11 pm - zondag
Charlie's given up his pounding on the door - at last. It was wearing thin. He's a caring soul, but his other charges now have his full attention, thank God. I think worrying about others relieves him of his own burdens. He's not well. He masks it, but AIDs has taken a greater toll than I had at first realised. I see it in his eyes. Carmen's gone missing again and Xena has been in search of her all day. Now our good doctor is concerned about both of them & has gone in search himself. I'm to listen for their return. Apparently Xena was somewhat "strung out" when she left and in need of a fix, but she was determined to find the child first. "Child," indeed - I must remind myself that Xena, herself, is but 18.
As for me - I am so tired. My legs feel like raw stumps. Gut hurts - cramping & bloated. Oh, God, if I could only sleep until this malady passes. I've been sick in some hell holes before - tends to be a hazard of Legacy expeditions - but none as lonely and tormenting as this. I seem to be in a lull or, please God, on the downside of this misery.
Lethargy has set in - the world is now fuzzy. It's the only word I can think of to describe it - like a blurred maze. Tomorrow the death certificate will be issued, marking an end to the life of Derek Rayne. My letters will be delivered. God bless them all.
My mind keeps reverting to my last letter to Mother. I wonder what she's doing. I hope she was prepared. Has she come over? I wish I was 5 again - I wish I was that little boy wrapped in Nana's quilt - so safe - so innocent. He died too soon - they started killing him at 7 and he was buried in Peru at 15.
I poured out my fears to her. I don't know what possessed me. I should not have done that. I shall regret it eternally. It was wrong to burden her so and to tell her to share the letter with Ingrid. For some irrational reason I thought they needed to know about my ultimate fears concerning Father & myself - my fears that he had fallen to the Darkside & if he had, then so might I - & my most monstrous fear - that he had never been human at all. If so, then Ingrid and I were demon-spawned half-humans. If I had a way to retrieve it I would, but her letter would have been immediately forwarded to my Amsterdam attorney - sealed and under lock and key. I'm sorry, Mother.
In those last days, after I wrote my farewell letters and the end drew closer, I set aside all those fears of failure, all those abhorrent "what-ifs," but now they suffocate me. They assail my mind. To get on with the job, I had convinced myself they were foolishness - merely night terrors that would vanish with the morning's light. But we of the Legacy know too well that the unbelievable is but a hair's breadth from reality. The morning's light does not always come, and even when it does, it does not always dispel the demons. They are not just the boogie man that inhabits a child's closet.
Throughout history there have been stories of the offspring of a human mother and an otherworldly father - Hercules, Romulus & Remus, the Minotaur, Merlin. Always back to Merlin, Myrddin Emrys, our progenitor, with his "gifted" virgin mother and incubus father, who sought to beget by her the Anti-Christ. Did history repeat itself? Despite Merlin's good deeds, was the bloodline tainted? He struggled against the Darkness his whole life and yet ran mad in the Wild Forest - like a rabid animal.
Could Father have been such a creature as begot Merlin? My heart still says no, but I felt Father in that "thing" that inhabited me. I feel him every time he calls to me. His call is enticing. Oh, Jesus! - even if Winston Rayne was not that creature, even if he wasn't possessed, even if he didn't turn, what if--------
What if that creature had come to Mother, as it comes to me with its song of seduction? What if it came to her in the guise of Winston Rayne, as Zeus did so many times or as Uther Pendragon did to Ygraine. Always I clung to the thought that my sweet, devout sister could not possibly be tainted, and if Ingrid wasn't, then I was safe, but what if ---------
Inger. Pray for me. I am surely lost.
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