The Briar Archive

Epigraph

October 19, 1986

This is working. I can feel it. I knew if I found the right things in the right order, I could make it work. I find the path in the book and it unlocks something—

I wish I knew who left it—

—then I could make my own lock, my own door. It has to be complicated. It has to have moving parts. That’s how you do it.

That’s how you make magic. It’s words, it’s ideas, it’s all around us. What we think is every day stuff holds power. I just have to decide how it works.

I have to go on using the space between things and all these ideas to collect everything. That’s what magic is. There is no empty space.

I can’t tell anyone. Not now. But I’m going to leave this behind so other people can find me. Leave a trail to the truth. It’s not fair to keep it all to myself. But right now, I have to do it on my own.

Brandon Lachmann, eleven-years-old. Twelve Days Before he disappeared.