad hates to see skills wasted. It?s just funny hearing or seeing Mom call him baby, or worse, doll baby. He just grins and gets a little red.
I think, looking back on that operation, they were trying to drain fluid off of my brain, but it hadn?t just collected in the outer membranes. I don?t remember having meningitis, but they had me drugged pretty heavily. I remember saying I didn?t want a drain, because I?d seen a lot of kids with the drains, and they said that sometimes, they can cause stroke.
Dad told me not to worry about it, he wasn?t leaving till it was done right. I wasn?t scared, because he wouldn?t leave till it was done right. I told him I was seeing my aura, but it was different, it was all white and shining, like I was standing in the big lime lights at my Aunts theater. He told me to talk about her, and I think I did, a little while, at least. I could hear her play, so beautiful, but when I hummed the tune to her later, she was quiet and then said that she couldn?t play that here.
It was all so pretty and comfortable, I just watched it all. The light moved, like Aurora Borealis, just white. I know it must have been some crisis, but I don?t remember people moving around and being agitated, like I?d think they?d be. Maybe I just didn?t hear it or feel it.
That?s all I remember of it. I remember opening my eyes again, and it was so much like the ghosts describe about pulling off the veil... But I heard Mom, she cried out, and I?d never heard her do that before. She couldn?t pick me up though, which is what I wanted. I didn?t realize at the time I was literally tied up in IVs and oxygen and moniters. All she could do was reach through them to me, and that scared me.
It was like when the best Dad could do was make someone look good in a coffin, but if you lifted the body, well, it was bad. He?d have to make it so the family could only reach in and touch. I think that made him a little sad, or maybe mad that he couldn?t make it perfect. It didn?t happen often, but it did a few times.
I know sometimes he?d lie, they?d forge the documents, make it look like wow, they found all of your loved one after all; or that he?d sculpted a deathmask in latex.
I got better, obviously, and finally went home, but a few years later, I convinced myself I was really dead and they were playing along with me that I wasn?t. I couldn?t go to school, or anywhere, and I wanted to. I couldn?t leave the cemetary, just like a lot of ghosts.
Dad found me crying my eyes out, watching the kids go running past the cemetary. I suppose I was scaring the hell out of them, and normally, I?d think that was funny, but I was jealous that they were all ...Normal.
Normal, normal isn?t, I grew up with that, but I wanted it. I still do. It embarrasses me and sometimes, I?m ashamed of it, but it is there. Anyhow, Dad found me, and I finally told him I knew I was dead and I wish they?d stop pretending.
I know now how much that had to hurt Dad. He?d said he wasn?t going to leave until it was done right, and I didn?t believe it after the fact. I know they wouldn?t lie to me, but things happen.
But Dad just smiled, and said he understood. He took out one of his scalpels and poked my finger to show the blood, then reminded me that even the undead don?t bleed. Unless you cut them right, and that made me laugh.
He said he always wanted to be normal, too. Just one of the other kids. It was hard, his mother died when he was really little, she took a big part of his father with her, and his aunt did most of his upbringing, and she was psychotic.
Just things that happen. It?s no ones fault, but it was there. It shaped how he was and is. He took me to the rose garden by the house to sit a long time. He said that was where he could hear his mom and dad the best, though they had long gone on. They didn?t leave their ghosts behind.
It was scary enough to hear his mom had died so young, but then that she didn?t leave a ghost, but he explained that she believed in heaven and all that, and that it didn?t matter if she left her ghost or not, your loved ones never really leave you. That?s why she took so much of his dad when she left.
He told me to listen, in my heart, because they were there and loved me even though I?d never known them, and only ever saw their photos. I could see he heard them the moment we walked into the garden, and after a while, I could, too.
I don?t remember what I was trying to say, I?ll try again when I can do it without getting so upset.
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Journal Entry 10, Eighteen Four
My birthday. Eighteen, finally. I don?t really know how long it?s been, I suppose I can count back to when I was born, but I don?t want to. Anyhow, Jackie?s fifteen years older than me and will break my neck if I make her older than she wants to be.
We always have a big party on Halloween, because even the weakest of ghosts can touch the world of the living easily in that time. It?s always loud and raucous, and somewhere along the line, Uncle Bill?s got his head off and goes bowling for ducks on the pond.
Sometimes he nails the swans, they get madder than hell, and they know just who to chase around. Once Mom?s dog stole his head and it took us weeks to find where she?d buried it.
Mom always reminds Uncle Bill he?s going to have a lot more reality but he never listens and is tanked by eight pm, it?s never later than nine before he?s pulled off his head to go march down to the reflecting pool. He never listened when he was alive, either, which is why he can pull his head off.
I don?t know what he?s got against the ducks, though, it was him not making sure the paper mills cutter was disconnected before sticking his head in there to move an obstruction that got his head cut off. It?s not like he was pecked to death by ducks.
I took Anna along with me, she dances well and though she didn?t know the story, was happy to portray Christine to my Eric. I think Dad was a little disappointed that I had a ghost for a date, I guess it?s kind of like dating someone you work with. I suppose I could have gotten Fern to come with me, but somewhere along the line, you have to listen to her go on and on about the joys of macrobiotic green living, and it?s easier to keep from smacking her one at work.
Fern might even be pretty if she ate real food and didn?t look like a bag of bones with a shock of green hair on top. I thought dyrads were supposed to be curvier than that, but then again, her stupid tree probably eats better than she does.
There?s not usually a lot of living people at those parties, though Mom always lets crashers in because she?s got what Dad calls a ?cute little sadistic streak?. Midnight it?s literally a scream when the masks (and sometimes faces) come off.
The day of the dead is always quieter, that?s when we can talk to the ancestors who didn?t stay behind as ghosts easiest. They?re always there, but it?s easier. Sometimes, you can see them, but it seems to depend on how well you know them.
I started being able to see Dads parents a while ago, as well as recognize their feel, but Dad?s right, it?s always easiest in the rose garden. I think that, because of their beliefs and religion and all, that was the only true earthly touch outside of us that they left.
Sometimes Dads aunt, the one that raised him, will be there, and it gets tense. I suppose they had things between them that just won?t ever be resolved, though they understand each other well enough now.
It?s never done, there?s always another chance, to make peace. Mom says that, but I know a lot of times she?d like to wring Aunties neck, too. Well, metaphorically speaking. Auntie doesn?t ever manifest enough for a good neck wringing, and Dad never forces more out of her. I guess that?s the understanding they have.
I?ve been lucky, I?ve seen so many people pass on, but never anyone in my family. Though I know they?d be right there, it?s never really the same. Ghosts exist by different rules, after all, and even more different if they?ve gone on to a specific belief.
I started to realize that it was really hard for most people to be able to look past the grave. It?s always an ending, but it?s a beginning, too. I guess it?s easy for me to believe like I do, I?ve had people get mad at me because I say it.
I think that they?re not done grieving, and what I?m saying is taking that away. But it doesn?t make sense, either, because what they want the most is to have a connection to their loved one, though I guess what they really want is their loved one back. I guess that?s not so hard to understand at all.
I would want them back too, I think. The soul is a powerful thing, but your moms hug, real and warm; you don?t have to be of a spiritual mindset to be able to feel it.
I know sometimes, I?m sad I didn?t get to know a lot of people before they were dead. Sometimes I?m sad when I go back to the cemetary and the children I played with when I was little are still children. Will always be children.
A lot were just waiting for their moms and dads, but a lot, they don?t know where their parents are, but they?ve made what they need from those that are there. Which is good, because most of them are from the Spanish Influenza epidemics of 1914 and 1917, their parents must be long passed on.
They?re happy, though. So I can?t really be sad for them. Maybe they?ll never grow up and try to make their dreams happen, but the dreams can?t die because they already did. It?s always on their horizon, it?s never gone away and impossible.
The only dreams that really died are the ones that their families had for them. I?ve seen how hard that is on them, and I wonder if the deaths of those dreams hurt as much as the loss of the child.
When Amber passed on, I remember one of the other parents in the ward suddenly marched out, and she blocked open every door she passed, every one, even though it was after one in the morning. She walked back in and pulled open the doors to Ambers room and spread her arms and announced, ?You can go wherever you want to now, Amber, all the doors are open?.
All Amber wanted was to walk out of the hospital on her own, she walked in that way, and it seemed only fair that she leave that way. Her body couldn?t, but with all the doors open, she could.
She was so brave. It hurt she didn?t make it. Every time I see sunflowers, I see her again. She didn?t leave a ghost behind, but I didn?t think she would, she wanted to be an angel if she couldn?t be alive. Angels can have sunflowers and denim and big floppy hats. Well, they do now.
I wonder who she got to be an angel for. I think I?ll ask next year. I have to quit writing things that make me cry, the ink?s getting splotched. If I read it again, I wonder if I will again. Maybe I should get a computer.
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(Musical Interlude: Now)
A dulcimer. Psaltry of fine wood and fine craftsmanship, elegant in its simplicity. Sweet tones skipped from the deft touch of plectrum, humming melody like the hoofbeats of fairy horses, rhythmn powerful as the inswept tide.
His voice, deep, rich, familiar over lyrics he knew as well as if he had written them. He hadn't. You didn't need to write the song already written, didn't need to write the song that already spoke your heart.
"All I see is your face, all I hear is your voice. I'm looking every where when you're not here. You're a dream a part of me, thoughts in my heart, in my arms you'll always be..."
"I see you stand before me, a smile for all that you are, ready to accept each and every new day. You're a dream, a part of me, thought in my heart, in my arms you'll always be..."
"Only a fool could deny you, your heart so brave and true, it's you I really love, and I'll try to prove With each and every new day, more and more, it grows that way, it's you I really love and I'll try to prove..."
"All I see is your face, all I hear is your voice..."
It always came to coda. And then it would end.
The dulcimer, slid from his thigh, the plectrum dropped. Dark gaze so somber through the tears.
("You'll Always Be" c. 1994 Park Place Productions)
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Journal Entry 11, Eighteen Four
I dropped my dulcimer sometime after that. I could have screamed. I?ve had it all these years, and I?ve never so much as broken a string, but I dropped it while I was clearing out the parlor. I was mad enough to blame a ghost, and felt like a moron when Jackie popped in to visit and said ?but Punkin, there?s no ghosts in here.?
Punkin, Jackie always calls me that, but it?s not ?pumpkin? like most people think, it?s Punk-kin. Shorter than ?my brother the punk?. Jackie?s convinced I?m going to starve to death if I don?t set myself on fire, living by myself; she always brings groceries and goes over the house to point out all the death traps and she?s going to send over a work crew and bla bla bla.
Whatever happened in this house must have been good, even when Jackie ignores my complaining and goes to hire a crew, they won?t come. I?ve asked the ghosts in the cemetary, but all they know is that the last caretakers were card carrying lunitics, and left in the middle of the night ages ago.
They said there had been an investigation by the local constabulary, but no one knew about what or for why. Just that after a while, even people coming to look at the house for a thrill stopped coming by. Jackie shook down the lawyer that gave me the cemetary, but he didn?t know what went on, either, he?s just a shark that takes over accounts from older lawyers as they retire or die and tries to dump the ones that don?t make him money.
She did find out he was blackmailing a duchess or something, she left that with me in case I need money for some emergency. Jackie?s worse than Mom and Dad for spoiling me, honestly.
The work crews can?t say, either, just that ?It?s a bad place and ill omened?, probably in some incomprehensibly rustic accent. Which means they don?t know, either, and are mindlessly keeping alive some boogie story their elder siblings were telling and never finished because their Moms smacked them for being morbid.
Anyhow, Jackie took the dulcimer to be repaired. It?s actually nice when she?s here to visit. She?ll go out and then she?ll wake me up when she gets back, just like she used to when we were all living at home.
Sometimes, she?d come home drunk and barfing, and I?d help her. It scared me the first few times. I know we weren?t hiding anything from Mom and Dad, because sometimes, I could hear Mom snickering. Jackie learned real fast that if she drank too much, all she?d get was me and I?d always demand hush money.
Other times, she?d be upset with her date, and she?d drag me into the kitchen because I would just fall back asleep if she didn?t feed me. Chocolate, usually. Chocolate seems to calm a lot of people down, though you?d think it?d be the other way around.
She?d tell me all about it, but I still don?t understand it all. Or at all, really. She liked this guy, no ?liked? and I guess there?s a difference, but only in the stress she put in the word; but then he didn?t like like her and like liked someone else and...
I wondered if guys talk to their sisters like that, and if their sisters understand it. All I could ever say was Mom and Dad like each other, and they don?t have such huge fusses. Anyhow, they?re not that fond of chocolate.
One time I said that, and Jackie jumped up and yelled ?you?re right! You?re absolutely right! Mom and Dad love each other and they don?t go around making each other crazy!?
Which was kind of ?ew? to me, because ew. I mean, I know they neck and have sex and all that, after all, there?s three of us, but ew. Then again, they?ll give Alice and I twenty each to get lost when they want to be alone. So will Jackie. It?s always good money when Jackie?s got a boyfriend.
And it?s a moot point, too, because any reputable psychiatrist would commit Mom and Dad in a flash.
Anyhow, this was a huge revelation to Jackie, but it was just what is. Though I wonder what they were like when they were courting. I know Dad had a contract to kill Mom, but something happened. It must have been good, too, he?d been taking hits for a long time before he met Mom.
It was strange, because Mom was afraid of dead things then, which was kind of wierd, all things considered. She got over it, obviously.
Maybe it was just that they weren?t making each other crazy.
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Journal Entry 12, Eighteen Four
Love?s a big deal around here. Who loves who and how. Which is really strange when you see someone that should be strong and honorable and dignified acting like a moron. The men that start acting like spurned little girls when a woman doesn?t fall for them in a few days, you can almost lay odds on when they?re going to turn up with a gay lover.
