The Journal of John Harcourt, Vol. 2 July 16 (13 Mar 2003) Agatha and John Cortlynn look through the room of John Harcourt.

Harcourt Manor, John's Bedroom
This room, not having received close attention during the renovation efforts, still smells musty. The worst of the dust and dirt has been swept away, but a thin patina still clings to the walls and the furnishings, making the imposing roll-top desk look dingy, and the chair of crackling leather dirty. A glass-covered bookshelf rests in arms' reach of the desk, while an old, weathered sleigh bed stands in one corner, light from the western window pooling onto it. A lithograph of a woman in a simple medieval dress, on a river in a small boat, hangs on one wall. Opposite it is a framed work of calligraphy, the parchment a little yellow but the ink still crisp beneath a pane of dingy glass.

John Cortlynn enters the room with a certain hesitance. A floorboard creaks beneath one foot as he takes a slow step inside. Then his shoulders straighten, and he crosses half the room in two quick, sure strides, headed for the desk, as if possessed by a sudden surge of confidence. But it leaves him as quickly as it came, and the dark-haired young man finds himself standing in the middle of the room, touching nothing. He turns slowly around, surveying it all. His expression, when he comes to face Agatha's direction again, is difficult to read: a mixture of curiosity, wonder, and, perhaps ... fear?

"Is something wrong, Mr. Cortlynn?" Agatha asks from the doorway, not quite willing to enter the room just yet.

His eyes have a distant look to them for a moment, as if gazing at something just out of sight. Then he focuses on Agatha, offering her a sheepish smile. "No, nothing's wrong," he says. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his trousers. "It's just a bit ... strange, being here. It's as though it's hardly been touched since John Harcourt left, all those years ago."

Stepping into the room now, Agatha looks around. Spotting the bit of framed calligraphy, she goes to take a closer look, mentioning, "For a moment you looked like you'd seen or heard a ghost. And you almost seemed to recognize the place too at first."

"Did I?" He puts a hand to his forehead, brushing his hair back from his face. He turns around again. "It does seem ... I don't know. Almost familiar. But I did just spend all morning speaking with Mrs. Smith about John Harcourt. She mentioned the desk," he says, gesturing to it.

Behind the dirty glass is what looks like an old-fashioned illuminated page. In large, fancy script at the top, it reads: Book of Revelations. The first letter of the text below is a very fancy "T", in a box with knotwork, twining angels, and other decorations around it. The rest is in smaller script, harder to make out through the glass.

"Really?" Agatha asks, "What about the desk?" She turns to look at the old roll-top, half-expecting to open up and swallow them.

"He was very proud of it, evidently. He did a good deal of drafting and writing. I gather his father had a similar desk. Mrs. Smith said it made John seem very grown-up when he got it," Mr. Cortlynn answers.

Agatha goes over to the desk, and checks to see if the top is locked or not before trying to open it.

The roll top is latched, but the key, looking a bit rusty, is in the lock.

"Well, I'm supposed to clean this room anyway," Agatha says, and carefully turns the key to make sure it doesn't snap off.

Mr. Cortlynn walks to the framed lithograph. He takes out his handkerchief from his jacket pocket to scrub at a corner of the grime on the glass, peering at it. The key makes a rusty scraping sound but it turns, and Agatha can hear the latch click. The scraping causes Cortlynn's head to turn, and after a moment, he crosses the room to join her.

The girl lets out a sigh, and attempts to roll the top open. No telling how many joints have stiffened during the years of disuse.

It unrolls a little stiffly, and at one point, Mr. Cortlynn reaches over to give her a hand getting it open smoothly -- one side wants to go up while the other is more prone to sticking. But together, they manage to get it open. The desktop, protected by the roll, is clean and tidy. There are lots of little cubbies, for letters, paperweights, pens, and so forth, in the rear, along with a few small drawers. Some plain, yellowed envelopes and sheets of writing paper are visible, along with what looks rather like the hilt of a dagger, and some other oddments.

"Doesn't look like he left much behind," Agatha says, and reaches for the hilt of what she expects is a letter-opener, not wanting John to get to it -- and so she can get a closer look at it as well.

