The Roaring Age (nWoD)

[The Laurent]

Name: Miriam Green
Shadow Name: Morata
Age: Sixteen.
Gender: Female

Path: Mastigos.
Gnosis: 3
Mana: 4/12
Wisdom: 7

Arcana: Mind 3, Space 2, Fate 1, (In Progress) Spirit 1

Aspirations: Unlock the Secrets of the Fire.

Obsessions:

Virtue: Faith
Vice: Curiosity

Health: 8/8
Willpower: 7/7
Defense: 2
Destiny (Merit): 4/4

XP: 0
Arcane XP: 1

Attributes:

Strength 3, Dexterity 2*, Stamina 3
Presence 2*, Manipulation 2*, Composure 3*
Intelligence 4, Wits 3, Resolve 4

Aspects:

Spoiler: Aspects

Promising High School Student (4): She's smart and well liked around school. In fact, she has a pretty good grasp of not merely the basics of high-school learning, but even the things that are up to the senior year. Beyond what a person might learn in a she's a little lost, and so there are limits as to the kinds of things she'd know about, but if it can be found in a textbook she might have read, she's probably read it. As well, she knows how to plan her time, to get along with other people at school and not get into fights, and otherwise do well in this respect. She's best at history.

Preacher's Daughter (3): Growing up with a father who tells the gospel word, you learn how to mimic the way he gives sermons, quote the bible chapter and verse, and know more than a little about how to interact with people and their religions, faiths, and how churches function. Whether it is mingling after church, being a sounding board for her father's sermons, or playing games that involve reciting long passages of the bible from memory, she is good at it.

*A Bit of a Tomboy (2): She's really at the age where you're supposed to outgrow this sort of thing, really. But she still likes climbing things, she still likes running around the school, she still knows a little about getting into a scrap, even if she hasn't actually gotten into a fight since...well, a few years. She's keen, athletic, and very, very interested in baseball (boo, Kansas City Monarchs, boo!) which she read about, not having a radio, and that being fledgling besides. In any wise, it certainly isn't fading with time, and it's given her a set of interests and hobbies that meshes quite interestingly with her obvious piety and (reasonably, mostly) obedient nature.

Breaker of Chains (2): Abraham Lincoln was a swell guy, in her opinion. Her own father's involvement in the NAACP and her engagement in High School history has made it so that she's actually surprisingly knowledgeable on race issues, and quite talkative about them in the right circumstances. She knows how to keep her mouth shut, of course, around older white men or the like, but she has her opinions and she wears them on her sleeve, and that includes knowing a lot of things most girls her age wouldn't know about, academically and otherwise.

A Practicing Mage (2): While Morata has a lot to learn, and has only been practicing magic for a short time, she is now fully settling into magical society. She knows the Orders, and more than that she is starting to understand both the personalities and how magic truly works. It is a long journey, but she has taken another step forward.

Can We Keep Him? (1): She has had dogs and cats before, and currently has one of each, which she of course does all of the work taking care of, because her mom said that if she had to deal with that, she'd throw them out. She has a bit of a way with animals, and after the third or fourth stray, also with people and convincing them to go along with her quite innocent and well-meaning requests.

Problem Solver (1): Kids in her neighborhood and at school tend to trust and like her, or at least she's tried to be liked, and even go to her for help sometimes, whether of an academic nature or just to see what she has to say. She's not exactly a local guru or anything, but she's clever and tends to be able to help people with minor problems, or dispense advice, even if that advice is often enough 'Really, you should tell your parents, they're gonna find out, you know, and if they find out and you didn't tell them, they'll cane your hide raw.'

Sneaking The Cookie Jar (1): She's not a dishonest person, but being someone with a lot of friends means that you sometimes know how to lie for them, and more than that, that you know a little about sneaking an extra quarter here and there. Whenever caught she's full of contrition, and more than that she's not a fundamentally dishonest person, but...well, she knows plenty of people who deserve an extra cookie every now and then.

Mother's Teachings (1): Her mother has tried to at least teach her the basics of cooking, cleaning, and keeping house. The logic that she'll probably need it if she goes to college has been pretty persuasive, and while there are gaps, she's quite self-sufficient when it comes to balancing a budget or all of the other things a modern woman is expected to do, as far as it goes. She's best at cooking meat, and her recipes are all pretty simple, but it's food that'll fill a belly, and that's the most important thing.

To Dream A Dream (1): Morata has become a truly expert in the magic of dreams, and indeed has begun to truly explore what Demons and other denizens of the Astral can and will do. This is merely an extrapolation of what she can already do, hence the discount. Special: Can use Arcane XP for this.

Powers--

Mage Sight (Peripheral, Active, and Focused): She seems to be able to see something that others cannot. Magic itself, and her eyes seem especially attuned to distances and the spaces between things, as well as the minds of other people.

Mage Armor: Mind, Space

Mind 3, Space 2, Fate 2 (In Progress up from 1)

Spirit 1 (Will complete in two weeks)

Rotes--

Spoiler: Rotes

Dividing the Mind (Mind 1): A rote to divide the mind in two, this means that it has extra reach to add to duration and so on, and that there is a two-dice Yantra that can be done to add to the power of the spell. Involves imagining the split in her mind to enact it.

Scholar's Little Helper (Mind 1): Scholarship is hard work, and it's often difficult to sift through a five-hundred page book on Astral adventures for the single passage on a threatening Goetic demon that's currently ripping the rest of the Cabal apart. Plus, cross-referencing other works can be difficult. Through this tiny little rote, the caster can input a word, phrase, or topic, mentally, and essentially search the book just by holding it up to the light, copying knowledge of what was said in those passages and the passage surround it into their brain without having to search. It does not grant perfect understanding, and sometimes the section requires context to make any sense, but it can save weeks on a big scholarship project. (Rote Mudra, Promising Student, +4) Reach: With each additional Reach, you can search an additional book in the same spell; You can absorb the entirety of the contents of the book, if not always parse its meaning, as if you read the entire book in the instants it took to cast the spell, cover to cover. It may take some hours of thinking and consideration to fully parse the contents, and of course at times understanding and applying it can be more difficult: but an entire book read in less than a second is still something.

Strengthen Mind (Mind 3): It does not, obviously, only effect the intellect, but any aspect of one's mind can be made sharper, as can one's social abilities. The key to doing this, or rather the Mystagogue form of it, involves closing one's eyes and pressing one's fingers against your forehead, as if trying to stimulate thought by motion. When you open your eyes, the spell should be cast. You cannot improve your mind or social abilities to superhuman levels (Rote Mudra: Promising Student, +4), Reach: You may divide the 'Potency' of the spell, eg: Potency 4, enhance Intelligence by 1, Wits by 2, and Resolve by 1; spend a point of Mana: temporarily, for as long as the spell lasts, Attributes can reach supernatural levels.

Scholar's Protection (Mind 3): Adapted from a famous Silver Ladder rote, this grants protection ot the humble scholar. They make a sign with their hands as if their hands are books, their palms pages, and then so long as they neither attack or order an attack, others struggle to gather up the will to attack them. If they do order an attack, or attack themselves, the spell automatically fails… but only for the target, and not any others. Automatons, or beings without thought are immune, but this potent spell makes it so that anyone with a Resolve less than their Mind +1 cannot bring themselves to attack. Those that can still feel hesitation, and it is as if the Mage has two points of Armor. Supernatural beings have an advantage: if they have a supernatural trait, they get +1 to the comparison of Resolve versus Mind, if it is equal to the Mage's, they get +2, and if it is greater, they get +3… even then, a weak-willed but powerful supernatural being might find themselves frozen in fear and doubt. (Rote Mudra: Promising Student, +4) Reach: Spend 1 Mana, the spell may now last for an entire day; You may spend Reach to increase the difficulty of overcoming the Protection, once; Attackers lose 10-again on rolls to attack someone, if that person has willpowered through the magic.

The Dedicated Will of the Just (Mind 3): A spell taught to her by her Uncle, it is in some ways an extension of previous spells. By touching the forehead and spreading one's fingers across it, yours or others, when someone grits their teeth and uses their will, they find it stretching out, like hitting a high note and holding it for longer than a single action, based on the power of the spell. (Rote Mudra, Preacher's Daughter +3) Reach: Willpower when spent can add +2 to all resistance traits; Willpower spent both increases one's ability to endure, and one's ability to 'act'; By spending a Mana, the caster can imagine the benediction and thus enact it in a single breath on themselves or any target, as fast as the speed of thought.

Determined Will (Mind 2): The Mystagogue must go through many hardships for knowledge. Whatever a materialist thinks, anyone experienced in Mind magic knows that willpower exists, and so by a series of invisible taps against either their own or--imagined--someone else's skull. By doing so the Mage can make sure that when they, or others, gather their will for a great task, as long as it isn't magic they will get a bonus to the will-enhanced roll (9-again.) (Rote Mudra: Preacher's Daughter, +3: Inspire others and inspire yourself), Reach: The bonus can be increased; the bonus might be able to be used even to enhance magic, strengthening the will that brings itself to bear in casting a spell.



The Bonds of Fate (Fate 1): It is one thing to look at someone and see them, it is another to be able to look at them and see the destinities, the curses, the broken oaths and more that mark their soul and their persons. Mystagogues imagine a cobweb of connections and strands of fate itself, and carefully reach out a finger to tap at the edges of the cobweb without breaking it, to see what creeps up. (Mudra: Can We Keep Him? (+1), the spider spins its web.) Reach: The Mage can know when someone is possessed, mind controlled, or otherwise has their destiny majorly influenced; the Mage can tell someone's Destiny and Doom, can know when the curse they're affected by will be lifted, or so on.

