Personal Journal – Entry Six : Distraught.

((Please, feel free to give yer two cents! I love knowing what you all think!))

By all the powers of life, Tim, what have I done this time? I thought it was bad enough when that cur’s ghost came back to bait me, but now this? Something within me tells me that I could have done more, that I could have done better…That I could have done what I meant to do and saved everyone the troubles. But I was frightened that the idiot’s final words were lies and in that fright, I forgot heroics. I suppose it’s noble, but I find that hard to swallow.

I asked everyone to go there… To be there… And to help me get rid of the one burr in all of our saddles. And I somehow managed to make a mess of even that. One simple thing he asked me to do and he would never be seen again. Because of my childish fear and impotence caused by not wishing to seem a fool or die if he was lying, I froze and poor Miss Hermit got the burden. I never meant for her to do what I should have done all along. Tim, when did I lose my nerve? Did I lose every bit of sense I had when I lost you? Actually, that’s not far from the truth. I did lose plenty of things when you died, but I thought I had at least retained some sense. But, done is done and there’s nothing else that I can do about it. Miss Hermit has agreed to share his burden of protecting Babbage and all I have earned is regret and feeling the fool. I’m sure Metier would be laughing at me by now. How am I sure that he isn’t?

Arnold has gone missing again. I need to find him, but I am afraid that even though I damned near burnt a house down trying to look for Helio with fire, I do not have the slightest clue as to where to start looking for Arnold. I need him home. I want him back, corporeal and safe and sound. (I want him to help me find Emerson Lighthouse so that I may repay his generosity and kindness. With my fists.) But I’m lost. I don’t know where to look and I don’t know what to do to go about looking… Metier claimed he is nowhere. Kristos claims he is somewhere, just somewhere at the end of things. But which is correct? Which is truth? I shall tell no one (except Helio) when I set about to go looking. I will need his help when I try to send out some sort of something to find him. Tim, I wanted to write Thaddeus about it. I did. But his health is not that of a young man’s. I didn’t want him to half kill himself trying to get here by boat or with some questionable airship captain… Besides, how am I to know that he doesn’t already know? He always seemed to know when Arnold and I were in trouble back at home… Perhaps I will check the mail in town to see if he’s written me instead…

In any case, I am growing more worried for my husband. He has had trouble eating as of late and he has had to refrain from hunting. While this means he has lain next to me most nights, he does so fitfully. He wants to go out hunting. I know he does. He’s hungry and there’s nothing that I can truly give to him to help him. I want to make him well, but it’s going to get to a point where my love won’t be enough to satisfy him and food will make him ever more hungry for that which his kind needs for nourishment. I love him, Tim. I hate to see him suffer. He told me that the last time he went hunting he almost left me for good. I don’t think I could handle losing another man that I love… It would break the last straw to what sanity I hold within me. That brittle branch would break and I would be left, barren and alone. Perhaps I’d even go to meet you, Tim. Perhaps I could introduce you to Helio. He’s like you in a few small ways, Tim, but in other ways the two of you are like night and day. For one, he worries me more. I worry when he is out hunting too long, and when he does something dangerous (which happens more often than he tells me, I am almost positive of that.) He even says he knows where Metier’s spirit is… That’s what worries me most of all. Will I lose him to his jealousy and rage while he tries so desperately to protect me?