NaNoWriMo+ 2023

26th of Octre

We lived.  We won.  It's over.  I can hardly believe its really over.  To think that not so long ago, I knew nothing of any of this, of the world and what it could be.  I knew my small corner of it, and the pains and the joys that brought.  But I never imagined how broad and wide and terrible and terrific it all could be.  To say its over hardly seems enough to encompass all that has happened.  To think of what could have been, I will always shudder at that.  Part of me wants everyone to know what we did, what we saved them from, but another part is glad for the many who will never know.

What's next for me if to find Daniel again.  To thank him for seeking me out on that first day when he could have easily turned away.  I'm still not convinced I was the only one for this, not sure I believe in fate or destiny or whatever Daniel may say brought me here.  But I know it was all worth it.

I suppose before I seek all that out and try to sort out exactly what to say, there is someone else I'd like to see.  Someone I don't want to keep waiting any longer.  <3

1st of Mae - morning

I suppose its fitting that the day of my father's funeral is the day I finally start writing in the journal he gave me so long ago.  I don't know why he gave it to me.  I don't know that he ever saw me write anything more than I needed to.  It wasn't my birthday or any special day.  He just said he's seen the flower on the cover and thought of me.  Maybe that's all it was.  Maybe I should just take it at face value.

Whatever the reason, and I don't know if I'll ever write more than this, I thought it fitting to write something down for today, to say I love you dad, and I miss you.  I know we didn't always see eye to eye and really there's so much about you I never knew and so much of what I did know that I never understood, but I always knew you loved me and I loved you to.  I still do.  The living are left to keep loving, even the dead who are gone.

I don't know where I heard that before, it sounds like something I must have heard somewhere, not something I'd come up with on my own.  I should have written out a eulogy for you long before the day of your funeral, dad, but here we are.  I'm a procrastinator as always.  It doesn't feel quite right to write it all down here.  I'm sure I'll make mistakes and drafts, though I only have a few hours to do it all.  Okay, so I guess I'll set this journal aside and get on with the writing of the words I have to say.  Maybe if I'm feeling bold and I'm not crying too much when its all done, I'll write some of it here as well.

1st of Mae - evening

I never knew how many friends my dad had.  Or maybe not friends but just people - people he knew.  And they are all so different, too.  Some I know, of course.  There were the family members, the aunts and uncles and cousins.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised mom was there, too.  I didn't think they'd spoken in years, maybe a decade even, but she did love him once.  What brought them together to begin with and what tore them apart, another thing I never knew about my father.  At this point, that seems like a pretty normal thing to not know, considering.

If Dad ever mentioned this Daniel before, I certainly don't remember.  It seemed so strange, all of it, I think if I don't write it down I'll wake up tomorrow thinking Daniel wasn't even real.  Just, imagine what you think an elderly wizard would look like, but remove the robe and the had and make the staff into a cane with a wolf on the top of it and that's Daniel.  Old enough to be my grandfather, maybe even my dad's grandfather based on the hair and the movements, but a face that seems strangely young up close.  Maybe magic is real after all and the wizard analogy isn't far off.  I've heard stories, after all.

Daniel's voice was old, too.  I think wizened might be the word?  Not sure if that applies to voices but I think it fits in this case.  I expected him, like all the others I didn't know, to say he was sorry for my loss and move on, but instead, he pulled out a small pouch or satchel?  I guess it is a pouch - he pulled out a small pouch from his inner jacket pocket, brown leather and looking old but well cared for, not unlike Daniel himself I suppose, and held it out to me.

"I wish we'd had more time," he said, in that wizened voice of his.  "But someone has to maintain the line.  I know you don't know me, but I'm Daniel.  I just... here."  I hadn't taken the package yet, but then I did.  It felt solid and thick, but uniform in shape.  I guessed there were thick papers of some sort inside, possibly letters, possible drawings.  Knowing my dad, it could be diagrams or sketches or any number of the vague but creative endeavors I saw him undertake.  "When you need to talk to me, you can find me every night at McAllen's," he said.  "I think you know where it is - your dad met me there often enough even if you were never along.  Just, take your time and read it all when you're ready and then you'll know where to find me.  I'm very sorry for your loss."

I'm sure my mouth was hanging open, though I had nothing to say.  Daniel nodded and moved on and I set the pouch down behind me so I could accept the condolences of the next person to come my way.  I suppose on the off chance that anyone other than me ever reads this, I should explain that my dad had been sick for a while, so losing him wasn't a total shock, but it was still more sudden than I had expected.  Think expecting another two or three months and then receiving word one morning that he was just gone.  So yeah, the condolences were, they helped, at least a bit.  I guess.

