by M. Verano
So at this point I’m like, okay, the kid had a bad dream, thought he saw something scary in his room. Typical little kid stuff, though Logan isn’t so little anymore—I don’t think kids are supposed to be seeing monsters in the closet at his age. But hell, everyone in this household is on edge these days. So I’m like, “It’s okay, Logan, I’ll go back to your room with you and show you there is nothing wrong with your walls. It’s probably just a shadow or a water stain or something.”
He seems cool with this, so I take his hand and we go over to his room and I look around quickly and I’m like, “See? No one in here. Perfectly safe.” And he doesn’t say anything, he just . . . points. Toward the wall, which is different from mine, he has wood paneling in his room, where I just have plaster. So I walk over to where he’s pointing and I’m like, whatever, these are just normal swirls in the wood, but then I get closer and . . . it’s weird, because suddenly I can see it. It really does look like there is some kind of writing in the paneling.
But if it’s writing, I should be able to read it, right? But I can’t, exactly. It’s like, if I glance at it askew, I get a sense that there are words there, but when I look at it directly, they lose all definition and it doesn’t even look like proper letters. Although maybe in another language? Like Arabic or something? Or symbols of some kind?
But what it’s really like is dream writing—you know, when you’re dreaming and you pick up a book or look at a sign and you know there are words there, but they swirl and run together and writhe on the page and you can’t make them resolve into actual language? I used to always use this trick to tell if I was dreaming—if I thought I was, I’d pick up a newspaper or something, and if I couldn’t read it, I knew I was in a dream.
But this isn’t a dream. Right?
I couldn’t send Logan to bed after that. Hell, I wouldn’t sleep in his room after that (not to mention the annoying buzzing noise in there that always makes my head ring). Instead I asked him if he wanted to watch TV, and I took him downstairs to the living room and put on a movie for him. And I got my laptop and now I am keeping him company, or maybe he is keeping me company, because I sure as hell am not going to sleep anymore tonight.
Oh, I guess I never finished my story from before. So yeah, the punchline is that all seven of the stupid taillights that came are for the wrong side of the car. That seemed funnier an hour ago.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 5:04 P.M.
Flies: Bigger? I’m not sure. Qualitative measures are a bit hard to judge, especially when I don’t have the specimens side by side. I wonder if I should start capturing and storing flies, for purposes of comparison.
Wow, I really am losing it. Who knew there was such a thin line between “scientist” and “batshit insane”?
Spiders: 10 since last time
I told Chloe about the words in the wall and she was like, whoa, that’s so cool! You have to show me. So I guess that’s a thing.
I was annoyed at first, because I’m really worried about Logan and this seemed like a pretty traumatic experience for him. I mean, it’s not a joke. And then, hell, I’ll admit it, I was pretty freaked out too—I don’t even have to sleep in that room, but I see those words behind my eyelids as I’m drifting off to sleep most nights now, and let me tell you, it’s unsettling.
So I was kind of pissy with Chloe about it at first, and not interested in hearing her stupid goth enthusiasm for everything spooky, as if this was some Halloween theme park run by the local church or something, rather than our actual lives. But even though I was kind of moody about it, she kept pressing for more details and descriptions, and wouldn’t let it drop, and . . . well, I guess her enthusiasm is kind of infectious, because after a while I got into telling the story, and I got excited about bringing her home to show her. She was telling me about these websites where people post pictures of this kind of thing—messages from the beyond or whatever—and she said most of them are either really dumb looking, like you can’t see anything at all, or else they are so obviously edited by some troll just looking for attention. And I wound up kind of excited about sharing this weird experience with the world.
On the one hand . . . I don’t really want anything in my life to support the idea that I live in a haunted house. I just don’t need that. But on the other . . . well, it seems less scary and more fun when a whole bunch of other people are invested in the question too.
I just hope I can sell Logan on the idea.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 11:16 P.M.
Flies: About the same
Spiders: 9
Is Logan’s advice working? It’s definitely not making the flies and spiders go away. Is it helping me deal with them? I don’t know. A little, I guess. Counting them at least gives me something to occupy my mind when I start to freak out.
I’ve been sweeping out the spiderwebs whenever I see them, but it doesn’t seem to do any good. And I’m not sure everyone else in the house is totally supportive of my efforts.
