Chapter Text
“Has the moon always been that… dimmed?”
Diary's eyes followed Feather's. The usually bright moon lighting up a peaceful night's sky, with a radiance only as elegant as its, indeed appeared to be less illuminated than usual. It was greyed, shadowed over, and its usual reflections on certain surfaces, proudly announcing its presence, were inhibited.
“That's really weird. It's not from any clouds either.”
Diary's lips pressed in a thin line. She kept gazing at the moon. It stared back with a looming sense of bad omen. The more she stared, the more she felt her stomach tighten. Even though she was never one to believe in magic or superstition, something about tonight did not sit with her right. She pulled the curtain in a quick motion, concealing what little light the moon had to offer.
“I'm hungry,” she suddenly stood up. “I'm making myself some food.”
And yet, the grey of the moon imprinted itself within her waking memory.
The next morning was cold. Unusually cold, considering it was June. Diary found herself disgruntled as a result, her favourite thing ever was warm summer days, but alas. She sits up in her bed, staring at the condensed window. Forecasts said today was supposed to be warm again, 23 degrees Celsius. But now, a heavy 4 degrees’ icy atmosphere settled on the city.
Diary padded over to the window, jolting a little at the cold of the wooden floor on her bare feet. She wiped the condensation to peer outside and suddenly felt everything come to a complete halt.
The trees had no leaves. There was a fog restricting her view past the stores in front of her apartment. Everything was bleak and grey.
“What the hell..?”
Her room door swung open. Feather stood, eyes wide and fearful. “You noticed it too? Diary, what is happening?!”
She couldn't say. Nobody could say.
News outlets called it a climate mystery. Scientists blamed global warming. But it didn't feel quite right. There was something else occurring here. The uncanny events made Diary feel her heartbeat in her head, and something told her it wasn't at all natural.
But Diary, being Diary, was determined to know.
She spent her morning glued to her phone, searching and researching and researching, hoping for any semblance of an explanation for the peculiar events. She took another glance at the bleak chill of the outside and felt a rush of adrenaline. She will figure out what was happening.
And yet, to no avail.
Diary had paced her cold floor, clicking link after link, reading article after article. Nothing was a match. Nothing explained what was going on now.
The moon, the unsettling anxiety and paranoia it filled her when she looked at it. And now this.
It was June, the beginning of summer, of what was meant to be sun and gentle breeze and blue skies, and the city was clouded with an unexplainable fog and wintry frost. And the more the ex-journalist peered into its grey coverage, at the bare branches stood frozen, the more she was certain there had to be something paranormal at play. It overwhelmed her mind, even if the girl wasn't one to believe in stupid preternatural events.
And yet, it nagged her. It felt like she was being tugged with a rope.
Diary glanced at her phone. The Internet wouldn't have the answers.
She walked quickly to the front door of hers and Feather's apartment, grabbing her coat and keys, and going outside.
The town's library was a popular place for Diary to be during her student days. She enjoyed occupying a desk, with papers surrounding her as she completed her English assignments. Diary adored writing. She also adored knowing. And a library held knowledge for those who sought to know.
Even when she worked as a journalist, she’d employed a talent for skim-reading mass amounts of information and piecing together stories and explanations for the news, and she liked doing her writing and reading in this very library. Being surrounded by knowledge was a safe space for Diary. She liked being in the know.
Entering the familiar entrance and inhaling the familiar scent of old carpets and books eased Diary, just a little. The building was empty as usual, par the librarian who looked past retiring age and had been working there since Diary was in elementary.
Usually, she liked to strike conversation with the stoic librarian, since it was just the two of them so often. But today, she was in no chatty mood. Immediate research was imperative. And so the determined woman marched over, soft thump thump thumps following her every footstep on the carpet, and she reached the astronomy section for a book about the moon. Then she walked over to the climate section for another relevant book.
