The Tower of Tattle

"Wow," Shiori said. "I knew you were the kind of girl who'd keep a diary, but I didn't know you'd write such cute dumb things!"

"I was probably like six, okay?!" I want to slap her, but I know she's speaking without a hint of malice. "Let's go find the next entry where I'm like... eight!

"You were so cute as a kid, M!" Shiori chirps happily. A small happy feeling pops up in my chest, at how happy she is to at least give me a nickname. "M," huh? It looked like my name had eight letters? Madeline? Meredith? Oh god, it's not Milldred, is it?

"She was cute, wasn't she?"

A new voice interjects.

"Look, can we stop talking about it?" I'm blushing hard. I don't mind being called cute, but I think 'my daddy must have been a prince!' is a whole other level. "Wait... AHHH!

"Yeah! Super cute! " Shiori bubbles again, then glances leftwards. "AHHH!"

Both of us yelp at the new girl interpolated between us. It was so sudden, it must have been magical, and at this point 'magical' is just about the thing I trust least in this world. I barely resist the urge to just push the girl down and grab Shiori and run. In fact, that's exactly what I would have done, but something in her demeanor so strongly gives off harmlessness that I hesitate.

"Erm. Who are you?" I ask cautiously.

"I'm Alexa," she says smoothly and brightly. As if that tells us anything.

"You know, that doesn't really help," I respond.

"I'm Alexa, and you can think of me as your assistant." She points to the Codex in my hands. "I'm part of the Codex. I'm here to help you and point you in the right direction."

"An assistant named... Alexa..." Shiori suddenly gasps. "Alexa! What's the name of the sandwich with way too much olive?!"

I have no idea what Shiori's doing.

"That would be a muffaletta," Alexa replies.

Huh?

"She's like! Um!" Shiori is now excitedly prodding me in the crook of my elbow, till I have to slap her hand away 'cause it kinda hurts. "She's like a, um! Well, you've never seen one! And that makes me kinda sad... but she's like an AI assistant!"

"Like the NPCs?"

"Kind of! But not really! Like, we can Google things with her!"

"We can what with her?"

"It's a thing that you'd totally get once you saw it!" Shiori says with a bizarre mix of sadness and loudness, all the while now hopping up and down. Um, for some reason, seeing her hop like that makes me kind of want to jump up and down on my bed. "Like -- like a super encyclopedia! I bet she can help us find the other journals!"

Well, that does sound useful. I still don't feel great about it though, and start eyeing the supposedly serendipitous interloper up and down.

Green's the first thing that jumps out at me. A cute green beret, and a cute green oversized sweater, with sleeves that are just too long. Hair on the sandier side of blonde, barely above the shoulders but still fluffy. Stunningly pale eyes. Washed out jeans, tapered and skinny almost like capris. She looks like she just popped out of The Breakfast Club.

She's older than us, too, but maybe not quite an adult. It's embarrassing, but if we were a few years younger, to anyone looking at us from the outside it'd look like she was our babysitter. It's hard to imagine her even swatting a fly, the way her fingers barely poke out of the sweater sleeves. Not to mention her confident, thousand-watt smile that would give even Shiori's sunshine beaming face a run for its money.

"I'm here, to help you. So help me help you, yeah? What's the phrase? I'm all that and a bag of chips?" Alexa said with far too much smugness.

"Alexa! Where'd I lose my phone?" Shiori asks excitedly.

"A phone? How can you possibly lose your phone? Aren't they... well no, maybe in the present... " Alexa frowns, before being caught by the glimmer in Shiori's eyes. "It's probably under your bed."

"It usually is under my bed!

"I bet you put it in your fridge once, too."

"I did,"" Shiori gasps.

"That's really not -- " I stop, not really wanting to take the wind out of Shiori's sails. "Who are you? Tell me."

"We're intimately related, you and I. You and this Codex. You and this Vault. I'm here to help you fulfill your destiny. Which starts with you reclaiming your name. "Alexa takes the Codex from me, with a tilt of her head and a smile like the world's most charming concierge, and she begins flipping through the pages."Ouch!"

She opens the page up to my diary, still displaying a barely begun game of hangman. 'Mˍˍˍˍˍˍˍ.' I can't help but notice she's given herself a papercut in the process, and her smile takes on this little hint of chagrin, as she sticks her tongue out playfully. 'Oops! I cut myself!' Again, the harmlessness is just emanating off of her like warmth off a fireplace. But I can't help but think it looks a little ominous the way a bit of blood smudges next to my name.

"But you're going to want to pay attention here. Because this is the important part." Alexa's rifling through the book once again, stopping somewhere near the back matter. She finds the page she wants, sighs, and points to a specific date that makes Shiori shriek next to me. And not in a funny way.

She looks like she's about to throw up.

