>[2] Check in with her findings.
>[3] Inquire about Ellery and legerdemain. (Or pockets.)
And Richard's over here claiming bad omens don't exist when he doesn't have any insides? It just doesn't follow. You can either believe in neither, or both, and you are going with both. So there.
?You're very witty. Speaking of lies, Charlie, there is a
Oh? Foul vibrations, huh? Sounds pretty evil to you. Sounds pretty cursed. Sounds pretty omen-y. Forgetting the coat, you march over to the shrine and bend to look.
?Charlie. Charlotte.?
It's kind of small and sad-looking, primarily. Befits the subject. You're not well-versed on the religions of the lower classes, but there's not much to know— their gods are dead, quite verifiably, with filed eyewitness accounts. There's nowhere and nothing left to worship. Why anyone persists is a mystery.
?Charlotte. Do not examine the pretender-gods.?
There might've been eight, possibly, named Sea this and Sea that. The shrine is certainly themed as such: it centers around a wooden statuette a foot high, hand-carved (by jackknife?) to look like waves, or somesuch. Around the statuette is strewn small shells and stones and some wilted swamp orchids. Everything is salt-crusted to the floor. This clearly hasn't been touched in a long while.
?Listen to me, Charlotte.? You have no intention of listening to such a blatant hypocrite / possible demon. (Richard has lingered back a couple feet from the shrine. This will be an arrow on your 'what is he actually?' mental list.)
Seeing no other option but to stoop down, you do. The shrine reveals no more of its mysteries, except that the statuette is stained a little orange-reddish at its top.
?Don't touch that.?
You touch it. You get a quick, jumpy, hopscotchy, hare-scared feeling— in your bones, maybe, or bone marrow. Same as the coat, only you can't attribute this to the "too personal" garbage.
?Stop touching that.?
You were going to stop— it's not an unpleasant sensation, but it's not a pleasant one, either, reminding you of a minor electric shock. Now you won't stop. You stare Richard in his dead eyes and continue holding the statuette.
?Charlotte, you stu—? Richard stops himself. You suppose he's been trying to be nice, recently: not insulting you directly and all that. Maybe he feels bad about the incident in town. ?Stop.?
Spite keeps you held fast. You ignore the feeling. You ignore the steady tremors in your hands and wrists. You ignore the half-smile you have involuntarily twitched into.
>[-2 ID: 9/11]
"Hey," Madrigal says. She stands above you, looking suspicious. "What are you doing?"
You half-smile up at her. She frowns down at you. Realization dawns. "Oh, shit. Your eye. Stop touching—"
Richard stays wisely silent. Grateful, you release. The feeling stops.
"Shit. Okay. Okay." Madrigal presses her thumb and forefinger to her face. "Yeah, that thing's got a shit ton of his blood on it, so that's— careful."
?Hematic vibrations. As I said.?
"I would've been fine," you protest. "I'm not scared of—"
"Your eye was turning hazel."
You touch the eye. "Oh."
Blood: it carries the stuff of a person, the essentia and effluvium (words that aren't yours, still) alike. In more radical interpretations, it is the person, the brain a dumb and deaf interpreter, the body a plumbing system only. In either case, you just came in contact with a lot of undiluted Ellery.
In what is becoming a recurring theme, you feel sick.
?Coat must've absorbed quite a lot at one point, too. Anyway, Charlotte, I told you you're not to tangle with that. You're falling apart with one influence in your head. You do not need more.?
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
"Yeah," Madrigal says. "Trust me, it's not worth it. It's not worth trying to dig. Shrine's not even relevant. Look, he hasn't touched it in— what, five, six months?" She gestures to the salt buildup.
"Since after he dumped you, then?"
She fidgets. "…Guess so."
"You'd think that'd be even more of a time to turn to your …cannibal gods, or whatever?"
?Usurpers. Thieves. Betrayers. Ungrateful little—?
"…He was never that devout, so I don't— he did a lot of bloodletting for other things, so I think the shrine got the extra. Like watering flowers."
"So he didn't do bloodletting after he dumped you?"
Madrigal folds her arms. "You keep insinuating— it was mutual, Charlotte."
"Which is why he's crying at the mention of you."
?Keep it civil.?