The ladies never do that, or hardly ever, they just assure the newly gay man that he looks fabulous covered in glitter and ribbons. Again, I think it may be proxy revenge.
Then there?s the ones where love is more final a death than death. You can always tell when they finally got the object of their affections to have sex, they vanish for weeks and months at a time, except for the ones that pop up after a week or so knowing they?re already pregnant.
That amazes me. Not just that they can know after apparantly a few hours that they?re pregnant, but that they haven?t even lived a month with their beloved, haven?t even dated them that long, in many cases, and yet they?re going to get married, so naturally, they have to have a baby.
You could get rich designing maternity wedding gowns around here except, as at home, announcing the premarital pregnancy heralds the vanishing of the would-be groom. This plays over and over and over again, and none of them ever learn from even their own mistakes.
Anyhow, I had to tease Cam about her would be beaus, too. She?s so strong, she?s usually sensible, and yet she was attracting the biggest Bozos I?ve ever seen in my life. At one point, it was all drows, and I would snicker and whisper ?Drowgraine? to her and she?d hit me, but she?d laugh, too.
Some of them made me mad, because instead of being the strong people that had been attractive, if she wasn?t swooning in love within a week, they turned into the biggest sissy whiners in creation. I thought Zane attracted losers. Well, no, I guess they?re about even for that.
It?s stupid, too, because Zane and Cam certainly aren?t loser bait. I could understand it if they were the usual ?I?m a total sex goddess? idiot running around here, with their boobs and butts hanging out like someone stuffed a lily white hog into a bottle of Coca Cola.
I couldn?t even respond to one girl like that. She was wearing a skirt that didn?t have enough material to make a handkerchief, and it was still slit, fishnet stockings and six inch heels, a bustier that made her look like she had a butt on her chest, introduced herself as a goddess of lust seeking new worshippers, and she looked me straight in the eye and said ?I?m not a slut?.
Am I missing something?
I mean, it?s not as if that choice of clothing can possibly be comfortable, and it?s certainly not attractive. I realize that you should not judge people on their clothing, and if someone wants to make themselves look as disgusting as possible, that is their perogative, but it?s kind of hard to think that someone claiming to be a goddess of lust, looking for new worshippers, and who dresses like that isn?t possessed of somewhat loose morals.
I mean, if I was a god of lust, I?d just wear what I normally wear because if you?re a god, you shouldn?t have to be uncomfortable. People would still worship you as a god of lust because that?s what you?re a god of and you could schlep around in sweats and bunny slippers if you wanted.
Anyhow, Cam and Zane aren?t like that at all. I?ve gotten mad at a few of their beaus, but I try not to say anything.
Love just never seems to be what I think it should be here. Never. I guess it?s not what I think it is anywhere, but I don?t think I should change my mind. I have things I want to do before I even think about that, since love is a lot more than I ever thought it should be.
I?m getting ahead of myself, I do that a lot, I guess it?s just what I?m thinking, what?s happened, when I do sit down to work on this. I?m trying to be chronological, but it?s not really happening exactly that way. I guess that?s kind of interesting, shows how my thoughts go.
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Journal Entry 13, Eighteen Four
I've left stuff out, which if I did all the entries in a computer, I could just edit, and all that as I realize I'd forgotten things. But I always did remember where I edited when I used one for school, and I like using a pen and ink more.
I forgot all about that till now, looking at my inks and pens and all. The glass pens. I met a really nice woman, Chinese, she had a small curio shop. She was doing her accounts, and she had one. They?re wonderful to write with, but they?re not very good for the fine lines I need for drawing the charts up.
I don?t really advertise that I do the charts. It can be unnerving, I?m good at them. Sometimes, what I see in them is disturbing. People will take things like that and forget it?s a guide and the stars are ever changing, and turn them into hard and fast road maps. Which is almost like killing them.
On the other hand, it?s a lot of money for not a lot of work, other than drawing the figures, but I like that. I always get ink on my cuffs, though. So, I don?t read all that I see when I give them the charts. Just enough to get them started. If they want to read them more completely, well, someone else can.
My first customer, as it were, she scares me. I?m afraid she?s going to crack and take a pot shot at me. She?s a well known and respected astrologist and psychic. As it turns out, what she?s really good at is exploiting the work of those who are astrologists and psychics.
Which doesn?t matter to me. Once a week, one hundred dollars for one general chart and one specific, that?s a breeze. Which was a life saver, because I had to buy a generator for the house so I could repair the carbide gas plant and the light fixtures.
That was kind of nasty, cleaning out the pit. There were some bones down there, some smashed from the calcium carbide block. No one knew who they belonged to, so I took them to the little town west of here. They didn?t know either, and I even told them I had taken over the cemetary.
The constable called in a detective, and I showed them where I found the bones, but all they could figure was that however long ago, the cemetary had a live in and sloppy mortician. So, the detective had DNA samples and all that done, but being as they were half petrified with the calcium, it was inconclusive. They just gave me back the remains and I buried them in a nice box out by the fountain. I just marked it ?July? because that?s when I found it.
I put in a propane tank too, and now that it?s winter, I?m glad I did. I?ve only got one fireplace working, and the furnace is still rusted solid. It took me months to rebuild the wood stove, and I usually use the ice box, just not in summer, the ice melts and makes a huge mess.
I know it?s all pretty primitive, but it?s so much easier for me to relate to. I guess after all that time of the highest of high technology that was keeping me alive... Well. An ice box, carbide lights, a wood stove... It seems so much more real.
My other steady customer is Dame Arlene. She?s something else. She?s ancient, she looks at least eighty, flamboyant and completely alive. She?s not human, I?m not really sure what she is. She drives a big Deusenburg and scares the hell out of me when she insists on giving me a ride.
She likes to dress up like a poor old woman and go around seeing who will be kind to her. Which reminds me of old stories of good fairies and witches and angels. I?ve never drawn a chart for her, she has me draw charts about once a month for different people. She never has me read them, she says she can. I?m not really sure what she?s intending doing it, but she pays well, and it?s nice to sit and have a cup of tea with her before I go.
Oh, then there was the time Matilde got mad at me. Well, she does, but she blew like a hamster in the microwave that time. She?d been working on an experiment for over a year. She asked me to come in and help her get the tests ready.
While I was waiting, I read her notes, and I noticed that if she replaced the iron cauldron she was using with a non-reactive container, like Pyrex, she could simplify the entire process by ten steps and get a more accurate reading.
The next thing I know, I?m a frog. A FROG! She turned me into a FROG. And screamed at me, snatched me up off the floor and threw me into the employees atrium! There?s a pond in there and all, but that?s also where the company day care center often turns the kids loose, and the kids chased me around the moment I got out of the water!
Matilde wanted to yell at me more, so she turned me back, but I took off running the moment I could. Zane explained that I probably should have been a little more politic in telling Matilde about the cauldron thing. I told Mom, and she just laughed and said I had internitis and I should learn to send memos or keep my big mouth shut.
Well, so what if I do have internitis? The Four Winds is a think tank and research center, right? We should be able to freely express our opinions on each others work without fear of being turned into amphibians.
But then Matilde got in trouble for turning me into a frog, and I felt bad. Though not bad enough not to demand fair warning for when she had PMS, because hers is just what you?d expect from a wicked witch.
Then after that, Cam and I were talking to Fae, and I don?t remember just how it got there, but Cam slipped me twenty bucks to go buy a Barbie to give to Fae. I got one, and when I came back, I cast a small animate spell on it.
It moved when Fae took it and, Wow. I thought Matilde went off. She blasted that sucker into sub molecular particals. At least she didn?t blast Cam and I. Fae made me stand there so Cam could pat my butt, and I?m really not sure how that made anything up, but it seemed to satisfy her.
As long as she was happy, I suppose, I just am glad that it was someone I trusted, because I don?t think I could have stood for someone I didn?t know touching me anywhere.
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Journal Entry 14, Eighteen Four
Someone killed Cams brother. It was just her and him, Sam, all of their lives, she said. Her parents aren?t any good, and then, she lost her brother. She tried to act like she was just mad he got himself killed, but if he was the only true family she had, well...
It was hard for me to hear. Her parents failed her, she was lucky enough to have a brother who loved her just for being Cam, and he was taken away. She was robbed.
I listened to her some, and then she suddenly got up and almost ran away. It?s always hard to know what to do when someone does that. Sometimes you follow after them, other times, you let them go.
It happened before with Lola. A man that used to be her lover was making a jack ass of himself with her, and she suddenly stalked off. Her footsteps stopped in the alley, so I followed and listened to everything.
That was easy. Because she did stop. Cam, she wasn?t going to stop. Lola seems to have always had people who care about her to go and get her and listen and all. Cam, I guess she had Sam and that was it.
And he was dead.
I?m no authority on wrong and right, but... that was wrong. Fate doesn?t steal, fate aims you on your course. Of course, Cam and Sam are Catholic, so it would be God never closes the door without opening a window.
I guess I got aimed, or was outside the window or something. So I didn?t know if she?d stop at all, if she wanted to talk, if she?d just deck me to get me out of her way. I just did it.
I?ve been proud of that. I didn?t know what was going to happen. I could have gotten beaten silly and I even expected it, but I still went after her.
I gave her a flower. A camilla. It?s a simple spell, but it took me a long time to master. I think because it?s out of a white mages grimorie, and I always have some trouble with both light and dark magics. But, I made it, and I handed to her. She just stared at it.
Then she cried. I ...I mean, she cried. I?m not good at hugging, I don?t think I?m really comforting, and I hadn?t learned how to make myself purr then. I never really thought it would be necessary. I purr when I?m happy or comfortable, and sometimes when I?m scared, that?s just how it is. I started to realize that night, well... It comforts me, it might other people, too. Not everyone can purr.
I never thought it was odd, we all do, except for Dad. He?ll kind of rumble, but it?s not a real purring.
All I could do was listen and hold her up. Mom says, oh, baby, that?s a lot more than you understand. I guess she?s right.
I don?t remember if it was that night, or another one, but I promised Cam I wouldn?t let anyone turn her into a zombie. She?s from New Orleans, that?s not really such a strange thing. I promised her that if she died, I?d make sure she was buried and stayed dead. It was important to her. It?s important to me, too.
No matter how much I would want someone I loved back, if they didn?t want to be back, it would be wrong.
I wanted to stay with her that night, because I was worried. Cam lives bottled up inside, so do I, but I have family that I know I can trust. I would have, but she insisted no. So I just walked her home and kept watch as I could.
A few days later, she gave me Sams watch. She told me a lot about him. I miss knowing him. Next year, I?ll try to find him. They?re Catholic, so he?ll know to listen on the day of the dead. Even if he?s not left behind a ghost. There?s no veil to pull off if they?re in Heaven, they?re watching and touching hearts.
It?s just got to be very difficult before the hurt?s faded enough that they can be felt.
I?m afraid that the hurt won?t fade if it?s locked up inside, and she?ll never feel Sam reaching back to her. It?s worse and worse, though I?m getting ahead of myself again. I think I?m going to ask Cam to show me where he?s buried, and see if he can hear my prayers.
I should tell her, and Zane too, I love them just for being who they are. They?re sisters, so... maybe they already know because they?re family, probably they already know, but I do have a lot of failings of character. So I?ll tell them.
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Journal Entry 15, Eighteen Four
There?s an old fable, the fox and lion. A fox saw a lion for the first time, and was so terrified, that he lay down and almost fainted with terror. The second time the fox saw the lion, he shook badly. The third time, the fox walked right up to the lion and said ?how do you do??. The moral was ?familiarity breeds contempt?.
Pretty sophisticated stuff for a fox and a lion in such simple lines. It used to confuse me, too, because the fox wasn?t contemptuous of the lion at all, he was very polite. That was before I looked up the words.
So, the fox is terrified of the larger, more powerful, and certainly louder lion; which is perfectly reasonable. Yet, as time goes on, the fox realizes that while large, powerful, and loud, the lion isn?t going to hurt him. As long as they treat each other respectfully.
The lion?s way is already to be powerful and loud, someone who isn?t, the lion really can?t understand, just as the quiet and mild one isn?t going to understand the lion.
The fable also says, in ways, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and beard the wolf in his den. To me, anyhow. The fox could have been killed by his panic. Understandable, but letting an emotion rule your actions can be deadly.
Horam did scare me at first. A lot. But I realized, it wasn?t really him that I was afraid of. It was the way people manipulated him into violence. When there wasn?t someone there pushing his buttons, he was a quiet, stoic, strong being of great dignety and wisdom.
And I was pushing buttons, too, that I didn?t realize I was pushing. Just being afraid. That?s not a good way to be around some beings. It pulls on their senses and triggers the predator response.
But I?m not prey. And I?m not a coward.
The big Bambi eyes look works pretty good on Horam, though he insists he eats human children and all that, and who knows, maybe minotaurs do, but Horam stops almost in his tracks and starts snarling and muttering about ?they? will get mad if he creams the little brat.
I didn?t know who ?they? were then, but there was no way I was going to tell him that. I?m also not stupid.
But... One night, I watched. One of the tavern ?I?m so innocent let?s go have mad passionate sex? girls was harrassing him with her girlfriends. As if Horam was really nothing more than the village idiot. He finally walked away.
I asked him... Why are you here? Why are you here letting these morons treat you like a buffoon when you?re obviously a warrior, a veteran...?
Horam only has one eye, but I could see a lot there when I asked. There was pain there that never came from a battlefield. I think he?d infinitely prefer if it was. It wasn?t.
Somehow, he couldn?t go home. I know where he?s from, the company has a few shops there, of course, but it?s not the same time. Krynn. You have to anchor to a reality like RhyDin to meet people from different eras.
Horam can?t go home. Sometimes, it?s like a monkey wrench banging through my brain. He can?t go home. He has to live among people that don?t understand him, that consider him an animal, that insist on infuriating him to prove they?re not afraid of him.