The desk she usually occupied was by a window, and it still bore her scribings from her university days. Little doodles and a ‘Diary wuz here’ and a ‘D + F’. It felt surreal to see a glimpse of her life four years ago; a budding journalist, whose biggest worries were getting to the café before they sold out of her favourite iced coffee and whether she was bisexual or lesbian.
Sighing, she placed her chosen books onto the table, sliding into the adjacent chair to open the first book, Strange Climates in History, to the first page.
“Diary?”
The woman was abruptly pulled out of her focus, blinking down at the page she was currently fixed on — page 84. How long had it been? What time was it?
She looked up at whoever called her name. Feather stood in her baby pink fluffy coat, hugging it around herself as she shivered.
“Why’re you here, Diary? You didn’t answer me when I called your cell, but like, I kinda guessed you’d be at the library.”
The girl sat herself down next to Diary. “You were always here. Remember when you like, tried to help me with my assignments but I never paid attention?”
“Yeah,” Diary shut the book, keeping her thumb on the page she was on. “Because you kept falling asleep like three minutes later.”
“Your voice was too soothing!”
“Sure.” She couldn’t help smiling at their familiar banter. It offered a slight succour amidst the alien events of the now.
“Anyway,” Feather crossed one leg over the other, tilting her head ever so slightly. “You haven’t told me why you’re here.”
Diary straightened up, remembering the severity of the situation after a momentary solace. She meant business. “I’m trying to find out what’s going on. First the moon, now… now it’s winter when it’s supposed to be summer.”
“You.. think like, the moon from yesterday is linked?” Feather asked.
“I… I do. It only seems plausible.”
“How?” Her eyes drifted over the several books strewn on the worn, mahogany desk. “How’s the moon like, have a connection to the weather?”
“I don’t… know yet.” Diary’s shoulders slumped. She had no lead, no way of going forward, of even starting to link these events and begin to string together an explanation.
When she was employed as a journalist by Poison, digging for explanations was her specialty. She always walked into the office, her notebook ever bursting with key information and relayed research. She always knew where to look, who to ask, what to read.
Then she set a building on fire covering a recent news story. She and her boss were thrown into prison, and since release she’d been effectively unemployed. She decided to move in with Feather, who worked as a barista (and occasionally pretended to be homeless to beg for money which, in her own words, was “really funny”). The apartment was small but sustained the pair.
Of course, Diary wasn’t allowed to be employed again after her crime. That is, until after a really long time. And so she blamed her current incompetence due to her lack of practice, essentially since it’s been years.
She groaned, reopening the Strange Climates book back to where she was. She also reached out for the book about the moon, opting to read them both at once. She needed to find a connection. She needed to know.
After some failed initiations of conversation from Feather, the girl took the hint and left the library. Diary finally could allow herself to read and digest the information effectively. Yet, her efforts still seemed wasted. Never has the moon been known to dim itself, by itself. And never have leaves fallen at the start of summer!
It seemed so unreal. It almost felt like she was dreaming. She kept squeezing her eyes and opening them again and pinching herself, but every time she did, the environment outside the window still looked eerily cold. Diary sat back against the chair, realising she was hunched over this entire time and it pained her back. She wiped the condensation off the window. A dog was barking, aggressively, as its owner failed to get it to calm down. The fog showed no sign of alleviating. A shrill whistle of the wind as it blew harshly.
The girl threw her head back, covering her face as she groaned in frustration. This was unlike her. Diary could always find the answer! Diary was the one who would use any means possible to attain the information she wants. And she will, irregardless of what it took.
She looked down at the books on her desk. These won’t do. They can’t suffice, not when its contents are based on natural facets. This felt unearthly. She will need different books.
After Diary returned them all, she began searching. She looked in the mythology section and the history of magic and occult section and the fantastical stories section. She flipped through books on folklore and magical creatures and witches and ancient rituals. Nothing.
The girl was getting increasingly irritated. Her mind felt an utter tangle. Every time she remembered that moon, she felt ever sicker and ever more determined.
The library had an upstairs. Diary hardly ever went up there, but she figured it was worth looking at.
