The Monarch Papers is a series of journals written by Sullivan Green. There are five known volumes.
Description[]
The Monarch Papers are magimystical journals penned by Sullivan Green some forty years before Deirdre's arrival in New York City. The books contain a record of Sullivan's journey to magiqal discovery, following three paths that ultimately unlocked a magical world to him. Deirdre was the one who decided to call the books The Monarch Papers, in honor of her father and his journals[1].
In "In Air," Sullivan describes the three magiqal paths he had taken to try to reach his own enlightenment. Two groups knew that magiq had been stripped from the world, and set paths so that anyone with enough drive to seek magiqal potential could follow them. However, after failing to find what he sought at both paths, he made his own. According to Sullivan:
“…at the end of both roads nothing but silence and ruin. Roads that, at one time in history, were walked by those who sought the truth. But when I walked them I found those who built them were no longer waiting at the end. And hadn’t been for quite some time. It wasn’t until years later that I found what I believe to be the truth and now I leave it safe at the end of this new road. For you.” [2]
History[]
Volume One[]
Volume one was sent to Deirdre in "What to Do" by Aunt Monica. The journal had been hidden in Monica's attic until then, after Deirdre asked her if she remembered anything about Sullivan[3].
During Phase Two, Deirdre was unable to make out the writing in the journal, seeing only what she described in Happy Feelings as 'the chaos of a fractured mind.' The journal initially contained map points to Bernard Sleigh's Fairyland[4], as well as images of the psyche[5], and an animal story used to navigate the map[6].
During Phase Three, Deirdre was finally able to fully read the contents of the journal[7]. In the journal, Sullivan revealed the truth of his travels to Deirdre, stating that he was following a hundreds year old journey tracking down pieces of art that would lead to a magiqal truth. Deirdre herself began following the trail, finding more and more hints to a new piece of art. As she traveled Sullivan's path, she found the clues also depended on her emotional state, as well[8].
Volume Two[]
The status of Volume Two is currently unknown. Some Mountaineers have posited that Volume Two was stolen from Sullivan Green's deposit box in Switzerland[9], but the truth of the journal's whereabouts is unknown.
Volume Three[]
Volume Three of the Monarch Papers was discovered by The Cagliostro and sent to his apprentice, Lauren Ellsworth, as a test of her magiqal ability. As Lauren unlocked new parts of the journal, she uploaded them onto The Cagliostro's databases[10]. The journal would unlock based on the time period and after the journal had been exposed to the elements[11]. The journal ultimately led to the Ackerly-Green Book Seven Cradle Songs and included a note to reverse the spell that had hidden Deirdre from magiq.
Neithernor[]
The Monarch Papers: Neithernor was discovered by Deirdre and Cole in "M. Grey Ackerly." The journal, combined with the chronocompass, allowed Deirdre to explore parts of Neithernor that led her to casting magiq and discovering The Little Red House. Each of the journal entries was unlocked in various areas around Neithernor, as well as a select few areas in New York City.
Hidden Volume[]
A hidden volume of the Monarch Papers was discovered by Deirdre in Orvin Wallace's office, after the Book of Briars was unlocked. Sullivan had requested that Orvin burn the book, but Orvin couldn't bear to, calling it the true ending to the Monarch Papers[12]. Deirdre transcribed part of the first page, which read "It is the end of the 19th century. Your name is Sullivan Green. That might not seem familiar now, but with this book you’ll hopefully soon remember most of who you are, and your purpose. You don’t belong here. You were swept away in a storm, from another place and time. But it was your choice to go. And now I will tell you why. It’s time to wake up[13]." According to Orvin, Sullivan had sacrificed himself to the Storm, allowing him to be exchanged in time so that he could see his plan through. The journal was intended to remind Sullivan who he was after the Storm's powers would make him forget.
