And now you're going, "Nah, it's just another Elena-plot to get me to think I can turn around - butI know where I'm going, and I don't care." Does that ring a bell, Damon? Have yousaid those words to someone recently? And if not, how do I know them? Could it be that for once I'm telling the truth?
Now I'm going to forget that you're totally besmirching your honor by reading secret things that don't belong to you.
What else?
First: I miss Stefan.
Second: I didn't really pack for this. Matt and I swung by the boardinghouse, and he grabbed the money Stefan left for me while I grabbed an armful of clothes out of the closet - heaven knows what I've got: Bonnie's tops and Meredith's pants, and not a decent nightgown to my name.
But at least I also got you, precious friend, a present Stefan was saving for me. I never really liked typing in a file marked "Diary" anyway. Blank books like you are my style.
Third: I miss Stefan. I miss him so badly that I'm crying while I'm writing about clothes. It looks as if that's what I'm crying about, which makes me seem insanely shallow. Oh, sometimes I just want to scream.
Fourth: I want to screamnow.It was only when we got back to Fell's Church that we found what horrors the malach had left for us. There is a fourth little girl I think may be possessed like Tami, Kristin, and Ava - I couldn't really tell, so I couldn't do anything. I have the feeling that we definitely haven't heard the last of this possession thing.
Fifth: But worst is what happened in the Saitou house. Isobel is in the hospital with raging infections in all her piercings. Obaasan, as everyone calls Isobel's grandmother, was not dead as the first paramedics who got there thought. She was in a deep trance - reaching out tous . Whether some of the courage I got, some of the belief in myself, was really due to her, is something I'll never know.
But in the den was Jim Bryce. He had...oh, I can't write it. He was the captain of theb asketball team! But he hadeaten away at himself: his whole left hand, most of his right-hand fingers, his lips. And he had put a pencil through his ear into his brain. They say (I heard this through Tyrone Alpert, the doctor's grandson) that it's called Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome (sp? I only heard it said) and that it's rare, but there are others just like him. That's what the doctors say. I say it was a malach making him do it. But they wouldn't let me in to try to take it out of him.
I can't even say he's alive. I can't say if he's dead. He's going to a sort of institution where they keep long-term cases.
We failed there. I failed. It wasn't really Jim Bryce's fault. So he was with Caroline just one night, and from there he passed the malach to his girlfriend Isobel and to his little sister Tami. Then both Caroline and little Tami passed it along to others. They tried to give it to Matt, but he wasn't about to let them.
Sixth, the three little girls that most definitely did get it were all under the orders of Misao, from what Shinichi said.They say that they don't remember anything about decorating themselves or propositioning strangers. They don't seem to remember anything about the time of their possession, and they act like very different little girls now. Nice. Calm. If I thought Misao gave up easily then I would be sure they'll be all right.
Worse is the thought of Caroline. She was a friend once and now - well, now I think she needs help more than ever. Damon got toher diaries - she kept her own diary by recording herself on video, and we watched her talk to the mirror...and watched the mirror talk back. Mostly it was her own image that showed, but sometimes, at the beginning or end of a session, it was Shinichi's face. He's good-looking, if a little wild. I can see how Caroline might fall for him and agree to be his carrier of malach in the town.
That's all over. I used the last of whatever Power I know I have taking the malach out of those girls.
Caroline, of course, wouldn't let me near her.
And then there were those fateful words of Caroline's: "I need a husband!" Any girl knows what that means. Any girl feels sorry for another who says it, even if they're unfriends.
Caroline and Tyler Smallwood were going together until about two weeks ago. Meredith says Caroline dropped him, and that kidnapping her for Klaus was Tyler's revenge. Butif before that they'd been sleeping together with no protection (and Caroline is dumb enough to do it), she could certainly have known she was pregnant and been looking for another guy by the time Shinichi turned up. (Which was just before I - returned to life.) Now she's trying to pin it on Matt. It was pure bad luck that she said it happened on the same night the malach attacked Matt and that that old man from the Neighborhood Watch saw Matt drive home and pass out at the steering wheel as if he were drunk or on drugs.
Or maybe it wasn't just luck. Maybe that was all part of Misao's game, too.
I'm going to sleep now. Too much thinking. Too much worry. And, oh, I miss Stefan! He would help me deal with the worry in his own gentle but keen-sighted way.
I'm sleeping inside the car with the doors locked. The guys are sleeping outside it. At least, that's how we're starting - at their insistence. At least they agreed on that.
I don't think Shinichi and Misao will stay away from Fell's Church for long. I don't know if they'll leave it alone for a few days, or weeks, or a few months, but Misao will heal and they'll come back for us eventually.
That means that Damon, Matt, and I - we're fugitives in two worlds.
And I have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow.
Elena