She stepped up the creaky wooden stairs, her shoes echoing throughout the mostly empty library.
The upstairs was even dustier and abandoned than the downstairs. Diary waded through the shelves, in and out, as she scanned each and every title. Yet, nothing.
And as she was about to stomp her foot and give up here, she spotted a door. A locked door, with an obnoxiously large, silver lock, luring, begging her in. Diary looked around, as if expecting that somebody would suddenly be up here. She then walked up to the large door. It clearly hasn’t been touched in months, even years, with the amount of dust that’s settled on the doorknob and the slight rust on the lock. Something beckoned the girl from within its confines. She needed to see what was kept on the other side.
Diary was always a curious soul, and maybe she just needed to quench her curiousity. Either way, she will find a way in.
She sped her way down the stairs, heading for the librarian’s desk. “Hey, been a while! You remember me?” she grinned innocently at the old woman. Her wrinkly eyes narrowed at Diary for a bit, before they relaxed with familiarity.
“Oh, it’s you. The uh, the English student.”
”And journalist. Well, ex-journalist, but anyway!” she clapped her hands together. “I need a key for that locked door upstairs. Uh, research purposes, and stuff.”
The librarian’s face hardened. “That room is off limits, I’m afraid. It’s for archival purposes only, and it’s not for the public’s eye.”
Diary frowned, folding her arms. “Why not? Nobody even comes here anyway, and I won’t tell anyone! Pretty please?”
“No, Journally.”
“Diary.”
“Regardless, I am not allowed to share the contents of the archives with anyone. Full stop. And anyway, even I don’t know its contents. It was given to me for safekeeping by a historian who just recently died. None of it is in English, but some extinct language only they knew.”
The pink-haired woman huffs and turns around to walk off, back upstairs, muttering angrily to herself. She marches over to the door and tries twisting the doorknob anyway, in case the old librarian had forgotten to lock it. It didn’t budge. She mused over what the librarian said.
Why did the historian give all these important books to the librarian? Shouldn’t a museum handle it? What was the ancient, extinct language? Why wasn’t it translated for the librarian?
Questions came naturally to Diary. This was a story, a puzzle, just buzzing to be solved, and solve it she shall.
The old librarian hardly ever moved from her desk, and Diary figured the key would be hidden somewhere there. She formulated a plan as she padded back down the stairs and walked up to her.
“Hey again! I was just curious as to what your favourite books are. Like, recently. Please go pick them out for me too. I’ll just be here!”
The elderly woman stared at her blankly. “What?”
“You heard me. I wanna hear you talk about your current faves!” She blinked a few times, trying to look friendly. “And maybe I might borrow them.”
Another beat of silence, and then the librarian sighed and walked out from behind her desk. “Ever loquacious you are. And annoying.” Diary waited until she was out of sight, then quickly ran behind the desk, scanning the folders and stacks of paper and drawers. She began searching through them, realising just how much of a mess it all was (she mentally noted to ask the librarian later if she could organise it for her!), but she had quick hands and sifted through it all. The lock was big, therefore the key should be big, therefore easier to spot. She looked over the desk every so often, before going back to searching.
Just as she was about to reconsider its hiding spot, she spotted a glint of metal in one of the shelves, wedged behind a book. One quick check to see where the librarian was, and she snatched it out. A key. Triumphant, Diary shoved it into her pocket and quickly stepped back in front of the desk, keeping a façade of pretense as the old woman trudged back, carrying several books.
After a dragged half an hour of listening to her drone on about her books, Diary finally peeled away and jogged up the stairs, her heart beating against her ribs. She was never religious, but she prayed to Glub that this key was it.
Carefully, she slid it into the lock, and turned it. There was a loud click and Diary froze, waiting to hear if the librarian would come up and investigate the noise.
Her heart wracked her body, she heard it in her ears.
Nothing.
The girl finally let herself exhale, before turning the doorknob slowly and opening the door.