Diary extract No. 17

Alexandre has taken all the black keys off the piano. Pasted skeleton keys there instead. He tells me he needs them to open the castle doors. There are no castles here, though. We've left them all behind. Now there's no way to play without unlocking all the doors in the castle. (The one across the ocean. Remember the Earl and his fragile little wife and the window that had a light at all hours.) My fingers hover over the keys, but I never play. Never, because there are Ghosts behind those doors. Not Ghosts like Alexandre. There can never be Ghosts like Alexandre. At night, I almost think I see him when I walk round the corner; his shadow darts about. He is only still when he is sad. Or when I am sad. He always likes to sit with me when I am sad, like he Understands every little thought in my tiny head. Still, it is rather bothersome not being able to find what he's done with the piano keys. (Alexandre is the best secret keeper because he is a Ghost. Skeletons are the worst, you see.)

We watched the fireworks, curled up in quilts because it was a cold night. Not like summer. Not at all. Like it was hailing bombs, only they burst into stardust before they could ever harm us. Sometimes, I thought I could feel coarse wool brush against my arms and the smell of gunpowder invade my nose. When I closed my eyes, the sound of people running became the heavy stride of soldiers marching. As though, for a few moments, I wasn't me any more. Hunkered down in bomb shelters, warmth pressed against ribs as the earth trembled, dreaming of jam and cake and re-reading dictionaries. Trying to be Brave. But the next moment, Maman is pouring out hot chocolate from the thermos and we are all cuddling closer together. (There is a secret about chocolate, you know. It fixes many, many things.) She smells of warm sugar, like biscuits right from the oven, as she points to the lights in the sky. Like exploding constellations, she says. It's all a Magic Trick, I think, the whole world's one grand sleight of hand.

Oh, yes. Also, Papa had his birthday. We parcelled up books for him. Books wrapped in shimmering gold paper and satin ribbons. All he ever wants is books. I think that maybe he could live off of them. Build a fortress of leather books with gold lettering and read for breakfast and lunch and supper. But I will never tell him that. It is so very easy to get Lost in a fortress of Books. Easier to escape a labyrinth than to find your way out of Books. (Labyrinths don't know how to convince you to stay.)

 Diary extract No. 14

My days have been spent at the top of attic stairs amongst Old Things. I forget myself up there, I think, surrounded by Dust and Past. It's a tremendous feeling inside my itty-bitty soul, like being caught in the spiderweb that silks between Before and After. It is rather easy for a tiny girl to disappear behind one of the dusty old trunks that reside there. They guard treasures of a life before I was. They share grand secrets with me, hold magical stories of love letters and locked diaries and weathered photographs of people I vaguely recognise, perhaps from dreams.  

 

Sometimes I feel there must be two histories. 

Because, of course, we know the history in the museums. The dinosaur bones that can't creak and the Roman ruins we play sardines in--all the ancient discoveries we found in the dirt and wrote words and words of textbooks about. But isn't there Another History? The one we know from legends and faerie-tales, filled with dragons and heroes and elves and magic. All sorts of wonderful things that people say could never really be Real.

Somewhere along the way, we've devastated one history and made it less Real. It's hidden away because no one can believe in it. Like the faeries winked out of existence; stars hidden in black holes deep within the Milky Way. So, so far away so we must believe with all our teeny tiny hearts to reach it. There are the times, though, where you catch a glimpse of the Other History in the corner of your eye and that makes it all the more easy to believe. It warms my icy insides to know others must be believing, too. 
 
PS. Maman is drawing again. It's nice to sit together and sketch. Like Before. 

Diary extract No. 12 

We all have thimbles for our hearts, you see?
To protect from things that prick and poke and pierce.

I am full. So very full. This great Heaviness that finds its way inside my heart and settles there. And it frightens me, this Heaviness. But I know that it shan't hurt me. It only fills me with feelings, so many feelings that I can't know what I feel. So I wrote a letter, pages and pages of shaky penmanship and blurry ink. A letter hidden, scattered between the leaves of books no one ever reads. 

And I wrote of all the sad things in the world--of Bones and Ghosts and Romanovs and Not Knowing, of Waltzes and Wars and Wanting and Waiting and Loneliness and Lost--and I wrote of all things beautiful--of Laughs and Loves and Glitter and Ballet, of Home and Hope and Holding Hands, of Adventures and Art and Toffee and Trees. I lost a lot of tears that day. So, the Heaviness went away and I became less full and it frightens me ever so much more than the Heaviness ever did. 

Don't forget. Don't ever, ever forget.

Diary extract No. 11 

I've finally found Luna's bracelet. It is near and dear to my too-small, tiny heart because she clasped it around my wrist just before I had to leave. We were surrounded by suitcases and my valise and the impatient train and the melancholy crowd who came to Say Goodbye. When I found my seat, I pressed my damp cheeks against the cool glass to silently watch as the people I love blurred away. Trains had always been my friends until they took me when I didn't want to go. But the delicate silver chain was still warm around my wrist and it reminded me of Being Cherished. So it became a Treasure. 

But, I'd lost it someplace. Because there is a Ghost called Alexandre who lives with us and is fascinated by our Treasures. He steals them and always returns them in all the Wrong Places. Perhaps he simply forgets where things go. Maybe Ghosts don't know how to remember. Or maybe our Treasures remind him of Being Cherished. What a ghastly feeling, not knowing how to remember. How wretched, forgetting how it feels to be loved.