Andrea Höst - The Touchstone Trilogy

Today’s mantra

There are no black things

Creeping

In the corner of my eye

And

There are no claws

Glinting

In the shadow of that door

But

There’s nothing wrong with

Me

I’m just fine, I’m

Sane

Normal

Not seeing things.

Friday, December 14

Laying their plans

Mum has a CD of this old musical version of War of the Worlds . On that, the Martians make this incredible noise, this uulllllaaaaa howl which is so totally unnatural, not a noise anything on Earth would make.

I’m looking for tripods on the horizon.

The noise isn’t the one from the CD, of course, but it is super weird. A mournful wail so deep I feel it more in my bones than my ears. I’m sitting on the roof of my tower, listening, watching, but I can’t see where it’s coming from. It sounds like the hills are moaning.

Whatever it is, it’s big. Could even dinosaurs make a noise like this? After spending the last couple of days convinced that something’s been watching me, I was creeped out enough already. I wish tonight was a moonfall, or that I’d at least figured out a way to make a light for overnight. I’m not up for fire-lighting. I’m lying here with my pippin statue, pretending it’s company.

At this point, I can’t decide whether it would be better to be going nuts, or to really have things lurking around every corner, stalking me.

Mouse-like

Is there any difference between being eaten by a bear or a big cat and being eaten by a huge and spooky monster? The monster might even be quicker. You could say that the bear would be more natural I suppose – but that’s just familiarity. Bears and cats are the predators which are real to my world, but does it make a difference if the teeth belong to a dragon?

There might be monsters that kill you slowly, though. Or, if there is any kind of soul or afterlife, things which kill you wrong so that your soul is damaged as well.

So can you tell I spent the night obsessing over what was going to come galumphing up to kill me? For all that, it was a good night. The noise stopped when the sun went down, and everything felt lighter somehow. The feeling of being watched had gone, and then the animals came back. I hadn’t realised, but the more I felt I was being watched, the fewer animals I saw. Like they were all hiding, while I wandered stupidly around.

The town’s main population is all on the smaller side. Sometimes the grey terriers show up and chase things, or the deer or mondo elk wander through, but I don’t think they like staying here. It’s very open compared to the forest. Birds dive-bomb the little animals and it’s easy to see anything approaching if you’re high up. What bushes and trees there are aren’t so big and thick that anything large could go any distance without being spotted. If the Ming Cats hunt here, they do it at night.

Today’s project was to block the windows on the ground floor. Fort Cass is still far from impregnable, but every bit helps. I wish my eyes would stop blurring.

Saturday, December 15

Buttered scones would hit the spot

After winding wool into a rough handle for the longest of my salvaged knives, and sharpening it by scraping it against rocks, I walked back along the lake to chop long poles of bamboo from a stand I’d passed. It was surprisingly easy, but I’m so tired now and it’s barely lunchtime. I’m the kind of lumberjack who needs nanna naps.

Sunday, December 16

OMGWTF!

There were two people in my room when I woke up.

They were standing at the top of the stair, talking to each other. Opening my eyes in the grey of just-dawn and seeing these hazy black figures, my heart gave such a thump. And I squeaked and scurried backward and then felt like a complete dick as they just looked down at me and turned out not to be monsters after all.

A guy and a girl, dressed in tight-fitting black stuff, some kind of uniform. They looked to be Asian (black hair and eyes and a creamy-gold skin, though the girl’s eyes didn’t have that fold). I couldn’t understand what they said to me, didn’t even recognise the sound of the language, but the tone wasn’t threatening. Annoyed or irritated, perhaps, but I didn’t get prepare to die vibes off them.

They were surveying my room but not touching anything, and didn’t seem too keen on getting close to me, either. I was foolishly glad I’d only just cleaned up, and all my food was neatly separated in bowls with no rubbish lying about. That I was wearing my underpants. One, the girl, started talking to me, asking questions, and I tried talking back, and was trying not to cry because they were people and even though they understood me as little as I understood them, THEY WERE PEOPLE!! It was all I could do not to scream and throw myself at them.

They had a little talk, then the guy went up to the roof and the girl gestured at me to follow her. I put on my shoes first, and packed my backpack since she didn’t seem to mind waiting around, though she kept her distance from me and kept scanning the room as if she suspected I had someone hidden behind a jar. I immediately started thinking about plagues, and wondered if that was why the town was abandoned.

She led me down to the lakeshore and stopped at a rock and pointed to me and then to the rock, and when I sat down she walked off. But that was okay because I was busy looking at the ship on the lake.

Not a boat. A narrow metal arrowhead shaped thing, creamy-grey with dark blue side sections. It’s big enough to be carrying dozens of people, and is definitely not primitive. Whoever these people are, they’re more advanced than Earth.

The two in black weren’t overwhelmingly surprised to see me here, or very interested. They acted as if they hadn’t expected to see me, and put me aside while they went on with whatever it is they’re really here for.

I saw another pair of them, also black-clad, standing up at the central bluff, but then something came out of the ship. A flat platform which floated above the water, and stopped right next to the bank where I was sitting, delivering two women, older than the pair from Fort Cass, and wearing a mix of dark green and darker green, not quite so tight-fitting as the black outfit. Again they were all business, pointing at me and then one particular corner of their platform and very stern about it.

It’s not like I was going to say no , hopping on very meek, and standing exactly where I was put. The platform began moving straight away, though I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what they were doing to control it. Maybe someone back at the ship was steering.

They talked to each other as they went back, and watched me as if they thought I was going to take a knife to them. I saw no more than a corridor of the ship before they ushered into this little box of a room, and shut the door on me. So small it’s practically a cupboard, but every few minutes it grows warmer or colder or hums. Maybe they’re irradiating me for bugs.

I’ve been here over half an hour. I wish I’d had a chance to pee before being rescued.

Monday, December 17

The excitement of butterfly grapes

It seems an age since I could write in this book, though my watch says it’s only been a day or so. Where to start?

On the ship I was finally let out of my cupboard by a woman in yet another uniform – grey and darker grey with a long pale grey shirt over the top. Just like a doctor’s coat, so no surprise that she was some kind of doctor and gave me a medical exam and a bunch of injections. Most of the injections didn’t involve needles, but something like a compressed air cylinder. The worst was directly to my left temple, which ached, and then ached worse, and now is a dull persistent pain.