Day 380,

I feel better after a night’s sleep and a morning’s breakfast.  Things are still strange though.  I’m writing this sitting at the kitchen table at home, morning sunlight coming in the window and the rest of a plate of fish and fruit Maiko gathered and Lin prepared for me just an arm’s length away.  They’re over on the couch together right now.  Cass and Vernon both said they’d be by sometime later.  I’m starting to wonder if any of them are going to let me out of their sight again.  Not that I mind.

I suppose I should start from the beginning.  Try to cover as much as I can remember from yesterday.  It’s not like I have any other plans for today, except maybe take a walk down to the beach for some sun.

The first thing that I was aware of, that I can remember, was the feeling of water rippling around my legs.  Then the sound of rain.  Not sure if the warm drops falling on me or the cool stone I was lying on registered next.  Which is all a fancy way of saying I work up in a daze at the edge of the spring not knowing how I got there.

I was more than a little damp, soaking wet really.  If I’d somehow floated up from the depths I hadn’t been lying there long enough to dry out, and if I’d come from the forest I’d been there long enough for the rain to inundate me.  Not that I was quite lucid enough at the time to put that together, this is just me looking back trying to puzzle things out.  I was naked.  My only covering the furry hide of some beast, seemingly black but slowly washing out into the spring to reveal itself as white.  Afraid to think too much on where I got that.

For that matter, I couldn’t (and still can’t) remember a great number of things, what had happened or where I’d gone chief among them.  I wasn’t even sure how long I’d been gone.  Had I just wandered out for the night?  Had it been days?  Years? 

It didn’t help that my own body felt subtly off once I finally got up and tried moving.  Like all of my limbs were trying to reflexively settle into a slightly different posture and gait than I was consciously used to.  Not to mention the scratches and bruises all over.

Looking back, it’s probably a good thing I was so out of it at the time.  I probably would have panicked pretty bad.

Took a break from writing to do something I’d been avoiding since I got back.  Took a look at myself in the mirror.  I’m still me.  Cried a little in relief.  For some reason I kept expecting to find someone I recognized but wasn’t me.  I think I worried Lin a little with it, but I told her it was a happy sort of crying.  And it was.

Back to yesterday.  I only managed a few steps before falling back down.  Soon, I heard a comforting wooden-ball-in-a-hollow purr-that-isn’t-a-purr.  I let my eyes stay closed as I felt the nature sprite pick me up, fur cloak and all.  As it carried me, an inner voice chuckled about how we matched now with the cloaks.

Wrapped in my mantle and gently rocked back and forth as we walked with the white noises of the not-purring and rain, I drifted off  to sleep again.

I woke up briefly when it set me down.  Just long enough to register that I was next to the rectangular pool on Siren Overlook and feel the nature sprite’s hands brushing my hair and cheek.

The sun was out when I woke up again.  It was the voices that woke me up though.  The voices and the shaking.  Cass was shaking me to wake up.  Lin, Maiko, and Vernon were standing behind her.  I think one of them was telling her to calm down.  Probably Vernon.  Yeah, it was Vernon.

I faux-grumbled a bit, and sort of laughed as I said I was awake and getting up.

A whole lot of crying and hugging followed.  All at once it hit me that, wherever I’d been, it’d been bad but somehow I was back and everyone was here and it was going to be alright.  I tried thinking back more to what had happened.  It seemed safer to do there, especially surrounded by the people closest to me.  And they wanted and deserved to know too.

The parts I remember clearest are the Catacomb Depths.  Being on the osseous shore of the black lake.  In the throes of the hunting rhythm.  Spike in one hand, club in the other.  That other that I’d felt before, especially after funerals was there.  I’m still not sure what it looked like, even though we finally found one another.  When I try to picture it all I can think of is that blinding pulse of light and dark of those Depths.  We tried to hurt one another.  Did hurt one another.  For a long time.  Eventually I chased it into the lake.  Or did it drag me in?  Black and red and fear and thrill and pain and rhythm followed.  That lasted even longer.

And then stillness.

My memory gets hazier still after that.  It wasn’t always still, but it usually was.  Sometimes I felt like drowning, sometimes like floating.  It was never truly silent, for that rhythm never ceased, only rose and fell.  At its loudest there was red too in the black and the sense of thrill returned.  Then it quieted and I felt fear and revulsion.  At its quietest the straining to make it out was maddening.

Mostly, I felt terribly, terribly alone.

Sometimes I didn’t though.  Those were the times that felt most like floating.  Those were the times I could tune out the rhythm.

And now I’m back.  I have no idea if I somehow physically went to the Catacomb Depths and then floated back up through the lake and into the spring, or if I just spent two weeks feral in the woods with the nature sprite looking after me until I woke up, or something else altogether.  And I’m okay with that.  For now anyway.  Some mysteries don’t need an answer.  Some mysteries don’t have an answer.  Some mysteries have an answer but may as well not because we have no way of finding out.  I don’t know which one this is, and maybe later I’ll care, but that’s not what’s important right now.

Right now what’s important is that I’m back.  I’m still here.  All those things I said I was going to do and try to get better about I still have a chance.  And everyone else is here too, making that possible.  I don’t have to be alone.  I never did.  I never was.

