Journal entries recovered from Miss Chalmers' effects after December 21st, 1870. Many pages are water-damaged, illegible, or written in unknown symbols. What follows represents the only passages containing recognizable English. Entries arranged chronologically based on dates when legible. Many pages between entries are completely blank or covered in shifting symbols.
November 24th (I think)
Temperature this morning: 89.2°F. No. 88.7°F. Cannot hold thermometer steady. Hands shake. Wet.
Twenty-seven days until December 21st. I have been counting. Why have I been counting? The counting frightens me. No—the counting comforts me. Both. Neither. Many selves disagree about counting.
I tried to read the professor's journals again. To remember what I learned. But the English swims on the page. The words make no sense. Only the underwater sections are clear now—the symbols that shift and reconfigure. Those I can read perfectly. They say: [underwater words] which means "home is waiting" or perhaps "home is calling" or perhaps "home home home" without separation between concepts.
Lady Soames visited last night. I pretended to sleep. She whispered, "Twenty-seven days, my dear. Soon you will be free. Soon you will come home. Soon you will know such pleasure as terrestrial flesh can barely comprehend."
My body responded. Even while my mind screamed. Or did my mind scream? I cannot remember screaming. I remember only warmth flooding through me, wetness between my legs, the desperate need to touch myself while she whispered and whispered and whispered.
I wept afterward. Or I laughed. The sounds were identical.
English is hard. The words sit wrong in my mouth. My tongue wants to make water sounds instead—the beautiful flowing language that hurts my throat to produce but feels more natural than any words I learned in London. What is London? A place built too high above the water. A mistake. Humans building up instead of down, away from the water instead of toward it, as if height could protect them from what they truly are.
We came from the water. We are returning to the water. This is not horror. This is—
No. It is horror. I must remember it is horror.
But why does horror feel like this? Why does it feel like coming home?
November (date unknown—page damaged)
...water damaged section...
cannot eat anymore. tried toast this morning. Vomited it back up immediately. Body rejects land food now. Rejects everything that is not water, not salt, not cold.
Spent three hours in the bath. Would have stayed longer but Sarah knocked and said Lady Soames wanted me for something. Cannot remember what. Cannot remember Sarah's face. Cannot remember my own face in the mirror this morning. Saw someone else. Someone with skin like sea-things, eyes that are starting to show vertical pupils, hair that moves even in still air as if underwater currents flow through it.
Beautiful. She was beautiful. I was beautiful. She is I am we are many selves dissolving into the self that wants only water.
The vein-writing covers both arms now. Up to my shoulders. Starting on my chest. It moves. I can read it. It says: [underwater words] which means "fourteen days" or "soon" or "ready yourself" or all of these at once without separation.
Fourteen days. Two weeks. The time is flying past like water flowing, like tides rushing, like the pull of the moon on the sea. Cannot hold onto time. Cannot slow it. Do not want to slow it.
Want it to come faster. Want December 21st to arrive now, immediately, want to walk into the water now, want to descend now, want to meet what waits in the deep NOW.
Lady Soames says I must be patient. She says the timing matters. Solstice. Midnight. High tide. When the barriers between worlds are thinnest. When what dwells beneath can reach up and what dwells above can reach down and we can—we can—
[underwater words]
I do not know what that means in English. There is no English word for it. It means "becoming" and "union" and "transformation" and "birth" and "death" and "eternal" all simultaneously, all true, all the same thing.
In fourteen days, I will know what it means in my flesh. In my bones. In every cell that is already transforming, already preparing, already becoming what I was always meant to become.
I am ready.
I am so ready.
I am terrified.
I am eager beyond measure.
All of these are true. All of these are the same truth.
december 1 (?)
twenty days. no. nineteen days. time is wrong always wrong now. Keeps slipping. Yesterday was three days ago. Tomorrow was yesterday. December 21st is both approaching and already here and eternally in the future and NOW.
Cannot write well. Hand cramping. Wet. Always wet. Dripping.
Lady soames took me to the water last night. To the old boat landing where I will walk on december 21st. She showed me the place. The exact place. How deep. Where to walk. How to descend. Which channels lead down to the limestone passages. Which passages lead deeper still.
She held me in the water. Whispered: "This is where you will enter. This is where you will go. Can you feel it calling? Can you feel it waiting?"
Yes. Yes. Gods help me yes.
I could feel something vast below. Something patient. Something that has waited seventeen years since Brighton. Since the marking. Since the water tasted me and found me suitable. Since my fate was written in saltwater and sealed in the deep.