The Unusual Path (Fate 1) : Fate itself can sometimes intervene in small ways. Through this spell, a Mystagogue can state a goal and then receive omens, sometimes faint and contradictory, on how to begin working towards it… and can even allow them to match strength with strength: subtly twisting fate so that their talents are just the right ones needed to advance upon the goal. Miriam uses it to occasionally leverage her way through a tricky social situation. The Mudra involves tugging on strands and pulling them in with a flip of a hand, as if examining something. (Rote Mudra: Problem Solver, +1) Reach: Can substitute any skill needed while under the spell for another within the same category, e.g. the character's religious passion turns out to be just what it might take to convince the homeless person to tell you where the body is hid, instead of a skill involving the streets or crime; Can, if taken further, substitute any skill for any other skill: your athletic prowess intimidates the homeless man, your knowledge of petty trivia charms the high society lady you need to steal from.



] No Shackles For The Scholar (Space 2): A Mystagogue cannot be stopped merely by a locked door, or being chained up above a pit of sharks while a villain monologues about how the Secret of the Amazon will die with them. So by imagining their own escape, and circling around that thought a few times as fast as possible, they can affect it. Any one barrier: locked door, handcuffs, barred window, or so on is fine… though it cannot get one through a bouncer or through fire. It can also be cast on an object, such as if you want to push a macguffin through a locked door and then face the enemy yourself. (Rote Mudra: Breaker of Chains, +2), Reach: Can pass through even shackles or objects they could not move through, such as being chained up, or trapped in a coffin, or anything else; subject can squeeze through narrow gaps that they should not physically be able to make it through: you can in fact drive a car through an open front door half its width if you cast this spell on it.

Merits--

Spoiler: Merits

(**) 'Profession'--Student
1--Gain 9-again on any roll that can be justified as having to do with one's profession.
2--Gain two dots of Contacts related to one's 'profession.'
3--+1 to rolls against any mental, physical or social stress that might get in the way of performing one's profession.[1] This cannot create a positive bonus.
4--8-again on rolls.
5--One special bonus based on the nature of the 'profession.

[1] Okay, in this case, imagine the college student who is good enough at class that he can show up hungover and still get something out of class, or the athlete who can go out not feeling 100% and still actually manage not to fuck everything up forever, even if he's not putting in his best performance.

(***) Parents: It may seem absurd to say it, but having parents in the picture who can help solve moderate problems is a boon. Obviously the drawback is that if they get involved and it's over her head, it could end badly, and that more than that, they obviously are sure they know best, but asking Mom or Dad is totally an option available to her, and one that can enlist their aid and ask their advice.

(***) Contacts:

She has contacts with both People She Knows At Church, a broad group but in some ways self-selecting, and among those kids she knows around the neighborhood, as well as People At School. People are willing to talk to her, ask her advice, and that goes both ways, doesn't it? If she wants to ask around, she could certainly do worse than asking when she's at church, with someone inclined to see her well already.

Egregore--Mysteriorum Arche (•): In a teamwork spellcasting roll in which the character is participating, she does not suffer the –3 penalty to contribute without the necessary Arcanum rating, and adds an automatic success if a full participant. All members of the ritual team must possess this Merit.

(*)Language: Latin

She knows Latin, read and spoken.

(*) Order Status (Mysterium)

She has been initiated in the first mystery of the Mystagogues.

(*) High Speech

She can use High Speech as a Yantra in spellcasting, and knows enough to be (roughly) conversational outside of the very formal language of Spellcasting.

(*) Egregore

1) In a teamwork spell in which she participates, she doesn't take -3 to the roll if she couldn't cast the spell on her own, and if she can she adds an automatic success to her dice roll for the purpose of granting the ritual leader the bonus dice. However, everyone involved in the ritual must have this level of Egregore. This represents her connection to magic, and through it, others of the Order.

(*) Resources:

She has a little bit of spending money saved up. Not much at all, but it's something. And it's more than a lot of people have, and so she knows to be grateful for it.

(****) Destiny

Effect: Miriam does not yet know the specifics, but she is destined for greatness and yet also doomed in some way.

Currently at 4/4.

(***) Astral Adept: Can enter the Astral far easier, by paying just a WP and meditating.

(***) True Friend (Virginia)

Effect: Miriam has a true friend. True Friend represents a trusting relationship that cannot be easily breached. Unless Miriam really does something to deserve it (really, really) Virginia will not betray her, and I, the QM, has to go easy on her in terms of throwing her into danger. Slightly kid gloves with her, as part of an implicit contract, though that does not mean that Miriam's mistakes or actions might not involve her in deeper problems than she should be facing. And any roll, natural or supernatural, that has the purpose of influencing Virginia against Miriam takes a 5-dice penalty. Additionally, once per...let's say week, Miriam can regain a point of Willpower by having a meaningful/heartfelt/important interaction with Virginia.

Consilium Status (*): Consilium--Increasingly she is a known entity, someone whose existence is no secret at all and whose fame is even harder to deny.

Contacts: Vampires (1)--Her work with vampires means she has a greater awareness of where she can go to talk to them, especially once she thinks through what she saw.

Allies (1): Guardians of the Veil--In the aftermath of yet another Interview with a Vampire, she has been contacted by the Guardians of the Veil, who are curious and who are willing to trade curiosity for curiosity.

Trained Memory (1): She has trained her mind to be something like a steel trap, though perhaps rather more effective than that, all things considered: steel traps can rust, because outside of stressful moments she never needs to roll to remember anything… she just remembers, and without Magic at all.

Minor Elements:

--Having studied a Spirit Bestiary, Miriam is now more able to tell some common spirits apart, even without using magic, and can call up basic facts about said common spirits.
--Has the Memories of a vampire in her head, which can be examined/considered later.

 

[The Laurent]

Also, the vote's closed. You're telling everything.

 

[zxzx24]

I would be genuinely happy either way. It will have good and bad consequences both ways.

And him picking up a crossbow and deciding to kick monster ass in the name of the Lord would be both.

 

[The Laurent]

Page 111: Morning Mournings

She slipped in a little after five, before anyone woke up, her arms heavy with the ache of grief and the hour of the morning. She'd been in meditation in the Astral, and in many ways that was like sleep. Her body certainly thought it was, just a little. But not enough that five hours in the Astral even quite equalled five hours in a plain, safe bed. But more than that, there was the mental strain, the way that her mind couldn't stop or slow down the whole time. Even the hours waiting until it was more sane to walk the streets, to when she could arrive home and not have to sneak up to bed--which would be yet more confusing--spent pacing, thinking, considering things.

Not always weighty ones, even small things like whether her shoes were scuff, and where one got polish, or what the riot would mean to the foot traffic the next day. Would people be too afraid to go out, or too afraid of appearing afraid? Probably the former. The great big world would spin round again, but perhaps here and now, it would stutter, unsure and uncertain. But if the Great War itself couldn't stop it, if the Great Fire merely bruised it, then there was nothing that'd stop Chicago from going on. Not now. Of course, Chicago going on, was that always--

She always turned her thoughts away, like a runner turning to try to get back to the last base in the face of a ball thrown towards home, and wished that anyone but Valkyrie had stayed, because she was so polite as to smile that soft liar's smile and say nothing, as if that's what Miriam needed now: nothing.

Nothing but her thoughts, on endless repeat like some deranged cinema, and always she knew the end: a stuttering stop and a start again just as abrupt.

So that when she stumbled and stalked through the night, Valkyrie hidden behind her until the last block--preserving a secret that didn't exist, surely people knew that she was the niece of Dancing Shadow, knew how to find her, could destroy her life the way anyone else would swat a fly--it was a relief, the crisp air, even in summer. The lack of people, all abed with nightmares of the coming day that would pop like soap bubbles, was as comforting during the walk as the lack of people was discomforting just minutes before.

She turned onto the street, looked at her home as if she were Ulysses, a little unfamiliar, a little strange. She'd done things that didn't fit in this home, and yet she'd confess every one, not even expecting the forgiveness that the hero had expected for his straying from fidelity. She knew she would, and the prospect was exhausting, like being tired before a long day's work, but not after.

Miriam opened the door quietly, surprised to find it unlocked, but not that surprised, and then went down into the kitchen. It felt like cheating, and like she were good at absolutely nothing, but she drew on what she knew of cookery and strengthened it, doubled it as she reached out for the collective memories, the knowledge that all mankind held about such things.

It was strange, these early morning thoughts, but the knowledge came so easily, as if it were her ken as a woman, as if--

She shuddered, almost. She was a sinner, a dozen times over now, and yet here she was. Faithful sinner, repent ye sins. Her father was no papist, he didn't take confessions, he didn't absolve people as if God couldn't and hadn't already seen everything.

Practical terms: she didn't have a toaster to work with. Her Uncle had offered her mother one, she had sniffed, Eliza Green did, had rejected it as charity. It had been one of the newfangled ones, that you depressed with a push and then it came up just as quickly. So she'd leave toasting the bread for later. She started, as quietly as she could, with cutting up the fruit. There were two apples, and that was more than she expected, slicing them up with tiny little movements in a dark kitchen hoping nobody came down to ask what she was doing, why she had been gone, as she was, for the better part of the day, and all the night.

Miriam Green, Ruth, started up the stove, working on the bacon next, hoping the hiss didn't hurt much, setting out plates to be cleaned later as she slid the bacon on plate after plate, just crispy enough for her father to enjoy, without being too burnt, the way her mother hated. She didn't feel like she could eat a single thing, but her hunger surprised her sometimes, a serpent coiled in the garden. God help her, she surprised herself sometimes, the twist of thoughts: Valkyrie was lying to her, someone was spying on her and she would have refused to answer if Miriam had asked.

