A Victorian Tale: A Puppet Masters' of Time Novel

6. Dear Diary...

It feels odd writing here after all my other times have been about silly things. Things from this world. Not being able to get the perfect stitching on another embroidery piece my mother had set me to. My brother's tendency to use his slingshot to throw things at my window or my person. Silly things. Like my mother, always worried that I'd waited too long to enter society and that I shall never marry because of it. Such silly, ridiculous things.

I tried the first time I met Tetros. But my words didn't seem to flow as much as they do now. When I was fifteen, I was too prone to disappointment and as he didn't come back despite my frequent trips there, my rose-colored glasses came off. I must confess I do think I might have had a small fancy for him. My fifteen-year-old self was naïve.

Yet, I find myself excited, excited enough to try once more to write on these pages my feelings about the portal, as he calls it, opening up. I think part of me thought I had been a bit mad, that the dreams I had were just make-believe, but when I met Tetros, everything I had built around me fell apart. I was confused, because not only were my memories restored, but I felt cheated from those happy times when I was a child. I had missed those memories.

Life isn't fair. Women in my world have to marry in order to have any sort of life, at least according to the general public. That is true. My mother believes it is so, that my only goal should be to find a rich husband and produce him an heir. But I've never wanted that. I've never understood why that was asked of me. But I had no choice. I had no other choices ahead of me.

Then Tetros and the "letters'' as I've fondly come to call them. They give me something other than the life that has already been laid out for me. They give me a decision. I could never reply back again, and that would be my own action to take. It feels wonderful having just that one thing that is absolutely and completely mine and no one else (at least in my world). The 'telegram' messages are safely hidden within the last pages of this diary. I won't allow myself to believe it all a dream again. I shall not fall back into the puppet that I was.

Tetros refined the way the machine works, so now we can have an almost full conversation.

His world sounds fascinating, all that technology. He has told me it all comes with a price though, the poor are taken advantage of as a low-paid workforce for the numerous factories of his city. Yet despite how bad the price might seem, I can't seem to shake the feeling of how wondrous his world sounds. I wish I could go there and see it for myself. It sounds like an intelligent kind of place, a brand-new world. One is not so strictly regulated by the rules of society wives. Ah, yes I have not mentioned, I have entered into society. I made my debut shortly after my birthday.

I "turned heads" according to my mother. She was beaming with happiness, talking to all the other mothers, pointing at me, "That's my daughter."

I wish I could have her proud of me regardless of how beautiful in the white muslin I'd looked. It shouldn't still hurt, for this is how it's always been. I know she still loves me in her own way. I should be happy. I've at last achieved the sort of reputation she's always dreamed of for me but it all seems so empty. All I can feel is regret.

Sincerely A Trapped Debutante,

Calliope