It's raining again. I enjoy the rain at times. I like the way it makes the earth smell, especially in autumn. The smell of wet leaves is delightful and reminds me of being a child and helping Pa, Ma, and Emory on the farm. Once summer was over, everything was a bustle to get all the crops taken in and ready for storing over winter or off to the market to sell. It was a busy time, but a happy one. I've always liked having work to do and using my hands and being outdoors. We'd work our fingers to the bone all day and then we'd sit at a table that Pa had built under the maple trees. The ground would be all colors of red and orange from the leaves, and you could just smell all kinds of life from them. I don't know how else to describe it! We'd drink homemade cider and huddle under blankets watching the sun go down and the stars come up. It was the most satisfying feeling, to know you worked your hardest and gave your best all through the day, and now the earth was telling you it was all right to stop and rest.
I think I'm starting to feel myself again. It was a bleak few days. I don't like feeling that way - the way I always feel when the days roll round when they died. I'm not myself at all, I'm weepy and pitiful. I get angry too easily. I'm restless and can't sleep. I could have let him hold me all night and it wouldn't have been enough to make it stop. I hate that I was so weak with him. All the hard work I've done, all the promises I made to myself, I just threw it all aside. My heart says it was worth it, but my mind knows better. You've set yourself up to be cast down even further than before. Well done, fool. Get your mind back where it belongs! Your heart will just have to follow, whether it likes to or not.
I didn't mean to become so grim again. I'm sorry. Who am I even apologizing to? This paper doesn't care what I write on it.
Wasn't I just saying that I felt better and more like myself again?
I finally got a chance to see Mister Aeru again. He was strangely not angry with me. He said he didn't think he could ever be angry at me. It was an odd thing to say, it made me feel sort of like a child. I asked him to explain more about what he meant when he said something about treatments in his sleep, and what that had to do with the doctor, but he didn't really give me an answer. He made some strange comments, and it's got me a little worried about what's been going on at the Soothery now. I don't know that I trust this man, and I'm worried that he's becoming some kind of influence over Mister Dimheim, who's already got more than enough monsters of his own to battle. Mister Aeru unsettles me a bit, but at the same time he smiles and he seems so kind and gentle. I don't trust it.
I need something to take my mind off everything that's been going on. I love my little, simple life here at the Boarding House, I'm not ungrateful for any of it. But I need somewhere to aim my thoughts before I go mad.
I haven't been to the Harvestmath yet. Maybe I can persuade Missus Holbrook to give me a few days off. I could take a little sortie to Bree and stay at the inn and visit the festival. That does sound like it might be just the thing. Maybe I'll meet some new people. Maybe even find the guts to ask a lad to dance with a crippled girl.