It?s wrong, but... It has become his fate. Fate doesn?t cheat or steal or anything, and he believes in a set of gods, anyhow, and I guess those gods can be quite nasty. But Fate doesn?t cheat or steal, so... He just hasn?t found the path he needs to take again.
He tells stories of being in the great games. Gladatorial combats and wars. You can see it in his face and even in the way he?ll move in memory of the events. He?s a great story teller. Sometimes, Zane and I will sit all night and just listen to him.
I brought him some books about the Coloseum in Rome, and he was really pleased with them. He said it showed that humans had hope of civilization after all. A lot of people stared at me when I said I brought the books for him, because it never dawned on them that he could read.
He carves, too. He made the most wonderful birdbath from the bones of a giant, I think, for Tyg. He?s an artist but he doesn?t really think he is. I think it embarrasses him.
You don?t get to meet real live larger than life hero sorts, I mean, like the singing sequin cowboys. No modesty. Just flat out, arrogant, visible, heroic figures.
It must have been like this, being a little kid and getting to meet Roy Rogers in person at the height of his career. Big. And the same thing off screen as he was on. Except Roy Rogers wasn?t swinging around an ax and smashing a porch to splinters, and he wouldn?t eat his horse.
I think they buried him in Apple Valley. I?m going to go and see if he?s there. I don?t think he?ll have left a ghost, but I know he had to have left a lot of himself behind. He was just too big to completely go away.
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Journal Entry 16, Eighteen Four
I don?t want a girlfriend. I don?t want to catch any pretty little fillies. I?m not gay.
What in hell?s name is wrong with these people? Are they from the Television Planet where you turn sixteen and are assigned a partner whom you are expected to have wild, unrestrained sex with until you find another, and another and another, then you get married and you vanish to be replaced by another sixteen year old?
Logan?s Run is the stupidest book I?ve ever read, and now I?m living there.
A lot of the people from my highschool had girl and boy friends, yes. Not all of them. Actually, less than half. Most of those were very well supervised, and there was sex, sure, but I came to find out later most of them were lying and the ones that weren?t regretted it.
We talked about things other than sex. Even in college, drunk frat boys with no parents to come down on them, they had other interests. They could hold a conversation that didn?t boil down to sex.
And yet, in RhyDin, there?s this sick, hackneyed teen girl philosophy that you must have a mate, you must be in love or lust, you must be doing all you can to attract someone if you don?t have them, and if you do have them, you must be pulling out all the stops to have ever wilder sex to keep them. Oh, and then get pregnant.
Female or male!
It is all most of them think about, even a lot of the straight hetrosexual men who should be old enough to know better. It?s rediculous. Don?t they have lives? How can they stand to be lead around by their genitals?
It?s like they have no future at all. They exist only with a set of charactoristics pinned onto a sex.
I know I beat this horse so often, but it frustrates me so much. Almost every day, someone?s questioning my sexuality. Why doesn?t a handsome young man like you have a girlfriend? Oh, then you?re gay. Why not a boyfriend?
What?s handsome got to do with it? I?m not terrifically nice, I don?t have a great personality, I get obsessed with my work, I would rather play rotten tricks on my friends, family, and coworkers than to gaze in someones eyes and whisper words I don?t feel.
I don?t feel it. I don?t want to feel it. I thought it would be nice to have someone that would make me smile now and then, that would dance with me, to care about, listen and talk about the stars, work, just things. I thought it would.
But no, that?s not good enough. Not good enough at all. A kiss, no not on the hand, on the lips and get your tongue into the act. A touch, it?d better be on one the places covered by your bathing suit. A dance, no clothes, horizontal.
Care? There is no caring. I have to care that they need to get laid right now, because I?m totally wrong to not want that, too. Even if I did want it, what do I know about it? Sure, Mom and Dad explained all the basics, but they explained how to drive, too, and I can?t do that, either.
Just push me further and further into that imaginary bedroom, block every path, strip me down and what? What then? Why worry about it, I?m a teenaged male, I?ll abandon everything just to get sex. I should be grateful and thrilled.
Well, I won?t. I?m not grateful or thrilled. It infuriates me. How can someone say they care that much for you, and not even bother finding out what it is you really want? Or to ignore what they?ve already been told?
How can they say they care, when they know I?m disabled, and they don?t stop to think that it affects me at every level I have?
And I don?t really care. I?m me. That?s it. And even if I did, oh, Spirits, wouldn?t that be a sight? A siezure. That much touching, it makes me shudder just thinking about it.
It was fun to look at a pretty girl and see her look back and smile and blush a little. It was fun. Now I know what it means and what they want and I?d rather stab myself through the eye.
If that?s normal, I don?t want to be normal. I don?t think it is normal so I guess it doesn?t matter. I just want -- I just wish people would get off of my back about it.
I just want to live.
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Journal Entry 17, Eighteen Four
I guess that last entry kind of explained the entire month of November. Except it?s an ongoing thing that still drives me to distraction. I don?t mean to get so angry, but... Spirits, it?s ...just too much sometimes.
I agreed to a study, to be a test subject, in fact, for it. The abnormal brain. I really didn?t think they?d find anything to help me, but I knew it will help others. I suppose that?s altruistic, but I have to admit that even though I knew they wouldn?t find anything, I had to keep just a shred of hope.
I have to hope. I hate that I do. I can?t stand it if I don?t. It?s part of being alive, I know, but it hurts like hell with every failure, and I can?t stop myself from trying.
Feathyre came with me a few times. I know that had to have scared her a lot, but she didn?t get too antsy. She?s a hippogriff. Usually, she?s a hippogriff. She?s sweet, and fun, ...and I don?t really remember how I met her.
She was just there one day, I suppose. She?s very lovely, and I can understand her. The language is similar to the gryphons, and I liked being with them, too. I?ve never been able to whistle, so I can?t really talk back to her, but she understands English.
It was hard. It was such a huge step back for me. I had to stop taking my medication, and I didn?t even know what I?d be like after that. I was afraid I wouldn?t know myself.
Everyone kept saying, oh, if they?re really your friend, they?ll understand but please. It?s not very realistic to expect anyone to tolerate it if you become someone else entirely. I didn?t expect it, I just hoped I wasn?t really that horribly different.
Jackie stayed with me. She tried to make it as easy as she could for me, but it just didn?t change that I couldn?t take care of myself. Sometimes it seemed like all I did in a day was recover from seizure after seizure. Jackie would pull me out just so I could get some peace, some rest, but... it was still hellish.
Even without the Keppra, they?re really not that bad, I suppose. My seizures are usually incomplete partial, which is basically, I don?t usually lose consciousness and I don?t stop breathing. You have to be thankful for what you can.
I know, well, I usually know when they?re coming. Bea knows better. She?ll give me usually about ten minutes to stop whatever I?m doing and get somewhere safe. She almost taught herself to do that, it was amazing. It took longer to housebreak her than to teach her to speak up when she smelled the chemical change.
I?ve seen myself have a seizure, on home movies, it?s... Spirits, when I saw it, I was just... so amazed that my family takes it so well. I guess you get used to it.
I?m standing in the kitchen, talking to Dad. I started getting a look on my face like I was getting a migraine, kind of detached and confused. Then I went rigid, and it looked like I was staring at the most terrifying thing ever created. I groaned or... something. It?s a horrible sound, but it?s just air being forced past my vocal chords without modulation. Still, it chilled my blood.
Then I just kind of crumpled down and back, landed on my butt and then rolled back, it was bizarre because I was still so rigid and tense. Dad says he thinks I retain enough touch with consciousness usually to do that, to sit and roll rather than to just collapse. So I usually don?t hurt myself.
After that, I shake a little. I reach around, like I?m blind, and I guess I am at that point. It?s like I?m trying to go back to what I was doing, but I don?t really remember what that was. I go so pale, my lips will be white.
That?s really when it?s most dangerous for me, because I can get up and walk, but I don?t know what I?m doing. That time, though, Dad just knelt down and put an arm around my shoulders and told me to take it easy, I was fine.
There?s kind of a snap-focus, I think. I know I see it. It?s like I?m watching television, and the screen goes berserk, then black, and then berserk, and jumbled, and suddenly, bam, it?s clear again. I blinked a few times and said ?did I have one?? and Dad just kind of chuckled and said ?yeah. Get up and walk a bit, you?re still taking the trash out.?
I was kind of wobbly for a while, and even though Dad was pretty easy going about it, he watched me like a hawk. Then I took out the trash. Jackie was filming it, and I think that she wanted to make sure she caught one on the DVD so I could see what happens.
It really was a relief to see I wasn?t ...just ...gross or... I?ve seen grand mals, and they?re so violent. I?ve had them, just not in a long time. All I know of the ones I?ve had of those was that they took me hours to recover from instead of a half hour or so, and I felt like I?d been slammed against a wall.
But there?s nothing. I look so terrified, and there?s nothing. I don?t remember anything. I?m not afraid afterwards. I don?t feel anything, or if I do, I don?t remember it.
Maybe it?s a door opening in my mind that shows me hell and it?s so horrifying I can?t remember it when it slams shut. Maybe. Nanna says she?s never felt any doors opening there, and that?s what she does.
What?s weird is my eyes, my irises, really, start to work after I have one. The intensity of the muscle tension forces them to close even though normally, they won?t.
I like their color, they?re kind of mottled, splotches of blue and the same vivid green of Dads eyes. Alices eyes are like mine, too, but they work better. Jackie?s got jungle-cat eyes, they?re such an even, eerie blue emerald color.
That lasts a while, but it?s kind of disappointing. I know how to see with my pupils wide open like they usually are, but I don?t know how to see how I should. So it?s a little hard to get around, and by the time I?m used to it, the irises are frozen again.
Maybe one day... Maybe. I?m doing it again, but I just can?t stop it.
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Journal Entry 18, Eighteen Four
Everything that came next, some of it is still coming, and it?s all so jumbled in my mind still. Maybe in ten more years, it will make sense to me. Follow a pattern or order.
I sometimes go and see Talitha. She doesn?t know me, I don?t try to make myself known. A few times I was introduced, but I?m just another goth boy running around town, so I don?t worry about it. In any case, she?d ask me, ask me everything she asks everyone else, and I don?t have the answers she wants. They?re not mine to give.
I guess it?s just morbid curiosity. How can you sit and watch and watch and watch for so long? Uninvolved, but not. It?s weird. It?s a stasis that time doesn?t ignore. Growth that never blossoms.
I could be that, and I don?t want it. It?s not really living. There?s no fire. Nothing sparkles, it only shines. Reality loses itself, and then it just ...exists.
The year turned on everyone in its ending. Deceptively kind. What was good was only a thin veiling for what was wrong and going worse by the moment.
The fallout still presses on like a slow speed train wreck. I?m afraid, I?m so afraid that there won?t be anything left when it finally stops.
It started with love and death. I suppose that?s fitting. It may end that way, too, but I really don?t have a lot of hope for the love part.
Sam was killed. His things were sent to Cam. She gave me his watch. And then she took the watch back to open it, to take something out of the case before giving it back. That?s when I knew it wasn?t over at all.
Fae never has any luck with men. She?s so lonely, I think, that she?ll take up with any man who professes to really love her, even though she knows in her heart that he?s just trying to get a quick roll in the hay.
And then she had one. She?d known him a while, they?d been friends, and now they would be lovers. The only trouble with that was that the man had been for a very long while companion of some form to Zane. Well, more than a companion. He was the reason she never paid much attention to even the decent men that were looking for her attention.
I was so torn. I still am. I?ve only met him once, and I hate him.
I hate him.
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Journal Entry 19, Eighteen Four
Cam told me she was going to a psychiatrist, and I was glad except when I asked if was giving her anything for her problems with sleep and rage and stress, she said no. I?ve no problem with drugging her when she can?t sleep or can?t calm herself, but I?m not a doctor.
It bothered me that the doctor she had wasn?t taking action on the symptoms. But Cam felt it was all right, so I just gave her vicodin or shots of Demerol when I had to, stayed with her to make sure she was okay.
And then. And then. Chris was talking to a lady I didn?t know. Something bad happened. Something horrible. I asked what happened, and it felt like having a seizure and being aware of it every instant.
Zane was hurt, Gisa said. Badly. A fight. What kind of fight, what happened, why are you trying to protect me? Even Chris did, and Chris is the last person in the world to do that. Which is why I like him so much.
A dragon tore off - bit off - Zanes arm. Above the elbow. Gisa took me to see her, and I couldn?t stop crying. Zane cried. She said it hurt, and it wasn?t there. I didn?t know what to do, I couldn?t do anything anyhow. She cried. Her tears were so cold.
I made myself purr. It kind of hurt, but I know how now, and it doesn?t. Maybe it was just that I was so scared and so upset, and it?s around my upper chest that it vibrates, and that?s why it hurt. Everything was so tense.
But I did because I knew she liked it, and she thought it was cute and she knew I did it mainly when I was sleepy and leaning my head to her knee. I think she listened to it. She quieted a bit, anyhow, but she was pretty drugged and still in shock.
I just crawled into bed with her and slept or passed out, I?m not sure. She?s so big. So tall, so strong, so alive, and she ...was so... like she?d shrunk... alone. Just so alone.
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Journal Entry 20, Eighteen Four
I wanted to ask if I had ?I am a wizard? written across my face, I really did. After all the pains I went through to keep this quiet, suddenly, I have my skills at magic called into question by people who as far as I could tell, shouldn?t even know where I work.
Someone was able to break into Cams apartment. I picked up a framed photograph of Frank Sinatra and drew a ward on the back of it to give to her. He wasn?t the nicest person in the world, but he sang beautifully, and he did pay for Bela Lugosis? funeral, so the rest really doesn?t matter.
Of course, the ward won?t work if it?s broken, and that?s just what happened a while later. They called Cam on the phone and she freaked out, the ward was a casualty of the thrown base unit.
