Sept. 17, 1996
Dear Mr. Diary,
Well, let's see. We all rode back to Mr. Forteau's house crammed into his car. (Daedalus didn't dare drive while reality was still four inches out of synch. That could have gotten messy.) We got there without mishap, and somebody, Rueben, I think rang the doorbell. (Nathaniel was very surprised that the doorbell worked.) The door was answered by a, um, a little man made of stone. A golem or something. He led us into Mr. Forteau's study.
Well, we asked him what was going on, after telling him of our adventures of the night before. He said that we all owed him a year of service and that he would count it as having started yesterday. Apparently, our respective mentors each owed him a favor, and the favor they were returning was us.
That circumstance covered me and Eric and Nathaniel. KC theoretically owed him for sending us all to rescue her, and I guess she didn't really have anyplace else to go since her Aunt is still missing. Daedalus, I'm not quite sure about, except that he doesn't want to desert KC. Rueben has been following Mr. Forteau's orders for a while, I guess, since he's been studying there. I don't know if the year of service applies to him or not. Crystal is still hanging on to Rueben constantly, which also pulled john in. I don't think he was quite ready to give her into someone else's care.
Anyway, Mr. Forteau said our next assignment was to get him the Weather Machine, which would be in Raleigh on Halloween. (I knew that already; I forgot to mention the visitor I had that morning before we left my place.)
Earlier that morning, around 10, I think, Stephanie knocked on my door. Stephanie is one of the three other Verbena that live in the Raleigh area. Stephanie, Tiffany, and Nicole. If you distilled a cheerleading squad to get the most purely ditzy girls possible, you'd get the mental equivalent of these three. I hate dealing with them. Anyway, Stephanie had come by to give me an invitation to a Halloween party they were holding. Stephanie said I was welcome to invite friends, as long as they were cool. At the time I remember thinking that I might be obligated to go (they are my sisters), but I was hardly likely to inflict the occasion on anyone else. I was having enough trouble with the idea that they were holding a party instead of celebrating Samhaine in the traditional manner. They should know better. Anyway, on the invitation is the line, "And Blessed Be the Weather Machine." At the time, i had no idea what that meant.
Mr. Forteau explained that the Weather machine is exactly what it sounds like. It's a machine that controls the weather. He said it was built by the New World Order (the men in black) and first used about 30 years ago. Before that time, weather was completely random, but now the Weather Machine controls all the weather. He said that NWO used it to direct Hurricane Fran's path to wipe out the Verbena in Wilmington. (Dammit, if Nicole had been doing her job right, it wouldn't have been news to me that we'd lost any Verbena in the storm, much less an entire Circle.) So, anyway, Mr. Forteau wants the Weather Machine safe in his keeping. Apparently we can't just destroy the thing; that would let loose all the weather, instantly and explosively. I don't think Gaia would enjoy that very much.
Mr. Forteau did something that suddenly healed all the wounds on everybody in the party. (I wish I could learn that trick.) He also told us he had prepared a place for all of us to stay in downtown Raleigh, complete with it's own, albeit tiny, node. He gave us directions and told us to go away. Outside his study, we picked up another person to add to the group, a young woman who calls herself Cab. Apparently, her mentor had dropped her off here with no more warning than the rest of us got.
At that point, the group split up. (We all had our own cars again.) Cab and Nathaniel went to the Place, as I've taken to calling it, to check it out. Rueben went home, taking a still-clinging Crystal with him. Eric went back to his hotel to the Symposium he came to Raleigh to attend. The other four of us went to my apartment; Daedalus wanted his motorcycle back. (The paradox had finally worn off.) We all agreed to meet at the Place the next afternoon. I didn't know about anybody else, but I'd had enough weird stuff happen for this particular Friday the 13the.
After getting back to my apartment, Daedalus and KC headed to her house to check on her Aunt and the cats. John and I followed, just in case they needed backup. More weirdness. There was n sign of anyone being around, but the cats had all been fed, and the litterbox was completely clean. With that many cats, it would have had to have been just cleaned out, I think. John snooped around, scaring the cats. Cats are smart; they know a predator when they see one.
We brought KC's cat, Eclipse, back to my apartment. I promised to bring her on to the Place the next afternoon. We figured the cat didn't really want to ride on the motorcycle. After we were back at my place both John and Daedalus tried to locate KC's Aunt using their respective magics. I think the most complete answer they got was 'she's not here.' We went to Outback for dinner, where I got to watch a werewolf attack a very rare steak. He can eat what he likes, but as a microbiologist, I prefer my meat well cooked.
