I'm finally all packed, and the car is ready. I haven't seen Thom in a while, but he'll turn up eventually. I have written notes to all of my teachers explaining why I'll be gone this week and probably next, and I've calculated the travel time from main campus in SoCal to upstate New York. I've also packed all of the essentials for a mug of hot chocolate every day for the next month.
I'm sort of sad that I'll be missing Hallowe'en, but based on what @Alexander and @Gretel have told me, it would be better to stay away from areas with condensed psychic energy, and I always trust sybils. Oh yeah, I should probably bring a lit jack-o-lantern so the roaming souls know they can rest well.
Thinking about Hallowe'en gets me all excited. I'm craving candied apples and soul cakes. Mmm.
Omega is also sad to see me go. I almost had my first real fight with him! I told him that there would be no room for him in the Jeep, with all of my stuff. He said he was a shape-shifter, and therefore could shrink to a smaller size. I told him this was my soul quest, and he pointed out that I didn't have a soul, at which point I explained that I really wanted to be alone for this trip. He said okay, I understand, and was very sincere. That was a close one. He told me to write every day, though.
Well, I'll have to get up at an ungodly hour tomorrow, so I might as well go to sleep now. Until then!
-პ

Day 1

I woke up at 3:05 to get dressed and ready. Thom was still missing. As the sun broke through the trees I was already on my way to Stop #1: Perry, Iowa. There a very quiet motel awaits me, where no one will question why a high school student is without parents or guardians. Currently I sit at a tranquil truck stop, writing. I found Thom, who decided to hide in the Jeep.
As soon as I finish sipping my cocoa, I shall continue my trek. The skies are now fading from orange to purple.

Day 1

The sun set slowly as I got back into my Jeep. Making it in this cruel mortal world has become an indefinite challenge. A grown man mistook me for an attractive twenty-something and started to approach me. I turned away and flipped my hair, but it did no good. I had to get in my car and escape from him, then sneak back to the motel. Heart fluttering, I realized I had survived my first adult experience. I am not ready for this.
Thom is really enjoying being off campus, as am I. The crack of dawn is the day we leave Perry, and as much as I enjoy the silence, I will be glad to get out of this town.
I've been informed via a series of side-whispers from a fedora-clad gentleman to avoid garden gnomes, there's a big one in Ames and they tend to get a little murderous this season. I shall heed his advice, I am not one to easily reject a fedora.
The sky today was blue and purple. Green leaves were scattered about in a most appetizing way.

Day 3

I decided to cheat, given that I wanted to be at the castle as soon as possible. I hovered my car in an impromptu slingshot and flung it to Maryland, where the speed limit laws are a little more relaxed. By dark (for in New York it is fifteen of nine when in California it is fifteen of six), I had made it to the feet of the Catskill Mountains. I now sit, looking at the stars, and wondering which will be my resting place one day when I can no longer roam this Earth.
If @Alexander or @Kayla May want ghost tips, they can come to me, because I can commune with souls, and ghosts are souls wandering the Earth like I do.
Speaking of, I should probably visit a pumpkin patch before Saturday.
I will be at the castle by tomorrow.

Day 4, 5, 6

I made it to the castle.
I entered, and immediately mold and mildew filled my lungs. "What better place to be for All Soul's Day," I thought to myself.
I unrolled the bedroll in an abandoned bedroom with chipped green paint. I arranged my belongings so the room looked more homely, then I rolled up my sleeves and got the paint buckets out.
Having applied an even amount of maroon paint to the room, I decided to explore the castle. After all, the only smell worse than mold is fresh paint.
These grounds are beautiful! I have spent days and nights wandering them. I put candles in every window, and the transformation is magical! Thom seems to be at home, here. I think that he thinks he is royalty!
Hallowe'en is tonight and I have lit my jack-o-lantern to tell all of these poor lost souls they may rest tonight. Why, here's one now! I think. It's not really saying anything, though, and it hasn't moved a lot, which is unlike a lost soul of its size. Oh, I bet it's been locked in this closet forever! Poor thing, Thom and I will help you out of here.
*bright flash*
*thud*
Oof. I figured out why that soul wouldn't talk much. It's not a soul, it's a dimensional bridge.