They, I wasn?t quite sure who they were. I don?t think she was, then, clearly, in any case. Either the people Sam had been working for or against. She wouldn?t tell me, she was afraid they?d come after me, and I wasn?t doing all that well.
The next thing I know, I?ve got people who are suddenly well aware that I crafted that ward demanding to know why it failed and how large of an area can I protect with a similar work. To say I was appalled and furious would be an understatement.
I know Cam didn?t tell them. She wouldn?t. She?s like Dad and Jackie, she kind of pretends it?s not there and accepts it when I do use it. If you ask her where the flowers I gave her came from, she?ll say I had them in my bag where I keep Bea at most. Zane wouldn?t either, and Fae would just shrug and say I don?t know.
But I kept my mouth shut. I had to. When accused, silence is assent, certainly, but playing dumb goes a long way with some people.
So that was that. Nanny was with me that whole time, simple enough to make anything mystical I might do to be the machinations of a powerful shadow tagging along at my heels. I taught Cam how to handle the heavy automatic rifles. I thought that made more sense than wringing my hands and trying to find someplace to keep her safe.
There isn?t safe, not when someone is alive. It?s not even all that safe to be a ghost. That?s why so many remain in the graveyards, it?s usually holy ground.
Without more information, all anyone would do is to eternally keep Cam in a nice box, warded seven ways to Sunday, and watch her go insane. It was her war, it wasn?t going to be fought with her taken from the front lines.
Which was why I made sure she could handle the heavier rifles. Bonny Parker could handle a BAR, there wasn?t any reason why Cam couldn?t, she?s bigger and taller than Bonny was. There?s a school of thought that Bonny was possessed by demons and that?s why she could manage the weapons, but please, how mysengynistic can you get?
In any case, there?s not much that?s cooler than a lady in high heels and one of those suit-dresses and a hat swinging around a Tommy gun. Well, a lady in full chain maille flipping a sword over her wrist, that?s pretty awesome too. I don?t understand why most of the men around here would rather take their weapons away and put them aside nice and safe. How boring.
Those are probably the same guys who buy paintings of mostly naked ladies with improbable weapons and useless armor and usually panthers or wolves. Someone ought to bitchslap Rowena and tell her to paint real women in real conflict. Fire fighting or search and rescue or police work or military. I?d buy those.
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[Interlude: Now]
It wasn?t a Victrola. A Gold Star, old, so well kept it seemed new, clockwork accurate in its windings, timing adjusted to the instant. He smiled as he opened the antique player, setting aside the mahogany veneered lid to raise up the mast, a delicate touch suspending the morning glory painted tin horn.
It was almost a matter of a mirical that such players caught on to become eventually electrified, the machines required patience and a light, deft touch. He had that and more. He understood the machine.
As well kept, his records. Each heavy laquer disc in its sleeve in book like albums, each seeming as new as the day they were pressed to the labels pasted in the center. Yet he bypassed the heavier discs bearing long forgotten names, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Katie Webster.
A colorful case, strange as the era that produced it. A slight smile, burnt ironic and verging on a sneer, touched his lips as he slid the album free. It was never meant to be played on the accoustic machine, and still he threaded it onto the spindle.
Once it had been performed at concert volumes, through Marshall stacks taller than a mans height, through Celestions the size of drum heads, a guitar army fortified with primitive keyboards, with the tube fired synthesizers, pickups the length of eighty eight keys, double bass cannons under the militant roll of the snare. War declared on the silence, a battle marching on not to his tastes.
After a moments hesitation, he set the needle down up a few cuts. The clutch released, the turntable spun, up to speed with the crack stressed voice opening the piece. Soft, strange, tinny in the directing of the horn. He watched even as he listened, the first downbeat of bass pulling the rest of the music, swinging sequin studded hips of a lady you knew better than to follow home.
You?re boned like a saint
With the consciousness of a snake.
You?re the kind of girl
I?d like to find.
Face like an angel
But you?re boned like the devil.
Your eyes have shifted from me
Everyone saw what you did.
You have slipped from beneath me
Like a false and nervous squid.
Oh no more horses horses,
We?re gonna swim like a fish
Into the hole, in which you planned to ditch me
My lovely Vera Marie...
You planned to leave me cold
But you?ll never get your wish,
On the 24th of May
I?ll gather up your reins.
You filled me with a vengeance
And you touched me with your breath.
I?m gonna pull you from this dance
You?re gonna ride so easily.
Oh no more horses horses,
We're gonna swim like a fish
Into the hole, in which you planned to ditch me
My lovely Vera Marie...
I was your victim,
I was well deceived,
Hell?s built on regret
But I love your naked neck.
Those evil lies that you told me
Could make me believe that you?re two-faced.
Because two faces have you,
And they?re both gonna go.
Oh no more horses horses,
We?re gonna swim like a fish
Into the hole, in which you planned to ditch me
My lovely Vera Gemini.
With the hiss of false silence between songs, he picked up the tone arm, set it back down to hear the cut once more. And again. Again. Until the spring ran down, slowing each word into a strange lull of distinction, distorting music into a distant lowing.
Thoughtful, he finally cranked the machine back to power, removing the relic of the 1970s to replace it with a far earlier relic. As the brass tinged strains of Edwardian jazz sounded, he carefully cleaned the first album, a dark and even brow lifting quietly.
I wonder what astrological sign he is...
(The Revenge of Vera Gemini, Blue Oyster Cult)
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Journal Entry 21, Eighteen Four
Shadow started showing up again. Ogre girl, I always call her. I met her, I suppose you would say, as she was fleeing the wrath of an ired ogre. The irony was... interesting, to say the very least. I?d been talking to Chris, and he had just pulled me away from a very annoying girl who kept crying about her parents coming to kill her because she had two different colored eyes.
Hello? Her parents knew she had two different colored eyes when she was born. They didn?t kill her then, so what?s their beef now? And I?m going to somehow take on these people? With what, my rapier wit and winning personality, not to mention my horrible hell hound, Bea?
Chris said damsels in distress were a pain in the ass, try to catch them before they?re in distress and they?re more interesting. Well, I didn?t want them then, either. Chris is welcome to them. Which was fine with him.
And as we were talking, here came Shadow and the ogre. I think she stole something from it, or he thought she did, and I really did not feel like dealing with an ired ogre. I think it was Joy I helped climb over the railing, I?m not sure, there?s been a few girls like her. They?re all right, but I?m just not really willing to be anyone?s hero.
Anyhow, I suppose they drove off or killed the ogre, all the heroic sorts in the tavern at the time, but I was really surprised when Shadow didn?t go fluttering into any of their arms. I mean, she looked like a street rat, but some of them do. No, she climbed up onto the porch and talked some to Chris, but that was it.
I?ve never seen anyone here do that. It really surprised me. She didn?t always have ogres chasing after her, but even once does leave a mental scar. I kept my distance, though got to know her well enough to talk to.
Anyhow, she started showing up again, and it was kind of neat, she?d decided to go back to school and learn social manners and that. That really was a surprise, I?ve never seen anyone here strive to make more of themselves unless there was a prospective lover to gain from it.
Zane started to get better, but most times I went to see her, I ended up just reading or talking to Gisa or the nurse. I guess her mind was kind of slipping a bit, she?d out of the blue take swings at people, and that?s still a lot of power behind a punch. So they kept her drugged up a lot.
One night, though, she told me everything. Everything that happened. A dragon had attacked her, that?s what Gisa said. Well, the dragon was Zanes close and dear friend.
Teflon gets more stuff stuck to it than some of the people around here, that?s all I have to say. On one hand, I want everything to work the way Zane wants and hopes, on the other, I?ve got an entire spell book of ways to permanently deal with disloyal souls and the advantage of inside information and surprise.
I did astrological charts for a couple I met at the Red Dragon Inn that ended up a windfall for me in that regard. Kain Shingure, I still need to give him the chart I did for him, seems something of a procurer of the rare or obscure.
Or, as Shakespeare wrote -- by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. I can picture him starting curio shop named ?Needful Things?.
I didn?t do the wifes? chart, she didn?t ask for that. Beth, her name is, and I don?t know. She should be by all manner and account the utter upstanding and proper sort, but no two of her children had the same fathers. That can be accounted for in marriage and widowing, of course, but you wonder when you see a lady like that with a man like Kain.
In any case, in exchange for the charts, Kain gave me four grimories. They deal with monsters, demons, and mages. Again, it makes me wonder at the motives of the man, but I can?t deny the works could be very helpful in this place.
What I really need to find, though, is how to counter Matildes transformation spell. She did it to me again, when I had brought Feathyre, Zane, and Cam to the apothecary. One moment, I?m talking, the next, I?m a rabbit.
Specifically, a lop.
This wouldn?t have been so bad in itself, except that she took a photograph and sent it to Cam and Zane.
Zane had her new arm by then, it?s really cool, this translucent blue stuff over an armature, and actually, trying to keep from stepping on me and getting her cel phone out to call Tainy to turn me back got her to use it. She?s better about it now, not nearly as self conscious.
Everything she told me, though. It didn?t make sense, and it doesn?t seem like it?s going to any time soon. She said everyone knows how much she loves him, Fae used to say that you could see sparks between them when they were together.
Except him, evidently. It?s hard for me to believe he wouldn?t know this, when even I know when someone?s getting too fond of me. Especially since he seems to run on his sex drive.
Zane blames Fae, Fae feels she?s betrayed a friend for love, and neither of them are looking right between them at the person who walked right by Zane to take advantage of Fae?s wish to be loved.
Still, still neither looks there. Why? How could anyone be worth a friend? He doesn?t sound like much of a friend to me. So far, I?ll I?ve heard of him is that he leaves the moment something difficult for him to deal with comes up.
As if you prove to him all over again how mean everyone is if you don?t accept everything he does, no matter how low and vicious it was. But it wasn?t him, it was this evil part of him, and if you don?t accept that too, and never say a word against it, you?re another one of the mean souls who just can?t understand him.
If I went around saying that any damage I caused when I had a seizure wasn?t my fault and I couldn?t be held liable for it, my parents would smack me into next week and take me right back home for being too immature to be on my own. I can?t control my seizures, but I usually know when they?re going to happen. I can minimize how it affects others, and I do. I apologize because I know it?s frightening, and I deal with it face on.
I would always ask ?what else would I do?? when people remarked on the fact that I clean up my own messes, that I face the aftermath of my own disability, and I really didn?t know what else I would or could do. Apparently, I could also sneer and walk away saying ?tough luck, bint, it wasn?t my fault.?
I can?t see how anyone can live that way. How they can look at themselves in the mirror. How they can think they?re gaining anything.
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Street Interlude
He knew Zane. He knew Zane better. Streetwise, smart, savvy. Zip had what Desdenova needed, badly, to pass on information to Zane. The youth knew well when he was in over his head and when to seek for those with the experience and, in this case, the cold hard impersonality.
The trouble was that Desdenova had no idea where to find Zip.
Yet, a tossed off remark at the Halloween party, a few conversations, words overheard, and most telling, the chemical and blood scents often in aura around Zip, those gave the youth a good idea of how to bring the man to ground.
Another vampire. A lothlario of the inns and taverns, impeccably dressed and an utter disgrace to Bela, an easy target. Easily lured to an alley, into the touch of shadow...
The youth stumbled when he left the dark access road, recovered quickly to his inevitable return to the Medieval Tavern. Careful to leave a trail, so precisely spaced each drop of blood that it could only be a trail. In the bathroom, more tangible, his shirt crumpled and shoved under the sink with the note requesting Zips attention for a small matter concerning Zane.
Left to be found, to be spoken of among the shadows and vermin, a Toreador, hammered to the timber wall though chest and throat with heavy iron railroad spikes, inverted, to let the lower body drape over the upper. Desiccated internal organs split with a precision keenness from the body.
Stolen blood painted boldly above the twist of carcass, 'Eric 1, Hyde 0.' A single steel scalpel, the weapon used to open the eviscera, jammed as precisely through an eye socket, but it was not the weapon that killed the vampire.
Apparently, the scalpel there only as insult to injury, or to point out the burns around the mans mouth and tongue in the very faint chance Zip would not be able to scent that high, acrid corrosive mixed in the spilled blood.
Desdenova bet that the situation was unusual enough to be remarked upon. He knew that even should the body be removed, the scents would remain. He simply hoped this would bring out Zip soon. There wasn't much concealing ones tangling with vampires, and Desdenova was just a young chemist and astronomer.
http://www.cam.ac.uk/societies/fms/p...ucifiction.jpg
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Journal Entry 22, Eighteen Four
It bothered me. A lot. It still does. Zane deserves so much more, and she just doesn?t see it like I do. Excuses after excuses, all poor, and it?s like she?s special if she can swallow them. If she doesn?t take it, he leaves.
He leaves anyhow.
It occurred to me that Zip knew Zane a lot better than I do. There?s Rex, but Rex doesn?t seem to know Zane so much as he knows what he wishes that she was.
The only trouble is that it?s difficult to find Zip. I knew he?d been staying at the tavern, but I wasn?t going to go knocking on doors. There?s a fashionable and exclusive little club not far from the tavern, though, it attracts the beau monde, the typically Toreador sorts. High class and snobby, that hopeful French sensuality sort of thing.
I am good looking, and it doesn?t take a lot to make people think I am a victim. It amazes me how careless those vampires are. All I did was stare at one and then smile a little, and he was all over me like ugly on an ape.
I started sighing over how fascinated I was with the whole vampire scene, had to listen to him blather back lines that someone should curb stomp Anne Rice for writing in the first place, and got him to come out to the alley with me.
I had to let him bite me, and I swear the next time I hear someone whimper about how sensual it is, I am going to bitch slap them into next week. It hurt. A lot. Four freaking spikes driven into your throat is not sensual unless you have absolutely no nerve endings and your brain functions only at the cerebral cortex.
