Pocket Diary Entry # l

November 11, this year
Terciera Island, Azores, Portugal
10:10 am AZOT
(Loche Newirth’s Pocket Diary)

How will it end ?

This first entry in a new pocket diary. I am a little frightened. Everything in my being tells me not to write—for who knows what will come of it? Disaster? Salvation? Nothing? But I will write. I must try to keep track of what has transpired—to somehow find the end…

—We are in the middle of the Atlantic. The Azores.

—Terciera is purple —floating lilac on the sea.

—Green plots framed in stone from my feet to the horizon.

—Edwin and I on a Vespa —his helmet is too big—he wants ice cream, I want espresso.

—Bruised clouds stumble over the Atlantic.

—A sweet pipe tobacco haze in the cafe. Tweed jackets - hats hang on pegs.

—Outside, a horse pulls a cart—an orange triangle tacked to the back. The driver wears yellow gloves.

Describe! Pay attention. Everything is extraordinary. See this world! This light! Forget the Center, the Orathom! Stay here. Stay here!!

I watch Edwin sleep. He holds the blanket to his chest with a fist. An empty, chocolate stained cup with a pink plastic spoon is abandoned on his bedside table. I should have had the Bug brush his teeth, I think. At the foot of the bed are his clothes. Grey sky is framed in the window. The furnace fan hushes the room - a lulling white noise. I set our book, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe down next to the ice cream cup and lean my head into my hands.

Where am I? What am I?

I hold my head to keep my hands from trembling—to keep from going mad. Perhaps to keep my skull from cracking and my mind from clawing its way out. Deep breaths. Many of them. Each time I look out at the sea, I feel like something is searching for us. Something is coming.

I breathe. I think.

Focus.

We have been in the Azores for two days. We’re hiding here. I find it difficult to believe that Albion and his Order of Endale Gen, haven’t already found us. George Eversman assures me that we are safe, for a time, anyway.

What little I have seen of the Azores is beautiful. If only there was time to explore. I’m told there are nine islands in this once volcanic cluster positioned in the middle of the Atlantic. Its primary industries are agriculture, dairy farming and tourism. I wonder what it would be like to live here. Maybe one day, I will.

The Red Notebook, supposedly containing my handwritten entry, lies on the dresser. I understand that I penned it while I was in a trancelike state on the flight to where we are now. I have not read it. No one has read it. When my eyes linger on the notebook, I think I see a pale glow from under the cover—as if it contains some kind of Center. George and the remaining Orathom Wis fear that something frightening lurks within it—The Red Notebook—something that could alter a long settled past and warp a forming present. The future? Well, thankfully it still remains a mystery. So far.

Apparently, I wrote it on the eight hour flight across the Atlantic. I have no memory of this. Julia has shared her recollection: “You woke from your experience at Mel Tiris and staggered to the forward cabin—rummaged through a number of drawers until you found a pen and the red spiral notebook. You staggered through a little turbulence, bent over the counter and started writing furiously, mumbling over and over, ‘Cold, I’m so cold. Cold.’”

Cold. Perhaps I remember feeling cold. It might be that I remember the deathly chill of the October water of Priest Lake some ten days ago.

Edwin’s eyes swim beneath his lids. His breathing is soft —hair is still damp from the bath. The sweet scent of the shampoo rises from the pillow.

I think of the birds that woke us both earlier this morning. They were perched above the window on the roof. High pitched chirps and long melodic calls as the sun climbed out of the sea. Hearing the song, Edwin had rushed to the glass and peered up but could not catch a glimpse of them. Even after all that had happened over the last days, the sound of a bird and the chance of seeing it was enough to pull him out of dreams, out of sleep, onto his feet and to the glass to discover. A bird. A simple bird. And its song.

When they fluttered up and out of sight, Edwin had tumbled back to his pillow and his slumber.

I hope they sing us awake—when we do wake. After all that has happened, it seems as if nothing now can stop sleep.

A purple smear of clouds is over the sea. It is near mid day in the center of the Atlantic ocean. Cold.

I must try to rest. I will try to sleep.