About The Scarlett Kite
Hi! I'm Scarlett Kiteway, I'm 20 years old, a journalism student in Perplex City and this is my blog all about the excitement over the search for the Cube. I'll be keeping track of what the media over there is saying about it, and maybe a little bit about my life as well!
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Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Hello?
Category: me, 04:46 PMI think this is recording. I can see the words coming up on the display - it should be OK and I.... They've put bandages on my hands. Nothing hurts but I feel so sleepy. I'm, I'm fading in and out. Everything seems very distant, like a dream, or something someone told me once. Kurt came to see me today, I think. Unless it was a dream, but it doesn't seem... He told me all about the different drugs they're giving me, and what the effects are. Kurt knows so many things. He'd found me some literature about tissue regeneration treatments and said I shouldn't worry about my hands because at least 90% of the damage is repairable. They don't hurt. Nothing hurts at all, and my head is very quiet and peaceful. I think it's the drugs. I'm trying to remember what I....
[No vocal signal detected.]
No, no please, no, I don't, I don't!
[No vocal signal detected.]
Sorry, I fell asleep. I keep doing that. I think of things and then I lose them again. The doctor said not to fight against it, just allow myself to heal. Sometimes moments come back suddenly, vividly. Just now I thought I was back there... in that.... It's so funny that I was in The Point. I love The Point. It didn't seem like... I thought I was far away, in Anjsbourg again maybe. I...
[words indistinct, please repeat]
Sorry, I. I don't know what I told them. They put needles in my arm and I... there's no way I could warn the Castilles. I don't know.
[words indistinct, please repeat.]
It doesn't like it when I cry. It thinks I'm making indistinct words. Funny. Everything seems funny right now. I don't want to make the little machine unhappy, but it's so unhappy. Maybe it's me who's unhappy, but I can't find it in my head. Violet came to see me, after Kurt. She told me about Caine, but it seemed to me like the very last thing in the world to think about. Violet was angry like snow around her hills and valleys and I told her so, but I don't think she understood. She looked at my bandaged hands and cried, and I told her not to cry. I can't remember the last time I saw her cry. I wished my dad was here, to give her icecream like he used to when we were little but he's not. I have to sleep now.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Something happens
Category: me, 09:43 AMSorry about the cliffhanger yesterday - I think old habits die hard. But I suppose if finding old, brave Scarlett means also rediscovering my enjoyment of cliffhangers, it's worth the trade. And I really think I am finding her again. I feel so much better now, so much calmer and like I know what I'm doing again. I can't help worrying that it won't last but I hope, I so hope it will. So, Vi and I came up with a plan. I'm going undercover at the Sentinel! Not very undercover, of course, because they all know who I am. (I asked Violet if we could come up with some kind of disguise for me, but she seemed to think that wasn't the best idea. She was very kind about it though - I wonder how long it'll be until I can make her properly tetchy with me again ;-) ).
Here's the plan: I go into the Sentinel today at lunchtime to talk to Iona. This was really easy to organise because everyone's so nice to me right now. I'm going to ask her if she knows about who might have broken into our house - no one's been arrested, but our best guess is still that it was a journalist looking for information. It doesn't seem likely that Iona will be able to tell me anything but it's worth a try; she might have some leads that could help or, if I'm very lucky, I'll manage to wangle my way onto the Sentinel key systems and see if anyone's been trying to sell information about us.
It's so nice to be back. I haven't burst into tears about anything for more than a day now! I'm worried about going back there, but everyone's been so supportive. Violet's annoyingly insisting that I 'check in' with her as soon as I leave the Sentinel - she and Caine are still so worried about me. But I really think I'm getting better, I've even called a couple of friends and I'm looking forward to Caine's band's gig next week - the only way is up!
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Gone
Category: me, 03:54 PMI'm angry. I think I haven't been angry for weeks, maybe months. At least, angry with anyone who isn't me. But now I'm angry. It feels... nice. Strong. Alive.
Vi took me back to dad's house - I didn't want to go there by myself but I'd left some stuff there and wanted to see if anything had been taken. Whoever it was - Vi guesses some journalist - had turned everything over. Not just turned over. Destroyed. The Zingiber sofas my mother chose, ripped to shreds. Urns and vases smashed. Drawers tipped out onto the floor. Paintings cut out of their frames and left, curled and crumpled, on the floor with the other debris. It felt angry. The whole thing felt like someone was personally angry with us, wanted to hurt us.
The bedrooms were just the same. All my books were thrown on the floor, the photos I took in Tanraga which I'd had printed out as posters were ripped and crushed. They'd even gone through my wardrobe, ripped into the linings of my coats. One of them was Violet's coat, in fact, but she didn't seem too angry. She wanted to know if anything was missing but I couldn't tell. There could be loads of things missing that I'll only think of when I go to look for them in six months' time. This was what made me really, properly angry. Someone I've never met, someone I don't even know. After everything that's happened, everything I've done and it's not even... it just doesn't make sense.
