.:voluptuary devotions:.

Celerity has suddenly decided to be nice to me. (I am writing this now, while she and Cassie are in the loo, since everyone's been going in pairs, and I really don't need to.) It's very odd, but I am going to go with it for now, and just not tell her anything too personal.

Dio Starn and Kat Loveday are missing (they're with Mathers and all the pooheads in charge say they trust him, including Goyle who I thought was smarter than that). Most people only care about Kat, who has a Leffoy on her hook. Leffoy himself cares about Dio, because Kat does. The Lovelaces and Casaubons care; Dio can do a bit of maths, which doesn't matter to most of the world, but you know, if you are a Casaubon or a Lovelace, you think everyone who isn't good at maths is just an ape who's learnt to wear shoes. Fortunately I am not so bad at it, which means that even though Mercuria has decided not to know me, it doesn't matter so much to Ambrose and Martial that I am a shocking leaden slag. (Which doesn't actually mean that I sleep with lots of boys, only that I sleep with one who Can't Marry Me because I'm Beneath Him, and don't seem to care.) And two-footed Mackenzie in St Hilda's cares. Of course Mackenzie is Canadian, just like the four-footed Mackenzie, and they all care about everyone (the Canadian constable thinks we should love each other like brothers and sisters, which means he must not have any) but he seems to care about Dio a bit more than most. Well, Dio is actually my friend and if anything has happened to her, I am going to make somebody pay.

Everyone thinks JW is just using me, but he will marry me. He doesn't know it but I do. And I wish he could marry me now. I'd rather not go home to my idiot mother and drunken father with Perkin, who has the worst qualities of both. And I'd rather not live with Aunt Cat and Uncle Sam, where I am safe, because I've been wrapped in cotton and locked in the nursery with Missy and Carmen, and won't be allowed to go visit the Zellers and Goldsteins. Chandra says I can live in his mother's house if JW is willing to pay for it, but I'm under age and his mother isn't as stupid as he is. Zip says when she gets a job and a flat, Elie and I should come live with her. And maybe we will. (Since I don't suppose Ilan will take me to Palestine at the age of 14, as there are no Nazis here that I need to be saved from, unless you count wankers like the Baddocks.)

1. I am beginning to understand why Rachel complains so much about her mother, although I love the food.

2. I am beginning to understand why both Rachel and Alden complain so much about Dinah and Helena talking all the time, even during services, although I would have been fine with that if they had ever shut up last night. Rachel went back with Alden, but Helena stayed HERE so she could talk to Dinah. All night long.

3. I was really looking forward to meeting Rachel’s Uncle Ilan. But he has found himself a girlfriend, who is my cousin Teresa, and even more scandalous than me, and the person I want to be when I grow up, so we are not seeing too much of him. In fact, services are supposed to start soon, and they are not back here yet, and Rachel’s father says he’ll be surprised if they’re here before noon.

4. I miss JW.

5. Zip is in so much trouble. Somehow she sneaked out of the house. Her mother thinks she spent the night at the Kerenskys’ but David Kerensky says she was only out with him for a little while and told me that she took the train to Cornubia to be at the wedding of her friend Melina Ducas. I hope it is worth it because I think she is going to be in trouble until this time next year.

6. I still miss JW.

WARNING: sexual content

( Dylan is furious with me, but he hasn’t grassed, because it’s almost time to leave and no-one’s come to tell me that my mother’s called and I’m not allowed to go. )

I hate Galen Garnier. I hate Galen Garnier with a passion. AND Percival Graves. And Maeve Pritchard and Patricia Rosier, who are making a big boo-hoo about Claire, along with Jennifer Wyngarde, who used to say the vilest things about her. Daniel calls it Lashon Hara. And he’s right; it’s evil, and so are they. Claire’s dead and all they can think about is how good they want to look and not one of them spares a thought for what they might have had to do with it! They were all beastly to her and now that she’s dead they’re all her best friends and I fucking hate them.

And now Jenny Wyngarde is fighting with Dinah because somebody heard we threw Daniel a birthday party and Dinah’s supposed to be in mourning (Dinah can be a bitch, but she’s my friend and at least she’s not pretending she was Claire’s best mate) and Garnier let his dog pee on my cloak because I told Patty to plug up the waterworks!

Dashwood just gave him the oddest look, and then he told me in the softest voice that he’d take care of it. He’s got a badge, it’s not the same as a prefect’s badge, but I guess he and Kyteler are doing Jeannot’s job until Jeannot recovers. I don’t quite know what’s going on. They can call me plumb blossom. They can call me slag. They can even call me a kike, I heard that today too, and from someone who ought to know better. I don’t care. I am, in fact, better than they are, and Rachel is going to teach me to fight.

It used to really bother me that sometimes I’m a different person from the one I am most of the time or the one I was earlier in the day, but I’ve stopped worrying about it because I’ve noticed that most grown-ups are like that, they change themselves a little to be wherever they need to be and do whatever they think they must. I am different when I am in the pub, or in a tiny room with James, than I am when I’m at home, and I’m different from either of those people when I’m at lessons, or when I pray.

But the praying part is becoming more problematic, because there are things my family wants me to hide that I don’t want to hide any more. I suppose meeting Elie should have made me understand what they’re afraid of, but mostly what it made me was angry, for him, and defiant, like Rachel, whom I really like even though she is very Caerleon and sometimes in the worst way.

