might solve a mystery

[undershadow]

This is a hardbound journal with a ribbon bookmark and a truly ridiculous amount of missing pages. Like, there might be more pages that were torn out than pages still in the book, particularly at the beginning. The sparse entries it contains are written in sparkly blue gel pen, using a script that, since last trial, is recognizably Lena's handwriting.

Comments

ENTRY ONE

[undershadow]

Webby Vanderquack is your best friend. Webby Vanderquack is my best friend. Whatever. This is stupid.

THINGS ABOUT WEBBY
1. She's a year younger than you.
2. She's awkward and enthusiastic about everything and it's a lot? But it's actually pretty endearing when you get used to it. It's nice to be around someone who actually likes things that aren't revenge.
3. She loves pink.
4. She has freaky superhuman survival/parkour skills and knows all kinds of ridiculous facts that would never come up in a million years, but also...
5. She's pretty sheltered. She literally never left McDuck Manor for years, it seems like?
6. She believes in the supernatural and is super interested in magic (not good)
7. She didn't hear an American accent until she was like six. She lives with her grandmother, who's incredibly British but alright.
8. She doesn't talk about her parents, which I guess is why she never asks about mine.
9. She's a good person.
10. She thinks you're a good person because she's a good person. I really wish she was right.
11. Webby is short for Webbigail! How did I not say that as, like, number one? Her grandmother is Mrs. Beakley but she calls her Granny, like she's a little boy in a sailor suit with a huge lollipop or something.
12. She lives with Scrooge McDuck and his nephews in his mansion because Beakley is like, a housekeeper? Bodyguard? Houseguard?
13. She is OBSESSED with Scrooge McDuck.
14. I don't care if she's weird or loud or collects drool samples in Scrooge's sleep, meeting her is the best thing that's ever happened to you.
15. But the only reason you even know her is because you're using her to get to Scrooge's number one dime.
16. I'm done with this stupid list.

ENTRY TWO

[undershadow]

I don't care if I forget everything that ever happened before Webby came along. Honestly, I wish I could forget half of it. Not knowing ███████████ exists would be like a dream come true until she

Forget it. The point is I'm writing in this stupid diary again because of Webby, not anybody else. I won't let them take her away.

But it's already starting to happen. I can't remember what happened after the money shark. I don't know what happened to my bracelet. They're just going to keep on peeling off layers of who I am until I'm not here anymore... or I am, which is the problem? I don't even know where I'm going with this and it feels dumb and pointless to write any of this, but I'm still me. I can still fight back without playing their stupid, twisted game and warn you not to fall for it.

Freedom isn't worth it if you hurt the people you care about to get it. I guess that's what I'm trying to tell you. Me. Calice was probably full of it, but right now, she's asleep. She can't stop you from telling people the truth and she can't hurt Mr. McDuck or anybody else. You can choose something different. As long as I'm here, they're all safe.

And as long as they're safe and Webby's alright, it doesn't matter what happens to you. She makes you want to be the person she thinks you are. Maybe this is the only way to do it, I don't know.

ENTRY THREE

[undershadow]

Multiple pages are torn out of the journal after the second entry! When it picks up again, it seems to be in the middle of an outline describing Lena's recent life. Here, again, more pages seem to have been randomly torn out, some of them halfway down, but you can still get a relatively coherent account from what's left. In order:

1. Lena meets Webby and invites her to crash whatever a "Beagle Boy birthday party" is, which you have to assume is literal because she doesn't spend any time clarifying any of it, only to spend the night fleeing from the Beagle Boys after Ma Beagle, who holds a grudge against Webby because she trapped her in a ballpit, sics them on the both of them. They become close friends almost immediately. The end of this one is torn out.
2. Lena, Webby, and the triplets Webby lives with venture into an abandoned subway tunnel and discover a subterranean race of cryptids known as Terrafirmians. In the margins, Lena's added I don't remember any of this anymore.
3. A sleepover at McDuck Manor which was an excuse to plant a "hunter stone" in Scrooge McDuck's money bin, which ended up becoming Tiffany and consuming Scrooge's grand-nephews, pilot, number one dime, and Scrooge himself. Lena and Webby eventually defeat her, though not before being devoured themselves. WHY IS SHE EVEN HERE??? has been written in huge block letters in the margin. After this, there's a blank space where she's written a bunch of question marks.
4. Another sleepover, this one an excuse to try and cut the dime from his neck in his sleep. This backfires when Webby walks in on her and Scrooge, feeling something off, puts his dime in his "other bin" for safekeeping. She talks Webby into exploring the "other bin", a place where Scrooge keeps all his most dangerous discoveries, and the two of them end up fighting a frilly unicorn (sword horse?) Halfway through this story, a bunch of pages are torn out again, and then there's another few blank pages before she continues, at which point she's changed the subject entirely.

ENTRY FOUR: THE ONE THAT'S ALMOST A CR CHART

[undershadow]

WATCH OUT

Manaka: I mean, she's clearly a witch. Things don't seem to get to her, which I know is always a bad sign, because things don't get to me. And it sounds like she might have died in her holy grail war, or whatever.
Catboys (not Nags): Little creeps. Kind of funny, though. It seems like they're cool with me, but that says more about me than anything else, and it's nothing good.
Seven: Just because technically if he steps in the wrong place he could crush me like a bug. Also he has this thing for making huge dramatic announcements whenever he feels bad about something? I feel bad for him. He's definitely the person here who's the least prepared for this whole mess.
Mizuki: Calmer than I thought she was at first, but she's still totally ripped.
Reginald Crumplebottom: Thinks that teenagers are subhuman?? His world seems WILD. Besides that he's not a bad guy, but there's only five of us left. If he's gonna take someone out, it's slim pickings.
Nagisa: Same deal, even if he's less obvious about it. I'd tell them my real age so everyone could shut up, but then they'd start asking questions I can't answer and it'd turn into a whole thing.
Gil: Being part god gets you on the list automatically.
Red: Wow, okay, so I fell for that!
Oriko: Cryptic and also magic. Hopefully the thing at Manaka's trial is a good sign, but everything else? Nope.
DD: Apparently a supervillain created to reflect the, uh, magical girl she was supposed to destroy? Yeah, THAT'S new.

While this list is in Lena's handwriting, the strikes through Manaka and Zero's entries aren't the same blue gel pen she's been using throughout the journal. Instead, they're a deep, but no less sparkly, violet. From here on there's nothing but blank and torn-out pages, until, deep into the journal on a page seemingly selected at random, there's a brief final entry.

ENTRY ???

[undershadow]

This entry is also a list, and this time it's numbered. The ink is the same violet from the "watch out" page, but this time, now that actual words are being written, it's obvious that someone else wrote this. It's larger than Lena's normal penmanship, and the letters are much more dramatic and swoopy.

Since SOMEONE decided to ruin surreptitious poisoning for the rest of us, time is of the essence, and my resources are few:
1. Release Tiffany and feed her on a steady diet of knives until I can send her out before Samhain to reap a DARK HARVEST.
2. Use poison anyway. Frame the little clairvoyant or that dreadful urchin who sings for no reason.
3. A death trap of my own grim devising (see figures attached.)

There are no attached figures. The next page is missing, and the rest of the book is blank.