Bodies, Brooms & Immortality (Journal January 7, Morning)

Dear Journal,

Has the sun always been this bright and the city this noisy?

I perhaps indulged more than I should have last night, especially when I consider how little I had eaten and how ill I still felt from the rough air crossing and the train’s rocky-progress. But how could I not get caught up in the spirit when Miss Kaylee, Mr. Footman and even Mr. Tenk (not to mention Miss Beq) were all deep in the spirits yesterday? The only person to leave the Gangplank last night not completely sloshed was, I believe, Miss Jed. Oh, also I suppose that awful woman who was going on and on and on about….something, I forget.

Something about Mr. Underby maybe? It’ll come to me…ahh…the tea is ready…

Though I was gone only a few days it turns out that there was much to be missed. A body was found in the imperial theater (which Jed seems to think is a cursed building). Also, Footman Industries was attacked by some sort of automaton (or maybe it was more like Mr. Footman & Mr. Sixpence were attacked just outside the laboratory…). Also, those odd barrel things keep getting found all over the city. I checked the map that Mr. Tenk has set up, I can’t see any pattern to it. It’s all very curious.

Is it an attack on the city? Or is it all unconnected?

The body worries me, even if it is (according to both Jed and Grendel) an older corpse (IE Not fresh, at least a month old), does that mean there is a murderer on the loose?

Perhaps I should clean my rifle…

The experiment is fast approaching now. Mr. Lionheart last night was asking if I was worried and, since Mr. Footman was sitting there, I told him I wasn’t worried in the least.

It was, of course, a lie. I fret constantly about the experiment and my sleep is troubled by it. I have tried to keep only two possible outcomes in mind, as if they were the only way the experiment could go. In one outcome it works, everything is fine. In the second outcome I die, which might not seem like a good thing but it certainly beats all the little possible consequences that have been sneaking into my mind of late. The possibility of half-lives, of decay, of a mind gone sour, of an eternity spent searching for (as Mr. Footman sometimes calls them) replacement parts. I might be made completely dependent on Gizzzy and the Pengi and Mr. Footman himself for the rest of my un-life.

And then there is the possibility that I contract that disease and go around attempting to eat everyone I see.

I think it’s best if I don’t think about it anymore.

The trip to Orkney had a surprising end. I had expected my brother to ask me to do another task (he was, I know, quite pleased with my work in copying out those pages for him in December). What he did instead was to give me a gift and release me from my obligations to the family.

Just a ring with a name, but it is my ring and my name and an old family tradition.

I know the correct action is to have it melted down, but I can’t quite bring myself to do it.

I see the afternoon is calling.

I wonder what I should make for dinner?

~S. MacB.

P.S. A broom has appeared on my hearth…I’m really not sure where it came from or why someone would put it there. It is very curious, but hardly alarming.