The only other noteworthy thing that happened that night was that John went outside and howled for a while. Don't ask me why; he didn't explain. Made neat echoes off the lake though.
Next afternoon, we headed downtown to the Place. It's not a bad place; it's got lots of bedrooms (they look like college dormitory rooms) and an extremely well stocked kitchen. I have my suspicion that it stays that way, no matter how much we eat. Nathainel is already at work trying to get cable piped in without actually having to pay for it. Personally, I'd rather he get the phones working first. The basement of the place is a huge open room; I think maybe it used to be a bomb shelter or something. I selected a room for myself more or less at random. My only criteria was that the rooms on either side of it were unoccupied. It probably wouldn't last, but I wanted to start out that way. It wasn't too important, since I wasn't planning on living here full time. I like my apartment, thank you very much.
Turns out I get a houseguest, too. The place is somewhat too 'city' for John to feel comfortable, so I offered to let him stay at my place if he wanted. That's fine with me. For some reason I'm not sure I can explain, I trust him more than any of the others in this group. Not that I specifically distrust any of them, but they're still strangers to me. John may be stranger than any of them (except maybe Nathaniel), but that's different. I think maybe it's that I respect his understanding of Gaia. He's closer to her than I am.
There's still a month and a half until Samhaine and the party. The general consensus seems to be that we can't really do anything until then, so we're each following our own priorities. The ones who are living at the Place discovered that it has a pretty nice library. I think several of them ave decided to spend their free month studying. Me, I have a job, so I don't really have the time. I'm going to spend my evenings learning a little more about the Garou (dependant on John's willingness to tell me, of course).
Going back to work on Monday as if everything was perfectly normal was hard to do. I got back into the swing of things pretty quickly, though, getting caught back up from missing work on Friday. This morning I put in for vacation time for the week of Samhaine. I expect I'm going to need it.
Sept. 21, 1996
Mr. Diary,
My Mam called me this evening to see how my life was going. Thank the Goddess she didn't call last week. I don't know how I would have answered her. As it was I told her I had met an interesting group of people through a friend from grad school, and I had been hanging out with them some. I also told her I've started using you, Mr. Diary. I didn't mention how badly I need the outlet to help me keep straight what's been going on in my life.
I've been down to the Place, briefly, a couple times this past week. They're all buried in books down there; they barely surface to say 'hello' when I walk in. No one seems to be thinking much about the Weather Machine at the moment. Neither have I to tell the truth. Next week I'm going to have to go to the Witchcraft meeting and ask Nicole to tell me more about the party. I'd like to have some idea of what's going on, if possible.
John's still living out of my apartment. He disappears all day long; I think he's wandering around in search of some other Garou, but I'm not quite sure. He seems a bit more inclined to tell me about the Garou as a people than about himself as an individual.
Nothing much else is new, except that my supervisors wife is expecting triplets. Can you imagine dealing with three babies all at once? I don't think I could handle one. Well, bye.
Sept 27, 1996
Mr. Dairy,
There was a full lunar eclipse last night. I went out on one of the trails by the lake to watch the moon glow red. It was pretty neat. I closed my eyes, and felt the life all around me. I think it was just the mood I was in, but everything felt more alive. I mean, it was a pretty spectacular sight. I just wanted to let you know.
Oct. 4, 1996
Mr. Diary,
I went to the meeting and talked with Nicole afterward. I really hate playing dumb, but it was that or shaking the living daylights out of her until she told me what I wanted to know. Anyway, I am awed. I thought nothing they could do would surprise me, but I was wrong. This is silly even for them. Nicole said the plan regarding the Weather Machine (shhhh!) is to form a circle around it, all hold hands, and recite a chant that nicole wrote for the occasion. Then we wait for the Goddess to come and spirit the Weather Machine away to someplace safe. That's it. Sure. Right. Good plan.
Of course, their naivety may make it easier for us to get our hands on it. I wasn't too sure of this at first; I mean, I am Verbena. I'll be stealing from my own sisters, so to speak. I feel better about it now. If I had to choose who I'd rather have the responsibility of keeping the Weather Machine safe from the Technocracy, Stephanie, Tiffany, and Nicole or Mr. Forteau, there isn't much contest. Mr. Forteau seems a lot more competent, even though he is a . . . well, whatever he is.
