My apologies for the hiatus. For some time there, I found myself in a very... particular situation. It would seem that, regardless of any embellishment that may have been done, Rose's story was very much based in reality. I visited the city myself, you see.
Not willingly, mind you. I realized something was wrong in my last post. This is because I had started to see ever-shifting shadows without casters, doors that seemed to open to places other than where they should have lead. It was when one of the shadows began to speak that I knew something was seriously wrong.
"Open the door, James Templeton," it said. "Any will do. All roads lead to Rome."
I stared at the shadow, certain I was hallucinating and that the encounter I'd had with the pale woman so long ago was finally driving me wholly insane.
"If you don't go to the city, we'll break you," said another shadow, this one from behind myself. "We'll rearrange your head and take out everything we don't want in there. It's very tempting."
I opened my bedroom door. It was not my bedroom that lay beyond it, but a city, tall and dark and looming. A place filled with shadows and dark corners. It was impossibly cold there. I stepped out into the darkness of the city, and when I looked back, the door, and the rest of my home, were gone.
The city gave me whatever I needed. Food, water, shelter. All of it, that is, except companionship. I was only able to remain sane because I found a dog there which I named Fenrir, and even then, sane is a relative term. I frankly cannot say how Fenrir survived. I never saw him eat any food or drink any water except when I offered him my food. Perhaps the city makes you immortal, and it was only for the sake of keeping up appearances that I kept finding bakeries with fresh bread and hot coffee and diners with hot soup and fresh sandwiches.
I could not say. One way or another, though, I am gone. Another door opened, and it led me home.
But I do not feel like I am gone. I still see the shadows follow me. Perhaps my last visit was too short for their liking. I still think of the Pale Maiden and the sister she took from me.
Or, at any rate, I believe she did. When I tried to find the book in which I read of Rose Templeton, I could not.
I was unable to find information on it even when I still had it in my possession. Did it ever even exist? If it did, how rational is it to connect a work of fiction to my own life on the basis of a shared name, a similar appearance, and a visit to a strange city?
If there are answers, I cannot find them. I fear I never will.
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