Quin
Legacy Name: Quin

the Male Scribble Experiment #886

May 17, 1879

I cannot stand to be indebted to another, and yet I have found myself in this position: some poor decisions of none other than my own brother have led me to borrow money. I fear that I have no ability, or will I ever, to pay it back. What a mess I am in.

November 2, 1879

Ana has fallen ill. It has been three days, and still the fever will not break. I believe that fate has placed a price on my head, and a curse on my house. I had believed myself to be so very nearly saved, for I had found work to finally settle my debt.

January 1, 1880

Death has struck this house, and I am certain that it will strike again. I will use what money I have made to pay for Ana’s funeral - then, they will come for me.

January 5, 1880

To remain in this town so steeped in memories and blood will be my downfall. I cannot settle my debts, and the price is death. But I am not yet ready to pay it.

January 6, 1880

I have no more time. Today, I turned my back on the only home I have ever known. I walked south for hours, towards the border I have never seen with my own eyes. My few maps are so old and outdated that each contradicts the other in borders and names. Only by soliciting help from the members of a traveling carnival was I able to reach the town of Hallein. I know that my sister will offer me refuge. I can only pray I am far enough from the reach of those who would do me harm.

January 7, 1880

Today, I was approached in the street by the very curious proprietor of the Last Coin Tavern. The pub needs a musician, and the doctor needs a tenant. And so I begin my life anew.

January 19, 1880

The usurers found me. Why they did not kill me, I cannot say. Perhaps they knew that what they did would hurt more than death. They came for my sister in the dead of night. She was found the next morning, outside the tavern, in a pool of blood, and her eye missing. We are two halves of the same coin, my sister and I. I am a coward, and an idiot, stupid enough to lead those men to a place where they might find the only family I had left. I should have turned myself over to them, I know it. How can I live with myself?

January 20, 1880

I know now that I was right in leaving my daughter with the carnival. Had I brought her with me, could she have suffered the same fate as Lotte, or worse? Before that fateful day, I spent each night in tortured agony, fearing I had done the wrong thing, wishing I could have taken her with me, wondering why I had placed her in danger in the first place, by leaving Germany. But, I knew. If I had stayed in Germany, gone to the usurers willingly, I would have died, of that I am sure - and then, my daughter truly would have been left with nothing. I did leave her in another sense, however, and it hurt me immensely. There is not a night I do not spend wondering where she is, how she is. But at least, she is alive.

April 9, 1890

I got word of Suzanne today. She doesn't know who I am. She thinks her father died, and that her mother left her. I told 3 that it would be far easier if she wouldn't come looking for me, if she'd never suspect that her father were alive. She has a photograph that she carries everywhere, I’m told. She believes that the woman in the photograph with me is her mother, and I'm sure each night she searches the crowds, hoping that her trapeze act will bring enough fame to draw her mother's praise. The woman was, in reality, just one of 3's former employees with whom I posed, to give my daughter something to hold on to, because I could not let her hold on to me. To lend a fragment of legitimacy to a fabricated tale. But I can't stay away from her completely. I go to her show, whenever the carnival is in town. She's getting better, year by year. It will never be easy to see her and not be able to tell her. I know that I had to leave. My only regret is that I will never hold my child in my arms again.

ID: 664956

Owner: Molly

Profile by aesop

Headshot by Kestrel

Stock images from Unsplash

(x) by Shalashaska

(x) by Kaylene

Adopted as Frequency from creep

EHW'd to Quin, thanks to Athene