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“That’s not important right now,” I said. Celia looked relieved but smoothed her expression quickly. “What’s important is what it says. The entries I marked. Go on.”
I handed him the journal, open to the page I’d found before dinner. He glanced at me once, as if for permission, and then read aloud.
27
April 9, 1854
Annalise and I have agreed to take in the girl, as her mother is obviously incapable. There is something very strange indeed about Mary’s offspring. Things seemed to alter around her to suit her mood. She babbles and the clouds break; she shrieks and the shadows scurry and writhe around her.
September 14, 1855
We cannot remain here. The locals have become alarmed at what they call the devil child. None of the children will play with her, but she makes her own playmates, strange half-real children, who move sometimes naturally and sometimes like a ragdoll jerked to and fro. I find I sometimes fear her, and sometimes love her; she grips your mind when she is near, seemingly without intent. Annalise is the only one that sees the truth of her. She is a child, but there is something else within her. A piece of thegod. And that piece is growing more prominent with each passing day.
We must find a way to contain her before she causes true harm.
January 12, 1856
She killed a boy today. I do not think she intended it; she is too young to understand death, and she did try to put him back together again, like he was a broken doll. Annalise calls her a monster. Perhaps she is right. Something must be done. Dr.Raymond has a notion of what it might be.
March 25, 1857
We are forced to flee again. The girl grows older. She is curious and monstrous in her curiosity, always taking apart dead things and asking questions that make men squirm. She invents companions for herself, and when she bores of them, she sets them loose. At first, they dissolved without her, into smoke and earth, but now they bound and lope about, heads lolling, grasping at whatever they can touch. I have learned to dispatch them quickly.
We have devised a solution of sorts. A cage. Annalise believes she has found a suitable location for it, outside of a town called Eston. Beyond the town lies a place called the Fold. It is here that Annalise believes we will find our solution.
October 8, 1857
The people of Eston do not welcome us; I can hardly blame them. The girl breeds strangeness in her wake. Though she has not killed in months, and the last time she did—another village boy—she suddenly began to scream and wail and would not stop for hours, saying that she did not know, asking why we had not told her. I do not know to what she referred, but if it has put a stop to the need for so many bribes and midnight exits, all the better.
Dr.Raymond assures us the procedure will be simple enough. The mind of the god that lives within the girl has attached itself to her. It is not unlike the procedure which opened Mary to the great god in the first place. It is only a few cuts and the severing of sense. Only the scale is different: a bundle of nerves in Mary’s case; in the girl’s, a division of her body. Dr.Raymond believes that by dividing her flesh and scattering it through the Fold, we will scatter the consciousness of the god.
It is not necessary for the girl’s physical body to be alive when we undertake the procedure. I have prepared a tincture of foxglove which should be a gentle enough surcease before the necessary violence. Thirteen cuts; were I superstitious, I might find something ominous in that, but I find my capacity for fear and uncanniness is spent.
We shall make the thing biddable, and we shall cage it here, and its power will be ours.
October 19, 1857
It is done.
February 19, 1858
I saw the girl again. Her face was obscured as if by a flaw in my own eye, and she flickered for but a moment, incorporeal and fleeting. But I fear that the creature is remembering itself. And if it can remember, it can heal. If it heals, we cannot contain it. We will have to find a way to repeat the procedure.
May 10, 1858
My son was born today. He looks like his mother, save for one thing: he has black eyes.
The construction of Harrowstone Hall is nearly complete. The creature remains caged.
November 6, 1889
It has been a very long time since I wrote in this chronicle. I have hoped for a long time that my suspicions about the creature’s growing strength were unfounded, but it has become undeniable. The disturbances in our perceptions have become more pronounced so that even I sometimes struggle to sort truth from phantasm. Annalise remains immune, but I worry for her as well. She hasgrown to despise the house, and after months of wandering its halls at night, she has retreated completely and refuses to step foot inside again. Her odd behavior has alarmed the locals. They call her the Harrow Witch, a title in which she seems to find some perverse pleasure.
If we do not repeat the ritual, all will be lost. Fortunately, we have prepared for this moment. A child of the appropriate lineage has been produced and is being fetched even now. In a sense, I pity her, but our patronage has given her a more comfortable life than a bastard might have; in a sense, her life is ours in any case.
It is a simple enough procedure. She will not be missed.
28
