A/N: The rest of this work has a warning for mentions of child abuse. Nothing on-screen, just mentions.

19 April 1631

I don't know what I've done, but I need to write it down.

I was going home with my mistletoe berries, completely prepared to end it, when I heard a scream from Sheppard's Alley. It was pouring rain and everything was mud, but I saw a girl curled up on the ground, trembling and crying. She was so tiny, and so thin, and I've seen orphans before but I could tell she was sick and I…I'm not sure. I just wanted to help her.

So I picked her up off the ground and carried her home. She had her arms around my neck and she was clinging to me, and I could feel how bony she was. She was shaking terribly and freezing cold. It's been a cold April. I think she has a fever. I've been treating her for the past three days, and she's been delusional from fever. She won't, or maybe can't, talk to me. She just talks to someone I can't see, maybe a sister or a friend.

When I got her home, she was almost frozen solid. I heated up enough water to fill the washtub and warmed her up slowly, and once I'd washed all the mud off I was finally able to find her clothes under all that mud. Once I got those off I could see and treat all her wounds. There were so many cuts and bruises…but I bandaged her up and she seems to healing slowly, if steadily. After I got her clean and warmed up, I found an old nightdress of mine and put that on her. It was too big, but I don't have any children's clothes because my baby boy never lived to be that old. I laid her on the couch and piled on all the blankets I could find, and I made her some tea with healing herbs Dolora uses. I also fed her some thin broth so she could get her strength up. Simonn was always skinny as a beanpole, but she's skinnier than that. It's worrying.

I wonder if she can write. Her clothes were embroidered all over with fancy threads I've hardly ever seen in the market, and only for quite a lot. She must be rich, somehow. Maybe she can write her name, so I can call her by it. I don't know what happened to her, but she has clearly been through entirely too much for a young girl. I think she must be nine or ten, a little younger than Damara.

I'll get her some paper and pen tomorrow.

20 April 1631

When I put the paper and pen on the table in front of her, I could tell she knew how to write, so I asked, "Can you write your name, little one?"

She nodded, coughed, and then wrote "Meulin".

I took a moment to examine the name and work out how it ought to be said before I said, "Meulin?"

She nodded and pointed at me.

"What's my name? Well, little one…you can call me whatever you like, but my name is Dianna." I didn't want to give her my last name in case she'd heard of me. "How old are you?"

She wrote "11" on the paper and I nodded. "Alright. Can you tell me where you're from? Who your family is?"

She frowned and wrote "Leijon" on the paper. My heart skipped a beat and I couldn't think what to say for a few moments.

"Meulin, little one, why did you run away?" Is she my niece? Did my sister have daughters?

"Hungry," she wrote.

"How could you be hungry?" I asked. "There's no food shortage for the nobles."

"Mother won't let me," she wrote, and her penmanship was getting shakier with each word.

"Oh, little one," I said. "I'm sorry. Are you hungry now?"

She nodded, so I heated up some broth for her. "Here, have this. I don't want to overtax your system while you're healing.

She put the broth aside and wrote down, "Books".

"Do you want to read? I have a lot of books…" I stood up, but then I realized she hadn't answered.

She wrote, "Happy."

I nodded and picked a book I thought she'd like, one Dolora let us read when we were first learning how to read novels. She read it slowly, but she made a sound a few times that sounded like it should be a laugh, so I think that's good.

I hope that's good.

22 April 1631

She talked today. Her voice was rough and hoarse, but she answered me when I asked her if she was hungry.

"Yes."

"I'll get you some soup and bread," I said. I'd actually been cooking so I could feed her (and myself as a side effect), so I had some bread I made myself and a soup Dolora used to make. Her old recipe book is still in the cabinet with her medicine books.

She ate everything ravenously, as much I tried to persuade her to slow down lest she make herself sick. I'm worried about her. I don't think she's too thin to live, but I also don't think it can be as easy as giving her food. What if it kills her? I've seen children Dolora couldn't save from starvation. Is she too close? If she is, what can I possibly do?

