In Dreams

I had a dream. I was walking through the zoo trying to find my mom. I was a little girl again, but...not. You know dream logic. The zoo was full of people, but no animals. So many people there that I couldn't find my mom. I kept on catches glimpses of her around the corner, but I could never find her.

But I found Derek. He tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Tag, you're it, Karen."

"I'm not Karen," I said.

"Make up your mind then," he said. "I remember back when all you wanted was to be called Karen. Blah blah blah don't call me Grace."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"You don't remember?" He laughed and I shivered. "You loved that stupid horror movie. It scared you out of your wits, but you insisted on watching it every time it came on."

I looked around and noticed that there weren't any people around anymore. "Where's Mom?" I asked.

"Where she always is," Derek said. "In the ground, pushing up daisies."

"She was here, I saw her." I turned around and Derek was gone as well. "Derek?" I turned around again and there was my dad, standing inside one of the cages. "Dad? Do you know where Derek went?"

"He's in here, too," Dad said. "Somewhere. Don't worry, my little Judy. I always loved you more."

"I'm not Judy," I said. "I'm Grace."

"Judy, Grace, Karen," he said. "You had so many friends. You were never lonely growing up." He looked at me with wrinkled face and I suddenly remembered scattering his ashes in the ocean and how I wanted to cry but couldn't.

"Dad," I asked, "where's Mom?"

His smile faded. "She's not here," he said. "It's not her." I heard footsteps behind me and I turned again and there she was. My mom. Same faded dress she always wore, same hairstyle, but I couldn't see her face. She was wearing a wooden mask. "Don't go with her," my father whispered.

My mother went to lift the mask from her face and then I woke up.

I don't know why I'm telling this. I just felt the need to write it all down.

sparse.

Karen's Diary

I'm still in the motel that went to yesterday. I don't want to stay in one place, but I don't want to go in the wrong direction.

As for the diary...well, I have no idea if this thing is real or if it's just the Jester messing with me. Anyway, I took pictures of the rest of the diary and I will now post them. The left-side pages have pictures on them and the right-side pages have words, but I'm posting them the other way around, since the pictures refer to the words. Because I'm OCD like that.

And that's it. That's the end of the diary - the rest of the pages are blank. Again, don't know if this thing is real or not, but in either case, it's fairly disturbing.

The Book in the Boat

So I found a place that rented boats and was open on Sunday. They charged me $250 for a boat and oars.

There was only one problem: I had never gone boating before. And I had very little time to find out how to boat. So I went out in the boat and traveled in circles for twenty minutes before I stopped, went back to the boat place and asked for someone to guide it for me. I told them I was doing a National Treasure Hunt and that there was a Very Important Clue in the boat in the middle of the lake. The guy looked at me and then charged me another $50.

So: I finally got to the boat in the middle of Moon Lake. And in the middle of the boat was a book, a plain black hardcover book. I grabbed it, decided not to open it in front of my guide in case he was curious, and had him turn back around.

I finally got back to my car and (having driven all night and only slept a few hours in the uncomfortable car seat) found a nice motel to stay. Then I pulled out the book:

The book on top of my laptop.

And I opened it:

The inscription/clue.

However, the book had quite a lot of pages and this was just the first. So I turned the page. And found something quite disturbing:

A child's diary.

Why had the Jester left me the clue in the first page of a child's diary? And who was this Karen? Did the Jester kill her? Did he do something to her like he's doing with Derek?

I'm tired now and all I want to do is sleep, so I'll take pictures of the rest of the diary tomorrow and post them as I do.