[Oh. Well. Xanth is especially glad it's looking like Claudia's wrong - that sounds extremely unpleasant.]

A-A... a while. Th-they showed up th-this-- this morning.

[For a while, he thought they were ink smudges. For a while longer, he couldn't muster up the effort to make an entry.]

B-But they-- they never h-hurt, even when they s-started a-- appearing...