I wasn?t sure how well it would work. I know my blood is toxic to a lot of things, but not how much. If there?s ever been tests done on it, I?ve never seen them. I couldn?t ask Jackie or she?d immediately want to know why I was curious about it. Mom and Dad wouldn?t even ask that much, they?d just assume I was up to no good and take me home.
It worked, however, just not as fast as I would have liked. I?m not sure if that?s because of the nature of the beast or because I?m technically only half bred. Or two thirds, because the same blood is in Dads? system, but he wasn?t born with it, and I?m not sure if it made any physiological changes when he received it. He did say it hurt a hell of a lot.
Anyhow, I had to make it good or it wouldn?t get Zips attention. It had to be creative, and I think it was. I found a few railroad spikes, I left a scalpel in the things eye because that would show the burns from my blood. I really had to hope Zip was as intelligent as he seemed and I?d been told, I wrote ?Eric One, Hyde, Zero? over the body.
I left a mess, but I had no choice. I left a trail back to the tavern, changed my shirt, left the old one there. Cleaned out the wound and bandaged it and walked out -- right into Gisas path.
That wasn?t bad enough, no, Feathyre and Rex both showed up moments later, and here I was with a fresh set of fang marks across my throat, faint and in pain, and they wanted to know who did it.
Well, I showed them the middle of the trail and let them follow it. I insisted that this dude jumped me, and before he could really hurt me, some hero sort came out of nowhere to rescue me.
The ironic thing was that apparently, Rex had gone into a frenzy not too far from this alley and had killed a large number of... something, I?m not sure what. So I simply let him assume that while still in that rage, he walked away from the first site, recognized me, and that I was in danger, and pulled me out.
I?m not sure Gisa bought that at all. She kept sniffing at my blood, and the writing on the wall over the vampire certainly wasn?t Rex?s style, but she didn?t say anything.
Feathyre was the most difficult to deal with. She can be horribly single minded, and even when she knows what occurred, will choose a course of action and follow it, right or wrong. I had to keep reminding her that she really didn?t have all the skills she needed to become a vampire hunter in all truth.
I don?t know if that?s because she?s young, or if it?s a hippogriff trait. They protect, I know that, it?s a hold over from the original gargoyles, but still, they aren?t any closer to what they were created to be as most races. Perhaps they didn?t inherit all that much of the gryphons truth seeking, or too much of it. The truth and the facts, after all, are two wildly different things.
I gave them facts, but I interpreted them. It was so easy. I never dreamed it would be that easy. Gisa was the only one that seemed to draw her own conclusions. Cam only suspected, Zane seemed to accept it, everyone else patted Rex on the back and told him well done.
Telling Rex that, however, only tends to make him more morose and depressed over what he is. I thought I was moody and had severe bouts of depression over being what I am. I am a rank amateur, comparatively speaking.
I really don?t understand Rex, honestly, but I try. I try very hard because it?s so similar to what I go through. In fits of rage, he becomes larger, stronger, more violent, animalistic.
He becomes powerful, and this upset him. Maybe it?s because he has no control over it, maybe it?s because it takes him longer to get over it, maybe it?s because he doesn?t recognize people while he?s in that state.
I suppose I would be upset if a seizure meant that I took out a city block, too, but it would be a lot more interesting that just collapsing and twitching. It would be a lot nicer to know I wasn?t going to get killed in the midst of one. That in a situation that was dangerous, pitting me against some foe or another, seizing in the middle of it would mean kicking serious ass.
Rex?s spells or whatever they are don?t seem to be random events, though. They have specific triggers, rage or pain, and always aim him at whatever is trying to kill him. I would be overjoyed to have a specific trigger, instead of just vaguely knowing stress will most times cause me to seize.
Most times, but not always. It?s hellish when I know I?m stressed, and yet, I don?t seize. I start hoping that maybe finally the meds are working, and that alleviates the stress, and the next thing I know, I?m picking myself out of a ditch or off of the bathroom floor or something.
Maybe that?s the second occasional trigger, the release from stress, but it never happens suddenly. It?s always slow.
It doesn?t matter, I suppose, it?s still a slap in the face.
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Journal Entry 23, Eighteen Four
Feathyre turns into Fallyn, and Fallyn into Feathyre, but they don?t quite share the same memories. It?s interesting, something like a dual personality that is aware of itself. Fallyn?s a nice girl, from what I?ve seen of her. She?s bright and cheerful, sometimes a bit too energetic, but so is Feathyre.
The difficult part is both sides, if you will, keep resurrecting a horrible crush on me, which is very uncomfortable for me, because both seem more like sisters to me. I suppose that must be difficult to accept when you want more, but I just don?t have more.
They?ve both been so hurt with love, well, that?s the best reason I can think of to just steer the hell clear, but that?s kind of like saying ?stop breathing? to some people. So I remind her that she can?t love anyone unless she loves herself. And I can?t show her how to do that, because that?s just me putting myself into the position of being the one she really loves, and not herself at all.
So it goes, round and round. As I wrote before, she gets something into her head, and it?s like pulling teeth to get her to let it go. I explain that I?m disabled, I can?t take care of myself very well, I don?t want to be taken care of, and she says things about sharing lives. I just got this life, I?m not going to share it with someone right out of the box, as it were.
I don?t want to have to rescue someone if they?re going to start making bad choices just because I won?t give in and agree to be in love. I?ve gone that route before, and I?m just not going to do it again. It still disgusts me that I did allow myself to be cornered like that.
I?m not going to suddenly realize what I?ve had right before me all this time because though Mom was born in the South, sisters and cousins just are not all that attractive. I?ve seen people do that, suddenly deciding the person they?ve thought of as a sibling all these years is someone they want to make a husband or a wife, and that is so gross. It either means someone?s got some problems in the head or they were just lying to themselves.
And really, when it comes down to it, I don?t give very much at all. I listen, and that?s about all I can do. That?s not enough to make a deep and abiding love from. It?s difficult because nothing I see really works out more between us than friendship, but she?s got it into her head that being treated decently is love.
I don?t want to get angry and ugly, but sometimes, I?ve been so frustrated, I?ve had to really stop myself. She?ll abruptly become horribly hostile to any woman or girl I?m speaking to, she?s been jealous of both Cam and Zane both, she sometimes makes me feel like I?m helpless. I just don?t know what to do other than to keep saying ?no?.
I know she?s young and has a lot to learn, I just wish she?d lay off the romantic love end and work on self and family love. Or anything else. Anything. She gets upset when I say things to that effect and will announce how all love is bad, and I just want to scream. My point went whizzing right past her and all that remains is disturbed air.
I guess it?s really not too different from when Jackie would sit and insist on telling me about who she liked and didn?t like and like-liked and all that, except that this time, she?s got a crush on me. The ironic thing is that every time I have to remind Feathyre that I can?t return the crush, it puts me more in mind of being a brother.
When I was around girls that I could be friends with, I never had to spend so much time, any at all, really, defending my ways. We just did stuff. Talked about things. We just had fun. Sometimes we?d complain about things, but I never found myself reminding them that I wasn?t in any way shape or form ready for any sort of a romantic relationship.
I really don?t like it when Feathyre makes me feel like I?ve been staked out and back off, I own him. I really don?t. She hasn?t done that recently, but it still irritates me.
Why is it so hard to understand that I like being alone? It?s not like I?m secretly longing to be loved and for foolish reasons like wanting a career and independance, I?m denying myself. I realize most people around here spent most of their lives alone and don?t like it, but that?s not how I have lived.
I?m not really alone. I have my family. I can be a million miles away, and I?m not alone because they love me, and I love them. No one can take the place of that. Nothing can. But no one understands that here. I don?t have a lover, so I must be alone.
If I have to be completed by someone else, I will shoot myself in the head. That is the most repellent thing I have ever heard. I am my own person. I?m not half a man because I don?t have a good woman helping me along. My parents didn?t complete each other, they were perfectly fine in their own right. They were and are whole people.
I thought about it, too, from the point of veiw of not having a family, and I knew that if I didn?t have them, I would find people that would be my family. I wouldn?t try to replace what I was missing with a lover when what I really wanted was a parent or a sibling.
So many do that. It gives me the horrors when I see it. A man literally raising a girl while she is his lover. A woman grooming a boy to be her lover. They may all be of legal ages, but it?s a bizarre ...pedophilia of mind. It?s disgusting.
Ugh, I?m doing it again. I ended up naming off all the sorts of girls I did not want to have to do with, and I swear I eliminated almost every female in this reality. I suppose it could be considered horribly arrogant, but I see no reason why I should make myself miserable just to make someone happy who can?t make their own self happy.
I wonder sometimes I that will ever happen to me. If I?d fall in love with someone who sees me as a brother. If I?d have to make the decision to swallow my feelings and be a brother or walk away.
I?d like to think I?d be able to put aside what I felt and be a brother, but I don?t know. I look at Mom and Dad, and I see that they respect and like each other very much, and I know that no matter how things would have worked out, they?d be close. On the other hand, they?ve never been apart since before they were married, and really don?t seem to know anything besides being married even though they were both on their own and alone for a very long time.
I know it?s got to be a terrible blow to Feathyres ego and pride, but it?s not as if I?m offering second place, as it were. It?s the best I have. And as often as she insists she?s still learning, well, she is. Liking someone because they?re nice is totally different from respect, admiration, and all that.
It would be horribly ironic to lose a friend, a sister, over love. I?m so glad sometimes I?ve never felt all this. I sometimes pray I don?t. I can?t imagine living like that. So constantly emotionally unbalanced... I?d probably never stop seizing.
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Journal Entry 24, Eighteen Four
Well, my throat hurt a lot. I couldn?t do what?d I done for Cam when that moron left her to face that vampire. That was a lot of work, and it still left a scar. I think I?ll start nagging Cam to fix that, too.
So I was taking Darvon, and that tends to mellow me out a little too much, as it were. I wasn?t much good for anything, but when I get up in the morning, I take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast and go to work. I?ll find myself walking to work even on the weekends. I usually stop to get coffee, which is usually a good thing, it?s less of a walk to get sent home from the tavern than work.
Vee was there that morning, she?s a harpy. But she only has two boobs, and her wings are like a dragons. She?s nice, but I wonder sometimes why she?ll allow a lot of the things that she does. It?s kind of typical, though, around here. I try not to say anything, I guess if they?re doing it so much, they must enjoy it.
Feathyre and Fae were there, and then Tainy came by. I knew who she was, but I?d never seen her before. I only knew she was a fairy. She?s tiny, she can stand in my palm without any trouble at all. She left tiny handprints of fairy dust that glowed.
Things like that tend to fascinate me when I?m not stoned out of my gourd, and well, I was, quite frankly. I started wondering if someone could turn a fairy into other things, since she could just turn me back from a bunny, and well, I didn?t think it through very well.
I cast a spell to turn Tainy into a sparrow, and it bounced. The spell, I mean. I?ve never seen a casting go haywire like that, and I remembered right as I did it that fairy magic can do that, and often does, to the spells of mages.
Well, Tainy gained a pair of wings and a beak, Vee?s wings turned from leathery to feathered like a giant pair of sparrows, and worst of all, Paige was coming around the corner and turned entirely into a sparrow.
Oh wow, can she cuss. I understood her until Tainy whizzed over and quickly changed her back. I was so glad Tainy did because I was so shocked, I couldn?t do much more than just stare. Then Paige was cussing in Italian, I think, which I couldn?t understand.
I could have fainted, but I didn?t. She was very nice about it, for which I was glad. I don?t usually do things like that, and I couldn?t say, oh, well, I?m on Darvon, I?m beat up and still recovering from being bitten by some geek vampire.
I was really glad Tainy was there, too, because Paige was pregnant, and though the spell shouldn?t affect that, it?s good to know, and for all I know, it could have. I don?t know what Paige is outside of what she appears to be. Tainy was able to check and all, I was really too shaken up to be much use.
Paige told me I had to tell her husband this, and all I could really do was hope he wasn?t the sort to shoot first and ask questions later. So I went the next day, and I didn?t take any Darvon. He was at a little airfield, and the airplanes that were out were so beautiful.
He just said his name was Rick, and I?d heard about him around the tavern. I?d met Paige a few times, she?s nice. Their last name is Halliburton, and I didn?t think any thing of it until I met him.
It was him. The writer. I was so stunned, I didn?t say anything. It was just so strange, standing there, talking to someone declared dead long before I was born. It was really strange when I realized I?m a little taller than he is.
Rick wasn?t mad, he seemed a little surprised, I don?t know why, maybe because I was there at all or maybe because I just said I wasn?t thinking when I cast the spell. Maybe because I don?t look like a mage sort, I?m not sure. He insisted on looking at the bites, and I let him, but he still was looking at me oddly.
He told me if I wanted to make it up, to get the air fields books caught up, and I did, that was simple. It only took me a little time to do that, so I snuck out of the office to watch them working on the planes and the ones coming in and going.
I just wonder if they know how lucky they are. They can climb into an airplane any time they want and take off. There?s a boy working there, Colm, he caught me watching and asked if I wanted to help. He was doing some body work on a Cessna, and I know how to do body work, but I?ve never done it on aircraft.
Mom?s got her Aeronica, but it?s always pristine. Dad or she will work on the engine, it?s not original, it?s got a Wasp in it. Anyhow, Colm seemed pretty happy with my help, not like I was getting into his way or anything.
Colm showed me his car, it was a hearse, but he?s made it into a rolling gothic chapel. It?s incredible. It started with a mid eighties Cadillac hearse, he put a Yugo on it as a dome, then all sorts of odd things. It?s like Carthedral, but his own version. He?s really devoted to his mom and dad, too, it was nice to meet someone that understood being close to family.
Rick gave me a ride back to the cemetary, which I was glad of, I was tired and my neck was aching something fierce. He asked if I wanted to go up flying sometime, and I said yes before I knew what I was saying. I was lucky that day, and that luck never holds. Most times when I do get to fly with Mom, I still seize. She has to disable the door handle when I go with her, because I?ll always unbuckle and open the door if I can.