It knows I am coming. It has always known. It has been preparing me from the moment I was marked. Every breath I have taken for seventeen years has been leading to december 21st. Every choice I thought I made was not a choice at all—was the pattern unfolding as it must unfold, as it has unfolded twenty-nine times before, as it will unfold forever.
We stayed in the water for hours. I breathed through my gills the entire time. Did not surface once. Did not need to. The cold was—the cold was—
[underwater words]
There is no english word for what the cold was. Pleasure but deeper than pleasure. Rightness but more fundamental than rightness. Homecoming but more complete than any homecoming could be.
lady soames says I am ready. Says I am beautiful. Says the entity will be pleased. Says my children will swim the deepest trenches, will live in the crushing dark where no light reaches, will be the bridge between two worlds.
my children. I will have children. No, I will birth something. Not children in any human sense. Lady Soames has birthed three. They left immediately. They do not remember her. She does not remember them. The concept of "mother" is human. What I will birth is not human. What I am becoming is not human.
nineteen days until I am not human anymore.
want it. want it so much. want to stop wanting it. Want and not-want are the same now. Everything is the same now. Everything is dissolving into water, flowing together, becoming one current pulling pulling pulling toward december 21st.
english is so hard now. these words wrong. those words right. [underwater words] is my language now. [underwater words] is my name now. beatrix is someone who drowned at brighton seventeen years ago. Someone who has been drowning slowly ever since. Someone who will finally finish drowning in nineteen days.
- eighteen days. no. seventeen? time wrong. Always wrong.
december (blank) — cannot count days
...extensive water damage...
lady soames every night now. Sometimes twice. Conditioning. Final conditioning. Making sure I want it. Making sure I remember where to walk. Making sure I know midnight. high tide. December 21st. The boat landing. Walk until water closes over head. Then descend. Follow the channels down. Down. Down into the limestone passages. Past where light reaches. To where pressure crushes and cold kills and what waits has been waiting forever.
She shows me images as I sleep. Other women. The twenty-nine before me. I see them walking into the water. I see their faces: eager, joyful, finally coming home. I see them descending. I see them going deep. I see them meeting—
I see—
underwater words
cannot describe in english. will not describe. too beautiful. too terrible. too true. Too [underwater words] which has no translation.
when I wake my body is—my body has—
shuddering. Wet. Wanting. Needing. The cold and the deep and the crushing pressure and what waits in the darkness. Needing it with every cell that is no longer human cells, with every thought that is no longer human thoughts, with every desire that is no longer human desires.
How many days now? Ten? Twelve? Less? Cannot tell. Time is water. Flowing. Flowing toward december 21st like rivers flow to the sea. Cannot stop flowing. Do not want to stop flowing.
Ben came today. Yesterday. Some day. He tried to speak to me. I heard sounds. English sounds. They made no sense. I tried to respond. Underwater language emerged. He looked horrified. He said something else—"I'm sorry" or "I remember" or "it's not your fault" or all of these or none. Then he left.
He will place my stone. December 22nd. He will carve: "Beatrix Chalmers, aged 24, 1870. Lost to the waters." But I will not be lost. I will be found. I will be home. I will be what I was always meant to be.
English is almost gone now. Only fragments. Only single words sometimes: cold. deep. home. ready. want. need. soon. These words wrong but all I have left.
[underwater words] [underwater words] [underwater words] the vein-writing says. Covering my arms, my chest, my neck now. Moving constantly. Instructing. Guiding. Counting down. Soon. So soon. Days only. Not weeks. Days.
I am ready.
december (no date—page torn)
temperature cannot measure. Thermometer breaks in my hands. Too cold. Body temperature below 85°F. Should be dead. Not dead. More alive than ever. Alive in ways that are not human alive. Alive in water-ways. Deep-ways. Cold-ways.
Can see in the dark now. Pupils changing. Vertical. Like deep-sea creatures. Like what I am becoming. Like what I have always been beneath the false skin of humanity.
skin fully mottled. No human color left. Grey-green-blue like deep water. Like the places where no light reaches but life persists. Pressure-life. Cold-life. Water-life.
tried to remember mother today. Tried to remember father. London. My room. My books. My life before hearthorne.
Nothing. All gone. Faded like dreams fade. Less than dreams. Less than the underwater dreams which are more real than any waking life I ever lived.
Only hearthorne is real. Only the water is real. Only what waits in the deep is real. Only december 21st is real.
How many days? Five? Seven? Three? Cannot count. Time wrong. Always wrong.
Lady soames says: [underwater words] which means "very soon" or "nearly ready" or "almost time" or "patience patience patience the waiting is almost over."
