Despite the word “journal”, the book seemed to have very little actual text. It was mostly crude drawings over short bursts of writing.
The first page contained a drawing of what appeared to be the sun in the sky. It seemed to have been drawn in a hurry, as if the individual drawing it—presumably Spike—had been rushed. Underneath the drawing were words that appeared to have also been written hastily: It won't go down.
The next page was even more cryptic. It consisted of a series of drawings, each appearing to depict—or try to depict—a dragon claw in various states. Due to the below amateur level of art skill, Lyra couldn't figure out the difference from drawing to drawing.
“What does that look like to you?” she said.
Her and Moondancer were sitting on the floor of the shed. They knew they should have gone back to the house, but neither felt ready to leave their discovery. Even though Fleur had assured her she wouldn't be back until the next day, Lyra was still paranoid.
Moondancer had gone rather pale. She shook her head and mouthed some vague protest, but she left Lyra's question hanging.
The third page was easier to decode, although by only a small margin. This one was simply a full page drawing of a pony. The pony seemed to be an alicorn, although it bore no strong resemblance to any alicorn Moondancer or Lyra had ever seen. The mare was tall and her limbs were like those of spiders. She was staring forward, her mane hanging limply over her face. She was frowning, her mouth open to reveal razor sharp teeth. Her eyes were merely two dark circles.
I've been having a lot of nightmares lately, this drawing was captioned.
Lyra scowled. Even though she did not recognize the pony in the picture, she felt she had seem them somewhere before. Perhaps in some book of old pony legends? She'd read many of those in her lifetime.
The fourth page bore a single sentence. It was written neatly, as if Spike had taken his time.
Time Turner and Daisy are gone.
It was so simple and matter-of-fact that Lyra missed the significance at first. When she reread the sentence, it became clear what Spike had meant.
Her thoughts jumped to that piece of parchment she'd touched so long ago. The parchment that bore the words “Deceased” at the top. Lyra didn't know why her mind had landed on that, but it was what had jumped out to her.
The fifth page was filled with drawings, although most of them appeared to be attempts. Spike had been trying to sketch something of extreme importance, but he'd been continuously held back by both his imagination and his meager drawing skill. However, he'd eventually produced something he deemed decent. It was a drawing of some kind of rectangular object with something sticking out of it.
Lyra couldn't figure out what it was, but Moondancer spoke up.
“Music box,” she said.
Lyra squinted. She saw nothing to suggest the thing was a music box, but she took Moondancer's word for it. She was more interested in the caption.
The song I hear in my dreams.
There had been a melody, a melody Lyra had been unaware of up until this point. But she was certain she too had heard a particular song in her dreams. Some kind of beautiful yet sad bit of music woven throughout her vivid secondary memories. But where had the music come from? Where had she heard it before?
The fifth page was filled with writing. It appeared rushed, some of it completely illegible due to Spike's haste.
Only the moon comes out. I can see her in the moon. I'm (illegible) now. Twi says I'm imagining (illegible) and that I shouldn't sleep. I'm scared. My claws are getting weirder and weirder. I can't go outside (illegible). I'm in my bedroom. I can see shadows on the (illegible) every night. They're here now. Watching me. Sweet Celestia, what's happening? I thought (illegible) was just an old pony's tail. The (illegible) isn't helping. I'm trying to draw my nightmares. Maybe then I can understand. Twi won't talk to me. Nopony will talk to me. Am I a (illegible) to them? Applejack is gone. Nopony will talk about her. I think she's (illegible). Oh Celestia save us. They say I shouldn't go anywhere, but (illegible) says I should.
The final paragraph was a series of confusing scribbles that might have been intended as writing.
Lyra gestured towards the legible paragraph and looked at Moondancer.
“Does any of that mean something to you?” she said.
But Moondancer had relapsed into a sort of fearful silence. She seemed less afraid of what she presumably knew and more afraid of what would happen if she spoke. It was as if the words themselves were poison.
The sixth page had more drawings. They were mostly very rough sketches of various ponies. Some of them struck a cord of recognition, others were strangers. Despite variance in Cutie Mark and mane, all the ponies had the same empty circles for eyes.
The page was captioned with I miss them.
Lyra felt a pang of sadness, even though she couldn't begin to comprehend the loss. It was vivid, yet removed from everything around her.
The sixth page contained only a drawing titled “Applejack”. But rather than the pony herself, the drawing appeared to be of the barn. The drawing made the barn look like some kind of abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps that was intentional.
The seventh page was yet another actual entry. It was a short one, due to Spike putting several massive spaces between each sentence.