I want to go, but I can?t unless I explain, and I just don?t want to. I don?t want to explain to someone like Rick that I?d never manage it. I don?t know if it?s pride or embarrassment or just hating the thought that I can?t do any of the things he?s written about and I?ve wanted to do.
It was easier when he was another writer from a place and time that are long gone, you can almost fancy it?s fantasy and wasn?t real at all. But it wasn?t and isn?t.
He?s nice, though. It was too easy to see the sympathy that would be all over his face. Or the worry or fear.
I did finally tell him, though. It?s always a little harder to tell men, I don?t know why. I guess because I am male, too, and I don?t want to admit to a weakness. Or because it?s easier to think a woman can deal with the possibility that I might drop in my tracks.
Or just a male thing, I?ve always been like that. Maybe because I didn?t like reminding Dad I only look like him and not much is the same inside. I know that?s stupid, I know he doesn?t care as I?m happy and as healthy as I can be. Maybe that?s where all the ego I have went. Towards obsessing on being what I think I should be and ascribing it to what Dad might think I should be.
Rick didn?t react at all when I told him, though, he just nodded and asked a few questions. Like a doctor would. Do I need to bring along any special equipment, do you need someone with you, how bad are the seizures usually, will you need any special care after one?
That made it a lot easier. I wasn?t sure how he?d know how to ask those questions. Maybe it?s just something they teach pilots in case they?re transporting patients. I told him that Mom has to disable the door latches, because for some reason, any time I?m in a moving vehical and have one, I immediately try to get out.
He said that was probably my equalibrium protesting the added work, and not to worry, we?d go up in the DC-3, it doesn?t have any side doors in the cockpit, and the passage back to the cabin was narrow, he?d be able to grab me and put me back in the seat.
Which meant I?d get to fly in the cockpit of the DC-3, and I was completely stunned.
A lot of people tell me they?re going to take me riding or flying, but it never happens. I think about it, and sometimes I?m almost glad they don?t. I want to, yes, a lot, but I hate knowing that I?m just not going to make it.
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Journal Entry 25, Eighteen Four
A madman among the mad,
A monster in the cellar
A facade that's iron clad
He's Hells auctioneer
The Doctor's not a doctor,
The Doctor's gone insane
The Doctor's not a doctor,
Trapped us all in his twisted game.
Don't you know who I mean
Don't you have the man I've seen
The asylum's doors are open
And the worst free of his pen
The Doctor's not a doctor,
The Doctor's gone insane
The Doctor's not a doctor,
Trapped us all in his twisted game.
Can't you see it in him
Using us all to his whim
There's magic in his eyes
And all he says is lies...
(Park Place Productions, all rights reserved)
It?s a sad kind of insanity when you?re willing to betray yourself for monetary gain, but you don?t have the guts to ride it out.
It was also kind of annoying to have to lose a psychiatrist willing to work for lower aims than mental health, but he hurt Cam. Set her up to be worked over. That had to be answered, and you?d think he?d have known that.
He was afraid. Too afraid, the scent alone was irritating. You can yell and scream and snarl at these sorts, and it doesn?t do much more than make them gibber like morons. It?s better to just give them a quiet show of your obsessions.
I felt sorry for him, actually. I was going to leave him there to the tender auspices of the mob boss he was working for, but you know, just talking to him like Cam and I were, he was practically in extremis. It?s easier to keep the blood from splashing on you when you?re left handed, anyhow.
I didn?t deal with the receptionist, and I should have, I know, but it ended up working out all right. She gave my description to the cops, but I?d signed Zips? name on the sign in sheet. Zip and a thousand other skinny goth boys answer my description, after all, and Zip?s got a record that the cops around here aren?t going to want to go near.
He thought it was funny, and probably hoped that some of the thugs after Cam came after him, it worked out.
I think it kind of shocked Cam that I could or would do that. What else could I do? The man set her up to be hurt. You can?t just walk away from that, turn the other cheek. I?m not a Christian, and I can?t see too many Christians not wanting some sort of vengeance.
Cam calls me Little Evil and Evil Light, but I don?t think I am. Evil. I can?t touch it. I can touch good easier than evil. Both hurt, a lot, sometimes. Sometimes, it?s all in my own perception rather than what is. Other times, what calls itself evil or good isn?t. That happens a lot, actually, around here.
I had Cam staying with me by then, and I actually kind of liked it. She wasn?t doing so good, and I was able to take care of her some. I don?t mean like I was babysitting her, but to make sure she ate and slept. I learned to cook more vegetarian meals because she is, and though I like to tease her sometimes by making sausages squeal or eggs scream, I wouldn?t go much further.
I made her come home with me the night there was a conjunction of planets an hour before dawn. She was too tired to argue, and I?d drank coffee at midnight. And after everything else, well, Jace just packed up her stuff and sent it over, too.
I like it when they crawl in bed with me, too, which I suppose most psychiatrists would have a field day with. Sleeping with your sisters and all. But I do, really, it?s nice to know they?re there and I can hear them breathing and their hearts beating.
I like to think I can drive off their nightmares, too, but I can?t always. Sometimes, if I?m awake and they?re asleep and I see it. I want to, but some things just can?t be altered.
I just hope I don?t cause any. I probably do, but I try not to.
<font color="#999999" size="1">[ May 29, 2005 04:37 AM: Message edited by: Desdenova ]</font>
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Journal Entry 26, Eighteen Four
I like Jace. Cam didn?t, not when she first met him. She thought he was kind of snotty and arrogant, like a lot of the guys are around here. I mean, all you have to be is male and reasonably mobile for most of the woman around here to swoon over you, I suppose even I get a little snippy about it.
I worry some, because Jace seems to be the sort that doesn?t stay. I don?t know if they?ll be together forever or anything, but I can see them being friends. Sometimes, they seem better at that. Being friends. I think that?s more important.
On Valentines, Cam stayed home, and I know she was out of sorts. I had work, so I left her some little toys and candy, and a video of ?Godzilla? because I like to sing her Gonzos ?Camilla? song. But Jace showed up out of the blue and took her out.
I asked where they went the next morning, and she blushed, and finally said that they?d gone to the submarine races. Which really confused me. It was night, and submarines go under the water anyhow, and they can?t be easy to see from the beach even in day time. And why would that get a blush? I don?t understand couples.
Jace was there the last day Cam was at her apartment. The last night. The psychiatrist had given her address to the thugs after her. One was watching her. She knew it, she knew it was coming, she freaked out... I guess it was a complete psychotic episode. She even knocked over the Fender Rhodes keyboard. It was okay, though, she just loosed a few tubes and broke the cord, I fixed that in an hour.
He was kind of trying to pick through the mess, and I guess he finally realized there was someone watching Cam. Anyhow, I got there as he was walking out and just... Well, I was stunned. Jace wasn?t leaving, though, he found the guy that did it and grabbed him.
We already knew who, this guy gave us where, and he screamed a lot. That?s really annoying. If you?re going to hand out cruelty, you should be prepared to accept at least as much as you?ve given, after all. I guess most of these thug sorts are too arrogant to think they could end up on the wrong end of a boot on your testicals. That was kind of creative, but it took too much time for my tastes.
I was able to deaden off the sound, so it wasn?t like Jace or Cam had to hurry. I don?t think in terms of personal revenge in the sense of an eye for an eye and returning what was given, to me, it?s either make my point and assume they?re smart enough to listen or to simply remove the problem. I guess because Dad?s so businesslike about it, and not too many people are stupid enough to mess with he or Mom.
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Journal Entry 27, Eighteen Four
The study ended, everything they had on me was inconclusive, I tried not to be horribly surprised. I wasn?t, but it hurt. It hurt a lot that time. Maybe because I?ve been out on my own for a while, or just because I?ve been hearing it for so long.
We don?t know why. We don?t know how. We don?t know how to stop it. We can just barely make you comfortable. I just went home and stayed with Mom and Dad a few days. Holed up like a wounded animal, I guess.
Nothing?s changed. Why would it? I?ve barely changed. I?ve gotten taller. I?ve learned more. I?ve sort of half-assed gone through puberty. I?m just glad I don?t have to shave.
I remember being little and watching Dad shaving. I was so fascinated by the straight edge and lather, that had to be the epitome of being an adult. Sometimes, he?d dot the foam on my nose, sometimes he?d let me pretend to shave.
I guess a lot of what I feel came as I got older and learned more. He always was happy with me then, I know. I suppose I?m not, and try to see myself through eyes that aren?t mine. But they are.
It?s like looking in the mirror, and your reflection isn?t happy with what it sees. That scares me. A lot. If I listen to that reflection too much... I lose.
Fixed and consequent. Image and mage, I. Game, I. I don?t like that. I?m so afraid, sometimes. I?ve been on the other side of the mirror. But all I wanted was to get back.
We always do that. Dorothy, Alice, Odysseus, the Darling children, willingly set off for fantastic adventure, and then they just wanted to go home. Mainly girls I guess, but even Tom Sawyer looked back...
Always looked back. Mom always looks back. She can?t remember when she was born, but she always looks back. Maybe to find what she forgot, to step back and help someone that spurned her get back up, to try and fix things. I don?t know. When she?s mad at someone she loves, even when they?ve done things she can?t forgive, she doesn?t often talk about that. She talks about what was before.
This week was such hell I don?t know what I?m thinking, let alone writing. Why am I writing? For who? I have all these journals and I don?t know why. This week, this now, not... two or three months ago. April. Almost May. I don?t know what day it is. I don?t know what time it is. I picked myself up off the porch a while ago, my whole body aches, I?m afraid to look in the mirror.
It?s raining. Thunder, a little lightning. My mind is restless, there?s nothing I can do about it. Everything that happened this week will have to wait its turn.
I always feel like such a junkie when I take something so I?ll sleep. A lot probably started like this. Hurting and needing sleep. It bothers me to know it?s something that won?t ever end. I take the same now as I did when I weighed one hundred and twenty pounds, though. That?s comforting.
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Journal Entry 28, Eighteen Four
I wasn?t doing all that well. I don?t know, maybe I picked up a virus, maybe I was just tired and worn out. All I knew is everything was so bloody hard on me. It felt like slamming my head to the wall over and over and over again.
The only quiet I got was working. That happens sometimes. I can?t sleep, everything haunting me beats on me like pick hammers in the hands of drunken dwarves in the motherlode. When I work, I push it all aside, and sometimes for the first time in days, I?ll have peace.
I wasn?t particularly pleasant, I wasn?t trying, either. I wanted whatever I had left to be left alone, and that wasn?t going to help. I had a few bad seizures, I hurt myself pretty badly with them. Bruises, but I cut the hell out of my side on some glass, I think. It healed all right, it just hurt.
Bruises are such a part of my life, it amazes me that some people get off on pain. It?s all right, though, I know how to deal with the people who say they do. They?re easier than those that don?t care for it, really.
Being quiet and introspective, though, upsets a lot of people, and I found myself every morning for a week and more in arguments over the fact that I?m not putting them down, I?m just prone to depression, and it has nothing in the world to do with them.
I can?t smile a lot, Spirits, I?d like to, but I can?t. It?s impossible. I can?t do a lot of things. That overwhelms what I can do sometimes. I?ll tell them what?s wrong, if I know, but I can?t magically make myself stop hurting over it. I wish I could. I don?t know why anyone expects that of me.
Going rounds with Feathyre, and especially after she?d just been gotten back from some place that snatched her, was constant for a while. I wanted to smack her silly, she would see a nice looking guy and be willing to follow him anywhere.
What was really weird was suddenly there were two guys who looked and acted enough like me to really give me the creeps. One gay, the other bisexual, and why do I know this? Because they were practically wearing T-Shirts proclaiming it. It was about every other word out of their mouths.
One even purrs. That was disturbing as hell, to say the least. It?s not comfortable thinking you?ve been cloned, but I?ve been told that it?s common. People see someone they think is neat or good looking, and they will run off to the vast bank of plastic surgeons here to have themselves made over into that person. Particularly if they can?t get sex from that person.
Anyhow, this is all going on, and Feathyre and I meet up with this girl named Rome. I remembered her from about a year before, she was some sort of trader. She got Ace a rare Harley Davidson out of some database of sellers without any trouble at all.
We come walking up, and she?s staring at Feathyre, all these odd technological gadgets aimed at her, and I panicked. For all I know, she?s scanning to see if anyone?s wanting to buy a hippogriff.
Then she kept talking like Feathyre was a thing, not a person. I suppose it?s natural to assume Feathyre?s an animal, but it?s not natural to me. It bothered me, and I wasn?t trying to be nice. Polite, sure. But it really angered me.
Rome explained that she was just curious and not good with people, which I can understand, and I don?t know. People stare at me a lot, they study me, I?ve even volunteered for it, but Feathyre never has, and she just wants to be one of the gang.
I can understand that. All too well.
Always outside and never belonging. I had my family to support me, Feathyre just now got people who will do that. People can stare at me all they want, I don?t think it?s right to stare at others who aren?t used to it. I know that?s stupid. No one has whether or not they?re used to being gaped at printed on their forehead.
It was just really irritating after all that time trying to make Feathyre understand that I wasn?t mad at her, and that people did accept her and like her and want her around, and here?s Rome. Staring. I know it wasn?t like she set that up to jerk the rug out from under my feet, but that?s what happened.
Otherwise, she seems okay. She seems to prefer to think the worst of Feathyre and I, she?ll either get over it or she won?t. I think she expected me to be a lot more apologetic and smile and all after I realized there was no danger, but I really didn?t feel like backing down.
There?d just been too many people poking and prodding at me, trying to get me to cut loose a spell in public, trying to get me mad, to get me to fight; constantly testing, and you know, there?s just a point where I can?t let someone more forceful than I deal with it.