"...Shiori?" I ask worriedly.

"Today's..."" She can't seem to bring herself to say it, so Alexa finishes for her.

"It's about one week before the murders," Alexa shrugs. "Destiny is inescapable. And this is part of your destiny. Both of yours."

Alexa pats the book meaningfully against her palm, before dropping it unceremoniously against her foot with a whimper. Shiori and I largely ignore her cartoonish foot-grabbing-pain.

"Shiori..." I begin.

"No, it's okay," she smiles weakly. "I'm not the one who should be hurting most. If we have to -- we'll, I'll do anything to bring you back. I promise."

As usual, Shiori finds a way to radiate a firm resolve that's wholly strange for her younger self. Like seeing a steam engine in a story about princesses and knights, the anachronism is startling. I don't have much time to consider the time-wobbliness of this whole scenario, though, because some voices can be heard coming up the stairs. And...

Suddenly Alexa is nowhere to be found. That's kind of unpleasant.

"Anybody home?" A gravelly man's voice cries out. "Why, I hate to barge in here with such an angry companion in tow, but this lady here just insisted."

Wait. No. I know this voice. Again, the jigsaw pieces of my memories start piecing together. That voice belongs to...

Tall, but hunched. Bald, with a yacht captain's hat with the barest pretense of covering it. Pot-bellied, but with strong looking sailor's arms -- port-bellied, you could call it.

It's Alphonse Krabb. The first murder victim.

"M-Monika?" Shiori stutters.

Oh. And there's Shiori's aunt.

One big permanent scowl. She's got brown hair and leggings, sure. But the scowl's such a centerpiece to Monika that it's just about the only thing you notice. She's the type of person you want to stop thinking about the second she leaves the room. And if you do have to have the displeasure of thinking about her? All you can think about is her scowl.

"Shiori. Hey. Hey." Monika's snapping her fingers now. "You gonna say hi to me or what?"

"Hey..." I try to rub Shiori's hand, but she's frozen stiff still. It's really upsetting me. All while Monika is lording over us, scowling away like we're doing something to her.

I've only ever seen Shiori two ways, in my magically limited memory. There's the Shiori who went out and lived a whole life, studied hard to become a magi, who came striding back with confidence and bravado to save me. The Shiori who was maybe a little obnoxious, who was still a know-it-all just like when she was a kid. The Shiori who could handle any magical situation thrown her way.

And then there's the kid Shiori, reverted just like me, who still seems so taken with everything, who seems just so happy to be here. The kid who's still an adult inside holding in a lot of pain. The kid whose adult shines through when it matters. But who maybe, for just a moment, wants to relive something that got stolen from her, just like it got stolen from me.

Now I remember a third Shiori. Also a kid. This one clammed up whenever Monika was around. The Shiori who could have the happiest smile in the world one moment, and a blank expression the next.

I'm mad. I'm madder than I've ever been. I feel stupid for even thinking I was mad at my mom, because here's something actually worth the fire.

"Who the hel-" I start.

"Why, if it isn't 'lil Shiori!" Alphonse, Al breaks in with obviously-not-coincidental timing. "I thought you might be around here. Looks like you've got a new friend with you! Some kinda teddy bear?"

Shiori shakes her head like a shy child. "He's a Novelite."

"Well, what's his name?"

"His name's Yorick!"

"He looks like a happy fella, just like you miss Shiori," Al says, with such kindness I feel the fury almost instantly melt away.

"And of course, the little vicereine Miss M herself," he tips his captain's hat a little patronizingly for my taste, but it makes me smile a bit anyway. "Oops. Don't want to expose that I don't got as much hair as I used to."

He winks at me, and right behind him Monika is rolling her eyes so hard it feels like she's trying to move the ceiling. Wait, did he just call me M?

"Your mother told me to go check up on you. Told me you two were fighting today and you might try and do something rebellious. Far as I can see, you two were just playing in your room. I'll have to tell Lessie she needs to trust her daughter more, won't I?""

I nod a little dumbly. I need to stop myself from getting emotionally invested in what's essentially a big game of pretend with me and Shiori at the center. But I feel a bit warm in the heart, against my better wishes, when all he does is smile back at my mute nodding. I just can't help it.

Not to mention the big namedrop. Lessie's my mom's name? My brain's whirling like a tornado, and slowing down to a single mile an hour chug at the same time. It feels like hearing her name's as big as getting my own back. Though... Lessie's kinda a weird name.

He pulls something out of his pocket.

"Now, Shiori, you can't be leaving things everywhere. You remember that magic show you wanted me to take you to? You left the pamphlet at my place."

"It's not a magic show, it's a ritual!" Shiori blurts out, before gasping and covering her own mouth. Even I feel my breath catch for a moment.