But after it was all done, as over as it can be, here I sit at this desk, writing this and procrastinating on opening that pouch from Daniel, because I know my dad, but I didn't really know him.  And I know McAllen's because my mom, after they split and I was staying with her, would complain about him going there again, but in a way that seemed more fearful than angry.  So seeing the only other person I've ever heard talk about my dad and McAllen's is just weird.  I thought about asking my mom, but that didn't seem right.  So now here I am with the memories of a man I loved but didn't really know and a promise of something and someone that would know something about it all.  I haven't even unbuckled it yet.  I'm procrastinating again.  I know I shouldn't.  It will be fine.  The eulogy, though not perfect, was fine.  Funerals are awful but I survived.  The least I can do for my dad now, or for me maybe, is open this mystery pouch that someone who knew him gave to me.  I should stop writing and do that.  Yeah.

25th of Octre

As big a day as today is, if ever there was a day to skip writing in this journal, this would be it, but I can't do that.  Not now.  Not so close to the end.

I know all I can do, all any of us can do is our best.  We'll face this final challenge together, me and Audrey and Quincy and Aldross.  Aldross.  I think my father would approve.  No, I know he would.  To think if he had never died we never would have met.

If I die and you live, Aldross, I want you to know I never wanted it to be a one night thing.  I'm only writing this down now in case I don't make it and you do, if you find this and you want to know.  I can't tell you this yet, it's way too soon, but if you read it after I'm gone, I love you.  I hope you don't read this though, because I want to keep loving you for a long time to come.  Love is for the living.  I want us both to live.  Here we go.

2nd of Mae

So I opened the pouch and I started to read.  At first I didn't understand what I even was reading.  I'm still not sure I do.  There's maps, first of all, maps of places I've never heard of before, for the most part.  One map of places I have, with marks in certain spots, one of them in McAllen's itself.

There's letters, from my dad to Daniel.  From someone named Yvette to my dad.  But not love letters, like, instructions?  Things to make.  Things to draw.  People to find.  It's weird to say the least.  But from what I can tell, my dad was, this is nuts I don't even know if I can write this down, but he was part of some sort of secret society?  I don't think, well, it might have been a cult.  It has a cult vibe in some ways, but the other stuff.

There's documents, or like dossiers I guess, about people.  Some people I've heard of, most of them I haven't.  It says which ones are dangerous, which ones are enemies, which are recruitment potential.  And the ones that it says are bad, they seem really bad.  And some of them, the way they are described, they don't even sound human, which is the whole cult thing maybe?  But it seems like my dad, if this is all real at least, like my dad was trying to do good?

This is crazy.  My father was an architect and a builder.  He drew fanciful things, sure, and sometimes I would see stuff that seemed nuts but he would say it was just made up, just doodles he did for fun.  Some of them I recognize here, and all of them are crazy.  This can't be real.  None of this can be real.

I could ask my mother, see what she knows.  She isn't mentioned in any of this, and neither am I, so she might know nothing or she might now everything.  She knew about McAllen's.  She complained about McAllen's.  Would she warn me not to go?

It's a public place.  I could just go.  I could find this Daniel and talk to him.  Or not.  It could all be some prank.  Not something my dad would do, but maybe it was just a game he played, maybe even a game with Daniel and Daniel is messing with me now.  But that would be a really shitty thing to do to someone who just lost their dad.

Okay, well, I don't see any other way to not go insane.  I'll go to McAllen's.  I'll find out what this is really about, if it is real, hope I can tell if it's a cult or not, and maybe find out a bit more about who my dad really was.  Maybe this will explain why I never met that many of his friends until his funeral.

24th of Octre - noon

Audrey walked in on us this morning.  I don't know why she didn't knock.  She always knocks.  Maybe its because its so nerve-wracking to be this close to the end - to know where the final demon is, the one we have to kill or its all over.  I'm sure she just wanted to go over things one more time.  That's what we should be doing after all.  We have to be ready for tomorrow.  We have to.  And we will be, because there is no other option.

But before all those preparations, which I promise I'm going to go over with the others as soon as I set down this pen, we're allowed this one good thing.  Me and Aldross are allowed this one good thing.

And Audrey walked in on us this morning and she must have agreed because she just smiled and said, "It's about damn time."  And she shut the door.

24th of Octre - evening

It won't happen again tonight.  We have to be well-rested and if we do that again I fear we won't be.  I think, I'll still... I'm going to do it.  I'm still going to ask to share his bed because I need that comfort, I need that warmth before we go tomorrow.  It just won't be more than that.  And if we die, at least we'll have had this one good thing before we go.

4th of Mae

I went to McAllen's last night.  I would have written about what I learned and saw then, but I feared I was going insane.  Also, I didn't even get back home until a few hours ago and I needed to sleep, I knew I needed to sleep, but I barely could and that's why I'm writing this now.

Today seems like a normal day.  The sun is just starting to rise, but my entire world has changed.

There was a portal.  If you read this now I'm sure you'll think I'm insane.  But I swear to all the gods that will listen, that there was a portal to another world.  It's the stuff of legends or the stories you tell children to scare them.  Beware the darkened portal, you never know what will come through, but only if you're a naughty little boy or girl.  I never believed any of it was real.  I still don't know if I can really believe.  I feared my father might have been in a cult but in some ways this is so much worse because the crazy shit he wrote is true and I don't know if anyone will ever believe it because I don't even know if I can really believe it.