The hilt is, indeed, attached to a somewhat tarnished and dull-edged letter opener. Little paste jewels are inset in the handle. "No. I suppose he wouldn't. And they may've gone through his things, after he died," Mr. Cortlynn adds, thoughtfully. There are longer and deeper drawers to either side, beneath the top of the desk, as well as a shallow drawer along the top.

Mr. Cortlynn puts a hand to the knob of one of the side drawers, then glances to Agatha, as if to ask permission.

With the potential weapon kept in her right hand, Agatha starts opening the various drawers. I should probably check for false bottoms or backs, she thinks, since those always seemed to show up in Sherlock Holmes stories.

The first drawer has a leather portfolio case in it, quite battered and cracking, as if it had seen a lot of use before being tucked in here. There's something else, further back in the drawer, but the drawer won't pull all the way out, and it's too shadowed to identify the object at a glance.

Using the letter-opener, Agatha tries to work the object further out so she can see what it is.

The letter opener bumps against the half-hidden object with a noise that sounds like crumpling paper. An odd tinkling noise is made as she tries to angle the letter opener to pry the object out past the portfolio case. Mr. Cortlynn looks puzzled and curious as he says, "Let me get that out of the way for you." He reaches for the portfolio partially blocking the front of the drawer.

Letting the object be for now, Agatha quickly says, "I've got it," and removes the portfolio case herself. She sets it on the middle of the desktop and opens it. Sounded like broken glass back there, maybe it's Anastasia's pegasus? she thinks to herself.

Mr. Cortlynn tucks his hands back into his trouser pockets, with an apologetic, "Sorry," even though Agatha had not actually rebuked him. He steps back to give her more room to work, watching as she sets the object down. It turns out to be a bundle wrapped in dark cloth. Unwrapping the cloth reveals layers of very old and fragile tissue paper, which all but dissolves as Agatha tries to remove it. The object within is in pieces, but it is readily identifiable as what was once a porcelain statuette of a winged horse. The head and neck looks as if it's been glued onto the body, but a chunk is missing from the base of the neck, around the front of the chest and one shoulder. One wing looks attached, but the other is loose, and two of the legs are detached, too.

"Ariel," John Cortlynn says, in a hushed whisper. He sounds surprised.

"Did Mrs. Smith tell you about the incident?" Agatha asks, looking solemnly at the pieces and wondering if Lord Mel will want them.

Mr. Cortlynn nods. "Yes. I ... I thought she said they buried the pieces. Anastasia was ... heartbroken." His voice sounds odd.

"Did she say if they tried to glue them back together or not?" Agatha asks, carefully rewrapping the pieces.

He shakes his head. "I ... I thought she said they hadn't. She said it was broken beyond hope of repair ... well, maybe that means they tried? Anyway. I do think she said that it had splintered, not breaking cleanly." Mr. Cortlynn cranes his neck as he watches Agatha wrap it again. More of the tissue paper is powdering, despite her best efforts to be careful. Wordlessly, Cortlynn offers his handkerchief.

"Thank you," Agatha says, using the kerchief to rewrap the pieces. "I know someone who might be able to fix it," she says quietly.

While she's carefully stowing the pieces, Agatha notices that there are traces of paste on the loose legs and wing, and that it looks like even the pieces she thought were connected are only held together by a some kind of glue, turned powdery with age. If she were any rougher with it, the neck, other legs, and remaining wing would probably come off, too.

Mr. Cortlynn blinks a few times at that. He doesn't say anything at all.

"John must have tried to repair her without telling his sister," Agatha speculates, and sets the bundle aside to turn her attention on the portfolio, setting it in the center of the desktop next.

"That was kind of him," Mr. Cortlynn remarks, after a moment. He stands with his hands in his pockets again. The portfolio turns out to be completely empty.

After returning the portfolio to its drawer, Agatha closes it and opens the next one.

The next bottom drawer on that side is empty, and the shallow center drawer has only some worn-out pen nibs and blotter paper. On the other side, the top drawer has a book in it: an old pocket-sized copy of Spencer's The Faerie Queen.

"This looks interesting," Agatha says, and lifts out the book. She flips through a few pages to see if anyone wrote notes in it.