Miriam had wanted to, so bad--Miriam began the eggs, medium and scrambled alike, her body moving so easily that her mind wasn't required to participate in any way--to ask anyways, to force her not to answer. But what peace would that have brought them, and blessed are the peacemakers. She didn't need to start a new fight, a new struggle when she was in tatters from the last one, like a worn down pair of stockings. And similarly useless for the kind of thing that Valkyrie considered sport.

Startlingly, she was plating the hash browns, and the sliced apples-- just the toast left to do, and perhaps see if there was still some milk, and they'd have a perfectly extravagant Sunday dinner, though it was instead some dull Thursday--before someone noticed. Her Mom, at the top of the stairwell, dressed in a night-gown, looking startled down.

"Miriam! What are you doing?"

Trying not to tremble, she turned around and said, quietly, almost too quiet to hear: "Cooking breakfast, Ma."

"Where were you?"

"I wasn't in the path of any riot," Miriam said, frowning a little, hoping her words didn't sound harsh. But there was the taste of grief in her mouth when she tried to explain herself to Eliza, to a woman who couldn't know the things she knew. Couldn't even begin to. "I wasn't, I was."

But the lie: I was safe, it couldn't come. It stuck in her throat. It choked her so bad it almost brought her to tears. She wasn't safe, and she'd never be safe, not in a world so filled with cruelty, so filled with casual darkness, not dramatic at all to need to end her.

Safety was the last thing she could truly expect of the world, it felt like right now.

Mom was coming down the stairs, glancing at the food, then at her attire. "Miriam A. Green, what are you wearing? And if you say clothes I'll ground you, your father or no."

"What there was," Miriam said. "There was mud. My clothes were quite ruined." That was a nice way to put it, thinking on the shreds that had been all that remained of them. Not even as if she'd grown out of them, but as if they couldn't exist. Perhaps a tendril of darkness had done that? "And, I know I'll have to talk with Father about it. I need to talk to him anyways."

"This wasn't Jack, was it? We should just--"

"No!" Miriam said, fierce tears in her eyes. "It wasn't Jack. It wasn't Jack at all. He--"

"He came by, yesterday, told us that you were safe and nothing else, talked to your father, flitted about, all nervous energy as if he knew what was going on," Eliza said. "Do not think, as he so clearly thinks, that I am stupid. That I lack the intelligence to see what has been happening. Leaving at all hours, to places you do not name. Something is happening, and it's being kept from me, by you, by him, by my own husband." Eliza looked down at her, and then strode forward the rest of the way. "And it's hurting you, it's breaking you, it's changing you."

Miriam could say nothing, nothing to this person who was her beloved mother, who was also a Sleeper, someone she could never confide in, never reveal herself to in any way. She had no lie to tell, and no truth she'd ever be allowed to tell. She could just choke, choke when she was already drowning. "It's not," Miriam said, quietly. "It's not breaking me. Fear not." As close as she could ever come to the truth: Angels. "I'm… I need to talk to father. I don't feel much like eating now, but you know my appetite."

"I thought I did," Eliza said.

And Miriam's jaw dropped. "You think, you… no. I have not been."

Her mother's eyes narrowed. "Oh?"

"Would not have been drinking, would never have been. Or smoking cigarettes, or whatever strange drugs are out there," Miriam said, firmly.

"Oh," Eliza said, sounding almost relieved, which meant… sex? Was that what Eliza had thought, or feared? That she'd become some fallen woman?

Possibly. Even probably.

"Your father, he's awake, if you wish… the bacon is good," Eliza said, grudgingly.

If it was this bad now, what would it be like in a year? What would it be like once she'd carefully climbed the slopes of the Mysterium, even a little higher. Not a position of authority, she was just a young girl, but there wasn't a rule. If she were twenty and a Master of Mind, she would, Miriam realized, be treated more seriously than a forty-year old who had just Awakened.

It was an intellectual knowledge, she'd have to see it to believe it--she was still as much a novice as she was young--but the time would come when she'd have to come back here, and help out with the cooking and the cleaning, and would she ask herself, with some superior sneer, why she bothered going back?

Was that who she'd become?

God help her, God help her not to be like that. Not to imagine that she ever could, even though she knew now that she could do so much more than others thought she could.

"Thank you, Mom," Miriam said, the tears threatening to overflow as she walked up the stairs.

******

He was getting dressed when she entered, his pants on, his shirt being buttoned to follow, his suit-jacket yet to come, his tie loosely around his neck, hunched over slightly as he considered her, didn't say anything.

She didn't want to use magic, not now, not just to read him. "Miriam. I'm glad you're back. I heard arguing…"

"I couldn't do anything but lie to her. Breakfast is ready, though," Miriam said. "Breakfast is ready and I'm… I couldn't tell her I was okay, that would be a lie. Another sin to the list. I wanted to confess to you. All of it."

"I can listen, then," her father said, his voice slow and quiet, as if he were afraid of Eliza listening in herself.

"It began… I guess it began with the Folk. I told you some about them, didn't I? They were investigating something wrong about a man's mind, and we found a wolf-man monster, the memory of it killing a friend, traumatizing him, but not being of the Abyss. The Abyss, it's Satan itself, it is darkness and hate and chaos, formless and strange and full of ill will, but not all evil things are the Abyss. I think now that they must have suspected, or even known, that this wolf-man was a creation of a Mage. A group of Mages, a conspiracy, the first conspiracy as someone later defined it."

Miriam held out a finger. "Members from every group of Mages except the Folk, and the Guardians, the spies of the world, yet trustworthy enough not to do this. Getting together, tied together by a common goal of trying to create some sort of… the spirit world is real. Some sort of spirit-human hybrid to help police the spirit-world." Miriam shuddered. "I saw what they made. They failed, as a man might trying to play God. They failed pathetically, spectacularly, and yet they killed people, and yet they gave ideas to the wrong people. I didn't know it then. Then it was just an… incident. But it says something about Mage society. Nobody trusts one another, nobody can. There's hate and hubris aplenty." Miriam took a shuddering breath, wiped her eyes.

"I… see." Her Father frowned. "I wonder that Jack never said--"

"He's sweet. He's a sinner in a thousand ways, but he's sweet," Miriam said. "Just like… well. Many people I've met. My friend Virginia, she's part of a group, I've told you… wait, let me repeat it."

Miriam was babbling now, as she explained what the Demon-Spawn were, her eyes drying a little bit her hands still shaking. "So, her and her friends, similar to her, were going up against this man called Wolfborne, this monster of mad ideas. A Demon-Spawn. His plan was to join together the rumors and beliefs in werewolves, to turn human beings into wolves on the full moon, in mind if not in form. I think it was the idea that we need a release, that we need to give into the inner-beast. I think, I can't know. I really didn't listen too closely to the justifications of the insane. But if he made people believe in a thing, he could make them act on it, you see? Right? That makes sense? I know that this is a lot to take in."

"That's what the riot was," her father said, his voice a hoarse whisper. She nodded, moved to sit down on the bed. "It was this Wolfborne's plans. So he won?"

"No. Not at all. But we're not even there yet. I… I summoned creatures from beyond the world, to spy on him, to see what he was doing, and his actions led me to a… a place. I went with a team, to a place deep in the Astral, deep in the mind of the world, hidden away from everyone, from everything. That's where I met the Marquis, the centerpiece of all three conspiracies, the two I've told you and the one that is still a secret, at this point. At this point in what I knew. He was… he was like a deity compared to Mages, in terms of power. He'd attempted to create werewolves as spirit-guardians, this Archmage, and he'd been killed, was nothing more than a whispering ghost. A whispering ghost being fed by the last conspiracy. Or the second." Miriam shrugged. "This vengeful ghost, he had a platter, a tray, silver like in those movies, where the butler opens them?"

Her father nodded.

"He pulled it up, and there was a corpse, a corpse of a female Mage, corrupted with the Abyss and then given to him to eat. To devour, bit by bit. Which he did," Miriam said, shaking with sobs now. "That's a God among Mages, that's a power beyond humanity, and I talked to him, and he talked about his plans, gave us hints about some seeds he'd had, seeds that Wolfborne stole as part of his plan. Seeds that a prediction of Fate told me I needed to seek. He secretly corrupted one of the people there, Occlude, into his agent… and then the third conspiracy attacked, the one who had been feeding him the tainted corpse, making him even worse."

The words were slower than the endless barrage without pause, because there were hiccups, and sobs, all tucked in between them delicately. She couldn't help it… well, she could. Always, always with magic, but that wasn't a comforting thought, not at all.

"It was a trick. The corpses of the… abyssal, monstrous werewolves, they polluted the hall, and if one of them had bitten the Marquis, he would have become a terror, a horrific monster. I stopped one of them from doing so. It bit me instead. That was… that was. Just the night before last. I woke up, proud of having saved him, once it was all sorted out. The Demon-Spawns and I were going to go after Wolfborne and the seed, and at least for the moment we'd dealt with the other werewolves. I went to the library after that, that's when Mom… what does Mom even think? I… no. Don't tell me." Miriam snuffed, her nose clogged up, thinking of the exchange.

"Oh, you have to know these things," Miriam said.

"What things?"

Miriam gave a cheeky, playful smile of her own. "Everything."

Now that she knew more of everything, she wondered. The story of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, the story of Frankenstein that her Uncle had once given her. The story of going too far.

"And, at the library?" Dad prompted, after she'd spent a minute trying and failing to pull herself together.

