Chapter 43: Day 42

Day 42,

Morning thought: In hindsight, I should have talked to Lin about my suspicions of there being volumes missing from the archive.  Given how much time she apparently used to spend there, maybe she could verify one way or the other.

 

I spoke to James and Cass on the way into town today about plans made with the crystal collectors yesterday.  Fortunately, he still seemed to be on board with letting Cass go on that trip and even said that he and Antigone intended to pack food for the two of us since it’ll be a whole day out and day back.  I said he didn’t have to do that for me, but he insisted.  I swear, at times it feels like I’ve been adopted or something.  Although perhaps less adopted like a family member and more like a stray cat that lives nearby that people like to feed.

Also, Cass and I will both need to be spending the night before the trip in the Village proper.  Since part of the agreement was that we’d help carry, we need to be with the collectors when they set out in the morning.

As for the rest of the day, I think I’m starting to make some progress with being able to think and talk about individual words and symbols, and this language in general without getting headaches and existential crises.  Enough that Cass and I started talking more about how to actually go about teaching a bunch of kids and what’s expected.  Or at least, as well as she can remember from when she was learning….

I should probably consult an actual adult about this, shouldn’t I?  Probably Pat.  Between general long life experience and having served as interim archivist for a year he’s probably done this sort of teaching before.  Come to think of it, given other things that he knows and has hinted at, he probably knows something about the whole “outsiders can read but only if they don’t think about it” thing.  Or at least he might be able to verify if that’s an outsider thing or just a me thing.

Why didn’t I go to Pat about this sooner?  In retrospect it seems like an obvious course of action given that he’s practically a walking source of old knowledge and wisdom.  I don’t completely know.  It feels like I’ve almost gotten into a habit of not mentioning certain things to him or not asking about things he probably knows answers to.  I still haven’t mentioned Maiko to anyone for that matter.  I hate to think that I don’t trust the old man.  I mean, he was literally the first person I met and has been nothing but kind and helpful.  Just every now and then something feels… off with him.  Like, I can’t tell if things just slip his mind because he’s old or if he’s intentionally drip feeding information a little at a time.  And in hindsight it seems like a convenient excuse to end a conversation always comes up right after he tells me something sort of big.

Or maybe I’m just irrationally afraid that if I find an answer to anything that seems sort of unusual or mysterious it’s going to turn out to be a horrifying revelation that somehow retroactively makes everything else awful as well.

I suppose I could try to track down and ask Theo, but I’ve procrastinated on that first meeting for so long I’m starting to instinctively dread it.  Although I’m pretty sure that’s just me reflexively finding justifications to continue procrastination and creating irrational fear in lieu of any concrete reason to put it off.  Funny though how conscious recognition of something like that doesn’t actually make it much, if any, easier to get over.

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