We left without a word. He with a girl from the bar, me alone.

The following night, he was there again, same mask, just like mine. We danced, and I didn’t feel or see the other masked figures gyrating around me, only him. It wasn’t sexual. It wasn’t anything except a small connection to another human, and even that I was skeptical of.

He left his mask down as he said, “Will we exchange names?” These words did survive.

“True or fake?” I asked.

“True.”

“Dark Half.”

“Barbarian.”

I shook my head. No. “Viking.”

And it was not an untruth. Dark Half and the Viking. That’s all we were to each other. He went home with a new girl, and I went home alone.

Every night we’d dance and exchange a sentence or two. Eventually our relationship evolved out of Masqued and into the streets of Chester. We’d walk around aimlessly, among the freaks and the rejected, who all come out at night.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I’d ask.

“Yes,” he always replied. “Here.”

“Which girl tonight?”

He’d shrug. “No idea.”

“You like your damsels.”

“No Viking is ever without one. Pillage and plunder. How about you? A Dark Half… implies another half. A Light one.”

I hesitated. “True.”

“Want to eat?”

He always knew when I didn’t want to talk about something. He never asked too many questions. At least, he never asked important ones. He’d state a truth and move on to the trivial, and I liked him for it.

We ate greasy chips from a chippy off Guildford Road.

“Got to go,” I said, flipping down my mask once we were done.

He nodded and put on his helmet-with-mask, and was once again Barbarian the Viking. He turned and left. No long, drawn-out good-byes. No hugs or air kisses. I think I loved him because of that.

It became a regular thing.

I kept him out of the Message Book. For a full half year, he was just mine. I accidentally mentioned him once, and after that—after the tiny slip—he wasn’t my secret anymore. It was after the slip that I asked Carly if I could tell him about us. She agreed, and I did, and for a time, everything seemed sort of… perfect.

I should have memorized his number, maybe, instead of just saving it in my phone. They took it away. Took him away. I never even knew his surname.

I hate that I miss him. My brother. My friend. I hate that I’ve been looking for signs of him on the Internet. I hate that I’m so easy to let go.

I guess it’s easy to abandon forget someone once she’s out of sight. Still. I can’t believe the Viking would do that. Or I couldn’t, for a long, stupid time. Some days I still can’t.

And here I sit, writing about him as though he’s just a ghost from my past that still haunts me. And I guess that is all he is now. Just some guy I used to know.

Midnight, Courtyard

I’m too proud to email Ari first.

Sunday, 12 September 2004, 12:30 am

I spy on Naida sometimes too. She’s going to be a serial killer for sure. Right now I’m outside her window, up in the giant beech tree. Juliet also has a beech outside her window, and Brenda too, and I’m pretty well hidden. In late autumn, when the leaves fall, I won’t be able to use it to spy, but I have other methods—besides, I have this weird notion that I’m one with the darkness and that I’m really nothing more than a shadow myself.

Well, it’s true, Dee, isn’t it?

Right now, Naida’s kneeling beside her bed, facing the window—facing me—but there’s a candle burning (probably some acacia-turnip-catnip ritual concoction), so she’s blind to my presence, I think. As far as I know, she sneaks these candles and paraphernalia into the dorms without permission. Where she hides them I have no idea. In her arsecrack for all I care.

To the casual observer, it would appear (apart from the scarves—tapestries?—on the walls and the strangely symbolic carpets on her floor) that her room follows school regulations. I know, however, that the bottles that look like perfumes are actually oils she uses for conjurations and ritual baths and that the little pouches that look like purses are actually full of herbs and weird stuff like that. What do they call them? Douche charms? Hope charms? Whatever. The cards on her dresser are kind of like tarot cards, and she has all kinds of weird spell kits that I’ve seen her riffling through under her bed (covered with long bedclothes, of course)—**cough** Witch **cough**.

When I watch her murmur under her breath, hold a lighter under the incense (banned incense, I might add), and beat on a little drum she stashes under her bed—when I watch her draw symbols on her walls in fragrant water that no one can see and then dance around her room—I almost feel like a part of it.

It’s so… dark.

When she bounces on the balls of her feet, eyes closed and face so serene, I’m almost pulled in with her. I can almost hear the drum, rhythmic, hypnotic, and I can sense the Voice in my head somewhere nearby, slowing. Like a purr, he enjoys this. He’s calmed. Lulled, almost. He sleeps.

How strange that Aka Manah should sleep so close to the one I hate most. It never fails to amaze me how opposites attract. Carly, the purest, most innocent and trusting girl alive and, well, Naida. I mean, look at her. You see that, right? Black magic? Enough said. She should be burned at the stake.

Naida is rocking back and forth now, praying to whatever goddess she serves. I wish I could hear what she’s saying. Whatever it is, she’s put the Voice in my ear into a coma.

Holy freak show, Dee. Just when I thought I was safe.

Naida saw me. Looked right up into my face like she knew I was there the whole time. I literally froze solid, but not just because she was looking at me. Because, for a second, I thought my own reflection in the windowpane was smiling at me.

Creeped.

Me.

The. Hell.

Out.

But then my eyes refocused and Naida was right at the window, face almost pressed against the glass, staring at me. My heart is still racing. Jeeeeeeebus.

It was the weirdest thing. She stared at me for a full three seconds, then leaned forward and blew out the candle, and the room was plunged into darkness. Could she have known I was there all along? Maybe she’s always known that I spy on her. Maybe these creepy rituals are for my benefit. Maybe she’s just laughing. Except she didn’t seem amused, Dee.

She looked scared.

Purple Post-It

Kait, did you move my biology textbook?

The one with the anatomy diagram on the front?

I really need it!

NO. But if you put your books in the bookcase once in a while instead of dumping them in piles all over, then you wouldn’t lose things! (And quit blaming me, you cheeky arsewipe—I despise structured education.)

10

The following video footage does not contain a time index and has been placed here because of its relation to the previous Kaitlyn diary entry.

Naida Camera Footage

Date and Time Index Missing

Magpie House Corridor

“Hey!”

The camera shakes violently as Naida moves briskly towards Kaitlyn, who is walking away from her down the hall. Kaitlyn doesn’t turn.

“Why were you spying on me last night?”

Still Kaitlyn doesn’t stop.

“I saw you!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Outside, in that tree. I’ve seen you there before.”

Finally, Kaitlyn turns, notices the camera, and blanches. “So?”