At this point this is more than just a bit of mental regression. It's almost like we're being pulled entirely into our past selves, with all that context. Considering that the upcoming context is living through some murders and witch hunts... well, that's not good.

Al hands Shiori the pamphlet and, huh, okay, didn't expect that, The Codex starts rustling again, just like it did when we got my diary. Shiori and I look at eachother, wondering what this could even be, when the pamphlet bursts into life in front of us, and once again we're privy to that small magical wonder, the telltail snitch.

But this one seems to be a bird of paradise, with all that lacquer on it, and all those colors. Right in front of us it seems to peck and groom itself, and the colored ink seems to fall away, almost like it's molting.

Well? It cocks its head at us. WELL? It puts its little origami wings on its little paper bird hips, until Shiori and I catch the hint and start clapping for it. This one's a little vain I guess.

I don't think real birds actually nod, but that's exactly what it does. If it could speak, it'd probably say something like 'pearls before swine!' Or 'plumage before phillistines!' Or something. When it flies up to The Codex, the other pages start wreaking all kinds of havoc like even they find their new neighbor annoying. I think I catch sight of the corner of a page trying to trip its little bird feet.

Strangely enough, or perhaps just as you'd expect, Alphonse and Monika seem to be paying no attention to the miracle happening right in front of them. Instead, they're arguing with each other, while Shiori and I wait with bated breath for what the next snitch might reveal.

I'm cringing hard at yet another smoking gun for my bratty younger self being, well, maybe the biggest brat.

"Umm, sorry about that," I say sheepishly. "I think I was going through a lot?"

"It's okay," Shiori smiles. "I was too. Ah!"

Monika, seemingly fed up with her argument, stomps on over to interrupt our moment of friendship, and I just about pounce on her.

"Hey!"

But it's Alphonse who actually steps in, grabbing Monika's hand before she forcefully grabs Shiori's. Monika, in typical dramatic fashion, throws off Al's hand with disgust.

"Look, Mr. Krabb, everyone in town is talking shit about me because they say I don't watch you. I'm not here to start shit. I'm just taking her home.

"I promised to take this girl to a magic show tonight," Al says calmly.

"Actually, it's a ritual..." Shiori says quietly, but I force her to shush.

"Mr. Krabb, I'm not sure if you're aware, but I am this girl's guardian. Just because you're a lonely old man doesn't mean you're actually everyone's grandpa," Monika snarls.

I actually whip my head around in shock at the viciousness at that one, worried that Al might be hurt bad by it. But his facial expression doesn't change at all. Instead, he seems as calm as ever.

"What does this girl do at home? While you're out god knows where at night? She sits alone. No one watches over her. Tell me. If you bring this girl home, are you going to watch her? Spend time with her? Play with her? Because if not, then I'd say she's in better company here."

"She's ten you sanctimonious prick! This is the safest town in the universe. It's so safe it's boring. And don't act like you're some watchful hawk. They run around all over town, and no one stops them, and I'm the bad lady for making her stay in a house?" Monika's at the limit of her exasperation.

In a way, she does raise points that are hard to argue against. I feel my head swirling trying to come up with a counter. But I can't help but feel even though everything she said was technically correct, it's just not the actual truth. Otherwise Shiori wouldn't be shivering beside me.

"If you won't take care of this child, then you may as well leave her here until you learn to be a proper adult," Al says with finality.

"Yeah? Tell the sheriff about it," Monika says reaching forward.

"Touch her and I will," Al growls, making Monika flinch.

"Ugh!" Monika spins around in a huff. "You rich, pretentious twats on Rumeuri think you're so much fucking better than the rest of us. Watch her tonight then. What do I care? I had plans. The one who's got to worry is you because there's no way what you're doing is legal, Mr. Krabb."

With that, a spit backward at the carpet, and a slammed door, Monika leaves. And I can hear her stomping down the stairs, make sure to open and slam our front door as loud as she could so can be sure we heard it. No, really. She actually spit on my carpet.

"That's so gross..." I mutter.

Beside me, Shiori is dabbing at her eyes a little bit. "Mr. Krabb, you know she'll just come get me later, anyway..."

Will she? I actually have no idea at this point. It seems like every second we're here, we get pulled into the program of the past. But I'd hope we'd have the wherewithal to not send Shiori with the wicked witch with no chest. Especially if we don't have to.

"We don't gotta think about that right now, lil Shiori," he laughs all the tension right out of the room, and I can't help but think he's got this starry look in his eyes that you almost never see in anything but a kid. And I can't help but notice the starry look Shiori gets as she's pulled into his energy. And I can't help but feel my heart creak just a little bit, as it's forced to remember that maybe there was something special about Sussurokawa. That there were good, maybe even wonderful people here. That there was something worth protecting here. Something that... ended up being heartlessly destroyed.