Decisions and Research

After the scare of a couple days ago, Cam and I have been spending a lot of time putting our heads together and making plans, when I'm not buried in the campus library reading till I go cross-eyed. We've come to a decision. We're staying. We are staying here, staying put, fortifying and keeping strong. I have an idea that will hopefully keep us safe. We do have a fourth floor condo, which will help. Our condo can only be reached through a locked indoor staircase, which will help against more mundane threats. We're fortifying the crap out of this place and instituting a 'no open blinds ever' policy, which will help reduce sightings, though it will be hell on the lighting in the house.

But most important is this. I found an old first edition from 1688 in the old book room on Monday. It appears to be a household guide to dealing with various pests-which for the time was rather strange in and of itself. The strangest part, however was the amount of supernatural entities listed and discussed in the pages along with more mundane threats like rabbits and snakes. At the end, there is an entire chapter devoted to 'the masked one.' He is described as appearing as a very tall and thin man who appears to be wearing a blank mask to obscure the existence of features. Unsurprisingly, the masked one is described as highly dangerous, especially to children. Most of the advice falls along the line of rosemary sachets at doorways and ensuring children wear crosses at all times, but at the very end it mentions one last resort-positive thought. It suggests that he needs fear and/or despair to properly manifest in a way that can harm us, and that if you can deny him that, then you can stay safe.

It seems worth a shot. We've already instituted the plan. Admittedly it's a lot easier to stay happy when Shan is on her way here to see me. Beyond  that, we're watching lots of cheerful movies and shows, paying plenty of games and generally being silly and having fun as much as possible. Makes me glad we both took the summer off work, otherwise this staying happy thing would be a lot trickier.