"The food's getting cold," Miriam whispered, as if that was an answer. Her vision was still blurred. "I had to cheat, you know. I had to cheat to even make a meal, it's very good but it's not me, just magic that's making me into something more than I am. It's better bacon than I'll probably ever make in my life." Her hands covered her eyes, and that was better, because she said. "I found a book they'd planted, when I was looking up werewolves. It talked about how I was bitten, how I could become one of them. Which was when a Mage showed up that was part of the group, corrupted into a werewolf-monster, and loving it. Choosing it. He offered to talk to me. I ran, and he summoned the abyssal monster that… that did all that damage to the library, the big one."

"I heard of that," her father said, biting his lip. "A lot of people were hurt."

"I fled with two others, him hot on my back, to this other world called the Hedge. It's… it's a long story, but we lost him. I think he might have, must have, given up on purpose or something. Because when we came out, there was a Guardian--"

"Mage spy," Dad muttered to himself. "Right?"

"Yes. There was a Guardian, guided by Fate itself to find me. So I had a book about what it was to be in this Legacy. This… sect? Information they needed. So they took me to an Italian Restaurant that was a front of theirs. I can't tell more about that, I don't want to reveal covers. But it turns out it was a trick: the book was a beacon, a flare meant to draw them." Miriam shook her head, thinking of how stupid she'd been, how confident in her escape, in the strength of her will and her mind and her self. Arrogant, even, prideful.

God knew it. And then all her pride had been as dust.

"We had to flee, but we did get away. Destroyed the book once it was read. That's when they talked about three Conspiracies. They had to deal with the Abyss-worshippers, who had kidnapped all the members of the first conspiracy… but I was the one who'd agreed to help stop the last conspiracy, or the first. So they took me somewhere, and fed me dinner, and then I went into the Astral, through meditation. I found Virginia. And had a fight. I… resisted using my magic to control the mind of a monster I fought, to let someone kill it, so it ran off and we had to chase it. At the time I thought it was the moral thing, but it lost time we couldn't afford, considering how close it was, and how many lives were at stake." Miriam frowned. "The one 'moral' thing I did, resisting a temptation, and it hurt people. But eventually, we all met up, the Demon-Spawn, a Mystagogue like me, an Arrow, that's a… soldier. And Occlude. I could have done what he did to Occlude." Miriam stood up, suddenly, her legs aching with the need to pace. It was all so one-sided, but she could tell she had her father's attention.

"So. So we went up against Isaiah. But before we really began with Wolfborne, the time struck. The moon rose. I turned into this dark, strange thing. A black wolf, with shadowy tentacles hidden beneath an inhuman exterior. A mind that exalted at the idea that I was a God, as if I were God's Greatest Angel turned into the Lord of Hell. Arrogant, confident, monstrous, all of those thoughts pressing on me so hard that if I hadn't had help, I would have run wild. Would have hurt people because I couldn't help it. But that's a sinner's words, couldn't help it. I'd chosen to risk myself, I'd been bitten, and I almost paid everything for it. But I was, just barely, under control. Swept up in the moment, with no time to think of it."

Her words came faster and faster, without a pause, without a break. No sobbing now, just desperate confession. Just a desperate desire to make him see, to make her father understand what she'd done, what she was doing.

"I can taste the meat, the flesh of the monsters I faced, headed up a giant beanstalk to quench the anger in his construct. That's what kept the riots from killing even more people, all around the world, then they must have done. The bone. The flesh. The gristle. The power. It was all there, all pressing down upon me, even when it wasn't. And I was just so carefree, even then. Babbling in my head about knowledge and speculation, though some of that was the means which I held it back. Held it back, like I couldn't help it. Like I was a slave to my sensations. Helpless and still so arrogant, still so proud."

She remembered it, the way she'd moved from crisis to crisis, and hadn't realized until she'd come back to the real world--

"I… if you need to stop," Dad said.

"No. So we went to the moon, and I confronted Wolfborne, and Occlude betrayed us. Even threatened Virginia with a weapon that would kill her not just in dreams, anyone can do that, but in real-life too. Something symbolic of friends and selfhood. Or… it's a. No, it's not my secret."

Nor was Virginia's love for her. It wasn't something that her father would take well, and after everything she'd messed up, this was one thing she couldn't stand to imagine ruining. It seemed cruel, the idea of exposing something like that.

"Oh no," her father said, biting his lip and leaning in.

"You know what's terrible? They're going to try him, but the only reason they have any chance of finding him guilty is because I was there as a witness. If I wasn't, then what would it matter? Just a Demon-Spawn. That's the society I'm entering, that's what I'm going to be part of, just another flavor, sometimes, of the same things people face all the time."

Just another Negro, just another--

Just another.

"It's everywhere," Miriam whispered, the realization, when put so plain, enough to almost destroy her, root and branch. "I did something I thought was clever, and then the moon was breaking up, the moon that reigned over the whole assembled realm that caused the riots. Mind of a wolf. So Suzanna, one of Virginia's friends, and I. We chased Wolfborne through the crumbling moon. I bit him, and if he didn't have to be killed some specific way, I probably would have killed him, wouldn't have cared. Not them, my fury up, not after what he'd done. I took the seed, the second one, and only got away with it because the Mystagogue that was also sort-of working for Occlude was… well. A Mystagogue, and I told her about how I needed the seed. That's all, nepotism."

Miriam shook her head. "I woke up a wolf, and a ritual means that if I can keep self-control that I clearly don't have after all these failures, I'll be human until the taint of the bite, the infection of it, fades. But, but, all I'd done and risked and for what? For what society, for what did my sins go towards? I selected some clothes and came back here. And that's where I am. I can't trust the world, I can't like it, in fact I'm angry at it and torn apart at it, and I didn't intend to say so much! I didn't intend to let it all out in a torrent. I wanted it to sit there, wanted to allow it to heal on its own before I spoke, and yet here it is. And I'm part of the world, untrustworthy and worthy of anger and disappointment, so much disappointment, and if it wasn't for God, I don't know how I'd, how I'd--"

He hugged her, a look on his face as if he'd been wanting to do this the whole time. Dad hugged her so tight she almost couldn't breathe. "Some of the things you've said about Mage society, some of the things about yourself, are wrong. Horrific, a few of them, mostly the world. But I believe in you, and I believe in your faith, in your willingness to make up for sins, to learn from mistakes, to do the best you can do. There are people who would have done better in your shoes, there are people who would have done worse. You're here, you're the one who was in the right place at the right time, and if you're not--"

"Aeneas. Or Paul," Miriam admitted. "That… I. But how do you just go on?"

"Go on doing what? If you give up on someone or something the first time it disappoints you, you'll never have time to be surprised. You'll never learn, and you'll wind up bitter and broken, feeling as if God has abandoned you, rather than the other way around. You can't live like that. Eliza, you know, once did something so bad to me that I almost stopped trying to know her, trying to be in love with her. It was early in our courtship, before it was really a courtship. I was at this party."

His eyes got wistful, even fond, though his lips were curled slightly in something like distaste at the memory. "I was there as the entertainment. Jack said I was the dancing monkey, the one who'd unexpectedly done some amazing trick. A down-south preacher who could read Latin? Who could discuss Greek translations of the Bible? They pounced on it. They were impressed, I had to read books just to have things to talk about. So that's why I was there. Something to show off, something to clap at. Jack was completely right, a dancing monkey indeed. And so we were all talking, about migration and the Exodusters, though they were so long ago. I think there was a historian in the room, an amateur who still runs the dry-goods store down a few ways. Miller."

"Yes," Miriam said with a nod.

"And Eliza said something about these uneducated dark-skinned people straight off the train from the South, and how they acted so terribly rural, and then looked at me for a moment as if she expected that just because I was the smart dark-skinned Negro, the one they let go to parties, I'd smile and laugh along. I didn't, though I didn't tell her off, just found my first chance to bow out speaking of obligations, writing a sermon I'd already written the night before, and left. She told me that when she saw me leave, it was as if the world came down out from under her." Her father pursed his lips. "Jack wanted me to never see her again, told me I didn't need her in the least, and if I'd listened to him, you wouldn't be here. Maybe that's why Eliza's so harsh on him."

"I don't think that's all," Miriam admitted, as easy as it would be to think that was it.

"But I talked to her, after another party, and pointed out that I was darker skinned than her, and that I came from the South, and that it had hurt my feelings, if it pleased her to consider them. She apologized and we started over, a little more honest, a little more true to ourselves. But she didn't even have to try to break my heart, back then, but I didn't let her keep it broken. The world disappoints you sometimes, for we aren't in Heaven now, but you have to believe in it to be astonished by it. I believe in you, Miriam, and not just because you're my daughter. You're kind, you're clever, you're someone I respect. I'm here for whatever you need, from now on. Understand that? Whatever it is, I'm here. And the first step of that… is that we eat breakfast."

Miriam nodded, stunned. That's what she needed: you did bad, but people can do bad and be good, and I respect you. It startled her, it gratified her. It was another light, at the end of another tunnel.

"So, we'll going to go down and eat breakfast, and then I'll distract her so you can leave, and talk to her about backing off. Stop worrying, stop asking."

"And if she should worry?" Miriam asked, almost dismayed at her question.

"Then she'll do so silently," he said, reaching over to pass an envelope to her. "Take this. It's your Uncle's, he said yesterday that you might want it. It's trust. A way to his apartment. There's directions you're to tear up, and then an iron Key that is… also a Key? I didn't understand--"

"I do," Miriam said, quietly, staring down at the envelope. She nodded to herself, and before long she followed her father down for breakfast.