I hear the music all the time now. I wonder. Twi is crying a lot. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash are gone. I'm crying too, but I'm by myself. I want to make a list of everypony whose gone. Twi says I shouldn't, but I want to. She says it will be over. I'm worried. What does she mean? Why won't anypony talk to me?
A feeling of dread blossomed within Lyra's stomach, but she wasn't certain where it came from. It was as if she'd lived through the events Spike was cryptically describing, it was as if she innately knew what would happen.
The next three pages were blank. Lyra almost thought Spike hadn't written anything more, but then she came across a page filled with drawings.
The page seemed to contain some kind of crude diagram. Each drawing was labeled like independent parts of an anatomy sketch.
The first drawing was of a pair of eyes. Rather than the expected black circles, the eyes appeared to be bloodshot. But the veins spreading from the center had been colored a dull green for some reason. The eyes, read the label under it.
The second drawing was of a hoof. The hoof looked relatively normal, although the tip of it had been colored that familiar dull green. The label had been crossed out and rewritten at least three times. The final legible one read “the body starts to rot”.
Moondancer gasped aloud and jumped to her feet.
Lyra turned to look at her, thunderstruck. She hadn't expected—would never have dreamed of—such a dramatic reaction. But it seemed Moondancer had finally come across something too upsetting to justify keeping her silence. Lyra instinctively knew what Moondancer had found: confirmation.
“Are you o--?” Lyra started.
Moondancer fled the shed entirely. She looked horrified beyond all reason.
Lyra abandoned the journal for a moment to chase after her. She had no words of comfort—she didn't know what was going on after all—but the questions were swarming. This time she would have answers, even if she had to pry Moondancer's mouth open.
Moondancer had not run back to the house. She had collapsed a little ways from the shack. She lay on the ground, resembling a pitiful lump. Her hooves were pressed over her eyes. But Moondancer's hooves could not hold back the angry tears flowing down her face.
Lyra risked putting a hoof on Moondancer's back. She was surprised—and worried—when this affectionate gesture wasn't met with an outburst.
“What's going on?” said Lyra. “What was Spike talking about?”
Now that she saw Moondancer in such an unfortunate state, her determination had ebbed. She did not feel comfortable pressing Moondancer, even if it might give her the answers she was chasing.
Fortunately, Moondancer had grown tired of maintaining her silence. The words came bursting out of her like somepony had popped a cork.
“The Moon Sickness,” she said.
The name held no significance for Lyra. She expected it to immediately call upon some buried memory, but the words instead just sat in her brain. She forced herself to hold back, to not prompt in any way.
“I thought it was a story,” said Moondancer. “It was a story. But then...the more I researched...”
She shook her head. She wasn't miserable. She was angry, mostly at herself and how many things she'd missed. Moondancer's failures were lining up in front of her, ready to be judged by her discerning eye.
“You should read the rest of the journal,” she said. “I'm sure you'll get a better explanation than I could ever provide.”
Lyra didn't want to leave Moondancer by herself, but her curiosity was too much. She reluctantly went back to the shack. She trusted Moondancer to stay where she was or go back to the house. She wanted to believe that she hadn't made a mistake by leaving her.
Lyra reopened the journal and quickly found where she had left off. Her heart rate having increased, she continued her journey through Spike's cryptic memories.
A few more blank pages followed. Had these pages once contained something? Perhaps photographs or newspaper clippings? If so, they had been taken out a long time ago.
Finally, Lyra found a page that contained something of interest. It was a terrible drawing of what seemed to be the journal itself. On the cover was a square that might have been meant to represent a photograph. But there had certainly been no photograph on the journal when Lyra had found it.
I'll keep it, the drawing was captioned.
Who had stolen the—assumed—photograph? Fleur? No, she would have taken the whole journal. Somepony else must have stripped the journal. But why would they bother?
Maybe they suspected somepony would find it, Lyra thought. Maybe those photographs and whatever else were too valuable. So valuable even this level of security wasn't enough.
Lyra couldn't even begin to imagine what could be that valuable.
There was another blank page, followed by an entire page dominated by the same sentence written in lowercase letters: The music.
This was followed by two more blank pages. Then Lyra came across yet another page covered with terrible but decipherable drawings.
Spike had drawn more claws. But these were more detailed, as if he'd realized his mistake. Lyra could see a distinct difference from drawing to drawing. It looked as if Spike was drawing his own claws in varying states of decay. They seemed to be steadily rotting from the center outward. The final drawing depicted the claws practically falling apart as if they were made of paper.
