Chapter Text
201X, October 31st
Dear Diary,
Finally! It's Halloween! Our fav holiday and all the things we want. This year the haul was good, Zia Hazel and Uncle Frank already sent us a large tub of tasty things from Bombilo’s and Tía Reyna found a way to send us fresh farturas and some piragua syrup. Sadly, we weren't allowed to have the farturas T^T Will said we are already getting enough sweets as it is and that is very unhealthy and that later when we go Trick or Treating we’ll get even more.
Jealousy thinks he was lying tho. We saw him sneaking the fresh farturas over to Mama when he thought we weren't looking, which is okay because Mama is pregnant and his appetite comes and goes. Plus Will’s been making a lot of chocolate pancakes lately (Mama has very real cravings for them at all times even if he sometimes ruins them by deciding to pour Tabasco all over them too but Will says not to worry because pregnancy cravings are often weird).
Will is very worried about Mama these days. Apparently Mama wasn't supposed to be able to be pregnant because he “doesn't have the right anatomy” for it but that can't be true because Mama was pregnant with us and gave birth to us without an issue (even if he had to get help from Father [several curse words have been viciously scribbled over]). Will says this is different because Mama is currently pregnant with a human baby (who are apparently very different from Cocoa Puffs) and that Will is the father and he can't help in the ways that Father can. (We aren't sure if we believe that. Will is too nice to be a father and he loves Mama and takes great care of him and of us. (Even if he makes us eat disgusting things like kale))
We hope Uncle Jason will come visit at some point today (he often brings us cinnamon buns when he does) but Halloween is always busy for him. Not as bad as our side tho.
Mama always has to work really hard around Halloween. (Nonno always complains too, we never get to stay with him or Persefoni Persephoni Persefone during this time, not even before when Mama was allowed to shadow-travel).
This year it seems even worse. Uncle Al practically disappeared as soon as the leaves started changing color (Mama says Ecate Hecate has chosen Uncle Al as her main ‘heir’ so she loves saddling him with all sorts of jobs, including the management of her school). Uncle Clovis came early this morning (he dropped off some strange bag of small dark things that kinda looked like pepper but smelled much nicer) but he too left soon after to assist Hypnos with things. (It is confusing. Hypnos is our half brother but Hypnos is also Clovis’s father. But Hypnos is too nice to be a father too! Not as nice as Will but he still helped Mama! Does that make Clovis our nephew? But Mama and Will always pull funny faces when we say that, they prefer when Uncle Clovis is referred to as our Uncle (by respect) instead of Nephew (by ichor) which makes sense. Nephew Clovis sounds horrible.)
Even Mama had to go off to the Underworld to help Nonno and Persefone. Mama had to summon the chauffeur and we overheard him and Will discussing whether to use the Door of Orpheus again or the main entrance in L.A. and were still arguing by the time Aunty Lina came over to babysit us. (We think the strange pepper-like things were a bribe for her because her face lit up immediately upon seeing them). Mama and Will left soon after, still arguing, so we don't know what they decided but we hope they chose the Door of Orpheus again. It would be so cute and romantic and they haven't had a proper date night in so long! (Both of them are so busy all the time. Mama doesn't work in the mortal world but his prince duties at the Palace are not easy and Will is doing something called ‘eggs-ham preparation’ which sounds very tasty but is apparently very hard and stressful and he needs to do it in order to become a doctor. (We don't understand, Will is already a doctor (the best one we know) but Mama says it's mortal law and to not worry about it). Oh! Mama and Will also help out at both camps when they can too. So yes. Zero free time. Uncle Leo joked that they must have had some if they found the time to make a baby, which we didn't get but also didn't have the chance to ask about before Aunty Piper whacked him over the back of the head.)
Aunty Lina is fun tho. Normally she’d be busy too but she doesn't live in America and her duties are confined to her original land so it's fine. Mama and Will don't dare leave us alone yet or supervised by somebody who can't shadow-travel or otherwise sense ‘chthonic energy’ so around Halloween their options are very limited. We’re happy Aunty Lina accepted! She even used the strange pepper-like thing (turns out they are poppy seeds!) to make some nice cakes for us. They are currently baking and they smell amazing! They smell so good we ended up asking her if they were similar to the funny brownies Will sometimes bakes for Mama and Aunty Lina laughed so hard part of her spine sprung out of her skin and we had to help her pop it back in.
She even let us watch some TV!!! The movie was about some vampire hotel run by Dracula. It wasn't very scary or creepy or anything like that but it had a love story between a human guy that kinda looked like Will and Dracula’s vampire daughter. In the second movie we watched right after they even had a human baby! Sadly, it didn't show how the baby appeared so we still don't know how that works but it was definitely a half-human baby! So it was very helpful. Even Aunty Lina watched a bit of it with us once she had finished preparing her Pickled Bones and fixing the blood embroidery of her work-uniform.
She had brought over some pumpkin pastry with walnuts and honey and it was super tasty and delicious but so sweet we knew we could never tell Will about it. (Tho it turns out we worried for nothing because she had already given some to Mama to offset the Underworld effects of his trip today. Lina is very silly at times but even she worries about Mama’s pregnancy and honestly it's kinda scary now. Everybody is very happy, and Mama has been practically glowing ever since he found out about the pregnancy but if everybody, including Lina, is so worried about it… It's kinda scary. Mama won’t die of course, everybody now kinda knows that he’ll basically be working for Nonno as a prince full-time, and Will will go with him (so yay we won’t miss out on Will either!!!) but Mama likes the mortal world so much and he is friends with a lot of people that won’t be able to visit unless they permanently join Erebus too. Plus Mama would be devastated if something happened to the baby. He thinks we don’t know but a lot of us (Loneliness, Sadness and Grief mainly) have been absolutely inconsolable at night. Mama keeps having nightmares about it and he basically doesn’t use his powers anymore because he’s too worried about affecting the magic of the baby. He calms down only once Will starts hugging him and whispering stuff to him but we don’t know what that is because they chase us off to sleep soon after.
Another thing: we still haven’t chosen a gift for their wedding T^T. The date is coming closer and closer (ideally they want to have it before the baby is born which they seem to think should take around 9 months in total because that’s apparently what happens to girls but Mama is not a girl >.<
They still need a wedding gift tho and we have no idea what it will be. Mama says he’d be happy with anything we do as long as it’s from the heart (for some reason Will looked like he would cry when he heard that) but we still want it to be something nice!
Maybe we should ask Lina? She knows all sorts of things!
[ The rest of the page is covered in poppy seeds and cake crumbs. They can’t be removed no matter what ]