"I wasn't crying," Madrigal says blandly, and it's really kind of a pain to update your 'worst lies ever' mental list, but you do it anyways. "I don't know if he did or not. I didn't see him."
?Actually, back up. You skipped the important part. His blood is normal for some length of time before the split, or else has the same properties as regular blood. Likely the former, from color.?
Not something you can bring up to Madrigal. You scratch your neck.
"Anyways," she says, "did you ever find anything in the coat?"
Notes you're not showing her, ordinary sand, and a photograph. Which you never picked up. You lead Madrigal back to the coat (Richard follows behind) and retrieve the photo. (On the topic of the eight pockets: "Yeah, front two have been busted long as I've known him. Guess he got fed up.") You hand her it.
Madrigal tears up again. That's what happens. You should've expected this, but somehow you'd projected a scrap of decorum onto her. It's irritating, and a waste of time besides. You search the boxes while you wait for her to get over it.
They're full of wood. Box one: some variety of wood. Box two: some other variety of wood. Box three: wood, but with the bark scraped off. Box four: some half-carved logs, and some very bad fully carved logs. Box five: some better-carved logs. And so on. You keep opening boxes in the hopes they'll be anything but wood, but you never fail to be disappointed. (Except one, which contains woodcarving tools, but it's too close for you not to count it.)
"Madrigal," you say, in your best withering tone, "these boxes are full of wood."
She sniffles. "He— he picked up a hobby. He likes trees. It got out of hand."
?Why did you bother asking.?
Fourteen boxes, and they're all just wood and wood paraphernalia. Out of sheer desperation, you begin to dig through the boxes in random order. You get a splinter. You stop digging through the boxes to suck on your finger. You begin again.
Box two ("some other variety of wood") is where you hit pay dirt. In the midst of a neat cabin-stack of logs, you retrieve a slim leather-bound book.
"LOG," the front says, and you could've about blasted the tent to pieces with the force of your sheer incandescent unfathomable rage just then.
Madrigal has gotten over the photograph (she has refolded it and tucked it tenderly into its pocket) and is now in an infuriatingly good mood. She laughs, probably at the cover, but it feels like at you. You seethe.
You've basically forgotten that you just found Ellery's— diary? He wouldn't call it that, as a man, but his diary. It's only Richard that brings you down to reality: ?Open the book, Charlotte.?
Is he invested? You thought you were frittering away your life, or whatever it is.
?You're frittering away your life by not opening the book, Charlotte.?
The LOG is locked with a simple gold latch— evidently Ellery relied more on the hiding spot for security. The first entry is dated to 10 months ago, and reads (in Ellery's handwriting, looking especially shaky):
"Was told it might be usefull to record own thoughts on the prosedure, befor and after, and the reasons behind it. So I am.
"Reasons: "a hous divided aganst itself can not stand," that guy said, and I don't know where he got that from, but I guess I'm the house. Desided among ourselves (myselfs) it would be best shot at normal. And Maddy's always supported.
"Thoughts: Kind of second guessing this, but backing out is worse, I/we think. Still got a cupel weeks. Itll be for the best."
Pay dirt indeed. You found the procedure. To stitch his brain back together, or whatever Richard said.
>[A1] Stuff this in your coat pocket (it fits, barely) and read it at a later date. You've got higher priorities.
>[A2] Just skip to the meat of the thing: the procedure and right after. That's all you need.
>[A3] Read it straight through (it's not all that long). You never know what you'll find, but— well, you may not be frittering your life away, but you have no time limit. Nobody lives here.
>[A4] Write-in.
>[B1] Have Madrigal read over your shoulder.
>[B2] Read by yourself. (As possible.)
>[B3] Write-in.
BATHIC'S RECOMMENDATION CORNER #12
Skillet-Roasted Chicken with Burnt Shallot Jus is DELICIOUS!!! Also pretty easy (provided you're comfortable with handling a whole chicken). The recipe has you toss the shallot/garlic solids after extracting all their alliumy juices, but I kept them to eat, because they're soaked in chicken juices and wine and all sorts of delicious stuff. Also, I used instead of thyme because I didn't have thyme on hand. And I roasted a lemon because I like lemon. YMMV... but I think this recipe holds up to a lot of tweaking, because it's GOOD. (I unpaywalled it for you and everything.)