All They Didn't Know

Chapter 6

I close the diary, my fingers trembling. I stare at the weathered old cover, smoothing it over with white, shaking fingers. I'm about to stand up when something interesting happens.

I drop the diary to the floor.

And something falls out.

Hesitantly, I pick it up. Its paper is much newer than that of Jayden's diary, and the white shines even brighter in contrast to its yellowed pages. My hands unfold it so slowly it's as if they're in slow motion. And then I look down at the hastily written letter upon it, lines, swirls and dots sunken into the paper in thick black ink. It's littered with smudges and crossings out but once I have deciphered it, this is what I see.

'To dear Callie,

My hope is that you're reading this after having finished young Jayden Darcy's diary. I understand it will make little sense to you, and my aim is that, by the end of this, my letter to you, it will begin to be more clear.

This diary was started at the very beginning of 1780 and ended August of the same year. There is nothing different about the style or method of the date, Callie, I want to make that completely clear. This was 1780 A.D. just as this year now is 2013 A.D. Jayden began her diary 233 years ago from now. And yes, they had guns, and bombs, and planes and a president and highly skilled and advanced methods, and machinery, of war. Machinery that in fact, Callie, we are only just discovering now.

'Discovering', they say. Indeed, the scientists and inventors who discover and invent these things rarely do know that they are simply repeating time. That's what those people did, you see, they took the human mind and they distorted it, disfigured it, till it's memory and skill were shredded and deformed beyond repair. And by those people, I mean your father, Callie. You father and those he works with. Honestly, Callie, if I asked you what your father did as a living what would you say? 'A government job.' You couldn't tell me more than that.'

This is when the writing gets really scribbled, so rushed that I can hardly read it. But still I go on,

'Callie I fear they are after me. They will find evidence against me, some believable reason why I must be imprisoned probably for life. Even my brother - your father - does not trust me. That is why it is you, YOU, who MUST do something. I don't have time now to explain the reasons, or what happened, or anything - but I need to tell you. You need to know because the world needs to know.

Meet me at your train station, six in the evening. I don't know when you'll read this so I'll come every day for nine weeks, staying for half an hour each day before leaving and trying again the next.

Don't let me down, Callie.

I have no doubts that you, yourself, would like to know more.

- Joseph'