I was going to travel to Mount Carris on April 13 but another Neurovirus lockdown in Gentry County forced me to wait until April 16. Nonetheless, the trip to Mount Carris was uneventful.
***
I arrived to the top of the Mountain, just like Ron Forester. I saw the Great Broken Tree.
And mere yards from me, lightning struck.
I don't remember what happened next but I felt myself fall through a void, much like I was traveling through time. I saw the hostile land to the North, the Combrian Confederation, and received divine insight that it was about to fall due to war and disease. Then I re-lived my life backwards, all the way back through my years of youth until the time I was a baby.
And then, nothing.
Suddenly there emerged the Great Author, face-to-face with me. The face of the Great Author was one unable to be recognized by anyone of the human race, but what was clear to me was one thing: The Great Author was neither male nor female.
"Go forth and follow your calling," the Great Author spoke to me. "You shall have no obligation to continue as solely a Pagewriter nor as a Pageturner. Your course shall follow no such conventions but only the convention of seeking the Great Truth. For the Anomaly is not its own mechanism but simply a manifest of the inter-dimensional Threat of Humanity, only to be vanquished by the union of the Pageturners and Pagewriters."
***
Two days later, on April 18, I returned to Cabotton to find that someone had been wanting to meet with me, though the contact did not self-identify to the Steward who relayed the message to me. I knew it was someone from the Pageturner Guild, wanting to keep their identity discreet in such close proximity to the Third Level Society, as the Society was dominated by allies to the Pagewriters. But I was convinced that it was Kelsey Band. After all, I went months without speaking to her up until this point.
It was Pheleston.
"Peter Crane," he said to me. "That was the man you met in Northmoor. The one who called himself 'Pete.'"
"Ah," I said, now remembering what I've read about in the past. "I understand they were friends since their time in college?"
"It seems volatile, their relationship with one another," Pheleston said. "They were friends for awhile, then mortal enemies, then friends again...in fact, if some of the facts are true, I believe they may have been romantic...as of what happened to Crane in the years since and how he ended up in Northmoor, I'm not entirely sure. The information is a bit sketchy. What I do know, however, is that both he and Kara were reported deceased...apparently from a house fire."
Knowing Pheleston, I would look at the archives later on, myself. And what he reported rang true. After I fled, they had snuck out of the Northmoor Headquarters and up to the Gymian coastline, where they made to hitch a ride on a ship owned by the Independent Fishing and Trade Company, possibly infiltrated by the Nebaya Guild in the Great North. They were waiting at a residence near there in June 1327, but the house caught fire and they died. Whether it was an accident or an arson remains to be determined.
"In any case," Pheleston continued. "I am to retire from the Curator position at the end of the year. I encourage you, and will endorse you, to run in my place. You would be the first woman to do so."
"I would," replied myself after an intentionally long pause. "If Cabotton hadn't grown on me so much."
"Suit yourself," he said with a sigh. And with that, he left.
I would have added something, a thought, that also had been growing on me since the trip to Mount Carris. I realized by that point, a mere two days later, that perhaps the being with whom I spoke on the top of Mount Carris was the spirit of the Great Author in the body of ... myself. And it makes sense. It had been growing on me since the moment I began, two years ago, casting my avatar, Mys, in the Arturian Realm.
I've never wanted to be a man. I inversely enjoyed presenting myself as female. But, at the end of the day, I am neither.
That, of course, would have been unnecessary for Pheleston to know, or so I feel.
***
I met with Williard Kent today, and resolved not to tell him all the details of the Mount Carris experience, but to tell him only the visions I had of the world around us and chalking it up solely to my imagination.
"Hmm okay," was what he said in reply. Whether it was disappointment or if he suspected me of omitting things is something I will not worry about for now.
Regardless, Cabotton is my home now. I no longer wish to return to Furthing. Obviously, I am no longer interested in resuming my position as a cog in the Pageturner Guild. There's a calling for independent decision-making here, and that's what makes me stay here despite the pandemic and ongoing conflict to the North. Certainly, I want nothing to do with the Pagewriter Guild, or even the Third Level Society and Emma Bastrin. I am completely disassociated with them. But they are not the only faction here by a long shot.
Going back to Kent, he is the one whose initiative with which I wish to integrate. With him and his friends, I see a very bright future in my quest for the Truth.
***END OF STORY TWELVE**