I am not afraid of much any more. I was afraid of my father’s friends but I think I know how to handle them now. I am very afraid of the Germans, but being afraid of the Germans just makes me angry. I know what Mamãe would say if she could meet Elie, but I think she’s wrong, and Rachel is right: we need our own country. Does that make me traitorous? I still can’t even write the word. Dylan keeps a journal in Hebrew script, but he tells the Zellers they’re mistaken, and he won’t come to prayers. But the smell of bacon still makes him ill, because Tía Catalina for all of her lies still won’t have it inside the house.

James knows nothing of this. He thinks it’s funny that I’m friends with Elie, and teases me a little, asking if I’m going to make Elie my protector when I’m gone when really, Rachel and I are practically his. I don’t even know what James would say if he knew. Maybe he doesn’t need to know. Our relationship gives me protection and pleasure and that’s what I wanted. Chandra doesn’t like it that I’m friendly with Elie and the Zellers, and he says it’s because Elie’s pathetic and Rachel is in Caerleon, but I wonder what he’d think if he knew that I was one too. And he should really get over that, because he might as well be Indian himself, even though he doesn’t LOOK like Rajinder Ayyar.

I saw them, gathering in a corner of the common room. Now that the Pelbians live here with us, I see them studying together all the time. Zeller and the new boy, Frankel, and sometimes Goldstein comes and talks with them. The Caerleon girl, Rachel—Zeller’s sister, and Dinah and Helena, they also go. And Tirtzah. They’re going to light candles, the way my mother does, only they won’t do it in the darkness of a bedroom and hope that nobody sees. They’ll pray and sing and eat together, and they won’t be ashamed of it.

I want to go with them. I used to think about it, but if Dylan and Ethan saw me coming up into the Eyrie, they’d know what I was doing, and they’d tell, because that’s how they are. They believe what our mothers say, if anyone knows, we’ll be killed. But this is mine. And I want it. And I’m going to go and join them.

Maybe Dylan and Ethan won’t find out what I’m doing. But I don’t think I care if they do. Perkin doesn’t even know what he is, because nobody trusts him enough to tell, and the things he says with his friends make me sick. But I know. And I’m not ashamed of it.

Today is Dylan’s birthday. I hope he’ll like his present. He’s one of the few people in my family that I still get on well with, although I know he’s still unhappy about some of the things that I’ve done.

Chandra actually talked to those ‘very special’ people for five minutes. He wants to sort them out, thinks he can fix them up to make them more acceptable. He drives me mad! I swear he’ll do anything for attention, and put up with almost any kind of foolishness if people are listening to him. Also, if he calls me his lovely assistant one more time, I’m going to have to... Oh, who am I fooling? It’s not as though he’ll ever, ever change.

There are Pelbians everywhere in now. On the one hand, it interferes with the predators, but it also makes life difficult for me and JW, and people like Avery and Greengrass run wild.

At least I don’t have to put up with Perkin any more. I suppose it could be worse; we could be stuck hosting Caerleon. But I have to make Chandra understand that the Very Special Twins are not associates who are going to keep Baddock from beating him up, or worse. Far from it. If he had a dash of sense he’d understand that and let them move into the spot on the social hierarchy that he normally occupies, and that I did until JW let it be known that I was his and Not To Be Trifled With.

Missy is still asleep and has no idea that I had JW in here. It's so weird to look at her and think that I was ever as innocent as she is.

I'm not as stupid as my mother is, she never does the charms she ought to do, it's because of her that my father wanders and gets into trouble. JW left a piece of himself here with me and I've got it mixed with my own blood; I've already cleaned myself up and tied knots in the rags.

I am very young and I don't know very much about much, but I know more about the world than he does. He'll belong to me, and he'll be happier that way. Mamãe taught me well by omission. I won't make her mistakes again.

sublimate, v. transitive

suhb lih met

Inflected Forms: sublimated, sublimating, sublimates

Definition 1. to divert the expression of (a crude impulse or desire, often sexual) into a socially acceptable or more ideal form. Crossref. Syn. sublime

Definition 2.

That is ALL.

Somebody sent me flowers. It wasn't JW; he wouldn't have sent me daisies. There is something fundamentally innocent about daisies that is very un-JW-like. Nonetheless, Mamãe is acting like the world is about to end. "You've been seeing some boy!"

I miss JW; the time I spent with him seems like a dream. The rest of my life is so different from that. The way it's supposed to be, more or less, except when my father is out with his friends getting drunk, or when we have to pack up at a moment's notice to go and stay with our Tía Cat and Uncle Sam. I don't hear from anyone at school except Chandra, who is not someone I'd ever be allowed to see officially, because he's a boy (well, allegedly). Mostly I end up spending a lot more time with Missy and Carmen than I care to think about, because Dylan is always annoyed with me. And I can't make him too angry. He knows about JW. And not because I told him. I'm sure it was Hadrian Kyteler.

JW was out eating lunch with Melina Ducas. I know he would never want her, but I wish I could just eat lunch with him. My family thinks I'm so innocent, and except for my father, who I'm never left alone with now--thank God--they're overprotective. And they need to keep thinking that, too.