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 

Sometimes, when nightfalls and all the lights slowly fade away,  I whisper to the Moon. The Moon Man that fishes for two little dreams and is looking for lost little baby stars that slid from the slippery sky.  He always smiles sadly when he listens and I would like very much to hold him in my pocket. But no one has ever managed to décrocher la lune and I think he quite likes his bed of stars. And when he is shy, he hides behind the clouds and fog and you can only glimpse him winking at you. Do you think he must be so very lonely, stuck in the sky for Forever?



I am quite glum. Feeling stuck, stuck, stuck deep in treacle mines. I am like the ballerina stuck inside my music box. (She's only free when I want her to be.) Something is happening here--great, beautiful terrible things. I only catch snips of conversations behind corners, like someone has scissors and cuts them into tiny pieces so I cannot understand. Fear creeps into people's voices and steals who they really are. Sometimes, though, Fear finds the Real person way down deep inside and brings Brave up to breathe. 

 I am afraid I haven't been terribly Brave. All my diaries and notebooks are stuffed into the drawer, the key still in the keyhole so nobody can peek in. I know I must sound so very selfish, but I promise I don't mean to be. Sometimes, I feel as though I've forgotten how to write. Papa always says that if you ever feel this way, you must write and write and write until you realise that you haven't forgotten how to write, you're only feeling so many Feelings all at once that you don't know which Feelings you're feeling. 

I am feeling cold tonight. My toes feel frozen even with thick, wool socks pulled up to my knees. (Forever, forever forgetting my slippers. They are always disappearing.) My locket is tucked beneath my jumper and the gold metal is warm against my skin. It feels a little like being Loved, like being Real. And I hold on tightly to my happy thought. Never, never to let go. It is too late for tea, Maman tells me, and so I shall drink up a cup of warm milk and sugar to make me sleepy. And in my dreams tell the Moon Man of all the words Kay told me about secrets yesterday. Yesterday, when the summer air was warm, the tide was like a lullaby and the only light was from the lighthouse every thirty seconds. (We counted.) 

 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. 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.

I miss my home. Only, I am not sure which home it is that I miss because sometimes I feel as though I have ten or twelve homes instead of one. I have made a new home out of sheets and filled it with my loveliest, most favourite treasures because I am lonely and have nowhere else to go. There is a door and a password to keep Loneliness away. Oliver-darling normally keeps me company, but the lace bear is nowhere to be found. I imagine he is hibernating somewhere secret. Perhaps that is what bears do when they are lonely. Perhaps we should learn from them and go to sleep when those tragic feelings start to glow in our stomachs. 

When I am lonely, sometimes, I wake up in the early morning and drink my tea in silence, pretending everyone is still only sleeping. Tea is good for being lonely. Books are lovely friends, too, if no others can be found. I surround myself with Books and read aloud from one to all the others. Do Books ever read each other, I wonder? They are brilliant soldiers against Loneliness. Loneliness, who keeps us missing. Loneliness, who keeps us all from home. Loneliness who means the same as Lost.