November 25th
Dahlia walks about the house when I'm asleep - she thinks I don't know but I hear her footsteps all around me. The floors above and deep below practically have her tracks worn right into them yet she won't tell me why. She won't even admit that it's her traipsing about in the small hours of the morning and claims she sleeps through the night.
She's been changing too, over the past few weeks. She grows thinner and thinner, her skin now hanging around her body like a child wearing her mother's dress. She grows greyer too in every aspect of her physical self. At times I almost feel as though I'm talking to a photographic portrait and that my dearest sister is no more. Her body almost appears to elongate itself and I fear that soon she may resemble a circus mirror more than the Dahlia I know...or is it now knew?
But something of her old self is still there. Perhaps that's why she paces all through the night and refuses to admit to doing so. This may be her seeking her cure or it may indeed be the very cause for her depletion, so to speak, but alas I am no doctor and she continues to alter day by day.
December 15th
Dahlia has gotten worse these past few days. She's taken to muttering to herself during her nightly patrols of the house as well as ordering the butler to lock all the servants and myself in our respective rooms for the night so that she may "meditate in peace". I fail to see what part of her behaviours constitutes to any form of meditation but as she is Duchess and I but her lowly sibling, I can do little else but wait and write.
Since these nightly lock-ups I've noticed that the servants are far quieter, far less prone to gossip than they were even last week. We seem to be hiring more of them too and old faces vanish overnight. Dahlia blames the reopening of the old copper mines, the ones that our great, great Grandmama closed amidst a string of murders in the neighbouring village.
They welcome the work we provide yet remain so brutally superstitious one can't help but wonder if they've all fled.
All the while I do hope my sister's changes are but a temporary sickness and that the walks I persuade her into are of some help. She is so very thin now, I hate to make comparisons but her skin hangs so loose about her delicate face that she closer resembles a purebred basset hound than purebred aristocracy
Oh how her poor eyes bleed from the strain of her condition and how her gums bleed and recede in equal measure. Still, Dahlia is as strong as she's ever been and never complains, no matter how she stains her muslin gowns and tea alike.
February 3rd
That is not my sister. It hasn't been her for quite some time too, judging by the rags and bones I found in her bed. Oh my poor Dahlia, are these rags you or are you now the creature that prowls the halls at night and chases servants to their deaths?
I pray you are dead, cruel as that may seem.
At least then, once I strike you down at breakfast, it won't be murder.
I will be saving you, saving us all.
God be with me.
Dahlia walks about the house when I'm asleep - she thinks I don't know but I hear her footsteps all around me. The floors above and deep below practically have her tracks worn right into them yet she won't tell me why. She won't even admit that it's her traipsing about in the small hours of the morning and claims she sleeps through the night.
She's been changing too, over the past few weeks. She grows thinner and thinner, her skin now hanging around her body like a child wearing her mother's dress. She grows greyer too in every aspect of her physical self. At times I almost feel as though I'm talking to a photographic portrait and that my dearest sister is no more. Her body almost appears to elongate itself and I fear that soon she may resemble a circus mirror more than the Dahlia I know...or is it now knew?
But something of her old self is still there. Perhaps that's why she paces all through the night and refuses to admit to doing so. This may be her seeking her cure or it may indeed be the very cause for her depletion, so to speak, but alas I am no doctor and she continues to alter day by day.
December 15th
Dahlia has gotten worse these past few days. She's taken to muttering to herself during her nightly patrols of the house as well as ordering the butler to lock all the servants and myself in our respective rooms for the night so that she may "meditate in peace". I fail to see what part of her behaviours constitutes to any form of meditation but as she is Duchess and I but her lowly sibling, I can do little else but wait and write.
Since these nightly lock-ups I've noticed that the servants are far quieter, far less prone to gossip than they were even last week. We seem to be hiring more of them too and old faces vanish overnight. Dahlia blames the reopening of the old copper mines, the ones that our great, great Grandmama closed amidst a string of murders in the neighbouring village.
They welcome the work we provide yet remain so brutally superstitious one can't help but wonder if they've all fled.
All the while I do hope my sister's changes are but a temporary sickness and that the walks I persuade her into are of some help. She is so very thin now, I hate to make comparisons but her skin hangs so loose about her delicate face that she closer resembles a purebred basset hound than purebred aristocracy
Oh how her poor eyes bleed from the strain of her condition and how her gums bleed and recede in equal measure. Still, Dahlia is as strong as she's ever been and never complains, no matter how she stains her muslin gowns and tea alike.
February 3rd
That is not my sister. It hasn't been her for quite some time too, judging by the rags and bones I found in her bed. Oh my poor Dahlia, are these rags you or are you now the creature that prowls the halls at night and chases servants to their deaths?
I pray you are dead, cruel as that may seem.
At least then, once I strike you down at breakfast, it won't be murder.
I will be saving you, saving us all.
God be with me.
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