Where does Miriam flee to? (Choose 1)

[] Visit Sara, and see how she is doing. Was she left alone for all-hands-on-deck? Was she okay?
[] Go visit the Hierarch, or the Athenaeum, to see what happened in specific, and check in on these matters.
[] Go visit Uncle Jack at his apartment, now that she has the right to, now that she has the key and the way.
******
A/N: Wow, okay, this was really something, putting it together. Long, too.

 

[GardenerBriareus]

[X] Go visit the Hierarch, or the Athenaeum, to see what happened in specific, and check in on these matters.


We probably needed that - squeezing the poisoned blood out of the wound. Now let's go see if we can find any Mages worth looking up to in the local Consilium, and what happened to the other Mages who got infected with Unwolfism. (Speaking of which, do we know whether they found evidence that the Fate-stealer's accomplice had started learning that Legacy? Hell, how did Sara weather the events of last night?)

Changing gears: are we going to be present when the Marquis gets his seed? His quest to bring forth the Uratha is probably my favorite plot thread from this arc, and I'd legitimately like to see how it all pans out.

 

[The Laurent]

[X] Go visit the Hierarch, or the Athenaeum, to see what happened in specific, and check in on these matters.


We probably needed that - squeezing the poisoned blood out of the wound. Now let's go see if we can find any Mages worth looking up to in the local Consilium, and what happened to the other Mages who got infected with Unwolfism. (Speaking of which, do we know whether they found evidence that the Fate-stealer's accomplice had started learning that Legacy? Hell, how did Sara weather the events of last night?)

Changing gears: are we going to be present when the Marquis gets his seed? His quest to bring forth the Uratha is probably my favorite plot thread from this arc, and I'd legitimately like to see how it all pans out.

Click to shrink...

Well, there are two Orders that didn't have any Mages in them betray the Consilium. The Folk... and the Guardians of the Veil. So perhaps you've already met a Mage worth looking up to.

/I admittedly said the last part in part because, well, you know, GB. You know why.

 

[zxzx24]

[X] Go visit Uncle Jack at his apartment, now that she has the right to, now that she has the key and the way.

We've done enough work today. He's also probably worried sick. Like really pulling his hair out levels of worried.

Also. As far as making we're wolves exist again. I imagine Luna would object to that. Or approve of it. Can't tell.

I think she would have a very strong opinion on the matter and a rank 10 spirit can make itself felt even to a cabal of master mages.

Actually that is kind of surprising to me. That we haven't seen more influence from the spirit world side. Uratha were many things but popular was not one of then.

Even Luna, their progenitor hcursed them with weakness to silver.

Edit:
I admire, and still do admire Valk. She was a right bitch but I can recognize when somebody is drained past the point of making good decisions.

I got the feeling she was indulging her vice when talking to us but I wasn't sure.

 

[The Laurent]

[X] Go visit Uncle Jack at his apartment, now that she has the right to, now that she has the key and the way.

We've done enough work today. He's also probably worried sick. Like really pulling his hair out levels of worried.

Also. As far as making we're wolves exist again. I imagine Luna would object to that. Or approve of it. Can't tell.

I think she would have a very strong opinion on the matter and a rank 10 spirit can make itself felt even to a cabal of master mages.

Actually that is kind of surprising to me. That we haven't seen more influence from the spirit world side. Uratha were many things but popular was not one of then.

Even Luna, their progenitor hcursed them with weakness to silver.

Click to shrink...

Since it was in passing, but Miriam would remember this, when Marquis was talking about the female spirit that was the moon and all that, and how he'd had dreams of her and her creations that had inspired him, one of the Mages said, "You mean the Man On The Moon spirit?" Or word sto that effect.

Luna might not actually exist in this reality.

 

[zxzx24]

Since it was in passing, but Miriam would remember this, when Marquis was talking about the female spirit that was the moon and all that, and how he'd had dreams of her and her creations that had inspired him, one of the Mages said, "You mean the Man On The Moon spirit?" Or word sto that effect.

Luna might not actually exist in this reality.

Click to shrink...

Something exists almost certainly. The moon is too important not to have a spirit. Of course. How different the various versions are is up to you.

I always thought sufficiently powerful spirits would be aware of archmage shenanigans. If they cared to look anyway.

 

[The Laurent]

Something exists almost certainly. The moon is too important not to have a spirit. Of course. How different the various versions are is up to you.

I always thought sufficiently powerful spirits would be aware of archmage shenanigans. If they cared to look anyway.

Click to shrink...

Oh, they certainly would. The 6+ level spirits are friends, allies, enemies, masters and the masters of enemies to Archmages. A rank 10 spirit is something fucking difficult to deal with even if you are an Archmage. But whereas you can't deal with it as a regular Mage, you can as an Archmage, though probably not as a new Archmage, of course.

 

[veekie]

[X] Visit Sara, and see how she is doing. Was she left alone for all-hands-on-deck? Was she okay?

Oh, they certainly would. The 6+ level spirits are friends, allies, enemies, masters and the masters of enemies to Archmages. A rank 10 spirit is something fucking difficult to deal with even if you are an Archmage. But whereas you can't deal with it as a regular Mage, you can as an Archmage, though probably not as a new Archmage, of course.

Click to shrink...

Always figured the rank 6+ spirits are more like geography than individuals to our level.

 

[GiantTurtle]

[X] Go visit Uncle Jack at his apartment, now that she has the right to, now that she has the key and the way.

 

[NemoMarx]

"Would not have been drinking, would never have been. Or smoking cigarettes, or whatever strange drugs are out there," Miriam said, firmly.

"Oh," Eliza said, sounding almost relieved, which meant… sex? Was that what Eliza had thought, or feared? That she'd become some fallen woman?

Possibly. Even probably.

Click to shrink...

It's so weird that someone could imagine Miriam that impure, honestly. Means she must be really rattled here? I guess coming back in strange clothes that might be borrowed from some guy...

"Oh, you have to know these things," Miriam said.

"What things?"

Miriam gave a cheeky, playful smile of her own. "Everything."

Click to shrink...

I'm trying to remember the original context for this.

"What are you going to read?"

"Some books on myths. And I'd like to see if they have any new books in," Miriam said, knowing that she was being a little vague. As if to try to make sure everything else was in order before lying further, her hand flitted down to her skirt to smooth it down. At least her hose hadn't been acting up today.

"Myths? You seem such a practical girl, sometimes. I wonder what use you'd have for myths, when you have knowledge and the good Lord?" Eliza asked, but with a tilt of her head and a teasing in her voice that told Miriam that at least for the moment she had managed to avoid being questioned too much.

"Oh, you have to know these things," Miriam said.

"What things?"

Miriam gave a cheeky, playful smile of her own. "Everything."

Click to shrink...

That's actually a pretty dark callback, all things considered. I hope we can make up with Mom and have that sort of relationship again?

 

[Romv]

[X] Go visit Uncle Jack at his apartment, now that she has the right to, now that she has the key and the way.

Miriam's really lucky her Dad's a Sleepwalker. It's sad to know she can never explain everything to her Mom.
(Also the summary came in handy )

After this adventure, we should go talk to Uncle Jack, he's our greatest ally in Mage society.

 

[The Laurent]

[X] Go visit Uncle Jack at his apartment, now that she has the right to, now that she has the key and the way.

Miriam's really lucky her Dad's a Sleepwalker. It's sad to know she can never explain everything to her Mom.
(Also the summary came in handy )

After this adventure, we should go talk to Uncle Jack, he's our greatest ally in Mage society.

Click to shrink...

Even books have clipshows nowadays.

 

[Kelirapc]

[X] Go visit Uncle Jack at his apartment, now that she has the right to, now that she has the key and the way.

Oof, I voted the opposite to it but I'm glad that telling him won.

 

[Neptune]

[X] Go visit the Hierarch, or the Athenaeum, to see what happened in specific, and check in on these matters.

I'm with GardenerBriarius here, as I'm still very interested in what happened elsewhere with the other conspiracies and how they were handled, while also getting to see how the movers and shakers of our Mage community handle things given this is pretty close to an existential crisis. I also remember back when we were meeting all the various leaders of the factions, and how they were each unique so I'd like to see some more of them.

 

[Zeitgeist Blue]

[X] Go visit Uncle Jack at his apartment, now that she has the right to, now that she has the key and the way.

 

[wingstrike96]

[X] Go visit the Hierarch, or the Athenaeum, to see what happened in specific, and check in on these matters.

 

[Indivisible]

[X] Go visit Uncle Jack at his apartment, now that she has the right to, now that she has the key and the way.

I think some more reassurance/touching base with someone she loves would be helpful before Miriam has deal with more Mage malarkey.

 

[The Laurent]

Question: Do footnotes explaining historical facts/etc detract from the narrative? The latest update is actually pretty heavy on 1920s stuff, from music, to prominent figures, to a sexologist, to a lot of authors and etc.

But filling the update with footnotes might take away the immediacy of it?

 

[Indivisible]

Question: Do footnotes explaining historical facts/etc detract from the narrative? The latest update is actually pretty heavy on 1920s stuff, from music, to prominent figures, to a sexologist, to a lot of authors and etc.

But filling the update with footnotes might take away the immediacy of it?

Click to shrink...

I would enjoy learning more about the historical context.

 

[veekie]

They help a bit.

 

[Neptune]

Question: Do footnotes explaining historical facts/etc detract from the narrative? The latest update is actually pretty heavy on 1920s stuff, from music, to prominent figures, to a sexologist, to a lot of authors and etc.

But filling the update with footnotes might take away the immediacy of it?

Click to shrink...

I'd enjoy reading about them, as both the period, culture, and even location for those who're not from the US may be unfamiliar to your readers.

