Day 512,

I don’t think I was asleep for an hour before I woke back up again.  My memory of what happened is hazy.  No, not hazy, for the parts that I can remember are incredibly clear.  More like disjointed.  Vivid moments with gaps in between.  That said, most of what I’m about to recount comes from what Lin and Maiko told me this morning. 

We’d given up on waiting for the eclipse and gone to bed, me in my room and the other two in the bed we finally got in the spare room last season and then never really used.  As it turns out, Lin had stayed up a little bit later writing a letter to me, so she wasn’t fully asleep yet when she heard me leaving the house.  And then her getting up to investigate woke Maiko. 

They found me outside the back door of the house, halfway to the edge of the woods beneath the red eclipse, wearing the fur mantle that (as far as they knew) I hadn’t donned since the day they found me wrapped in it on Siren Overlook and not much else.  The nature sprite was waiting for me at the treeline.  This was the first time Lin had ever seen it.  They watched as I calmly walked over to the sprite and took its proffered hand.  They were expecting another dance like I’d engaged in during the last eclipse, only to be caught off guard when the sprite and I took off into the woods, laughing together as we bounded away.

Both of them immediately gave chase, although Lin was quickly outpaced and left behind in the jungle underbrush.  The other sprites were out in force, glowing eyes all around and making their usual cacophony.  Doubtless they found the entire spectacle terribly amusing.

Writing that now, I just had a terrible thought.  I sincerely hope that neither Lin nor Maiko were found entertaining enough to haunt.  As… complicated… as my relationship to “my” sprite is, I can’t say I would wish it on anyone else.  And the fact that it would be because they were trying to help me

We had reached and crossed the road, my sprite and I, and were about to pass into the inner forest on the other side when the sound of Maiko calling my name caused me to stop and turn to see her emerging from the outer forest behind us.  

Lin’s scream caused me to let go of my sprite’s hand.

As Maiko and I ran back to her, it dimly registered in some semi-coherent part of my mind still running on instincts and nameless rhythms that the scream had been one of anger more than fear.  As we got closer the noise of the gathered sprites grew louder until the groan of a bent tree abruptly cut out all other sounds.  We found Lin looking down at the ground with a large stick at her feet and the Wandering God standing over her.  Trying to hold Maiko back from running in and trying I-don’t-even-know-what is one of the memories from the night that I can most clearly recall.

Later we learned that Lin had been swinging the stick at sprites that revealed themselves to her and got between her and us.  That was the scream we heard.

After far too long of us all holding in tense, still, silence the Wandering God departed with the eclipse and the rising sun.  A rising sun that was soon filtered through grey clouds.  The true mists began to rise then, forcing us to hold back the night’s pent up emotions until we returned to the house.

And when those pent up emotions were released…  No, I don’t think I can bring myself to recount it all in detail so soon.  I’m not even sure I should.

There was… a lot.  Talking, and crying, and holding one another.  Getting things out.  Working through things.  And for once, it really was talking.  Actually communicating everything with someone else instead of attempting to excise it by myself in this journal or exchanging letters with Lin about things we couldn’t normally bring ourselves to say to anyone else aloud; it hit in a way that - for all the talking we did, all the writing I’ve done - I can’t find the words to do it justice.  Not now anyway.  

All this was eventually interrupted by Vernon and Cass showing up.  Lin’s distress had resonated through the bracelets and woken them up.  Not that we (well, I and I’m presuming the same for Lin and Maiko) weren’t glad to see them or feel like we can’t share things with them, but when you’re having a moment and someone shows up unexpectedly it does rather disrupt the flow of things.

We (mostly Lin) explained what happened and that, while it was understandably concerning, all three of us came out of it safe and sound.  I dare say that sounds far more convincing coming from three people in agreement than my usual insisting that I’m fine after something I’m probably not actually fine in the wake of.  Ultimately, Cass and Vernon stayed as long as they dared before the mists got too thick to safely make the trip back to the Village.  Or in Cass’s case, to her family’s house.  She said something along the lines of her parents being likely to appreciate the rainy-season visit with market day having been thrown off by both eclipse and mist.  I’m not sure she would have done that a year ago.

Lin and Maiko stayed though.  They wanted to make sure that I’d be okay if there was any kind of interaction between what happened last night and tonight’s dreaming.  My reflex was to try to reassure them that there wouldn’t be, but I managed to stop myself.  The truth is, we really don’t understand any of it.  We’re faced with possibly unanswerable unknowns and working through them the best we can.  I’m glad not to be alone for it.

We never got back to quite that same level of openly spilling our hearts out to one another, but the ripple of it, a sort of quiet intimacy, persisted the rest of the day.  It was nice.

Maybe it will keep me safe in my dreams too.