Vanity Faire

Liesday, Toasting-rack of Oaktombe. I think that means it’s the fifteenth of October, but I could be wrong.

My name is Vanity Faire. Although I had another name once.
I have affinity. If you can read this then you have affinity too – it calls, and we answer.

I don’t know when this began – it’s so hard to remember now. I think this is the third journal I’ve started. The others I’ve left, or given away to those with bright auras and haunted eyes in the hope I can help them as there was no one to help me.
This isn’t London. This is the Other London.

I wasn’t born here, I came here. It began in dreams – at least I think it did. Later everything slipped so fast one to the other that I walked streets I’d known for years, turned a corner and here I was again, and here seemed more real than there.

There are others of us here.

Bethlam Alice, although she’s been here so long most days she thinks she dreamt of London Proper. Hayes Murphy, I’ve caught sight of many times in London Proper, and yet never here – but I know this is his city. I met a girl called Laura Quake when I first came, but I lost sight of her. I don’t know which London she’s in – maybe she managed to stay in the normal London, the one with the stupid giant Ferris wheel, with mobile phones and laptop computers. Or maybe she’s here, in the Other London, the one that still has hansom cabs, that’s divided not by postcodes but by wards. The one where there’s something like magic (Affinity) and giant scarab beetles and gentleman explorers go to the wilds of Borneo to hunt raptors, packing their rifles, their dinner jackets and a magnum of Champagne.

The Tides are Turning again. The heart of this city is linked to the Thames. (Not ‘Tems’ – ‘Thaimez’.) It affects those with Affinity and those who crossed from the other London. I don’t know whether I’ll still be here when they’re passed. So I’ll write what I can, and leave this somewhere safe. Perhaps I’ll come back to it, perhaps not. If you find it, then keep it, please. Fill it with what information you can. Maybe it will help. Don’t go east of Aldgate after dark. The Icterine Affliction has been on the rise in the slums.

Vanity Faire.

For anyone who's paying enough attention, Vanity's boyfriend is Captain Svedic of the Guard who I've drawn a couple of times.

Pen and scribble.