Their stupid little plan has also got me to wondering why someone is bringing the Weather Machine here. There are plenty of people inside the Verbena who could deal with this successfully, it's just that the local three aren't any of them. The only explanation I can think of that makes any sense at all is that it's coming here in honor of the ones who died in Wilmington. I think Raleigh might be the closest place to there that has a concentration of Verbena, but I don't know for sure.
Anyway, I told the others about the game plan for Samhaine, and we're all now brainstorming, looking for a solution. It would be kind of nice is someone could just wander over to it in the Umbra and pull it through at the appropriate point in the ceremony, so the others thought the Goddess had claimed it. Unfortunately, no one in the group is strong enough to do it. So far, I haven't come up with any bright ideas. Maybe someone else will think of something. I hope so.
Oct. 11, 1996
Mr. Diary,
Nothing's changed at the Place; they're all still studying over there. I wish I had the time. I'd really like to expand my healing ability to where I could heal other people, but I know I'm still a long way from accomplishing that. I am getting really good at differentiating different strains of E.coli by sight. Every now and then I pull out my sample of white goo from the man-in-black, but it's still just dead goo; I can't tell anything new about it.
We still have no clue about how we are going to pull this off. I hope someone gets a brainstorm soon. I can't say I like the idea of just winging it. To misquote, "the Goddess helps those who help themselves."
Oct. 20, 1996
Dear Mr. Diary,
The mad scholars are starting to raise their heads out from between the pages. Unfortunately, this isn't purely a good thing, 'cause they are also getting sort of restless. KC is getting desperate to find out what happened to her Aunt. The fact that the cats are still being fed, even though nobody is there does not reassure her at all. I can't say i blame her, but I'm getting worried that she might try something unwise. I don't know just what she's been studying for the last month, but I'm still not confident she understands about vulgar magic and paradox.
I think Daedalus is wondering why he's stuck around for so long, and whether he wants to continue to do so. He doesn't seem to feel that he owes any obligation to Mr. Forteau. He told me that he'd gone to Mr. Forteau's house at the request of his mentor to give Mr. Forteau some information, that's all. I get the idea that he wouldn't have obeyed his mentor if he had been ordered to spend a year in someone's service.
That's one problem I don't have, at least. Roxanne and I aren't really close; we don't correspond much or anything, but that doesn't matter. If she tells me I need to do something, then I am going to do it. If she wants me at Mr. Forteau's for a year, then here I am. It isn't that I owe her that much, it's that I trust her that much. She's got this air about her, like she knows how things are supposed to be. I guess I see her as a Priestess of the Goddess as well as my mentor, and it's that aspect of her that I can't imagine disobeying. I think if she called me and said that they needed a human sacrifice for a major working they were undertaking, and they wanted me, I'd just ask when and where. Not like I'm eager to die, but if she asked, I know it would be for something incredibly important. She would never use the power of a human death trivially.
I'm getting pretty grim here; I think I'd better go away for a while.
Oct. 26, 1996
Well, Mr. Diary,
We had an interesting adventure last night. At the mall, of all places. Well, they say magic is everywhere.It happened like this. John told us he had gotten some information from someone he ran into indicating that there was someone else around with an interest in acquiring the Weather Machine. The description he got wasn't really exact; it was something like 'the kids at the mall, the ones with the chains.'
So we went to the mall looking for Awakened people wearing chains. I think KC had an idea of who we were probably looking for, some people she'd seen around. What we found was a group led by a guy named Ogre. I'll leave the description to your imagination; I expect you'll get it just right. The name fits him quite well. He and the others were hanging out in the arcade by the food court.
John and I were wandering around the bottom floor of the mall, so we missed some of the fun before we caught up with the others. Anyway, Daedalus went into the arcade and played a few games against Ogre. They were playing Mortal Combat, I think. I don't think Daedalus got much useful information out of him, except that he's definitely not a Sleeper, since apparently he pulled Daedalus into the net or whatever he calls it, so that they were inside the game playing it. Oh, and one of the girls in Ogre's group is his sister, Betsy.
Anyway, we hung around until the mall closed watching them, when suddenly, they were gone. They didn't walk away or anything, they were just gone. Around that time, mall security asked us to leave because they were closing. then suddenly Nathaniel tells us, "they're back." He swore he could see the whole group of them sitting at one of the tables. All the rest of us could see was an empty table. I was, reluctantly, inclined o believe Nathaniel really could see them. I mean, he may be a bit loopy, but I've never heard of him having hallucinations before. But I couldn't see them. I don't like it when people mess with my mind like that.
That was last night. I'm afraid the vacation is over, and things re going to start getting really weird again. Time we started preparing for Samhaine night, anyway.