The next page was filled with writing that was completely illegible. Lyra could not make sense of any of it, regardless of how much she squinted at the page.
Most of the pages following were about the same. The writing could not be read and there were no drawings. It was simply page after page of Spike's unfortunate attempts at putting his thoughts or memories to paper.
At some point, Spike seemed to give up on writing. Lyra flipped past a long stretch of pages that were completely blank. This time she was sure there were meant to be photographs, newspaper clippings, or something of equal importance on each of those pages. She even saw a tiny piece of white paper she assumed to be the remnant of some photo that had been torn from the journal.
Eventually, Lyra made it to the last page. She'd expected it to be blank, but to her surprise it was filled with writing. However, it was not Spike's writing. It seemed somepony else had taken over his journal. Several sentences and even entire paragraphs had been aggressively crossed out.
Hello. I am (name violently crossed out) and this is my confession.
I willingly and knowingly performed an act of magic that caused (crossed out). Despite my assurance in the morality of (crossed out), I still consider it a grave sin that I (crossed out). I am not writing this to ease my guilt over what I have done. I suspect it will haunt me for the rest of my life. However, I wish to express my most sincere apologies. I know ponies will be hurt by my (crossed out). They will be hurt in ways they cannot understand. I consider what I did for the greater good, yet I know some ponies might not see it that way. Once I finish writing down what I have done, I will deliver this confession straight to (crossed out) in the hopes it will be preserved. Some ponies will undoubtedly know exactly what I have done, although they may not trust their memories.
(entire paragraph crossed out)
In conclusion, I can only offer a sincere apology. I might have been just in my actions, but I am fully aware of how I have effectively torn the fabric of reality and disrupted the flow of time. I will spend the rest of my life regretting (crossed out). I believe that in itself is a fitting punishment, albeit I will not object if something more suitable comes along.
(entire paragraph crossed out)
Forgive me if you feel I deserve it.
Lyra ran a hoof over the final page.
“I know what you did,” she said.
She didn't truly remember, but some locked and bolted part of her brain knew. Tears stung her eyes as emotion bubbled to the surface. She wished she could understand. Lyra also wished she could forget. Truly and completely forget about everything.
Lyra thought about the amnesiac. She thought about Fleur's offer. Was the truth worth more than Bon-Bon? Was it really a choice of heart vs. mind?
She considered all the things Moondancer wouldn't tell her. Her questions were building as quickly as they were being answered. She needed to know everything, but would it be worth it? If there was no Bon-Bon at the end of the road, was anything worth it?
The sweater, Lyra thought.
She massaged her temples, trying to remember every detail. What about her mention of old clothes had set Moondancer off? What had she taken from that? What was Lyra supposed to take from that?
“There was a sweater,” she said aloud. “Just a boring old sweater. It had a design on it, but...but...”
But wasn't that design familiar? She could have sworn she'd seen it somewhere. Somewhere important. But she'd passed over it at the time, because it hadn't been something significant to their mission. Now Lyra was trying to conjure up the most vivid mental picture she could manage. There was something about it. Something.
Lyra almost fell over when she realized. How had she ignored it? How had she allowed her mind to leave it so easily? She'd been a little tired, a little out of it, thinking of other things. But still, nothing should have prevented Lyra from noticing.
“Bon-Bon's cutie mark,” she breathed.
That sweater had had Bon-Bon's cutie mark on it. It could have meant several things. It could have even meant nothing. But Lyra was tired of second guessing. Once she idea came to her, she took hold of it with both hooves. It was true. It had to be true.
That shack in the middle of nowhere belonged to Bon-Bon. Bon-Bon was the mysterious truthseeker who'd read so many books Lyra had, who'd perhaps followed a few of the same paths Lyra had taken. Perhaps long ago, perhaps a week ago. But it had definitely been Bon-Bon.
So where is she now? Lyra wondered.
She knew the answer before she finished the question. There was only one place Bon-Bon could be.
I can't go there yet, Lyra thought.
It seemed absurd, but she simply couldn't. There was something else she needed to do. She had realized that however she chose to go, Bon-Bon lay at the end of her journey. They would meet, but not before Lyra had taken hold of the complete truth.
Bon-Bon and the truth were not competing against one another. They were equal partners. Lyra had failed to see that because she'd been caught up in what her journey actually meant. She now realized that the truth was—and would always be—the path she should take towards Bon-Bon.
I'll see you soon, she silently vowed.
She would see Bon-Bon soon. But there were some important stops to make.