Journal 3 Pages Novels & Stories

"He actually wrote it in the journal." I pressed my hand to my mouth. "He has sixty-seven pages," she said. "He'll have ninety by spring." "Are you going to write back?" "I've started my own journal. I'm not telling him yet." She almost smiled. "He'll figure it out eventually." The fire crackled. Outside, the moon was up — not full, building toward it, the thin sliver of early autumn. "Are you happy?" Mira said. "On the correct scale."

Instead, she shifted gears, asking, "What were you reading?" I snapped my fingers, and my journal reappeared in my hand. It was a treasured possession, filled with entries spanning the past 100 years. I had amassed a collection of these journals, each one a testament to my love of recording every detail of my life. I wrote about experiences, adventures, thoughts, plans, and ideas - nothing was left unrecorded.

During gym class, when Coach Jim was watching, she missed six baskets in a row. Wednesday, March 17th. The cafeteria ran out of dessert. The last person to get a dessert was the person right in front of Jane Waleski and Emily Zuckerman. Friday, March 28th. Jane and Emily finally did their book reports, Ms. Reeds told them that the books they read were too short, even though she never told the class ahead of time that the book-report books had to be a certain length. Jane's book had 97 pages. Emily's book had 78 pages. Lucy Adams's book had 357 pages.

This journal had really become a trusted friend, the one common denominator in all her travels. She turned back the heavy leather cover, and the pages crinkled. She looked at her handwriting, flipping through the pages, and noticed how it had already changed. All the different types of inks, of pens….Some of the pages were soiled by now, covered in dirt stains or wine spills. The pages had become thick, too, from water stains and dampness. The journal already felt as if it were a thousand years old. She was shocked at how thick it had become. Had she really done all this? The pages were getting completely filled, and Caitlin had to keep turning to find a blank page. Finally, she did. She too

~ I shut the journal, licking the saltiness off my lips. Taking a deep breath, I concentrated on the burn in my chest that had turned even more bitter and excruciating. But my mind felt lighter than before. A lot less chaotic. Although it took me the entire night to write two worthless, senseless, crappiest paragraphs of literature in my journal. And I wasn’t even counting all the sentences I struck off, scribbled away. The unfinished sentences and the discarded ones that were now in the dustbin closed in the crumpled papers.

There was nothing he could say this morning that I hadn’t already heard. Instead of listening, I opened the first journal. The leather cover cracked softly beneath my fingertips as I carefully turned the brittle pages. Whoever had written it had spent years documenting different forms of forbidden magic, filling nearly every page with sketches, notes, and observations. Most of it had nothing to do with Raiden. Hexes. Binding spells. Blood rituals. Protection circles.