Dear Mother and Father,
I think I am beginning to believe Mr. Shadow's story of having been the typist of your (Father's) most favorite Sparkperson. He knows many details about your visits that I remember, and also many details about his former avatar that I didn't know but was able to verify at the library. The librarian kept giving me accusing looks and asked me several times why such a young girl was in the occult section. (I hate it when people get upset like that. I hate upsetting people. Sometimes it feels like the whole of life is an enormous frozen lake I have to cross, but I keep stepping on weak spots that break when I step on them so that I fall into the icy, freezey potentially fatal water of Upsetting People.) When I tried to explain about the displaced typist who was with me, she gave me even more disturbed looks. She doesn't think typists work that way. Do typists work that way? Please write to me and tell me if typists work that way!
I was considering asking the good witches I've met at Mama Valdy's if they know anything about ectoplasmic beings beyond what's common knowledge, as long as Miss Blackheart and Ms. Narcisa are such nice and helpful sorts, but Mr. Shadow doesn't think there is any such thing as either of them. I only have one memory of Ms. Narcisa, so I thought, "That's all good and well; my mind has been playing a fine trick on me again!" But Miss Blackheart appears in many of my memories from the past year. How could she not be real? I told Mr. Shadow that it's more likely he is the one who isn't real. He laughed at me. I wish he would disappear or turn back into a pretty little bird and fly away. Why doesn't he disappear? Most things that aren't real disappear after a time, or else they warp and shift beyond recognition. That happened a lot when I stayed up too many days past my bedtime. But now, I'm rested (due to the nightmares settling back into their baseline groove) and I'm more or less fed (due to my mimmoth-cooking habit). He isn't going away. I am starting to worry that perhaps he is real after all. How can I make sure? Please tell me how I can make sure!
Anyhow, I got into a rather intense quarrel with him over the reality of my non-ectoplasmic friends. (You always did say I was a born instigator. It's such a shame when my nature comes out unchecked like that.) Mr. Shadow says I made up my playmates to make myself feel better about myself because I put my feelings before anything else, even objective reality. I told him about the dragon's wing I sometimes feel folded around me when I'm lonesome. He says it's no more real than the spanking I incorrectly remembered which my body felt for days after my mind caught up. I wish I were like normal people whose memories of reality are overwhelmingly factual! Normal people forget things like where they put their handkerchiefs, but this is a different kind of forgetting. Dragons aren't even real creatures! Why do I so vividly remember something--that is to say, someone--not permitted by reality? And why does it hurt so much when I give that inconvenient little fact serious consideration?
Mr. Shadow says that when I visited the family a few miles away from Dunwich whom I'm supposed to not discuss, my mind got a little bit broken after Lavinny showed me a portrait of her fiance. My mind didn't feel especially broken at the time, although a lot of people warned me. Of course, a madman never believes himself mad, as far as I know. But I so desperately want my flesh-and-blood friends to be real! If they're not, I suppose there is the benefit of my being able to sever the ridiculous heart-string inhibitions that prevent me from going back home to find you. (I still have not been able to convince Mr. Shadow that you are still alive.) I have, after all, seen little evidence of my alleged friends in the past season and a half. For that matter, I've seen little evidence of any specific familiar person, which is entirely my fault. Why was it I stopped going to call on them? I no longer recall.
I want my mind back.
Incidentally, should I change typists?
Love,
Your Shaqad
