[Initials to denote the writer for each line have been added for legibility]

M: Hello, Victor. I know you’re nursing a massive hangover but I needed to catch you before you grabbed another bottle. I need to know what’s wrong. We don’t have to talk out loud so you don’t have to hear me tarnishing your mother’s voice. Just pass the journal back and forth. Is this good for you?

V: Uncharacteristically kind of you. Did Geraldine put you up to this?

M: She did not, thank you very much. She’s busy, and I’m not distracting her.

V: Then what’s driving you to - Ah, you wrote to mother then. How was she?

M: Intimidating. When she writes, is it supposed to feel like she’s inside your brain with a rake? Or like she’s pinned you down and started playing with her food like a cat?

V: You are white, and you are American, and you are meeting her after a white American stole the one thing she can’t replace from her. You’re a crucible of cruelty and wickedness until proven otherwise. If you weren’t helping me, she’d probably reject you outright; she’s trying.

M: I can’t say I find the fact that this is her at her most accommodating to be very comforting.

V: It isn’t.

M: Fine. Save it for later. Back to the point. You’ve been drunk to the point of uselessness, and I can’t afford for you to be useless and neither can Geraldine. What’s wrong?

V: What has Geraldine told you about the craft? Not about the techniques, but the practice.

M: Not much. Before we left Henshaw, she was trying to protect your secrets. After, any time we shared in private was spent on [line illegible due to tear in paper]

V: Of course it was. What I do…it’s a very old, very special practice. It was taught to me by my father, who learned of it from Ottoman scholars in another life, pieced it together from antediluvian scraps. It echoes with the reconstruction of Pelops, son of Tantalus, of Isis putting Osiris back together. It is a tool of shaping and creation. Of life. Of finding hope in the imperfections of the flesh. I have a duty to not misuse it. Do you follow?

M: This is about the horse and the deer, isn’t it.

V: What I did to that horse was an abomination. We stole her from her home, ran her ragged, and left her exposed to the elements. I might as well have slit her throat myself. And after all that, I force her corpse back into service, splice it with a living creature and work it till it snaps apart. And burn the whole mess so nobody else has to know what we did.

M: The deer only had a few months left anyways. Oldest deer the animals could find me, just like you asked.

V: It dulls the insult to nature and God. It does not eliminates it. If I had turned a willing dying man into some figment of your worst nightmares, you’d [rest of line is illegible due to tear in paper]

M: No. I would not, if only to prove you wrong. Even then, it’s not like you had a choice.

V: There is always a choice. Any martyr knows that very well. It’s not just the horse. It’s Briar Williams and the marshal and those graves back in Henshaw. None of that was supposed to happen. Every time I use the craft in a way it was never meant to be used, I tarnish it, and the plan, which may be tarnished from the jump. How many times do I have to tamper with it? To let Geraldine tamper with it? When will God turn his face from us and the whole scheme falls apart? I feel guilty for still being alive.

M: Isn’t your mother supposed to be God’s sinless human? If she’s free to live forever and murder lawyers, what makes you [sic]

V: I am human. I don’t care what my parents are or how I came about. I chose humanity. I put myself under God’s judgement.

M: First, if you yank anything out of my hands like that ever again, I’m calling birds to peck your damn eyes out. Second, why bother with the guilt? What’s that doing for you, o human being?

V: Keeps me humble.

M: It’s making you miserable. You do whatever you have to do in order to make it to the next day and get what you want. That’s it. If mistakes are made, you make fixing them part of what you want the next day. I wouldn’t have made it this far in life if I worried this much about other people’s opinions.

V: Weren’t you the one who tried to entrap me because of [rest of line illegible due to tear]

M: Because I knew you were lying through your teeth and if you try it again I’ll [illegible due to tear], you bizarre bastard. But that’s my problem to have with you, not yours to have with yourself. You want to fix your mother. Either that’s worth it or not. I’m not sure it is because she sounds vicious, but to you, is it?

V: [illegible due to tear] the entire plan. The theory was sound but the goal was heretical, maybe doomed by divine feat. But she is my mother, and I spent my childhood watching her suffer, no matter how much I learned about the craft or modern medicine. I wanted to do this.

M: Then you’re fine. Finish this, ask for forgiveness, then live a life where you won’t have to do this again. Stop obsessing over the past when the present needs you to have your act together. Now, will you let me take what’s left of the booze and sell it to get more money for the trip?

V: This is how you survived, isn’t it? Every time you pursued a woman openly or laid with someone, knowing that the only reason you haven’t been arrested yet is because [illegible due to tear] taken seriously. You ignore them until you can’t, do what makes you happy.

M: I wouldn’t say it like that, but it’s kinder to me than what your mother said. So?

V: Sell the bourbon. Get some spare coats and boots for all of us. I can hold it together until we get to our destination.

M: I’m keeping one bottle. That’s my claim for dealing with you and your mother putting a magnifying glass to me. Are we done?

V: You were saving something for later. About mother. Shall we get that out of the way to avoid having to do this again?

M: Is your mother going to try and kill me? For the voice thing or for being white or what? I need to trust that she won’t savage me with wolves the minute she gets her vocal chords back.

V: It would be seagulls, not wolves. If you want a full answer, I’ll have to know what exactly she said about you. Can I read the letter?

M: Don’t you dare. She shot blindly into my soul with a blunderbuss and hit far too many targets. It would be less exposing to just strip in front of you.

V: I know you have a cheeky follow-up to that. Don’t. Anyways, if she thinks she has that good a grasp on your character and she still replied to you? She won’t kill you on sight at least. She wants to see what you do, what you’ll say.

M: I didn’t. It’s just the truth. What do I do then? How exactly do I avoid angering the millennia-old killer with all of nature at her call?

V: Believe that all humans are equal under God and only separated by hegemony? Express something you care about over your own life, some shining beacon or idée fixe that leads you forward? Treat her with respect, like any woman your senior? You’re the social expert between us. I can’t promise she’ll adore you, but you’re too good at running your mouth to make her homicidally angry. Trust me.

M: There is not nearly enough trust between you and [illegible due to tear] supposed to trust someone who worries so much about doing everything right but completely fine with having a murderess for a mother?

V: If you can’t trust me, then trust my convictions. I’m a doctor, credentials or not. You’re my patient, no matter what tripe comes out of your mind to assault me. She will not lay a hand on one of my patients. She knows how seriously I take this.

M: And if I wasn’t your patient?

V: You are. The minute you got shot in front of me, you were, and if you hadn’t gotten shot, you wouldn’t be here anyways. A jester of some kind - witty, but boastful and craven - told me to not obsess over the past when the present needs you to have your act together. You should listen to her. Just don’t mind the aura of presumption that wafts from her.

[Message log ends here. Based on a later journal entry of Geraldine’s, she walked in on them shortly after in the middle of a fight. Research at the time concluded that the fight caused the tears].