The Journal of Mortimer Anhingas
November 17th
Iris hasn’t been the same since we visited Ollie. Then again, neither have I.
The day after, she threw herself even deeper into her research for a management treatment. She’s convinced that a cure isn’t the real answer– treatment is. Even though the school has started to get uneasy with just how many of their students are so absolutely obsessed with the Altered virus. None of the students here have caught it, but if one did?
I shudder to think of what some of the students would do to them.
I’ve been helping Iris in her research, because I love her, and I’m not opposed. But… I might have been spending one too many late nights on my cure research. As pointless as it might be, if I don’t try, it will just eat away at me more.
Besides, Christmas break is coming up soon. Which means I can be with Phineas in person. If I can come up with a cure before I go back home…
Maybe I can save my brother from the same fate as Ollie.
There’s a selection of anti-viral plants that just might be the thing. Now if I could only figure out how to get them to work as I need…
~Mortimer Anhingas
The Mental Observations of Iris Gray
December 1st
Somehow, it’s already almost Christmas break.
Three weeks without Mortimer.
Three weeks without working on a management treatment.
I sip my hot chocolate at the Nookery, staring blankly at the Christmas decorations as I wait for Mortimer. I miss my family. I miss the snowy wilderness of my childhood home. Normally, the muted homesickness that grows all semester would be raring to go home. Instead, there’s a feeling of…
Loss?
Mortimer stumbles into the Nookery, bundled up to his ears in scarves and a big overcoat. For a man who loves winter so much, the winter is not kind to him, and it’s amusing to watch him peel away layers as he comes up to the table.
“Hey.” He sits down, smiling. “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here, isn’t it?”
Concern writhes in my heart as I notice the dark circles under his eyes. They’ve slowly become more prominent over the last few weeks, but now they look really stark.
“You look exhausted,” I murmur.
He shrugs. “Stayed up late working on finals again.”
Hmph. He’s used that lie before. I’m not sure I believe him anymore.
The barista calls him over about his order and he leaves to grab it. I mull over my hot chocolate, turning pieces of a strange puzzle over and over in my head.
When he comes back, I take a deep breath.
“Are you okay?”
He furrows his brows. “Um… okay about what?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “You’ve just been a little… different these last few weeks.”
“Lack of sleep. I told you, finals.” He smiles. “It’s nothing to be worried about.”
“But it’s more than that.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “You’re… spacey. Which you only get spacey when you’re down the rabbit hole on something. And I doubt you’re in that deep in finals.” I bite my lower lip. “You’re not still working on an Altered cu–”
He interrupts me before I can finish my question. “Fine. You’re right, I have been spacey.” He sighs, leaning back in his chair. “But it’s just… Christmas.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Christmas?”
He gives me a wry smile. “Hard to feel “holly jolly” when you know you’re gonna be coming home to a Christmas full of bickering and gaslighting.”
“Oh.” My face heats with embarrassment. Of course.
“It’s nothing for you to worry about, Iris.” He reaches across the table, squeezing my hand. “I’m just… every time we’re together I start thinking about how we won’t be over the holidays, and instead I’ll just be spending it with my crummy family.”
“You could join me in Alaska,” I joke.
He sighs. “I wish.”
He pulls away to work on his coffee. Mentally, I chide myself for assuming such things.
Not everyone has a nice home like you to go to for Christmas.
I don’t know why my mind even jumped to him working on an Altered cure.
“What do you want for Christmas?” I ask, changing the subject.
Mortimer pauses, thinking. “Materially, or truthfully?”
“Is there a difference?”
“There is if what I want can’t be wrapped under a tree.”
“Don’t tell me.” I laugh and blush. “Me?”
“No. Just spending Christmas with you.” He blushes, ears turning crimson. “Is that stupid?”
“Not at all.” I smile at him from behind my hot chocolate. “I’d ask for the same thing.”
He sighs. “Too bad that the one thing we both want, we can’t have.”
“I’ll call you, as often as you like. All day, if you can.”
For the first time, some weight seems to really lift off his shoulders.
“I’d like that.”