There’s good and bad news. I’ll start with the bad.

There’s been grave news coming in from the front since my previous entry, news which will no doubt disturb the course of my life in the days and years to come. From the taken position along the Aisne, the position taken through Ashcroft’s treachery, the Germans have gained a significant foothold in French territory. They are now, as I sit writing this, advancing steadily towards Paris. The French command has told the French people to remain calm and in our homes and businesses, but I’ve heard reports from train operators from neighboring towns that Paris is in a state of complete chaos. I do not use this phrase lightly. The facts, as I understand them, point to a simple, unfortunate truth:

Paris is being abandoned.

There’s little to be done, and none of it falls on me to do. If the reports are to be believed, the German line has bulged in the south all the way to Troyes. Reims has already been taken. It has become common opinion that Paris will be in enemy hands within the year. The capital has returned once again to Bordeaux, though I’m sure it won’t matter in a few weeks’ time. This follows through to the good news.

I’ve used my connections from my time in the army to acquire six tickets on a ship to America. I’ve spent the last week convincing my parents to come with me and, after housing a family of Parisian refugees, they’ve come fully to reason.

This family - the Hugos - found me on the train platform here in Tulle trying again to hound the conductor for information. The father, Gérard Hugo, came to me holding his five-year-old daughter in one arm and a suitcase the size of a canoe in the other. Gérard is a clean-shaven man in both face and soul, a born father though only 26 years old, just a year my elder. Not once in my week knowing him has he denoted a word of despair, not a moment of defeat in his eyes. His daughter, Michel, is enamoured with him, of course. Catherine Hugo, mother and wife, is an extraordinary woman, whose strength is unlike any I’ve ever witnessed. She is - as I am - terrified, yet to see this fear takes a true magnifying glass, a detective’s eye, and vanishes whenever Michel is with her, which is almost always. I’ve never seen a more impeccable smile before. It is filled with an understanding of the sorrow of the receiver, but never pity, nor false comfort. Only empathy. She and her husband both saw our grief before we gave even the slightest hint of it.

Needless to say, my parents have developed a great fondness for the Hugos, as have I. Their company has held the walls of our minds upright this week, in the face of our loss of country, and of you, Otto. You would have loved them. Though I don’t pretend to understand the mechanics of this diary, I do hope you’ve been able to experience life outside of its pages, to see the light return to father’s eyes, the color flush back into mother’s cheek, to see my line of sight meet another’s again.

The reason we leave for America is simple. The diary was originally purchased in San Francisco and it is there that I will start my search. What I hope to find I do not know, but the mystery of this little book will not soon reveal itself. There will be a mass exodus from France in the coming weeks as news breaks of the Germans taking Paris, so now is the only time to go. I have spent too much energy gathering this information before anyone else to waste it now.

The world which has opened up to me from these pages, this curse, is unknown to the rest of the Earth. There is certainly a good reason for this. I will not tamper. I will, however, condescend to unravel this diary’s true powers in the coming months, and - if all goes well - use it to destroy Ashcroft and retake France. I truly believe the diary is the sole reason the Germans pushed past the Aisne, which means it alone is responsible for the outcome of the war. If it can manage that, it can manage this. It, and I, have no choice.

I have a mission to complete before we leave this place. I have to find the cabin. I was born on this farm, raised in the forests surrounding it, yet I’ve never seen it. Mother and father never mentioned it, and even if they’d known about it I’m sure they would never have told us children. I’ve tried to tell my parents what information is useful in this diary and keep all that would hurt them to myself, the chief example being this. Perhaps one day they’ll need the truth, the reason why their darling child suddenly became withdrawn, forlorn beyond his years, for I know it helped me. Still, now is not the time. I must find the cabin. I must confirm what Otto said before I tell them. I’ll venture out today and be back by sundown. The ship leaves on the 4th and we need time to get to the coast, so I must be swift.

Adam, I direct this next paragraph to you.

I’ve said before I know nothing of the inner workings of the curse, of this diary, so I can’t comprehend your present abilities, but I want to ask a favor of you. If there is a way, any way at all, to guide me to the correct destination, to lead me down the right path, or to stop me from following false leads, please, for the sake of my country, find some way to communicate it to me. I go across the Atlantic completely blind with nothing but the name of a city to start my journey. Help me. I open myself to the type of writing this diary makes people capable of, the sort of ghost writing both the German Otto and mine have become vessels to. I want to become a vessel. Guide my hand to give me direction. The fate of the world is in my hands. Use them.

There’s a stretch of forest to the north where I know oleander grows. I’ll go there first. With any luck I’ll find the cabin straight away and be back by lunch. Either way you’ll know about it.