 

[The Laurent]

Page 112: Fate's Gifts

The instructions were very odd, and incredibly precise. But having seen them once, Miriam knew she had the power to call them up at any time. Even when they included standing in place for ten seconds, or turning left four times and yet apparently winding up somewhere different. She read through all of them, looking at the big, iron key and thinking about the signs of the Mastigos.

It was nice to share interests. At the end the note said to 'Never look at your feet, that is to say entirely at the ground. If you do, you'll lose your way, because you need to see where you're going. If you do, don't worry, simply set the key down on the ground, and you'll be fine.'

Then, lines from a poem:

'Unreal city/ Under the brown fog of a winter dawn/ A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many/ I had not thought death had undone so many/ Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled/ And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.'

She had no idea what it was from, or what it meant, and she decided against cheating, against figuring out poetry by what her Uncle had taught her in magic. She already used magic as she walked down the street, making sure nobody commented to much on the pants, on the shoes. It was oddly freeing, not to be seen. She understood why her Uncle did it.

She continued, north and then some ways east, for quite some way. She wasn't entirely sure about it, but she kept close to the lake, kept on thinking. Humboldt Park. He had written, as if she didn't know, that it was near the park of the same name, and that there were a lot of Jews there, refugees from Eastern Europe in the same way that the Polish people gathering at Wicker Park, increasingly, were. He'd spelled it out, given her a little lesson, right before all the details.

She didn't need to know them now, not really. She had Mind magic, which meant less need to be aware, or…

Maybe more reason? She thought of her Uncle, slipping into kosher delis and arguing with Polish people who wouldn't give five seconds of their time to a Negro, some of them, and speaking any language he wanted to if that's what would get people to open up to him. Miriam wasn't limited, the only thing that limited her was her comfort, the way pretending to be white would make things feel…

So she preferred to be a ghost of sorts, a person one stepped around and then forgot, before you even had time to notice they were in so many ways different. The people of the city were tense, the landscape occasionally marred by the broken windows. The glass was swept up by now, mostly. For the nicer parts of the city, at least.

The cars drove faster, as if everyone was afraid of getting caught, and nobody talked, just pushed past everyone else on their way to anywhere that wasn't out on the streets that had been filled with violence the night before.

And through all of it, Miriam waded without paying too much mind, thinking of her Uncle. Would he continue her healing process?

Miriam wasn't sure.

She just needed to find out.

She shouldn't stop, but she did, at the park. She walked in it a little, saw how empty it was. Empty for the moment, but Miriam bet they'd come. The rose garden was doing well, the scent stopping Miriam in her tracks. It was easy to forget these things, and even easier to forget the beauty of water shimmering in the sun. There were lagoons in the park, and she walked along the shore, looking at the cared-for boathouse, the paint surprisingly bright. New.

Couples, or just friends, could take a boat out, pay a little money and get an afternoon of exercise. Perhaps even bringing a small picnic, though the boats weren't so big as to allow much room to move. And then, of course, there were plenty of flat, grassy areas for a more traditional picnic.

All wasn't beautiful, of course, she could see cigarette butts, here and there. Miriam, though, just wanted to enjoy the sun on her face, wanted to feel as if there was a reason. It was easier.

See the world, see the beautiful moments like that, then you could at least feel as if it weren't so close to being damned, saved only by grace. Grace was something never deserved, but… but the world could have moments like this. Even after moments like that.

Her mother had complimented her cooking, her voice soft and uncertain. They were picking their way across a field of broken glass, perhaps. But they were still mother and daughter, and nothing would ever change that. In this world or the next. It was hard, and it wasn't ever going to be easy, not unless her mother became a Sleepwalker.

But she thought of her Dad, and thought of the dangers that faced Sleepers and Sleepwalkers alike in a world of Mages, and thought that even that wouldn't be enough.

Some of her friends could know, some of them couldn't. But it felt less dire, the idea of lying to them, compared to the idea of lying to her mother. She could deal with having a school life that didn't involve them knowing that she could, if she were unethical, grant them the knowledge to pass every test. Dickens wouldn't take her up on that, but Josiah would have given that cat's smile of his and--

Oh. She needed to talk to him. She hoped he was alright, and that nothing had happened, nothing to disturb his cool, the way he demanded only that which was amusing to give. And Franklin, big and busy and no doubt hard at work. Were they safe? Was anyone safe?

Would anyone be safe again?

******

In the side-street near a tailor's shop, she leaned against the wall, just as she was told. It was just a neighborhood like any other, and she wondered at that. She took a breath, aware that nobody could see her and yet sure that someone would notice, and then tossed the key in the air. She caught it, and the sky brightened considerably.

The walls became cleaner, at least the one she was leaning against, cleaner and almost marble-white, while refuse piled up on the ground at her feet, the stench like nothing she'd ever smelled.

She stepped forward, turned left and took one-hundred paces forward, into the center of the street, only to see just one or two people walking, looking translucent and almost invisible.

The city was like nothing she'd ever seen. The trash faded away, at least in the street, but there was brackish water up to her ankles at the same time that she saw shining, impossible skyscrapers on all sides of her, the road splitting off into dozens of paths.

Unreal city, Miriam thought, trying to figure out what this was. She looked at the key for a moment, holding it up as per instructions, and turning it over two, and then three times, in her palm. She considered looking at it with her magic, seeing it in her sight just in case there was something she was missing.

Space, she thought. This felt almost like… Space. Or Spirit, because this place certainly was… or the Astral.

It was a representation, something not of this world, something there and not-there at the same time, and that alone was enough that she obeyed the instructions.

It was an impossible place: when ordered to stand still for a full sixty seconds and then turn around, she saw that the view had changed, and she was in front of a huge building, the door open up front. It was dilapidated, crumbling, and grey, and there was only a single light on in the entire building. The light was a blinding yellow-gold, coming from the fifth floor.

Miriam nodded to herself, clutching tight to the key, and striding through the door.

She ran up the stairway, feet almost sinking in the thick, filthy carpeting, eleven times. She ran down ten, and halfway through the set, she switched the key to the other hand and turned around once, twice, and then thrice.

By the time she got to the top of the last step, her legs were aching pleasantly, and she strode forward towards a brown door, with a white carpet in front of it, dirty with muddy footprints.

She knocked once on the door and then pulled out her key, as she was told, inserting it and turning, pushing forward as she did.

Music played from a rather fancy looking Victrola in a corner.

'I've been drinking all night, babe, and the night before.'

The woman dragged herself over the words, slowly and a little soulful, even while the instruments in the background accompanied her, softly.

The room itself was actually surprisingly small. There was only one other door, at the far end, and besides that there was simply a rather large couch, done in some old-fashioned style, complete with a blue and red pattern on it, and carefully carved armrests on both sides.

Sitting on the couch was her Uncle, a bottle of Brown-Foreman Medicinal Whiskey being used in a rather less than medicinal way. He had a clipboard in his hands, thick with paper, and was wearing a big shirt, big enough to almost cover his arms, and long pants.

Something was off about him as he scribbled on the papers.

'But when I get sober I ain't gonna drink no more.'

She made her way over to the couch, the scent of the alcohol overpowering and distasteful. The singer was very good, in her own way. It wasn't what Miriam was used to, but she could hear the energy--energy and passion about being low down, but energy nonetheless--and the sorrow in the voice, which hit the notes dead on.

'Cause my friend's left me standing in my door/My head goes round and around, babe, since my baby left town'

Miriam stopped in front of Jack, then opened her mouth, glancing over at the record player.

"Ma Rainey. The recording doesn't really capture all of it," Jack said, his voice an exhausted whisper, though after he cleared his throat, he was able to say, louder, "She has a voice that knocks your knees out from under you."

'I don't know if the river's running up or down/ But that one thing certain is, mama's going to leave town.'

"Oh," Miriam said.

"I can shut it off if you want. Or ask you to," Jack said, with a shake of his head. "But she's really something, and I needed to listen to something that gets the… right mood." He gestured towards the bottle.

It declared 'For medicinal purposes only, curing many different ailments.'

"Most of all, it cures sobriety," Jack said, with the kind of smile that said he'd been wanting to tell that jest for a while. "But since I'm unwell… then I guess it does count as medicinal."

Miriam frowned. "What happened?"

"I could ask you the same. I know you're alive, or at least. I had to hope."

Miriam frowned. "Oh. So she hasn't gotten the clothes to you? I… well. You know about the infection?"

"Yes, I was. Told." Jack cleared his throat. "And I had to believe you were alive, or I'd be a lot more drunk than this. I've been nursing it for a few hours, waiting to see if you'd come. I'd understand if you didn't." His voice was only a little slurred and pitchy, he otherwise seemed completely in control of himself.

"I… needed to see you," Miriam said, quietly. "I did it. But the cost, the world it showed me. It isn't one that I expected. It hurts." She shuddered a little, moving back a step, as if he were going to reach out and grab you.

"I know it does, I know it does. You suffer a lot, and then you look around and for a moment, or more than a moment, you wonder what can be worth this?" Jack said.

The music in the background was lovely, but mostly forgotten, as she stared into his haunted face.

"You ever wonder if you've sold your soul too cheaply for too little?" Jack asked.

Miriam hesitated, the words caught in her throat, and finally just nodded.

All the time.

