Tim, the worst has happened… Something is wrong in New Babbage, and as usual, I’m having trouble wrapping my head around it. If only problems were simple, like who shot whom. At least an intelligent person can figure that out with clues… I feel as though I’m standing on a precipice with a raging sea below and no other alternative than to be lost in the tumultuous waters and drown. Arnold is fading from us, Tim. Fading from reality, from the present… he’s dying. And I can’t get to where he is to talk some kind of sense into him. Helio has been seeing him where he is because Helio deals in dreams, and therefore very few things of that bent are a mystery to him. He has been talking to Arnold, and (I suspect) keeping him where I can easily access him. I have been to see him many a time, watching his chest rise and fall but his eyes are closed and heavy. Since that damned Metier, he’s been different. He’s been… I felt as though he’d been drawing away from me. Since I married Helio and things have progressed, he felt I didn’t need him, so he drew away. And that turned into this. Fading… He is mon familier. My familiar. I am his witch. Tim, when he transferred the power to me the first time, I did not understand the feeling. I was so… alive and vital. But I felt so badly, because Arnold was still lying there. The transfer hadn’t helped or hurt him, it simply kept the bad luck away. (That’s all his ‘bad luck’ has been, just energy trying to escape.)
But Tim, I’ve done something miraculous… With Helio and Erehwon’s help, I healed myself. I healed the wounds Arnold left in my arm! I used the power he gave to me and I did it. Thankfully Helio brought me home, so I could sleep afterward. I don’t know what I would have done otherwise… Perhaps the next things I should focus on are these: Getting Arnold back from that place within, a real marriage to Helio, and making our home safer for the both of us.
We have a lot of work ahead of us. Only time will tell, now.
Be First to Comment