But, big feelings aside, I should probably still give at least a cursory recap of the rest of yesterday.

As I said, much hugging and crying and relief happened.  Then as we all finally took a moment to breathe my lack of anything besides the fur cloak I had wrapped myself in finally started to register.  Embarrassment was had all around, but thankfully I don’t think anyone actually saw anything.  Vernon didn’t have his mediator coat on him, but he still gave me his shirt, keeping his bright red face turned away the entire time until I had it on.

Afterwards, we all agreed that it was time to get out of there and get me home.  Happy as I was, I still really didn’t feel like dealing with anyone else yet and we took the long way around the Village, off the main road and trails.  We got back.  I took a bath.  Cass went to her house to bring back food.  Lin examined my still-unidentified scratches and bruises and determined nothing was serious enough not to just let heal on its own.  We had dinner.  Vernon and Cass went home.  Lin and Maiko spent the night.  I tried to write a bit, and then I went to sleep.  It was pleasant and dreamless.

And then it was today.

Vernon and Cass will probably be back soon, so I’ll try to wrap this up.  Lin let slip something about a surprise when they get here.  Something related to me having been here a year now.

And that’s a good point to wrap up on before I run out of pages in this journal.  I’d wanted to make another milestone retrospective, but the way things worked out I missed the date.

So, one final note before I close out this volume to whomever reads this journal, whether a future archivist, a future outsider, or my future self.  Or perhaps the nature sprite invisibly reading over my shoulder as I write.

To the my nature sprite: I don’t know that I’ll ever really understand you.  Sometimes you’re awful and seem to exist only to torment me.  Sometimes you protect me and get me through hard times.  Sometimes you simply make life annoying.  Sometimes you simply make life interesting.  Sometimes I hate you.  Sometimes I love you.  Even still, I don’t think that I’ll ever be rid of you, and I’m not even sure I would if I could.  I don’t know that I’ll ever really understand you, but I think I’m starting to accept you.  Thank you.

To future archivists: I hope you’ve found some use,  or at least entertainment, in all you’ve read.  Please remember though, that I’m not a reliable narrator.  This  is not a record of events as they happened but as I experienced them.  It’s not history, it’s the story I tell myself to make sense of things.  I cannot hope to portray the full depths of anyone else’s personality or experiences.  Even those closest to me I only ever see my own biased sliver of their lives at any one time.  That’s the most any of us sees, but that doesn’t mean we can’t understand one another to some degree or that communication isn’t worthwhile.  This isn’t The Truth (if there even is such a thing) but it is my truth.  We all have one.  What’s yours?

To future outsiders: Your experiences won’t be the same as mine, but I hope this still helped.  By our nature we have at least some things in common.  You might feel like you’ll never truly belong and that you’ll always be different in some fundamental way that keeps an invisible wall between you and even those you do manage to make a connection with.  And maybe that’s true to some degree, on some level.  But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.  And you’ll never know for sure if you don’t try.  And just because you feel a little extra bit of distance that doesn’t mean the connections you make still aren’t valuable or worth making.  The world is a big and confusing place, and it’s okay to feel lost.  It happens.  Sometimes for a long time, but you’ll find your way eventually.  Or else you’ll make one.  Or else someone else will find you.  Don’t be afraid to take their hand when that happens.

To my future self:  Look at how much of a mess you were at the start.  Look at how much of a mess you still were a year later.  Look at how much you grew in just a year.  How much have you grown since now?  Are you letting your friends help you yet?  I bet they’re still there for you.  Are you having a bad day?  A bad year?  I bet it wasn’t as bad as the week I just had.  And you got through that.  Did you ever make that trip back to the lake of stars?  You should go again anyway.  Have you made it to Cloud Tower yet?  Or explore the old castle?  Or some new island?  The edge of the world?  How was it?  I hope you took lots of notes and made some good drawings.  And made even better memories.  What does Iole’s book say?  How many classes of students have signed your book?  Or has Cass kicked you out and taken over the library by now?  Or is she a doctor now?  I’m sure she’s insufferably great at it whatever she’s doing.  Are Lin and Maiko still together?  What am I saying, of course they are.  I wonder what Maiko settled on doing with her days in the Village.  Whatever it is, I hope she found something she has a passion for.  Did Lin ever start humming again?  I hope so.  She always seemed so happy when she was doing that and I don’t think that was ever a mask.  And how’s Vernon?  Still his charming, perfect gentleman self I assume.  I left things off with him kind of weird before I disappeared, but I’m glad you patched it up with him.  What new stories have you and Pat shared?  Any good local ones like The Girl From the Forest that you’ve transcribed?  Have you made up any new ones?  I’m sure you have.  I can’t wait to find out what they are.  And I know I was a little glib about it earlier, but if you’re in a rough spot right now - and I’m sure you’ve had a few since you were me - don’t lose hope.  You’ll get through it.  You’re loved.  You’re surrounded by people that care about you.  You’re not actually useless.  You might feel broken, but that can be fixed.  It hurts every time and it’s hard, but remember you’re not alone.  You exist and that’s a wonderful thing.

One day I’m going to be you.  I’m looking forward to it.