Vi went to look around the rest of the house while I sat in my bedroom. I picked up one of the antique leather-bound books my father had bought me years ago - the faceless someone had ripped its covers off. She found me still staring at it when she came back.
"Are you OK, Lettie?" she said. "We can leave if you want to. You don't have to stay here."
I didn't answer.
"Lettie? We'll get someone in to clean up. Everything can be replaced."
I turned that book over in my hands.
"Lettie? Sweetheart? Let's go now, OK? Maybe you should take a little nap."
She's been like this for months.
"I'm not a child, you know," I said.
"Um. OK. Yes. I know."
"I don't need anyone looking after me."
"OK then. Let's go?"
"You know, while you and Kurt were sitting at home messing around with investigating libraries and Recons I went to Anjsbourg!"
"Yes," she said, "I remember."
"I've been further away from the City than anyone else we know! I'm different from you! You don't have to treat me like a baby, I don't have to always be taking naps and drinking tea!"
I looked up at her. She was smiling.
"Yes. Good. In which case, I have an idea for you."
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Not Me
Category: me, 03:06 PMIt wasn't me after all. It was something else. I would have preferred it to have been me. Why is that? I feel like it would have been easier to bear. Instead, this is what happened. I woke up at about midday, feeling kind of OK. Still sick, but I managed to drink a little coffee. And I still didn't remember anything. My head hurt and my body hurt and Caine still wasn't back so I thought... I'll go for a walk, to clear my head.
It's about a mile, maybe a bit more, from Caine's place to my dad's house and it seemed perfect. It's been a pretty warm day - I carried my dress shoes in my hand and enjoyed the walk, the feeling of air in my lungs and warm sun on my skin. And it was only when I got almost to the house that I saw all the cameras and the journalists waiting, and it was only then that I remembered what happened last night. I think there are pictures of me crying on every news station in the city right now. And I still don't know where Caine's gone, or why.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Yuck
Category: me, 11:41 AMI feel sick. I think I have been sick, but someone cleaned it up. I'm in Caine's apartment but he doesn't seem to be here. He's left me fresh croissants, fruit and coffee things, but I feel sick when I look at them. He's nice though, Caine. I expect it was him who cleaned me up. I can't really remember. I can't remember very much from last night. I remember getting dressed up, and I remember arriving, and I remember Caine taking care of me and I remember crying, and I feel like some other things happened, and I feel really sad but it's all through a thick murky curtain, a fog. I think maybe I spoiled the party somehow. That's how I feel, I think I cried and spoiled the party for everyone. Caine's left me a note saying he'll be back in a couple of hours, and, for some reason, that I shouldn't turn on the news. I think I'm going back to bed. Everything hurts and I want to cry but I don't know why.
Monday, January 15, 2007
I'm sorry
Category: me, 01:09 PMThere's this nightmare I have, over and over and over. I'm walking in some kind of maze. There's not much light, or the light is flickering, and I'm afraid, just afraid all the time. There's someone following me. Or is it that I'm following them? I can't tell. The lights flicker on and off and I know that they're going to catch me soon. Or maybe I'll catch them and that would be worse, so much so very much worse. And then the lights go off, and it's dark, and I know that they're in the room with me, right there. In a moment I'll feel their breath on my neck. And then I wake up screaming. I've been doing that a lot.
I can't explain what's happened to me, not really. Violet's been so kind, I've never seen her like this before. When I wake up in the middle of the night, and they tell me that I was shouting or screaming, and Caine brings me warm milk and Vi strokes my hair it's like... I think it's like my mother. As much as I can remember. And I know they love me, and I know they want to help, and I trust them, I really do, but I can't feel it. I can't feel anything much, sometimes. Only afraid, and alone. And I think back to the person I was this time last year: travelling, having adventures, excited by new destinations. I can't even believe it was me. I feel like I've always been sad and afraid. It's the Academy Ball this evening and I can't go, I don't want to be around all those people. I don't even leave the house that much anymore. All the time, I feel like something awful's about to happen. Just around the corner, just out of sight.
I hate this, I hate it. I wanted to be able to tell you how I'd spent the past months researching and investigating, and getting closer to finally solving all these mysteries. And some days I feel like that Scarlett, sometimes for a few hours put together and I think: I can do this, this is me again. And then I remember that I'm not that person anymore. I'm someone new, and this is who I am, who I'll always be. I'm a person who killed someone. Before I ever really fell in love, before I learned to waterski, before I finished college, before I tried eating swordfish, before I got married or had children. Before all that stuff that regular people do, I killed someone. I don't know who I am anymore.