Quiet Evening? (Journal November 15)

Journal,

A relatively quiet day.

Another cat-free day I'm afraid. I long to get into Underby's house and snoop around (and also to check on poor Gill!), but I've run into him twice (three times?) in the last few days and it is too dangerous to simply show up on his doorstep. The Clockwinder is apparently being "cared" for by him, I'd love to see for myself exactly what sort of "care" Mr. Underby is capable of giving.

Skyler is missing, the rumors have been flying all over town about it but I finally ran into Jimmy and asked and it has been confirmed. I am fretting, of course, but waiting. I've heard from multiple sources that Skyler has vanished for lengths of time before. I shall give it a few days and if nothing comes up, then I shall start sending letters out to make inquiries.

Nearly un-related, but if Underby has anything to do with it I shall wrap my fingers around that man's thin neck and not let go until his eyes go dark.

Given the high tolerance for murder around here, I doubt anyone would bother prosecuting me.

I have decided to take Miss Addersteins advice (I do hope I've spelled her name right) and try reading some of these books for a change, so most of my day was spent in solitude. I did manage to procure some of my late husbands books before his family caught on to what I was doing and some of them are quite old and relatively useless to someone such as me.

One claimed to be a compendium of religions, though mostly it was a simple overview. I did find one interesting passage which I shall record here in case anything should happen to that particular volume:

Sekhmet--Egyptian lioness warrior, primarily believed to protect the pharaoh in battle. An avenging goddess, also called the righter of wrongs.

Mayhap it is my destiny to go and find Skyler and bring him home, that's a wrong that needs righted if something has happened to him.

Headache gone completely today, Miss Adderstein suggested I visit Doctor Dayafter and see if he knows what might cause such splitting headaches, but I'm reluctant.

I feel as though I've been sitting still too long, oddly enough.

I think I shall need to speak with Mr. Tinus, the Clockwinder obviously trusted him...perhaps I can push him gently in the right direction.

Must try to sleep,

~S.MacB.

PS. Flowers were indeed from Mr Osterham, the note, on the other-hand, he claims is not his. Upon inspecting the flowers I discovered that they were untouched, why on earth would #11 pull the note out and eat it? Grendel never mentioned they like the taste of paper but they are such odd creatures... A strange coincidence, Grendel mentioned that when he returned home from his little visit with Mr Underby that several of the Pengi had managed to get themselves stuck in the canal behind his laboratory, now that I am thinking about it (and I may be remembering wrong, I certainly have no written record of the conversation to go on) their numbers added up to 42...