24 April 1631

She's definitely recovering her voice. Today I sat down with her and asked her about her family.

"I have a sister," she said. "She's seven. Her name's Nepeta."

"And your parents?" I asked, and I tried very hard to be gentle.

She frowned. "I don't think…I don't think my mama and papa like me very much."

"I'm sorry, little one," I said.

"They never want to talk to me," she said. "And they don't like hugs. But not like Nepeta."

"Not like Nepeta?"

"Nepeta doesn't like it when people touch her. So I don't. But Mama and Papa just don't hug me ever, even when I ask."

I remembered something Dolora once told me about how little children need to be held when they're growing up, and I saw how small she was, and it worried me. Did anyone ever love her? Children need to be loved-how could she get by without it?

"Are you gonna bring me back?" she asked, nervous.

It was impulsive and insane, but I said, "Of course not, little one. You can stay with me as long as you need."

"But…when I'm better…"

"You can stay as long as you like," I said.

"Then are you gonna be my mother?"

"If you like," I said, once again proving myself impulsive and insane. I'm too old and too broken to be any sort of mother, especially to a little girl who's never been loved before. I don't know why I said it, except that I know I could never make her go back. I could never do that to a child.

25 April 1631

Now that she's mostly gotten her voice back, she's quite talkative. She wants to talk to me about everything-anything from characters in her children's book to the worst feelings she's ever felt. It's nice to listen to someone again. It's nice to have another voice in the house, even one that sounds too much like my own (we must be related, she has to be my niece-she looks so much like me it scares me).

She talks a lot about her sister. Everything she says makes me worried, because everything she says reminds me of what Dolora told me about "changeling" children. Dolora was fairly certain that it wasn't fairies or demons, just something different in the person's mind. I can't imagine what life would be like for that little girl in that family.

I'm worried.

27 April 1631

I only realized today that while all I'm feeling is worried, I am feeling something, which is…odd. It feels odd.

But I want to feel. I can't die, not anymore. She doesn't have anyone else. I have to take care of her. I wake up every morning wanting to be gone, but I can't leave her alone. She would die. I can't abandon her.

If I'm to raise her, or at least take care of her, I have to feel things. She needs to be loved if she's to grow up properly. She needs someone to love her or she'll never know how to love herself. I don't know if I can, but I have to try. I don't think anyone else will.

28 April 1631

She talks so much about her sister. She says her sister is too thin, and sick, too. I can't help but worry about her. I don't know if I can take care of another child, but I also don't think I could leave another little girl to suffer.

She asked me if she could go get her sister.

What would've happened to me if Dolora hadn't taken care of me?

30 April 1631

Today I took her as close as I dared to the palace (I won't go in because if they caught me she'd have no one) and she went in and came back with her little sister. The little one was skinny as a rail and pale as a sheet. She was frowning, of course, and she looked so tired. I wasn't sure she'd be able to be walk home, but I also remembered Meulin said her sister doesn't like to be touched.

She didn't make it home. I had to carry her part of the way. I don't think she was happy about it, but she didn't complain. On the other hand, she's hardly spoken a word since I got her home. I suppose she doesn't talk much, or at least not to me. I heard her talking to Meulin while I was making dinner, but they were in the library and I couldn't catch anything much. At dinner, I noticed Meulin calling Nepeta "Kitty" and I'm not sure what that's about. I never had a sister. I never had anyone like a sister.

I tried to talk to Nepeta a little because I want to know what she needs. She's only seven, still a child, and I know she needs someone to love her, but I don't know how I'm to do that if she doesn't like to be touched. Not touching her would, I suppose, be one way, but I don't know what else. My family always hugged each other, and Meulin likes hugs, too. (And I remember she was upset her parents didn't hug her.)

I don't know how to raise a child. I wish I had anyone I could ask. I loved my little Luke, but he was never even two years old. I don't know how to properly raise a child, much less two little girls who need wildly different things from me.

I just want to help them, and I'm not sure I can.