It is fairly worn, with underlined passages and comments in the margins, in a careful, tidy shorthand, that appear to note especially important or interesting parts. The commentator appears to have an interest in little details about armor and life.

Agatha offers the book to Cortlynn, and moves on to the next drawer.

Cortlynn accepts the book with almost as much care as Agatha gave the statuette. The book is in excellent condition, given its age, however, with the pages fine and supple. He leafs through it while Agatha opens the last drawer. This one has an old ledger book in it, with the pages all blank except for some figures on the first few. But Agatha notices, as she's lifting it out, that the drawer looks shallower on the inside than it did on the outside.

Setting the ledger aside, the girl feels around inside the drawer for a way to lift off the supposedly false bottom.

The bottom feels loose to her touch, and after a few moments, she finds a little pressure plate at the back. John Cortlynn pauses in his perusal of The Faerie Queen to watch her curiously.

Agatha presses back on the plate to see if the bottom will lift up then.

The touch releases a catch on the false bottom, and it springs up a little, with a bit of a creak. Beneath it is a hidden compartment, inside of which nestles a volume bound in black leather, with silver knotwork on the cover and spine.

Taking in a deep breath through her nose, Agatha lifts out the book. After running her fingers thoughtfully over the silver, she opens it up to the first page.

The first page reads, on unlined paper, in a graceful, flowing script, Journal of John Harcourt, vol. 2.

"Where's volume one then?" Agatha murmurs, and turns the page.

The pages are unlined, and the writing style throughout is strikingly even and precise. John writes in a bold hand, on only one side of the page. It contains a curious cross-section of notes about his life, comments on fictional works, including Mirari, as well as ideas, and occasional sketches, usually done in a fashion reminiscent of mechanical drafting, illustrating some idea or other.

The personality that emerges from the pages is almost chimerical; if it wasn't all in the same hand, Agatha might wonder if different people had written it. John Harcourt has a scathing, hard-edged wit that he wields viciously in anger, which he quite often is. Near the beginning, the book gives his account of the younger Harcourts' refusal to crown him, in which he lambastes them both as spoiled, ungrateful children. "And that Anastasia! To take Bryant's side over mine! I am not sorry I took the head off her stupid toy! I only wish I'd taken her head off, too! To think of all the time I put into this game!"

And yet, he is not always angry. Even after that incident, he writes of selecting a present for Bryant's birthday -- a binder for his sheet music. He writes fondly of helping Anastasia study for a part in a play, and in praise of her performance when she wins it.

But later, he seems possessed of such passion that even his normally immaculate script falters: "I broke" it starts, then trails off into a black scrawl that looks like an A and an r. An ugly inkblot fills part of the page. Then, in a slightly more even hand, "Too angry to write now."

"It's like he was possessed at times," Agatha mutters as she reads, momentarily forgetting that she's not alone in the room.

Mr. Cortlynn stands quietly by, reading over her shoulder as she turns the pages.

The next page looks more normal. "I broke Ana's statuette of Ariel. She will never forgive me.

"She and Bryant buried it. As if it were a person. It's nothing but porcelain and dust, but they care for it more than they ever cared for me. Little monsters. How dare they! It serves her right. They say I'm inconsiderate. I'm glad school will be back in session soon. I hate it here! I hate them! I hate them all!

Remembering John again, Agatha glances over her shoulder and asks him, "Ever have anger problems when you were young, Mr. Cortlynn?"

Cortlynn brushes his hair back from his forehead again. "Sometimes," he admits. "I guess maybe now I know where I got it from." He looks wry and sad.

Agatha hmms, and reads on. The anger can't really be permanent, could it?

On a date a few days later, he continues: "I dug up Ariel. I thought perhaps she wasn't as bad as they'd said. She is. I tried gluing her back together. I feel like Dr. Frankenstein.

"Lord, I feel so sick. Ana still hasn't spoken to me. I can't even remember what we were fighting over. But she made me so --

"It's just as well. I don't belong here. The kids drive me to distraction, with their stupid games and their stories. They can't tell the difference between reality and illusion. They mourn some damn doll and they rejoice when I'm gone. I'm just some damn monster to them. Lord, I am so tired.