Day 7, I think

This place is like a big maze, I thought as I clutched my knee, which I seem to have fallen on. It started in a glass dome full of boxes stamped with "DOS-" and then a few numbers. I accidentally fell down a hole while I was trying to figure out what was making that white noise. It wasn't a very big fall but it took me by surprise.
I made it down lower into the earth and found a big meeting room. Four cavities ready to hold something important were in the corners of the room. On the screen of the projector was a headline: "Making the Domain of 'Silence' Silent." It was a campaign slogan, but by who- aw crap, it was MORMO. Well, I figured, if that's the only way to get back, it's what I'll do. Four hallways branched from the room. I took one and found a pulsing white light.
I touched it and found myself underground again, but I could only see so far. I took a step forward, and more of my surroundings were exposed. After exploring for a while, I discovered I was in a cave in the middle of winter. As I navigated the tubes, I found another meeting room, this time with a map of the world and pinpoints on it. Aha! MORMO's headquarters! I snapped a picture of it.
I saw bright blinking above the cave as I stepped above the surface. This will require some jumping, I thought as I began to do so.

Day... Oh, I lost count

As soon as I grabbed the portal, I jumped back to the world of static. In one corner of the room, the cavity held the portal I just stepped through. Next hallway brought me a green, flashing light.
Soon I was in the ruins of a river town. Oh, how magnificent! But I knew I could not stay long. I had a job to do, and I wanted to get back before I had to start calculating trans-dimensional time change. And I'm getting used to this jumping thing.
Maybe I should stay a little bit more. My psy-senses are tingling, and I still have a paper to write. When I inspected the insides of the buildings, I found a mix of ancient art and futuristic technology. An artist's dream! Looking in some of the journals, I figured out the universal coordinates (AZ-6012:53). I decided to keep the journals for posterity, and my essay.
The architecture was fabulous! I felt as though I had stepped into an Italian valley. And there was a contraption that carried water up from where it had collected at the bottom of a waterfall and brought it back up to the top. Ah, a decoration that uses inertia and reuses water. Genius! But I did not know what lay on the other side of the lift. So I navigated the maze of this world and was lifted up and then I slid down the waterfall to the other side.
On discovering the cogs that kept the lift in time, I also realized I could not easily get back to the other side. Ah, well. I can see the bridge back anyway.
I jumped through to return to the meeting room.

Two out of four orbs had been retrieved. I was then faced with the other two portals.
They were polar opposites. Just like the first, the more I walked around the more I discovered. But in one, MORMO had me playing in the remains of a dinosaur. The other had me ascending the stairs to heaven. Both were over quickly, on account of the fact that I wanted to get out quickly. And both felt surreal, almost two dimensional. It's funny that such concepts as death and The Afterlife could be seen that way.
And then I found myself in that conference room again. But it was different. The cavities were filled with the same blue orbs that brought me back. And above the static was a whirring buzz, overwhelming the room in cacophony.
The tabletop began to expel another orb, this one every color imaginable all at once. Time to go home.
I grabbed the ball and was pulled around and around until the pressure made me fall in. My head spun and the static was disappearing and one word shouted in my brain over and over and then with a thump I was back in the closet. I looked at Thom through the wall of stale closet air and said, "I had better write that down!"
I always write down my dreams, and at first I though that was what I was writing about. But when I reached into my pockets I found two journals.
The echoing word was SILENCE.

Tomorrow I will go home. I'll be spending a ton of time in the S-AL. I need time to think.

Today, I will take a moment to evaluate what I know.
My name is Pearline.
I read souls.
It is Tuesday.
I am not at home.

Oh! but I would like to introduce you to souls I met. I kind of had an AA seminar with many of them. Here is my favorite story.
Her name is Aldena Skelton. She has been dead for seventy years. She died when she was twenty-five. She was a psychic healer, and was killed in a freak accident while hiking. She says she is a ghost because she died while trying to heal someone, but she never finished.
Souls tell stories. An alchemist who was power hungry. Death by a broken heart. And that is why I am glad to have my ability.
I think I've had enough meditation for one day. Time for hot chocolate.