Maybe I should back up a bit.  I went to McAllen's last night.  Daniel was there.  He seemed a bit surprised to see me, but when I came to his booth and sat down he just gave a nod and said, "Sooner than I expected."  And then he asked if I could tell him a story about my father.  He didn't say if it was true or not, and he didn't even really wait for me to respond.  I suppose he figured I wanted to know because I was there, so he just started to talk.

Turns out Daniel had first met my father when dad was just a little boy.  Daniel had known my father's father, a man I had never met.  Dad always told me grandpa had died when I was just a baby, but when I was old enough to understand where bodies went after we died, I asked my father if I could visit grandpa's grave and he said no, it was too far away.

"Your grandpa was an amazing man," Daniel told me.  "A brave adventurer.  He was lost a long time ago, but not before he had a chance to pass on his legacy to your dad.  And how I wish your father had passed it on to you instead of leaving me with this task but I think a part of him, he didn't want you to be a part of this, and yet he did, and I think the best thing for it is to let you decide."  I haven't probably gotten all of Daniel's words exactly right, but the sentiment was there.

Daniel then proceeded to tell me about a land called Calliope.  It sounded like a fairy tale.  A land where forces of good were constantly in a struggle with the forces of evil and whichever side was winning at the time, that what seemed to leak into our world.  He described amazing creatures, fearsome beasts with multiple heads or single eyes or rough lizard skin but the size of a dinosaur, as well as flitting fairies, magical merfolk, and brave wizards.

"There is no precise word for what your father was," Daniel told me.  "But architect is close enough.  He would draw things and that could either give them power or expose their weaknesses, and sometimes the things he would draw could even come to life all on their own.  There wasn't a precise science to it, it was art, well, literally and figuratively.  That was the gift he received from that world.  You'll have a gift too, I'm sure, but we won't know what it is unless you are willing to go through the portal to the other side."

And this was the moment when I was about ready to just leave.  To say, "Okay, that's nice," and write this man off as senile.  But there were letters from my father, in my own father's handwriting, that made a lot more sense if this was true.  He hadn't used the word "Calliope", but there had been a lot of upper case "Cs" and a lot of drawings of crazy creatures and buildings and even weapons.  If he was trying to make things come alive.  This could all still just be some metaphor or analogy or whatever the correct literary term was.  But it didn't seem like Daniel thought of it that way.  It sure seemed like he thought it was real.  And I wasn't drunk or stoned or high, so I could probably believe my own eyes and that was why I said, "Show me."

And I swear to you on all that is holy and unholy that he did.  He led me to a back room of McAllen's, which if I had my wits fully about me and my head wasn't swimming with the craziness he had just imparted, maybe I wouldn't have done with a strange old man, but then I wouldn't have seen what I saw.  There is no way to describe it but as a portal.  It was behind a large wooden door that Daniel had to unlock, but when he did unlock it, it was like a gateway to another world.  And I couldn't help it.  I reached for it.

Daniel grabbed my wrist.  Not unkindly, just to stop my reach.  "If you go through, it will unlock something in you," he said.  "If you aren't ready for that yet... I understand.  There is always tomorrow."

There is always tomorrow.  That tomorrow is now today.

I didn't go through, not yet, but Daniel and I sat before the portal and I stared at it for hours, asking him questions, trying to determine what was real and what was imagined.  Did my grandfather really die in that far off land fighting evil as Daniel said.  Is that why there is no grave to honor him here?  Did my father really know other brave adventurers like this Yvette who had written him letters asking him for strange devices I could barely understand but Daniel did his best to explain?  Was any of this real?

"Did my mother know?" I asked.

"Yes," Daniel replied.  "I don't know how much she'll want to tell you, though, and I don't know if she'll want you to go through.  She never did herself."

She never did.  And she hated McAllen's.  Do I know anything at all?

I may need to talk to my mother before I see Daniel again.  Any night, he said.  Any time I'm ready to take the next step, to see what my gift might be, to decide if I want to take up the fight like my father did and his father before him and even more before him.  But now, writing all this down, I feel well and truly exhausted.  As the sun just begins to rise, I think I am going back to bed.

23rd of Octre

I'm going to do it.  I'm going to tell him I love him.  He needs to know, before we die.  I mean, maybe its kinder if he never knows, but I couldn't live with myself if I don't tell him.  I know we're friends and I know he looks at me like he wants to be more and gods know I look at him that way, but I need him to know.  He deserves to know that I love him, before the end.

We'll do our training today, we have to, this close to the end, and then I'll tell him.  We'll be sweaty and gross, but he needs to know.  I'll write it down for practice now.  "I love you, Aldross.  And I think I have for a very long time now.  If you know nothing else, if all else is uncertain, know that my love for you is certain, and if we survive this, I hope you'll have me.  And I'll have you for as long as you want."  

And if i turn out to be too much of a coward to say all that, I'll just tell him I want him.  Even for just one night, and that will be enough.

5th of Mae

I didn't go back to McAllen's last night.  I called my mother instead.