"I tried."

"He was a lot more complicated than I imagined," Agatha tells John. "But it's still hard to believe anyone could get so angry like that."

"People get a lot angrier," Mr. Cortlynn says, sadly. "I mean, not that he was right to break Anastasia's things, certainly. But at least he kept his attacks focused on objects ... which cannot be said for everyone."

Agatha purses her lips, and furrows her brow in thought. "Something's not right though. There isn't any talk of revenge for being slighted," she notes, as if this contradicts something else she knows. She puts down the journal and marches towards the framed parchment, and starts wiping the glass clean so she can read it.

Cortlynn lifts the discarded journal, paging through the rest. The glass takes some effort to clear, but with the worst of it off, she can see the first sentences. "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: 2 Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. 3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand." There's more: the first nine verses of the Book of Revelation, in total.

After reading the familiar lines, Agatha relaxes a bit. Despite the reference to 'John', it doesn't seem to be related to Mirari in any way. "Probably copied it as an exercise in fancy writing," she says. Turning back towards Cortlynn, she asks, "Does the journal describe his life at school next?"

"Mm-hmm. He writes a lot about law, classes, and Supreme Court opinions." Cortlynn smiles. "He appears to be good at opinions and arguments."

"Well, does it paint a clearer picture of him for you then?" Agatha asks, drifting over to the opposite wall to study the image framed there.

"Somewhat," Mr. Cortlynn admits. "He's ... not what I expected, either." He peruses a few more pages. "It's funny how he seems to have stopped writing about fantasy entirely after the incident with the figurine. No more sketches, either. And nothing about his family ... oh -- here's -- no, nevermind."

"I wonder why he hung this particular picture?" Agatha muses. "It almost looks like a princess," she notes, then squints and looks closer. "Add some freckles and it might even be me... oh? What did he write?" she asks, returning to the desk.

"It's the Lady of Shallot," Mr. Cortlynn says, offhand, about the picture. "He wrote a little bit about Bryant, just a paragraph." The man clears his throat, then reads aloud, "'Bryant came to me about changing a rule for Mirari. Fah. It wasn't even one of the Rules I had written. Some drivel about illusions and Warlocks. I don't think they have any business still playing that game without my involvement, and I told him so. He blathered on about challenges and so forth. They are such infants. I refused to participate, and they at last left me in peace. I cannot wait to return to Harvard.'"

"Warlocks?" Agatha asks, looking confused. "Why would Bryant come to John about changing a new Rule when John wasn't even playing anymore?" she wonders out loud.

"Unless it means they needed a certain number of people to make the change," she goes on to mutter.

John Cortlynn starts to shrug, then stops. "Wait. Mrs. Smith might have said something about it." He frowns, then shakes his head. "No, I can't remember if she did or not."

"If Alice finds the book of Rules, then maybe it'll tell us," Agatha suggests. "Did you want to look through the bookcase? I'm afraid I can't let you actually take anything without Mr. Kuning's permission, but you can still look."

He nods, offering the journal back to Agatha, then goes to the bookcase. It has a curious mixture of dry political and legal texts: a copy of The Federalist Papers and a thin volume of the Constitution, mixed with fantasy literature: Malory's Mort D'Arthur, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Agatha makes a noise of disgust, and says, "Shakespeare. How can anyone read that for fun? It makes my head hurt trying to figure out what people are saying."

Cortlynn gives her a sudden impish grin. "Oh, the Bard is hardly so bad as that. You're a victim of English teachers and badly-performed tragedies. Here ... " He reaches for the play.

"Well, the sword fight in Romeo and Juliet was okay," Agatha grudgingly admits. "And Jennifer Danzwyck was good as Titania when her class put on the play. But there's way too much mushy stuff and weird jokes." For a moment, she thinks of Puck... and how well Tom might play the role. "Do you think John would have written notes in these as well?" she asks.