I swear sometimes people have been sneaking in here and reading this journal. Reading it, and not having the background to know what really I am writing about, but willing to use it anyhow.
It wasn?t a day after I wrote about some of my fears that some freak of an artist was showing me almost the identical thing I had written, drawn out. And then kept pushing me. For what? I don?t know.
The amusing thing was he obviously thought he knew what he was going on about, and just as obviously, knew absolutely nothing. At one point, he was trying to blame me for what he was seeing. Which is really amusing because there was nothing around me to see other than my aura, which is no different than anyone elses. Nanny wasn?t in my shadow.
His attempt to salvage face was so lame it was funny.
I fed him another line. I wonder how he?s going to try to use that. It?s too much to believe he?ll have realized that whatever pithy powers of seeing he has are faulting out here.
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Journal Entry 29, Eighteen Four
It?s funny how you can see more details in times passing, but they bob around in a dark sea of memory until something shines light across them. That happened again.
The very reason I really wanted to talk to Zip all those weeks ago was that I had seen Alec return. He hadn?t seen Zane, didn?t seem upset in the slightest. He simply took back with Fae and that grinning moron Nemo, talking about how Nemo would make some special thing that would keep Alec from needing all this wild sex and wandering.
Two faced little prick. I try not to say anything, but I really have to bite my tongue when I see Nemo pop up and be all buddy pals with Zane, then with Fae. Fae excuses it by saying that she loves those that are unlovable, Zane just kind of shrugs it off.
Disloyal bastards.
But I saw him. I saw Alec. He didn?t give a damn about his so called best friend. Didn?t remember. That is so utterly convenient. Does something monsterously viscous to a loved one, but it?s his evil self doing it, and then that?s killed but he never stays dead and voila, hopefully after all the turmoil is died down and whoever still cares for him starts missing him, back he comes without a memory in the world of his actions, tra la.
If he?s so bloody powerful, why can?t he control his own evil self? Maybe that?s not fair, but neither is getting your arm ripped off and eaten.
That was after Zane told me what happened. Oh, certainly, finally he goes to sit with Zane, but even after talking to her, he never told Fae. Just left her to wait. And wait. And wait. Then both of them. I wonder if he left again because he figured Zane would do his dirty work for him.
Either way, he could pop back up if Fae or Zane or both got tired of waiting for him and have a lovely drama over how no one really truly loves him because they?re not willing to wait for unspecified weeks, months, years at a time for his sorry ass.
Oh, but he?s a wanderer, it?s his way. If it?s his way, why in hell is he cuddling up to people who are not that way and asking them to prove that they can really love him? That?s absurd and cruel.
I wonder how many of these ?walkabouts? of his came up because he was bored with a current lover and left long enough for them to give up and move on. Probably all of them. He can return to announce he was right all along, everyone sucks, and neatly gloss over the fact that he had broken promises long before they did.
He promised to be true and there for Fae. He broke that. Twice, at the very least. I don?t believe for a moment that he?ll do any better with Zane. It?ll be worse, because she moves back to understanding friend the moment she?s inconveniently in love with him.
It kills me to see her doing this to herself. Her entire life on hold for someone who insists he can change and be there for her and then promptly announces he can?t help what he does, and either she accepts it entire or she doesn?t love him at all.
It would be so much easier if he?d actually be there. For longer than a day. Maybe he is all what Zane insists he is, but all I can see is a shiftless bastard who has caused her far more pain than joy, who makes her prove herself constantly while proving nothing in return.
I keep telling her she doesn?t need him to be special. She was special before she met him. She?s not special because she can tolerate him. Fae does the same with that collection of freak show rejects, but at least they are around more.
Too bad they don?t disappear for months at a time without word. When they?re gone, Fae actually starts to blossom a little. When they?re there, they pull the petals off as quick as they can.
I think the ultimate irony here is that I probably torture myself over it more than they do.
Well. Anyhow. A few goons made a few sloppy hit attempts on me. Nothing more than a couple of obvious big guys trying to close in on me as I was walking to or from work. Nesbitt, the man who works the apothocary counter days, made pretty short work of them.
I think he ate them. I didn?t ask. You don?t ask a drunken half wight ex battle mage what he does with the bodies.
And there was Zip, too.
Horam gave me a dagger, it was beautiful. It was a tooth of a wyvern, and it held on it the poison from the beasts tail, a paralytic. I kept it on me, I tested and replicated the poison, it was remarkable stuff.
Then Cam gave me a tiny baggy. Ricin. It had been in Sams pocket watch when she gave it to me. She didn?t know. She finally found the last pieces of the puzzle.
Sam started working for the mob. It was the only way out of a bad situation that he could see. He did well, but finally was told to wipe out a rival family using the ricin. He balked because they wanted the entire family killed, children and all.
Essentially, they were asking a soldier to become a murderer. He refused, took the ricin and hid it. They came for him and executed him.
Cam asked me to suspend the ricin in a liquid and draw it into a syringe. I did, and sealed it in wax so I could etch a charm on it that it would not use itself against her. I also gave her atropine and told her how to use it. Most people say they can?t, but when it?s a needle to the heart or dying, it?s the needle.
Then it was just a waiting game.
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Street Interlude II
Shadows cast themselves, attenuated horror, along the broken brick line of alleyway. Long, spidery, tainted in their own foul humors. Yet they parted to let the astronomer pass. Hissing things, pulling and drawing at his own shadow. As if knowing what rested within was akin to their existance.
The hit was deceptively simple. Too simple. No one returned alive from it. A slender boy with no obvious weapons, no apparant abilities of supernature, and so far, four experienced foot soldiers of the silent arm of ordered lawlessness had failed to take the brat down.
There was, therefore, no reason to believe that the hit was simple at all.
Maury Dabney, forever doomed to outwit a name of ill omen, determined to rise above the ranks. To take possession of everything already created, to improve upon them. Big ideas in a world where he had found damn near anything was possible.
The brat wasn?t much of anything that he could find. Fast with a scalpel. Smart. No bragging, no flaunting; for such a young man, it could only mean one of two things: He came from the inner circle of another crime family, or he wasn?t nearly as young as he seemed.
The first was far more likely, but Dabney couldn?t place the boy with any of the crimelords he knew of. More German than Jewish, too pale for Italian, too calm for Irish.
That left, still, a well trained offspring of... Who? It went without saying that the name Jones had to be an alias. Zip Manning sounded more realistic than Desdenova Jones, and the boy had given both names.
Y?know, boss, there?s always that Californian contact. Why risk our own men when good help?s easy to find?
A thug hitman with no loyalties is no worth to me. I like to see how deep my men run with it. Besides, I?m not some blithering New York capo playing high society games to use a ringer from outside who could be used just as easily on me.
If that?s it, maybe we should be thinking of waxing him. Avoid potential trouble. What?d we got on him?
The contact, vague description. Black hair, green eyes, sallow. White. Tall, thin, looks young and isn?t...
Dabney had listened for all he was worth that day, sent in and planted in the sidewalk cafe when the boss and his right hand stopped for lunch. Someone outside that could be bought to deal with men that high up, you didn?t forget a thing like that when you were ambitious.
Here was this boy. Black hair, indistinct eyes, white, tall, thin, looked young.
Make a deal with him and have the best at his beck and call. No deal, and the prestige of offing the east coasts favored and feared west coast freelancer.
It only took a moments thought. A snarl of a grin, and the civilized swamp rat eased after the boy.
Swirled shadow disturbances gave the impression, breifly, of two young men in the partially blocked alleyway. The shadow cast and the cast shadow. Darkness closed, and there was only one, resettling the battered fedora on his head.
Harlequins mocking grin cut acid in the pale lower half of the youths features. Insolence screamed in the slump of narrow shoulders to the wall. The strike of match, the momentary illumination of sallow features with the ignition of the cigarette.
Dabneys features sweetened, country boy bully testing out the city boys nerve.
Small potatoes, aint it? Following the skirt around. What?s that gonna do to your reputation?
There was a long hesitation before the youth spoke. Laconic, sardonic, the attempt for innocent earnestness so feigned as to be ludicrous.
Family matters. What?s it to you?
Bigger ideas than family. Much bigger. You know them all, don?t you? You got all the inside tracks. Why work freelance when you could have a steady paycheck?
Greed clutched and writhed obscenely in Dabneys' voice. Salivating tones in the grim night, plucking at the oddly still, half silhoetted youth. Smoke pooled, pulled away, blown from the younger mans lips. Rattlesnake gaze barely hemmed under the brim of the fedora.
Who do you think you?re talkin? to, Mister? Who am I talkin? to, while I?m at it...
Humor delicate as papercuts in the quiet voice. Dabney smirked his response, added a thrum of warning to the acid humor.
Maurey Dabney. And I think I?m talking to the west coast freelancer. Am I?
West coast freelancer. Hm. Explain.
Greed cut loose Dabneys tongue, larceny and ambition kicked aside suspicion. This could only be that shadowy figure that even the most secure of the dons feared. The only one that could hunt them down because they had used him to hunt others down.
Don?t you think... I?m... a little young for that sort of work, Mr. Dabney?
Mirthless grin, hollow as a scarecrow. A snarl hooked up and made pleasant. The youths canines seemed so prominant in that smile.
Looks don?t mean nothing. Around here, even less. We got a gold paved road to the top, hell, your sister does, you got the names and faces, I got the know how.
Unnaturally still but for the random animation of cigarette smoke, the youth listened. A verbal orgy of power, blood, money spilled from Dabneys lips, strands of saliva sliding from a jackals mouth as it waited its turn to scavenge the kill.
And... If I don?t?
The pleasant tone, the hinting of denial to Dabneys grand vision, it struck the bayou dreamer like a sledgehammer. Snarling from the lechery of power, he had both .45s drawn and aimed at the youth before he knew what he had done.
Oh, you will. Punk ass city boy bastard, you will.
I?ve been told that anyone whose parents are sick enough to name them after Southern Civil War generals is doomed to eternal inadequecy and usually heavily closeted homosexuality channeled inappropriately as aggressive ambition.
Fluid tones, clinically interested, and most of it sailed over Dabneys head. The youths mobile features twisted into a disgusted smirk.
How?s your heart, Mr. Dabney?
Dabney drew back, staring at the bizarre remark. It was the only reaction he had time to make, other than the reflexive firing of both pistols. Bullets struck masonry.
The youth was directly before Dabney. Holding something wet, black red. Grinning.
His heart.
Zip used his wrist to tilt back the fedora, to avoid getting blood on the felt, his head turning, a lurid sneer given over his shoulder while he reached to seize the still warm corpse by the gaping hole in the upper chest.
Eric, one. Hyde, one. What the hell was he babbling about, Scooter?
I don?t know. The time it was when he left earth was the 1940s. I?m only eighteen.
Desdenova drew from the shadows as simply as he had slid into their cover, stepping silently to flank Zip. Unconcerned, undismayed, by the wreckage. He simply reached over to take back his hat.
Zip eyed the astronomer a moment. Clean, hard intelligence burned in dead eyes, and Desdenova met that with the same gently shy demurring as ever. Just another California boy.
Get outta here, kid. I?m hungry, and you should be in bed.
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Journal Entry 30, Eighteen Four
Two knights, I found out later they were actually in service of Takhisis, one of the Krynnish gods, cornered Horam in the tavern. They were big, one seemed to be a battle mage.
I realized that Horam was in trouble after I threw the wyvern tooth knife into one of them. Unfortunately, I didn?t get the mage. Horam collapsed, and the other knight was going to smash in his skull with his mace.
A third knight showed up, but I didn?t know that. I just acted. I had to. Even though there were people all around, I went out of time to get to Horam. But that?s when everything went awry.
I don?t like doing that, running out of time. I can?t seize when I am there, but I can?t feel, smell, taste, barely hear or see, anything around me, unless it?s out of step, too. It?s hard to think that my mothers people always existed like that. It?s not hard to think that it helped to destroy them.
Maybe that?s why I seize. I?m allergic or sensitive or something to time passing or being in it?s flow.
Anyhow, I misjudged, I returned to time to try and pull Horam out, but he?s huge, and heavy, and I hadn?t completely returned. The mace didn?t hit Horam, though. It hit me.
I?ve never felt so much pain in my life. It was like an explosion went off in my body, and I didn?t even catch the full power of the blow. I remember hitting the floor. The third knight said something about the lady would be pleased to play with Horam. They took him, the knight I?d paralyzed, and vanished.
I guess I wasn?t worth the trouble, or they figured I was dead, or maybe they couldn?t get their hands or spells on me in the state I was in. I had to get out of it, I knew that, or I would be stuck experiencing constantly that blow. It hurt so bloody much, I don?t know how I pushed back completely into time.
Cam came in then. She didn?t scream, she just got me to the porch somehow and called for Jace. I remember asking if I had a seizure, but she didn?t know. I might have.
I started asking about the submarine races, but Jace arrived then and just picked me up. I think I blacked out. The next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes in the hospital. Cam was there, asleep in the chair. Jace came back, made sure I was comfortable, and took her home.
That was so stupid. I should have just shot the stupid knights. Next time, I will. I was convinced Mom and Dad would bring me home for sure, but they didn?t. They made sure my shoulder was set, chewed me out for being stupid, but...
I think they were kind of proud that I was able to drop everything and even expose myself for a friend.
I guess I am, too.
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Journal Entry 31, Eighteen Four
Mom wouldn?t let anyone heal my shoulder because if I?d thought it through as I should have, it wouldn?t have happened. I didn?t dispute that, and I was kind of surprised when some people encouraged me to disobey.
I don?t disobey my mother or father, or any of my family. That would be worse than disloyal, I don?t even know any words bad enough for it. If I don?t agree, I will talk to them about it, explain my veiw, and usually, if I?m right, they amend what they said, if I?m wrong, I accept.