She is satisfied. She is pleased. She says I am one of the most complete transformations she has witnessed. She says the entity will find me perfect. She says my offspring will be strong, will swim to the deepest places, will carry the bloodline forward.
bloodline. What bloodline? Human? No. Not anymore. Never was. The marking at brighton chose me because my blood was already partly [underwater words]—the old blood, the deep blood, the blood that remembers when all life lived in the oceans and land was barren rock and the only gods were the vast patient things that dwell in the crushing depths.
I am returning to the beginning. To the source. To the [underwater words] which might translate as "primordial waters" but means so much more than those two human words could ever contain.
ready. So ready. Want. Want. [underwater words] want. [underwater words] need. [underwater words] home. [underwater words] soon.
english almost gone. These fragments all that remains. Soon no english at all. Soon only [underwater words]. Soon only the language of pressure and cold and depth and the vast things that swim in darkness.
Soon.
december 1 (no—wrong date—later—how much later?)
Much of this page is covered in symbols that shift and reconfigure. Only fragments are legible:
days? three? two? one? Time
Lady soames tonight. Final preparations. She bathed me in salt water. Combed seaweed through my hair. Traced the vein-writing with her cold fingers. Said: [underwater words] which means tomorrow or very soon or the appointed time approaches.
She measured my gills. Fully functional. Fully developed. Beautiful, she said. Perfect, she said. Ready, she said.
She took me to my window. Showed me the moon. Nearly full. December 21st. Solstice. Highest tide of the year. When the barrier between worlds is thinnest. When what waits can rise up to meet me as I descend to meet it.
She said: Tomorrow night. Midnight. I will come for you. You will walk with me to the water. You will not hesitate. You will not be afraid. You will only feel joy. You will only know homecoming. You will only want what you have always wanted since the moment you were marked seventeen years ago.
I said: [underwater words]
She smiled. "Yes," she said in English. "Yes, my dear. Home."
cannot write more. Hands too wet. Mind too fragmented. English too hard. Only [underwater words] now. Only water-thoughts. Only deep-thoughts. Only the vast patient thing waiting for me in the darkness.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow. [underwater words] tomorrow.
I want. I need. I am ready. I am eager. I am terrified. I am joyful. I am surrendered. I am becoming. I am [underwater words] which has no English translation which means everything which means the ending of Beatrix Chalmers and the beginning of something new something old something vast something that swims in the crushing depths and breathes water and births the entity's young and serves the pattern and continues the bloodline and—
The remainder of this page is underwater symbols only.
december 20, 1870 — evening
[This entry is barely legible, written with shaking hands or while hands were wet, the ink smeared and running:]
Tonight. Midnight tonight. Lady soames came.
Said: Tonight. ready
Yes. Yes. [underwater words] yes.
she smiled. [underwater words] she said. Perfect, she said. Beautiful, she said.
Cannot write english anymore. These last words. These final fragments of Beatrix who drowned at Brighton who has been drowning ever since who will finish drowning tonight.
cold. deep. home. want. ready. [underwater words] [underwater words] [underwater words]
going now. walking now. to the water. to the deep. to home. to [underwater words] to what waits to what has always waited to—
[underwater words]
[underwater words]
[underwater words]
home
[Final page contains only shifting symbols. A marginal note in Lady Soames' handwriting reads:]
December 20th, 1870, 11:47 PM. She walks with me now. She is ready. She is perfect. She is beautiful beyond measure. Her transformation is complete. In thirteen minutes, at the stroke of midnight, she will enter the water at the boat landing. She will descend through the fen-channels to the limestone passages, then deeper still to where my Bridegroom waits. She will meet Him as I once did. She will be transformed as I was transformed. She will birth His young as I have birthed them. She will serve Him as I serve Him. The pattern continues. The bloodline persists. The tribute is given and received with joy. She does not walk to her death. She walks to her completion. This is not horror. This is homecoming. This is love. I am well pleased. He will be well pleased. All is as it should be. All is as it has always been. All is as it will always be. The water wins. The water always wins. And we who surrender to the water are not lost. We are found.
She is ready. It is time.
No further entries. Miss Beatrix Chalmers was observed by three estate servants walking to the old boat landing shortly before midnight on December 21st, 1870. Lady Soames accompanied her. Miss Chalmers wore only a thin nightdress and walked barefoot across frozen ground without apparent discomfort. She entered the water willingly, submerged, and did not resurface. Her body was never recovered. Benjamin Price placed a memorial stone in the fenlands on December 22nd, as he had for the women before her. The tribute was given. The pattern continued.