"Well. This place, I call it the Unreal City after a line of poetry by Eliot, is something I discovered last year. We discovered. Gabriel and I. The Uprising use it a lot, because it's some sort of Supernal phenomenon that allows teleportation without a Mage capable of doing so to about two-dozen locations. There's places one must use to easily get there, and there's instructions detailed enough that we think it might thrive on the idea of being a… forest path." Jack frowned, his sad eyes thoughtful. "Of being a place where one walks on the edge of the razor, where the wrong turn might take you to a gingerbread house. Despite that, it… isn't all that dangerous. Not if you don't fear it, not if you have a key. In fact, only with a key and an invitation can you walk the path at all." Jack coughed for a moment, covering his mouth with the sleeve of the shirt. "It plays on expectations. You can get lost, yes, but it's easy enough to find yourself again. Drop the key and you arrive back at the start." Jack shrugged. "We discovered it, though Mars knows of it as well, and the Uprising has used it to contact radical groups in Europe and otherwise."

"You've been to Europe?" Miriam asked, curious and uncertain, but willing to be distracted.

"Four times now, if you're talking about more than a brief visit to pick something up then go right around. Every few years I try to do it, Miriam. Last time I went was last year, and I'd expected Paris to knock me off my feet, but… Berlin? It's a hotbed of many things, but there's radicals that would probably scandalize you. And people examining sexuality, and the mores of our society, and--it and Paris are places to be, in these roaring twenties." Jack smiled a little weakly. "I'm going to take you one day. I'm not sure when, the summer is too close to over, because I'd want you to really experience it. I believe that you would benefit, from seeing a world you normally wouldn't get to, without having to live in it unless you wanted to. To stroll down the Left Bank, stepping into soirees full of writers and artists, to visit London and see the smog and the people, the palace and the ancient churches." He took a long breath, but just before she spoke, he started again.

To meet and agree or disagree with Hirschfield in Berlin, probably the latter, to question the assumptions of the primitivist artists, to visit Rome and see what has become of it under the bootheel of a tyrant without having to live there. To be somewhere else, to be someone everywhere, it's something that a Mastigos, especially, has a chance to do." He spoke slowly, almost reverently. "I don't want you thinking there are any limits upon you not placed by your morality or divine morality, I don't want you to think there is anywhere you can't go, anything you can't do. Even if it's true." Jack sighed. "I feel, almost, that I've trapped you when I tried to give you the freedom to make your own choices, that I've pushed you forward with this, that, and the other thing. That I've played a game and you've been hurt for it."

The music was long, long, long gone, and Miriam stood, staring at him, and wondering if this is what she looked like from the outside, so kind and so absurd to doubt the kindness. She doesn't know what half of what he was talking about actually was, she didn't exactly have sources on European artists and places, but she feels the passion, the compassion, in every word. "You haven't. I've made my choices, not you. If those choices alienate me from others, if those choices are wrong, then that's something I will have to live with.

"I… understand," Jack said.

"So why do you think you sold your soul?"

"These connections have helped the Uprising, and I'm very close with a lot of them, especially Gabe. And this apartment is a sort of payment, a sort of reward for keeping faith with them for years. It's hidden, even more hidden than our Cabal's base is, by far. It is larger than it looks, and it is filled with touches of… of a life I've never lead. Good food, good wine, good books, lovely furniture, everything I could want, pulled into this place, hauled here and arranged." Jack shrugged. "But… but Gabriel definitely, without a doubt in my mind, knew about the conspiracy to create a werewolf, the one the Abyssal taint hijacked. His Order is too small not to know. Yet I know he has alibis, excuses."

"He… he's behind it?"

"One of the people, no doubt. He probably believed in the cause, and there's nothing he'd not do for a cause he believed in," Jack said, quietly. "He'll take a hit, and no doubt lose reputation, but there's little we can do. There's little anyone can do, yet. Now."

Miriam recoiled a little, feeling sick. "I… understand. But you told me not to believe anything was impossible, in that way. You should… think about that."

"Even though he was polite to you?"

It was true that the leader of The Uprising had been far from cruel, and very passionate about what he believed, but she knew what such passion could spawn. Not always, but sometimes. "Yes, even though."

She wouldn't let something small like that stop her. "Good," Jack said.

"Now, that outfit you're wearing…"

Miriam flushed, glancing away. "I… there is more. Valkyrie said that she'd send more clothes. She offered me some, I picked… these. But there were other outfits. My clothes were torn off in the transformation last night."

"Ah. And did you want to wear anything different? Or differently?"

"I…"

He wouldn't judge her. She knew that. The words still felt heavy. "I thought about a tie. But it felt almost too formal, and certainly too far."

"Ah, you're welcome to wear whatever you want while you're here," Jack said, firmly. "Or do anything you wish, in fact. I'll be watching out for you, but I don't know where I'd draw the line. Certainly, dressing the way you want isn't it. Though, there's one thing I could help you with."

"Yes?"

He pointed down at her shoes. "You tied those laces?"

"Yes," Miriam said, uncertainly.

"Put your foot up on the couch," Jack said. "Please."

He carefully set aside the clipboard and the bottle of whiskey, and when she put up her foot, he quickly untied her shoelaces and tied them again, the knot a lot crisper and smaller, looking, she admitted, a little less like a child dressed in their parent's shoes. But in doing so, the shirt had to roll up a bit, and that revealed.

"Oh," Miriam gasped. He had long, sutured wounds just below his wrist, in a pattern that made her sure they were claw-marks. "What--"

"These and more than a few others. Do you really think I would drink medicinal whiskey if I wasn't in need of medicine?"

Miriam was so busy gaping, and she didn't want to say anything rude.

"Okay, yes, I would. But there's a reason this time. I… used my magic to make a bunch of abyssal wolves forget that they had mouths to bite. That way they couldn't infect anyone else. But one of them caught me as I was retreating, and things got a little hairy. I survived, and there's someone coming tonight, or so. I say or so because there's minor time dilation. An hour here is just about fifty minutes outside, and that's relatively consistent across the whole space. But… they'll arrive and I'll be okay. You'll be okay. Please, other shoe."

Miriam frowned, but put her left foot down and put up her right, as he quickly redid her shoelaces properly. "I… I'll try," Miriam said, quietly.

"Good. Good. Please, just. I do have one more thing, and then if you want to get back to sleep, since I know that projecting into the Astral isn't quite the same."

"Yes?" Miriam asked.

"I used a Fate spell, in conjunction with Mind, in order to choose these. I'm not sure about the way I arranged them, but I just followed Fate's path," Jack said, which explained nothing. He pushed himself up off the couch, and produced an iron key from his pocket. "Please watch, so you know what one of the combinations is."

Miriam watched as he inserted the key into the door in front of him, and then turned it all the way around three times. Three full rotations. Only then did he push it open. Miriam, blinking and confused, followed him through.

Wait. This was probably a conditional door, one that had rules just like those that brought her here. Where it went probably depended on the turns of the key. Miriam wanted to ask about it, but she was tired, and curious about other things.

Through the door were… dozens and dozens of waist-high crates, most of them open at the top, dark writing on the front of them. None of them were stacked on each other. She couldn't quite read it from here, and her attention was more drawn to the center of the huge room, where there were four piles of books, in a square, around a center one.

... just like the ritual that had bound and controlled her impurities.

This, this was almost Fate's way to say something. It was a message, for her, and she didn't know what to say to it. What to say about it. The book in the center, at least, was somewhat obvious.

The Codex Vaticanus, which she remembered had been rediscovered decades ago. The very best, or so they said, Greek (though well over a thousand years old) translations of the New Testament. Her father had talked about it once, had given her a breathless lecture at having been given it by his Uncle as a birthday gift, and he had talked about how nice it was to be given a challenge, to be given something to remind him that he was a scholar, when he'd spent the last few years letting emotion drive his sermons.

The bottom left pile was topped with a book she… didn't recognize, but a name she did. T.S. Eliot, 'The Wasteland Land'. "I didn't choose the books, not in that sense. But it's best to read it like a puzzle, like a series of references and intellectual challenges. Or to not do that at all, to take it at its bizarre face value," Jack said.

Beneath it was a book of Shakespeare's sonnets, and then below it, 'Chicago Poems' by Carl Sandburg. Miriam frowned. Ah, that'd be interesting, she thought. She'd never heard of him, though.

She moved onto the next pile. P.G. Wodehouse's The Inimitable Jeeves, Stories of Adventure a slim blue compilation of a number of pulp tales, and a book called Peter and Wendy, which had a frontispiece of a group of kids posing around a dog, with a fearsome pirate and a terrifying Indian on either side of them, around the title. Huh. Works of entertainment, Miriam assumed, and then moved onto the next pile.

A book called Ulysses by an author she'd never heard of, particularly thick, that Jack was frowning at as if he doubted she'd be able to read it. Below it was This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and that was a name she knew. She'd heard Dickens mention him, once. Then below it, standing out for its thin size, was a book by a woman, Agatha Christie.

"A mystery," Jack said. "A good one, I'd say. She has talent at them."

Miriam smiled a little grimly, imagining Fate sniggering at the mysteries she'd been tangled up in. She knew it wasn't logical to imagine it that way, that if magic was anything… she wasn't abandoning her idea that magic could be God, though she was sure the other Mystagogues were going to try to dissuade her. But she'd keep her faith, and her ideas.

The final pile had three books. Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain, a book she'd heard of, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, by a man named Charles Beard ("If you do become a historian, and I could see you being a good one, you're probably going to be disagreeing with this man or his followers sooner rather than later, so why not read it, that's what I figure the magic thought. I happen to agree," Jack said, with a smile at the way she was clearly relaxing), and an even drier looking work.

The Economic Consequences Of The Peace, by John Maynard Keynes.

"Ah, on the war?" Miriam asked. "This is all interesting. I'll… thank you. Thank you so much," she said, feeling tears prickling at her eyes for some reason. It was that all this had happened, and yet she could be happy at a few books. "Which of them is Valkyrie."

"What?" Jack asked, baffled.

"Nevermind," she said with a watery smile.