Well. That sounds so bloodless, especially considering all I have written. Talking about it encompasses screaming, yelling, tantrums and sulking. Even so, I wouldn?t willingly disobey my parents. They?ve been here a lot longer than I have and are far more experienced than I. It would be stupid to try and think otherwise.
I also don?t make a habit of forgetting what they have done for me. What they have been for me. I may not owe them anything, but they have earned everything. I want to be worthy of that. I?ve seen bad parents. I know how lucky I am in that regard.
I?m spoiled, and I like it. Rebelling doesn?t buy anyone a damn thing except the realization that they didn?t have to rebel in the first place. A lot of my friends had to go through that, and it just seemed to me that rebelling wasn?t bringing them maturity, it was underlining their immaturity.
Oh, how daring, you got your labia pierced. Won?t Mom be shocked? Probably not, she was the lady on the light tower shaking her bare breasts at one of the last monsters of rock concerts. Won?t Dad be appalled, you tattooed a pagan symbol on your ankle. When Dad remembers shooting down terrorists in the guise of ladies carrying babies with their bombs.
It?s so incredibly stupid it stuns. They?re all over the place lately. They have absolutely no real tragedy in their lives, but they insist that they do, and some even have their stories down well. And they?re rebelling against either the evil ennui of middle class or some horrific ghetto childhood.
Absolutely clueless. They all come off as nothing more or less than a lot of rich white kids with good families who are under the impression that it?s so terribly cool to be stoned, drunk, tattooed, and pierced. That?s being defiant to them.
Lazy, clueless, stupid, brats. If they wanted to cry out to the world that they were there, why aren?t they raising more than their libidos and forcing addictions on themselves while being (inevitably) in some ?band?. Rock, or punk, of course, though they?ve never actually heard either, and though most can?t tell you the make of instrument they use, they?re hard core.
Hard core well raised and kept Yuppie spawn. It?s so deep and meaningful and utterly cool I may faint. They?re hilarious, I?ll give them that.
Meanwhile, their peers are working to make that mark, to make that difference. They?re challenging the slopes, they?re pushing the limits of a vehical, they?re opening the box of music; they?re engrossed in the hard study and work and dedication that it takes to be a true rebel.
These dorks are under the impression that saying the f-word every other sentance makes them real city harsh. I?d pay to watch them loose in Los Angeles for a night. The prostitutes alone would eat them alive.
The funny thing is that you absolutely cannot tell these idiots apart, and they all are bad versions of the older people who?ve been there for a while. It makes me wonder if there isn?t a horribly incompetant mad scientist running around making the proverbial copy of a copy of a copy of a clone: It?s there, but they?re as stupid and blurry as a bag of feathers. With the same impact, too.
Each story given to the clone is lifted from the overheard and half understood words of people hanging around the tavern, with a poor effort to modernize or improve upon those, only having re-runs of Fame and the Love Boat to base their perceptions of modern reality, and they?ve heard of Orange County, but they?ve never actually watched it.
Which is good, because OC is as fantastic a series as Star Trek. At least Star Trek had some good writers and actors on the original series.
One of the punk rocker clones decided to make himself friendly with Cam and I, and he got horribly offended that we didn?t care for the music style, but I was familiar with it, at least. It astonishes me, in this day and age, when all someone can do is parrot off key words and names, but they really don?t know anything else about their supposed passion.
Sid Vicious is God, but who is Wendi O, Black Flag, Anarchy? Sometimes, they can dredge up the Dead Kennedies. Shouldn?t someone who worships at Punks altar know more than me? And that Johnny Rotten already wrote its epitaph?
It was bizarre, but he settled down. There was someone else with us by then, but I can?t remember if it was Jace or not. In any case, we started talking about religion and politics being as that seemed less volotile than music.
I said ?boobies?, which always makes Cam flinch. So of course I wait for the best times to do this. Boobies, titties, jugs, tits, bonzos, golden bozos, I went through this whole list and she suddenly announced she was going to exorcise the evil from me.
Cam pinned me against the booth and started rattling off prayers, so I started thrashing around and smoking. It was hilarious, but all those jaded, faded, seen it all on the streets people, were freaked out.
I?ll wait until Cam isn?t so shaken up over her faith before I make my head spin around. She?ll love it. That?s Dad?s favorite, too.
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Journal Entry 32, Eighteen Four
He?s here. HE?S here. He?s not supposed to be here. He must have come back, but I don?t know how, maybe he never left, I don?t know. He showed up, and I tried to walk away before he saw me, but it didn?t matter, you know your own, and he told me he?d be back.
He?d be back. I?m not supposed to be. Nothing was ever said about me. I don?t know what to do. I know I should tell Mom and Dad, but they?re safe, Alice is safe, and they?ll take me back home where it?s safe, too.
Dad?s said before Tombs is better than he is, he has no conscience, but Dad?s not facing him alone anymore, Mom?s no pussy cat, spirits know Jackie isn?t.
No conscience, but he will deal. There are things he wants, I know that, but I don?t know what those things are yet. Almost. I just have to see if they are what he wants. Money, power, those don?t mean anything to him, but killing isn?t his only focus, it can?t be, or there wouldn?t be an end to it.
Dad can?t really want him dead, or doesn?t know how, or he?s afraid of what would happen.
What would happen...
Oh, spirits, it could be killing Dad to kill Tombs.
I don?t know enough!
I don?t want to kill him, and I know that doesn?t bother him in the slightest, none of the bonds that are there, and yet they are there.
I don?t know what to do. I don?t know what to do. All I can do is try to get Nana to talk about it. She?s dealt with him. She?s driven him away.
It was strange, though. He looked just as I expected, except he had one eye that wasn?t corrupt. That was very strange. It was steel gray, and it while it was as dead as the rest of him, it wasn?t corrupt in his influence.
I wonder where it was from. Why he had it. There must be a reason, he doesn?t do anything without reason.
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Journal Entry 33, Eighteen Four
They killed him. The man that had ordered Sams death. Zane grabbed him and the shooter, Cam and Jace dealt with it. Ricin, and then Cam just shot them. I don?t blame her, ricin is pretty gross in action.
I had other problems coming up, but they were the usual. Girl secretly adores you, girl starts throwing problem after problem at you wanting you to save her, you get irritated and tell her you?re not there to be someone?s caretaker.
Ugh. Really. What I love is the part where they get all offended and insist I?m putting on tremendous airs if that?s what I think. It?s not only what I think, but I could make money placing bets on the outcome.
Jace and Cam moved in together, he bought a house, even. It was really nice. He never seems to mind me, which I?m glad of. I try to stay out from underfoot, I hate being in the way. Though, for a time, Cam was very upset and was keeping me with her as much as possible.
I can understand that. I know it doesn?t usually last long when people go through it, so I just accept it. It?s easier when they can see, yes, I am all right.
Cam always says she?s fine when I sieze and she?s with me, but I know it scares her a lot. She?ll get used to it, I?m sure, Mom said that you have to get used to things like that, or they?ll drive you insane.
Ace showed up a while ago, he?s kind of like the Marlboro man crossed with the Terminator. He?s all right, I suppose, though sometimes, he creeps me out with the emphasis he puts on me having a girlfriend. He?s too old to think that way, or, I think he is.
I guess he?s really into it, he?s always checking out the ladies, always making remarks to the effect that he?d like to see them in skimpier outfits or heels or what have you. They always seem a perilous line between a compliment and too far to me, but no one else has really gotten offended.
Ace started dating Fae, and they seem to get along well. Well, they?d probably do better if it wasn?t for Faes freak show of backstabbing bastards trying to break them up because Ace is hetrosexual and won?t be stepping out on Fae to have sex with one of them.
Nemo?s another who does the ?evil me did it, not my fault!? schtick. It?s absurd. Or, ?I?m chaotic, haha, can?t blame me?. They have no idea what chaos truly is. It is the most pathetic thing in the world, watching them run around insisting they?re of chaos.
Chaos has become their excuse. It?s a handy shield. It?s a mystical, mysterious, evil force only they understand and it?s all theirs to command. Unless it?s commanding them, and then you can?t blame them for whatever stupid stunt they pulled under its influence.
No longer is chaos the arm of Nature, complimented by order. That one may work with the other to accomplish the aims of balance. I think that repells me the most about those cretins. The misuse and misunderstanding of what is as constant as time and life.
They don?t know what evil or good are, let alone neutrality. They do know what sex is. Even their spawn know that. Filthy. Just filthy. I was confronted by two of the freak shows children, and though they were both under the age of seven, they were jaded little sex fiends. Cam said they?ll both try to use spells on adults to fuel lusts.
Yet I was the one in the wrong when I was revolted. If I was home, I?d have called the police to report the obvious pedophilia going on. I haven?t seen the sick little family since, and I hope my luck holds.
It amazes me that people think my family is strange.
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Journal Entry 34, Eighteen Four
Lola showed up again, and she was pregnant. I didn?t even know she had a steady boyfriend, let alone a lover. As it turned out, she did, and they?d broken up, and there she was. Pregnant.
That all confused me. It still does. Why would you not want to let people know you had a boy or girl friend? If I was someone?s boyfriend, I?d hope they were taken enough with me or proud enough of me to say so. I don?t know, it seems a lot of people do that around here. They?re taken, but you?d never know it.
It also made me nervous, because I know Lola really wanted to be married. A lot of her friends are, or are engaged, Rick and Paige; Eliza married Ciro on Christmas; Shannon was engaged to ...Bjorn, I think, I don?t remember. So that was probably it, but I am still a single straight male.
I just don?t understand why she would get pregnant while knowing things weren?t that stable with her boyfriend. She?s certainly old enough to know that getting pregnant solves nothing, she?s been here long enough to see what happens.
Sure, accidents happen, but it?s kind of difficult envisioning a degreed professional woman who commands her own body having a slip of latex or a missed pill or whatever.
I checked to see what the babies were, well, babies, it turned out to be. She hadn?t seen a doctor yet, and a lot of women around here do that, sort of trusting to luck. But it is two, a boy and a girl. They should be fine if she takes care of herself.
I just remembered that. Sapphire. He?s a little blue dragon, about the size of a small dog, and he?s so cute and so funny. He lives with Tyg, which I can?t imagine, because she is such a lady like sort, and well, Sapphire is just plain crackers.
When I met Sapphire, he gave me a Beanie-octopus, it was green. I love it. Cam wanted one too, and I don?t know where to get things like that off hand. There weren?t any in the toy stores, so maybe it was a retired Beanie, or not a Beanie at all, just a bean bag octupus.
So, I made more. It took a long time to get the spell right. It?s a lot of work setting up, it?d probably be easier to just get someone to make more of them by hand, but I didn?t know who could make things like that, and it?d probably still be more money than I usually have to play with.
Anyhow, it is a think tank, and I do get paid for doing stupid side experiments like that. So, I did it as a manufacturing experiment, I got a few brownie points, because the bright young up and coming researchers don?t like to deal with such mundane issues.
Well, if they knew it could bolster their toy collections, they might, except most of them are such scary geeks, they buy two and three of everything so they have one to keep in its original packaging.
I mean, we have Moms old toys, her old Legos and cars and dolls and every toy made for the original release of ?Star Wars?, but they?re to play with. The Ubergeek squad, well, I suppose I shouldn?t call them that, but they are, completely freaked out to find that out.
What really confuses me is that they?ll geek out on things like Dungeons and Dragons, Everquest, City of Heros, and I?ll come in late sometimes while they?re having their geekfests in the employees lounge or conference room, and Spirits! Haven?t they looked out of the window? Or in a mirror?
One of the security guards is a Klingon, Hor?zt, he?s huge, he?s mean, he could split an anvil with his bat-leth, and where is he Friday nights? Wearing a T-shirt that says ?Saving Throw vs Sexy?, playing an elvish girl thief in a Grayhawk role playing game.
I kind of like the T-shirt, though. I guess you have to be comfortable with your geekdom to wear it. That, or no one?s going to laugh if you happen to be a three hundred pound Klingon.
Anyhow, I got the spell down, but it really is a pain in the ass. It?d be good for first artical and short runs or possibly prop creation, but otherwise, as Matilde said, Santas? elves aren?t out of a job.
I made a lot of the beanie octopii, well, I was calling them beanie Cthulus, and I gave them to people for fun. And a red one for Cam, which is what I was trying to do in the first place.
Matilde used it a few times for random objects, testing it, and it just makes toys. I?m not sure why yet. She specified a fuel ignition pump, and it was perfect -- except it was a model, and wouldn?t work in her car. Everything comes off of it like that, no matter what materials you set to it.
I think it may have been in the ground work, it?s based on a ward. I intended to give some of the beanies to the little ones, and I didn?t want anything on it or in it to hurt them. That got tied up in so much of the set up, I don?t think it?d be much worth going back and removing that from it. Too much is hung on that basis.
It has its uses, anyhow, and was accepted in as a toy makers spell. It?s like having a patent. I have two others, both intended for personal protection, that?s really what they expect of me. It?s kind of weird, though, because they like one enough to market, and every time I come in and leave, there it is in the apothocary, cast into a tile and decoratively hand colored by various artists and artisans, depending on what you want to pay for it.
I guess they sell pretty good, I get a check for it every quarter which was over a thousand dollars last time. I?m not sure what happened with the other one, except that they told me it was being included in a body of work for one of their star engineers, and whenever she cracked her objective, I?d get royalties there, too.
It was a pretty nasty ward, I really wonder what it?s getting incorperated into.
I got Feathyre a job here, in the child care center. She always seemed at odds, and the child care center was looking for someone with wings who was also tough enough to offer protection. I understand there?s been a few nasty divorces and security for the kids is at issue.
They were thrilled to have her, of course. Some of the kids also have wings, and well, hippogriffs are protectors. It?s a good match. It?s hilarious to watch them out in a field and in the employees atrium. They adore her, she adores them. I think it?s been good for her, having a purpose.