June 18th, 1932
These words are my own for me alone and nothing I write here is meant to be binding.
Dear Diary,
I did it!
Winning was easy. Now I have a Arsepint in a cage. I have to bring him food and water once every day or he is allowed to let himself free.
The hard part is punishing him. How do you punish a Arsepint?
How long would I have to lock him up before he agreed to do a song and dance about how mangy and pathetic he is in compirison to me? I could make him do it every time he met another person for a whole year!
He wont like it but I didnt like having to read all those books. I was so bored I nearly cried.
I told daddy, but he didn’t seem to understand. He gave me a pat on the head and told me to go read some more, so I would know good ways to use Arsepint.
Victoriasly yours,
Rose Thorburn
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September 15th, 1939
These words are my own, for my eyes alone, and nothing I write here is binding. You know the routine.
Dear Diary,
I am in a bind. I am so sorry I ignored you these past two weeks, dear diary, but much has been going on.
I am in Montreal now, in a different school. They put me in a private school so I could learn more useful languages. It is a very religious school. There’s something witty I’m supposed to say about that but I’m too upset.
Daddy let me bring some books, giving me a special suitcase that could hide them. It has been so dull, and the school is so strict, I don’t have much to occupy myself with. I would explore the school and meet the goblins and ghosts in the darkest corners, but they watch us like hawks watch mice.
I’ve only been here a week and something happened. I could see the other girls spending time together, girls who have known each other from kindergarten. I couldn’t thrust myself into the middle of them, so I took a book outdoors. I told myself I would enjoy the crisp weather before the cold shuts us inside for months on end, walking away from the school to make sure I could read in peace. I was approached and told a teacher wanted me, and I had to stow the book away inside a hollow tree, because I certainly wasn’t about to take it into the school proper. I made sure there wasn’t anyone around to see, but someone figured it out.
Of course it was a ruse. I’ve been so on guard against trickster spirits and goblins, I’ve forgotten to keep my guard up around other humans. The book was taken, then turned over to the head office in quick order when the taker found out what it was.
I thought I had it settled when I threatened and spelled the girls who took and handed over the book, ensured that nobody knew it was them or me. Things are only getting worse, now, with the faculty on a warpath, hunting for the real owner of the book. They are threatening to take away privileges, to punish the entire school, and it’s only a matter of time before one of them bends to the pressure and points her finger at me. I’ve hidden my books with one working, and I can play innocent, but I fret.
I need the book back, but I have only a few tricks at my disposal, and no creatures of any worth that I might bargain with. Ancient ghosts with little power left, and lesser spirits.
We have been given time for self study. I’m using the chance to write and collect my thoughts. I need a strategy but I’m not sure what doors are open to me. Some religious grounds are benign but others are dangerous. What if someone asks along specific channels and an inquisitor is alerted?
The school, as well. There is so much talk of the war, and so much emphasis placed on making the school proud. The faculty keeps saying they want goodness and success to come out of this dark time, and they will see the subject of this book as a dark thing.
If they trace this back to me and come to see me as the source of this great disappointment and a stain on their pride, the hate might be even greater than what the inquisitors might direct at me.
Above all else, I fret about my mother. She spends so much time and effort collecting her books, I worry about what might happen if I lose one.
I must find a way in. If the ghosts are almost useless, I will simply have to use a great many of them. There are other lesser spirits, as well. They will have to do, as allies go.
I must say I thought being at a new school with no reputation would help. Its worse. Now, just a week in, I feel more pressure than I ever have, but I have nobody to turn to, not even to argue with or vent on. I wonder if being hated may well be better than being a nobody.
Rose D. Thorburn
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September 20th, 1939
These words are my own, for my eyes alone, and nothing I write here is binding.
Dear Diary,
Disaster, but not disaster of the kind I expected.
In their quizzing of the students and their gentle and not so gentle probing, the interest of the faculty spurred the interest of the students. Word got around about the book, and I ended up being one of no less than three groups aiming to get into the headmaster’s office and get a better look at the book.
I bid the ghosts to scare the others, but a braver group pressed on. Minnie from the year above me, her friends, and her cousin Herb. I think they were almost thrilled by what I sent their way. Herb might be the one who kept talking about joining the fight and being a hero. Maybe that drove him to fight past fear. Maybe he’s a moron.
With a measure of help, I slipped into a cat’s body to spy on the new owners of the book. With learned tricks, I joined the shadows in slipping beneath the door. I thought I could snatch up the book and run.
I did not expect what I saw. They were doing things that proper boys and girls shouldn’t do until marriage. Herb with one of Minnie’s friends and Minnie with one of Herb’s friends, and another two friends pairing up nearby.
Dear diary, I don’t know how to name or explain the feelings that found me then. There was a kind of anxiety, warm, low in my belly, very real disgust. Surprising, when I’ve dealt with the most vulgar of goblins.
My father has an eye for justice, or an eye for a lack of it. In a way, I might have viewed the world through his eyes when I saw that scene. I saw something unjust that outraged me and wounded my pride, compelling me to act.
I feel wretched when I think that the action I was compelled to was fleeing.
The Lord of Montreal reached out to me last night, communicating through my dreams. He has heard whisperings, as Lords do, and now I have a greater merchant spirit turned mortal turned god breathing down my neck. He would like for the book to be found, and will forgive me my error if I retrieve the book and ensure the ones who took it don’t pursue such things in the future.
I have to confront the mundane humans, and I must do it while feeling as if they are somehow more distorted and unfamiliar than many of the beings I read about in my books.
I have been born into a world that one in a thousand people have the slightest idea on. I know of goblins and boggarts, ghosts and elementals, demons and draiodhe. Yet I feel as though I’m the ignorant one, here. They are the ones who have been inducted into alluring, forbidden wrongs.