It was later revealed that parts of the pages found in Fragment Thirteen were journal entries written by a stormswept Sullivan:
| “ | I wake in the room of a hospital. Gray buildings loom outside the grime-stained window. I am in the city again. How? What do I last remember? Sand. Ships half-buried in it, bows pointing to the silver sun. A hand, outstretched, calling for me. A welcome. I had walked to far into those woods that I found the sea. A strange green sea where all manner of mast and man had washed ashore. People dressed in bygone fashions and others wearing clothes from what must have been times yet to come. A shore where time was as ever-changing as the great great sea itself. And then a voice called to me. From the dark world I left. How had they found me? Had I not wandered far enough into my new world. They called me by my name.
A name I thought I’d left in the dead gray city along with all the memories of my life before wonder. I stepped into the sand but felt a hand on my shoulder. And somehow the sea and the shore of times intermixed and began to fade away. As if someone had drawn a curtain down over it. A curtain painted with the mundane world I thought I had escaped. A girl found me walking in a dry river bed, unable to hear or see her. She went to the farmer who employed me. In my cabin they found the name of a doctor in New York City whose care I had been in before I ventured to the green world, and then beyond. The doctor who listened to my fractured recollections. Of other worlds. And other lives. The doctor knew my name. He’d been the one who drew me back from what he tried to explain were nothing more than imaginings. That all I had seen and heard, tasted,and touched, had been inside my sundered mind. I fought with all my will against that thought. It could not have been a dream. I had found a world so wondrous it was beyond any man’s ability to conjure, least of all mine. But his insistence worked its way in me and now I am here in the city again. Withered. The doctor speaks my name as if it were an anchor keep me from drifting away again. He has cursed me. I can not see the wondrous world. Only gray. I ask to be left alone. To forget. To sleep until I do not wake again, because I have remembered something. I’ve remembered that this place holds untold loss for me. A loss so profound that I beg sleep to sweep me away. But this morning the doctor brings me a box. Inside is what I left behind when I first escaped the city. He tells me I have a life that is worth fighting to find again. My purpose is to discover what happened, what split me, and how to mend myself once again. Inside, a flannel shirt and billfold. Trousers made of strange material. He remarks that the shoes are odd, with soles like indian with soles possibly rubber, fashioned in another country. Perhaps I am from another land, he wonders. I nod. But as I hold all the things I left behind, my clothing, my shoes, my watch, a new truth behind to grow inside my breast. I am here in the gray but my vision has opened something inside me. I can see now that my heart has drifted on the great green sea of time. I don’t belong here, as i have long suspected. Who I am and what I am here to do behind to crash against me all at once. I have somehow drifted onto the edge of another era with magic in my heart and a great purpose only now awakening, pulling me toward shore. Not another land, my doctor. I have sailed here from another time. |
” |
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ https://ackerlygreen.com/2018/03/13/the-ackerly-green-update-march-2018/
- ↑ http://www.deedsdone.co.uk/2017/04/14/in-air/
- ↑ http://www.deedsdone.co.uk/2016/12/01/the-recent-past-comes-calling/
- ↑ http://www.deedsdone.co.uk/2016/12/15/what-to-do/
- ↑ http://www.deedsdone.co.uk/2016/12/22/happy-feelings/
- ↑ http://www.deedsdone.co.uk/2016/12/13/out-of-sync/
- ↑ http://www.deedsdone.co.uk/2017/03/22/the-monarch-papers/
- ↑ http://www.deedsdone.co.uk/2017/04/17/adoration/
- ↑ http://www.deedsdone.co.uk/2017/01/12/reframing/
- ↑ http://forum.basecamp33.com/t/the-cagliostro/282/5
- ↑ http://forum.basecamp33.com/t/the-cagliostro/282/68
- ↑ http://forum.basecamp33.com/t/fragment-sixteen-the-book-of-briars/1518/221
- ↑ http://forum.basecamp33.com/t/fragment-sixteen-the-book-of-briars/1518/249