"Yes, he did," Cortlynn answers, flipping through it. "He even did Shakespeare-to-English translations on some parts. Not that I think that's necessary. Here, see." He clears his throat. "'If we shadows have offended," he begins, smiling mischievously again, and raising one hand for forbearance, "Think but this, and all is mended: That you have but slumber'd here, While these visions did appear." He spreads his hands to encompass the whole room. "And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding --" he pauses, waving one hand in negligent dismissal "--but a dream."

"What fools these mortals be," Agatha quotes, then asks, "What sort of notes did he write?"

"Let's see. He put down here that 'Teacher says serpent's tongue is supposed to be booing; suppose that makes more sense than venom'." Cortlynn flips back a few pages and chuckles. "Look: 'Can't abide Bottom. Should've stayed an ass. Precursor for that sheriff in Much Ado?'"

Agatha takes down the Frankenstein volume, and starts looking through it for notes as well.

The notes in Frankenstein strike Agatha as melancholy. He seems to have a lot of sympathy for the monster.

Replacing the book, Agatha draws Mort d'Arthur next, wondering what John Harcourt thought of the Round Table.

John underlines a lot of passages in the Morte. He seems surprised a lot of the time by events that happened, making comments like "Knights don't seem very knightly" and, at Merlin's entombment less than a sixth of the way through: "Can't believe Merlin's gone already! He hardly DID anything". Much later, he writes next to a passage referring to actions by the Lady of the Lake: "??? Didn't she DIE earlier?"

That last note gives Agatha pause. After all, Nymuae did supposedly die in Mirari... well, vanished anyway... and then came back. Probably just a coincidence, but still enough to give her a shiver.

Mr. Cortlynn glances at her, over the edge of "Midsummer's". "Are you all right?" he asks.

"Just being reminded of something," Agatha answers, and puts the book back on the shelf. "Like that I'm not supposed to trust you still."

"Oh." Mr. Cortlynn looks rather crestfallen, the play drooping from his hand. He tucks it back onto the shelf. "I'm not back to being the villain again yet, am I?"

"Your arrival is just too convenient," Agatha notes, and stares at the man for a moment in the filtered sunlight, to make sure he's really what he looks to be.

"Isn't that better than being inconvenient?" he asks. He does look far too much like the Optikon's picture of the Destroyer for Agatha to be comfortable. His hair is short, and his eyes are simply brown. He doesn't radiate evil the way the picture did. But, as she watches him closely, his eyes do seem to glitter. Maybe it's just the light.

"It's your story too," Agatha notes. "John Harcourt never knew about you. He also didn't realize that the game he was in affected a real world. His anger created a real monster there... just like a son."

John Cortlynn half-turns away from Agatha. Something flickers in his eyes. "I seem to have outstayed my welcome," he says. His voice is very careful, the tone hard to discern. "If I ever had one. Thank you for showing me Harcourt Manor, Miss Cunningham." He turns back to meet her gaze. "I truly do appreciate it. If you'll excuse me...?"

Agatha blinks at the sudden change of attitude. "Where are you going now?" she asks. "I should probably go with you."

The young man starts for the bedroom door, then pauses, shaking his head. "I don't know. Elsewhere. Miss Cunningham, if my presence poses a trial for you, please, let me trouble you no more." He glances back to her face. "Why should you come with me? To be sure I don't eat any babies? I assure you, I've not the appetite."

"I need to know... I need to know what you really want," Agatha says, keeping to the man's heels. "Are you the Destroyer? Did you learn anything here to change your plans?"

"What I really want," Mr. Cortlynn says, walking out the bedroom door and into the hall beyond. "is to know who I am, and where I came from. As for this Destroyer of yours -- isn't that what Anastasia and Bryant called their brother? Did that make him one?" He takes a few steps down the stairs. "If you label me such, will it make me one? I am not sure I like your game, Miss Cunningham. Is there a way I can get out of playing, do you think?"

"I hope so," Agatha answers, then carefully picks up Ariel's remains before following. "I really do."

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This site serves as a chronicle of sessions in an online roleplaying campaign moderated by Conrad "Lynx" Wong and May "Rowan" Wasserman. The contents of this site are (c) 2001, 2002 by Conrad Wong and May Wasserman except where stated otherwise. Despite the "children's fantasy" theme of this campaign, this site is not intended for young readership, due to mild language and violence.