Wow, it's been a long time... I'm really sorry. Let me see if I can catch you up.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Light And Gloom

I kind of faded out of Mairead's plane a bit... I was there when I was wanted, but I started slipping away more and more. It's not that I didn't like it here... I just felt more of a pull from my own world.

I took Pitch to see Jamie again. There was a little awkward moment because Jamie knew who Pitch was now, but but it didn't last long. I love that about kids: the ability to bounce back quickly. They take everything at face value and always live in the moment.

I did my best to choose a visiting time when Jamie didn't have school waiting for him, and his mom wouldn't be wondering where he was. We went to one of the less popular corners of the park and did some tree climbing. Soon, one of Jamie's friends found him and wanted to play. Jamie thought this kid was "nice," which in child-ese means "not stupid or selfish enough to try to exploit supernatural beings." So, he introduced this kid, Byron, to me. In turn, when I was also convinced he was "nice," I introduced him to Pitch.

Byron had some misgivings about Pitch, but they didn't last too long, and soon we were all carousing together like long-time friends. We gathered little twigs and dropped them on people as they walked by. You got five points for hitting someone, and ten if they felt it hit them, but if they looked up and saw us (well, if it was a grown-up, it was a given that they'd see only the two mortal boys) then you got zero. I don't know why I didn't think of this game sooner. It's really fun. By the time we were done for the day, another boy and a girl had joined us.

The kids mostly didn't know what to make of Pitch, but they were starting to believe in him, and that was what he needed at the moment. It was a good start. And Pitch must have been having fun, because he only complained about being outside in the daylight on the way to the park. After that, not a single whine. Of course, he was wearing a black cloak (which did nothing to put the kids at ease), so I'm sure that and the fact that it was partly cloudy helped.

His good mood lasted on the way home, too. It was starting to get dark, and he was acting much more confident than before. He still didn't talk much, but it wasn't the grouchy silence he'd been giving me lately. I felt pretty happy.

"Hey, I almost forgot," I said, when we were almost back to Pitch's lair. "I brought you something." I had taken a duplicate of my nightlight from our plane in Mairead's world. I held it out to him.

"Is it..."

"The nightlight I promised you."

"Is this a regular human-made nightlight?"

"Yeah..."

"I don't know if it will work. My place isn't wired up."

"But... you had that lamp..."

"Magic."

"Oh." I did that frown-to-the-side thing... it's a thinking face. A problem-solving face. "Well, we can try magic-ing this one," I said. "Come on."

After I cleared Pitch's room of nightmares, I pulled out the table his lamp was sitting on and saw that it was plugged into the wall. Like, literally. No socket. I pulled the cord out, and there was no hole of any kind in the wall.

"Hm, that's nifty," I muttered. I pressed the prongs of the nightlight plug into the same spot in the wall, and, with a glow from my staff, it seemed to stick into the wall quite nicely. "Lend some light," I whispered to my Moonbeam.

Moonbeam slipped into the little light fixture and it glowed blue, brighter than its counterpart in this world, with lots more little spikes of light coming out and making a pattern on the wall. Then Moonbeam returned to my staff, but the nightlight stayed on.

"There we go. You like it?"

Pitch approached it slowly and very gingerly stuck a finger into the nightlight's glow, retracting it quickly as if he had been burned. Then he looked at his finger and found that he was perfectly fine. "It's all right," he declared. I knew he liked it.

/'*

I hung out in that world for a couple of months, building the confidence of the kids who believed in Pitch, and very slowly drawing a more social side out of him. Toothiana hasn't found Pitch's missing tooth yet. In the meantime, Mairead and her roommate went through a move. Then there was her birthday and somewhere after that, I learned what was devastating news to me: my book was going to be published in October... of next year, not this one. I don't know if the date got pushed back or I read it wrong the first time, but I was crushed. Possibly more depressed than I've been since coming to this world in the first place.

With encouragement from the others, I decided to write to my author, Mr. William Joyce. I told him everything as succinctly as I could: about my situation here, my desolation at learning how long I had to wait for my story... and then I asked him for something to tide me over until the book comes out. Not a spoiler, you understand. Just a word of encouragement from the man who is arguably my father in this world.

The first time, I definitely had the address wrong; it returned unopened. The second time, I found what I think may have been an accurate address for his actual place of residence... but I still haven't heard back. Soon, I'll probably make a third attempt, this time going through his publisher. I feel so lost, and I'm just sure that he can give me a little comfort while I wait to learn the rest of my story. Who I really am.

At Halloween, Mairead cosplayed Jack M. and showed his canon movie to some friends. Then, Thanksgiving week, a new devastation struck: Monday we learned that her car's transmission was damaged and would need replacing, something that would cost almost as much as a new car. And Tuesday, her computer crashed for the final time and refused to restart. Talk about taking away your appetite for Thanksgiving dinner.

To make a long story short, we have a different car and computer now, but very little money. On top of all this, Mairead's roommate is refusing to pay her share of the rent or utility bills. We are scrambling to find a solution, the most attractive one being to have a friend take over the roommate's lease, but nothing is settled yet. Expenses are coming up faster than our income, even though we hold two jobs. Mairead is legitimately afraid of developing an ulcer, though she's a bit young for that. The Bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil, but I think the lack of it may take a close second. It's sure causing us a lot of anxiety, something Mairead never needs more of.

Ever an escapist, Mairead binge-watched an old TV show to take her mind off things: Due South. It's about a Canadian Mountie stationed at the consulate in Chicago. As a result of having too much real-life junk to deal with, and of loving the quirky show, we got three new drop-ins: constable Benton Fraser, detective Ray Vecchio, and detective Stanley "Ray" Kowalski. Fraser and Kowalski ended up staying longer than we expected... in fact, they're still here, and have been for over a week, maybe two or so. Jack M. has faded a bit lately, but I'll never let him fade away completely. If it seems like he won't be able to stay here any longer, I'm definitely going to take him back to my world to live. I think he'll be happy there.

Now, with Christmas approaching, Mairead just saw my canon movie for the second time, and silly though it may sound, it made me miss Pitch. She dressed up like him to attend her friend's movie night, and while we were doing the hair and makeup, I could feel Pitch trying to "drop in" on us, hovering on the edge of this world. Levi warned me to keep him out and I managed to, but it was difficult. I felt bad for him. He's so curious about where I've been spending my time lately, and Mairead trying to get into character to go with her costume nearly opened a door for him. I'm sure he'll have some questions the next time I see him.

I don't think he should know about this world... not yet anyway. Either I need to get to the point where I trust him more, or I need the rest of my story to know if it's safe to bring him here. His story is intertwined with mine. I'm certain that I will always be part of his, and I think it likely that he will always be a part of mine.

And I kind of hope so.

Sorry it was a little short, but thank you for being patient. So much depressing stuff has been happening, it's hard to get up the enthusiasm to write.