"One more thing," Jack said. "On Saturday the Mystagogues are meeting to discuss the events of the last week. And on Sunday, in the afternoon, the whole Consilium will be meeting for the trials and other business." He shook his head. "Friday will be free, but the next week, I'm sure you'll be busy. Just remember you can come by anytime. I have a bag, actually, for those books. We'll sweep them up, and then you can rest."

Miriam smiled, softly, and began sweeping them up, breaking the pattern. Perhaps these will set her right. Perhaps they won't. But it's hard to view things quite as bleaky with a task ahead of her and her Uncle in front of her.

What to do with a Friday? (Choose 2)

[] Miriam should try to gather all of her friends, or visit them singly, get caught up with all of them.
[] Well, she does have to talk to the Demon-Spawn eventually, whether today or in the next week, if she wants to have the reports and documents ready to give to the Mysterium.
[] Miriam was given books, she could start reading some of them, they're free and apparently chosen just for her.
[] Her mother was still a little out of sorts. While being around her dressed as she was dressed wasn't going to help things… perhaps Miriam could still try talking to her mother, seeing if there's anything she could do to help out and get back on her good side.
[] She's going to have to tell her fellow Mystagogues that she has two magic seeds… and that they're getting neither of them, and yet please consider it enough for her to pass onto the next… stage of whatever this was. She could give the Curator a heads' up, at least.
[] Gabriel Breda… he'd done things, apparently, and was going to get out of it. It's unlikely he'll confess everything, or even anything considering she could be a witness, and yet she wants to confront him, wants to figure out what he'd even say for himself.
[] Write-in!

******
A/N: Okay, whew. Sorry if the list of books feels like an infodump.

 

[The Laurent]

Page 112--Historical Notes

First, an apology. While some of this is based on my understanding of history, other parts of it are, frankly, just Wikipedia. I know some, and I want to know a lot more (and will if/when it comes up, actually). But I definitely haven't read Beard's book, despite knowing quite a lot about it in general. And I sure as heck haven't found (unfortunately) a great sort of "Travel Guide" to 1920s Chicago, which means I'm often relying on Wikipedia and extrapolating.

1: Humboldt Park honestly sounds delightful? The park itself, though. It had rose gardens, two small lakes, a boathouse, a small river… the exact kind of place someone like Miriam would love to go for a picnic. Of course, considering her race, there might be some awkwardness. Indeed, Humboldt Park was important to the Polish community, and the Jewish one. One thing that the Astral focus of this first Book has done was made it harder to emphasize that Chicago is full of little communities. Jews would move into this area increasingly over time thanks to the rise of Hitler, but that is, thankfully, some time off.
2: Ma Rainey's Moonshine blues is a nice song, and I wanted him to listen to something appropriate. So having him drink while listening to it was great. If Sloppy Drunk Blues wasn't years in the future (1930 by Lucille Bogan), I would have chosen it. It's a great song, though I prefer a faster version of it, honestly. Like here. Moonshine Blues was one of her earliest songs actually recorded, in 1923, so it's historically accurate to have it.
3: According to Wikipedia, there were only four companies that still sold 'Medicinal' Bourbon Whiskey during prohibition, so I picked one of them, without, I admit, much regard for its quality. I'm sure Jack is very particular about his whiskey, though, to go with all of the hedonist libertine qualities he has.
4: Considering he's been all over Paris, Berlin, and all sorts of other places (as the notes will discuss), frankly Miriam wearing men's pants and shoes is far from the most taboo form of dress he's ever witnessed. Including actual dresses. So really, no, he doesn't judge on this.
5: "Radical Groups in Europe." As if there were any other back them. Obviously, he means radical leftist groups, mostly. Communist, sexual radicals… all sorts. Absolutely all sorts. It's why the Uprising matters despite having, like, ten-something members, total, anyways. They're part of a network of sorts. And Jack is one of the people who helped it to happen.
6: "Paris": God, Paris. I've done some studying, but there are, like, 5-8 books I'd have to read to really show it, but it was a hell of a place to be. Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Colette… and there was a movement that promoted "Negro Art/Music/etc." As a place to be black, it certainly was better than America, but the reasons for it often assumed that it was, well. As I said later "Primitivist". Negroes were uncorrupted and sensual and weren't like the corrupt Europeanism which had *only just* led to the worst war in history, as far as Europe was concerned. Still, even without that, the Left Bank was actually chock full of black intellectuals, and there's just so much to do in Paris, even if you're like Miriam is.
7: "Berlin": Berlin shouldn't surprise you. There was this whole separate but related set of artistic and literary and cultural and social movements all centered around Berlin, some of which will be talked about in later notes. But I'd like to briefly talk about the Political Club culture, which is kinda fascinating and yet has dark implications. Speaking briefly, you could join a Political Party and they'd bury you, marry you, provide your entertainment, and your friends… they could be remarkably all-consuming. Combined with all the artistic cliques, and everything else, the showgirls, the sexologists (more later), the film-makers… Berlin was a place to be in a way that really, really makes you hate the Nazis *even more* for what they did to this flowering.
8: "London" in comparison, was pretty tame. There are some really, really brilliant people in England at the time, trust me on that, but London wasn't some hotbed for them specifically. It was, though, a fast-growing city, a monstrous metropolis moving outwards in all ways. In some ways, it's more a Chicago than a, say, New York if one's talking culturally. At least at the time. Having to compete with Paris and Berlin certainly didn't help.
9: Hirschfield was a physician and sexologist who founded the Institute of Sex Research. I know only limited elements of his story, having mostly gotten it at the end of the Institute's time. He was a German Jew and someone who, well, was out of step with the fucking Nazis. They burned the archives of the Institute, and he went into exile, where he died in 1935 without having seen their overthrow. His Institute was groundbreaking and radical, both by the standards of the twenties, or frankly by the standards of quite a few decades. He was a pioneer in acknowledging that trans people existed, his institute even provided the first (very crude) modern sex reassignment surgeries towards the end. Yes. In the 1930s. The work he did with trans people, at a time when acceptance was non-existent, is matched only by what they did for gay and lesbian people, for women's rights, for advocating for sex education and contraception… it's honestly a remarkable story of just what was possible in Berlin in the 1920s. Too bad everything, absolutely everything, crashed down in the 1930s. Sorry I'm ranting, it's just honestly fascinating stuff.
10: "Rome": Currently divided and, as with all of Italy, under the newfound control of Mussolini. Still, it's an ancient city, and considering every American and non-Italian that every visited personally wrote a love-letter to visiting the seat of the Roman Empire, perhaps Miriam could appreciate it in a historical sense. Certainly, it's a nice place to visit if you ignore the fascists.
11: Yes, a Greek Bible. Miriam is a nerd. I am a nerd for having actually known about it in general, though I lifted the details from a somewhat cursory search of wikipedia. I'm actually pretty solid on religious doctrine and even history, but Greek Translations of the bible are a little beyond me. Especially the best of them.
12: The Waste Land is a fascinating poem that is completely and totally not my style. However, I am pretty certain that while Miriam would be a little baffled by some of it, the references would be interesting for her to unravel. So, yes, a poem.
13: While I was browsing for a good poetry book, I came across a poem, Chicago, from Sandburg's Chicago Poems that immediately convinced me that I had to use it. It just… worked. It fit thematically and considering the brutal face of Chicago she's seen, and yet how she's still ultimately a city girl… Chicago
14: Shakespeare's Sonnets are a really nice read, honestly. They're just good works. I really don't have that much to say about them in general, though I'm sure a lot of the love angles will go right over her head.
15: "Wodehouse" is another author whose work I've never read, but while there are hints of racism/biases, there's a reason that the series was thought funny, from what I've read. Miriam needs a laugh, and it was a very, very popular book. Especially in England, but of course Jack has lines to everyone everywhere for everything.
16: "Ulysses": I knew, as soon as I made a reference in the last chapter, that I'd need to include this book on the list. Coming home is a hard thing, and James Joyce is a good writer, odd though he is. Like, really odd. This is literally completely irrelevant, but he had a fart fetish. Historical figures are rarely as dignified as you'd think.
17: It's hard to imagine Agatha Christie as a new writer, but it's true. And Miriam would love a mystery that she could actually see the end of, I thought.
18: I should read Innocents Abroad, really I don't know why but Grad School takes up all my time during it, and then in summer I'm mostly reading fanfiction and the like to relax.
19: Keynes was, of course, quite prophetic in some ways. But I've never actually read the work.
20: Okay, so, Charles Beard. I've never read his work, but I know what he advocated and believed. He believed, fundamentally, that the founders, the ones who signed the Constitution, were a class of elites with similar economic interests who benefited greatly from the system they all set up, and he talked about conflicts between business and agrarian interests and… all sorts of things. Now, a question. Is the progress of historiography a matter of fashion or of new data? The answer…[21]
21: Both. The Cold War made non-ideological interpretations such as Beard's. I mean, the man openly made class conflict the central conflict of American history. In doing so, though, he did downplay, especially with new facts coming in, the role of slavery in the coming of the Civil War in a way that's legitimately a bit distressing. It's not about states' rights, or slaves, or nationalism, it's all about Southern agrarians vs northern industrialists. That interpretation is, frankly, just ignoring all sorts of data. But as to his interpretation of the Constitution? One of the most fascinating things about the process is not the way that it wasn't elites trying to get control of certain things (because it was, more than some acknowledged in the Consensus History), but the sheer variety of elite interests. Viewing people as classes missed the inherent fault-lines that really, really matter.
22: Oh god I'm ranting about history. Someone stop me. Luckily I ran out of things to rant about. For now.

******
A/N: So there we go!