I get that Logan’s not freaked out by spiders like I am, which is good for him, I wouldn’t wish this annoying phobia on anyone, but . . . sometimes I think his interest is more than purely scientific.
Like lately, I don’t know if I’m just imagining it, or if my mind is playing tricks on me, but it seems like sometimes I catch him . . . *playing* with the spiders. I don’t know, I’ve never seen anything, not really, and it feels crazy just to say it. It’s just that sometimes I’ll go in his room and he’ll be really quick to usher me out of it. Which is totally normal little brother behavior, and there could be a billion normal things he is hiding in there from me.
But then there were a few times when I saw him, late at night or early in the morning, sitting on the stairs, or on the landing where the stairs turn, and sort of . . . poking around something in a corner. Why would he do that? And when I asked him, he wouldn’t talk about it. But I know there are some holes in that area where the floorboards don’t quite meet, and that’s one of the places where I know I’ve seen spiderwebs that come back even after you’ve swept them away.
And a couple times, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Logan doing something weird with his hands, and I don’t know if I’m just hypersensitive or something, but it looked like he was letting them crawl on him, like, deliberately. And just sort of watching them with this interested look on his face.
But that can’t be. God, where do I come up with this stuff? It’s like I’m actively trying to freak myself out. If I can get the damn Internet to work, I’m going to watch a bunch of kitten videos and try to get this horrible thought out of my head.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 11:52 A.M.
Ugh, I am trying to get in touch with Chloe to figure out when she can come over to look at Logan’s walls, but my texts keep disappearing into the ether. Or else they show up garbled beyond deciphering—just nonsense words and key mash. Though she told me the other day that last week she got six messages from me over the course of an hour and they all said “blood on the tail of the pig.” Haha, what? Where the hell did that come from? Mom would say the universe is trying to tell me something, but damned if I know what.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 3:32 A.M.
It is impossible to get a decent night’s sleep in this house!
I guess I shouldn’t complain, since Logan clearly has it worse than I do. Though between being an insomniac and being woken up from a lovely dream in the middle of the night by your insomniac little brother, I’m not sure which is preferable.
In any case, it was right around 3 a.m. that I woke up to Logan messing around in my room, going through my closet and drawers. I asked him what the hell he was doing, and he just mumbled something. I asked him again and he turned around with a fierce expression, just visible in the moonlight streaming in through the window.
“I’m looking for my game.”
For a minute I couldn’t even answer this, it was so absurd. His video game? That had to be what he meant, but . . . in the middle of the night? And what wo
uld it be doing in my room? It didn’t make any sense. But he didn’t seem concerned with logic.
“I’ve looked everywhere else and I can’t find it. It has to be somewhere. Help me look.”
I got out of bed and crossed the room to him, planning to grab him by the arm and haul him back to his bed, but before I reached him, he gasped in amazement and I stopped short.
“What is it?” I said.
He pulled his hand out of the trunk he’d been rifling in, a trunk I hadn’t even opened since a day or two after the movers brought it, and in his hand was a video game disk.
Surprise was written across his face, and his hand trembled a little, but he was smiling triumphantly none the less. “Yes,” he exclaimed. “I found it! I knew it had to be somewhere.” Then, as he took a closer look, his expression shifted to confusion, and he dove back into the trunk, muttering to himself about how that “couldn’t be right.”
As I watched, he pulled another disk out of the trunk, then another, and another. Finally he sat back on his heels and looked at me. “Monster Party,” he said. “All Monster Party. All I want is my Polybius disk, and instead I find four copies of a game I haven’t played in five years.”
I stared at him mutely. I couldn’t figure out why any of his games would be in my trunk, let alone four copies of one.
Suddenly his face screwed up with rage, and he hurled the games across the room, where they smashed into the wall and fell to the floor.
“What the hell,” was all I could say.
Logan got up and left the room.
SUNDAY, MARCH 1, 5:04 P.M.
I can’t believe we just got another six inches of snow, on top of the three inches we got last week. It’s March! Isn’t it supposed to be spring? Oh right: Idaho. It’s probably never spring here.
It is really pretty, especially the view out my windows over the rolling white hills, but enough is enough already. I’m tired of feeling like a captive in this house. I want to go running again. I want the walk to school not to leave me sore and exhausted. I want it to stop being so damn cold all the time. I want to wear pretty floral dresses and sandals, not sweaters and boots.
Hold on, Logan is freaking out about something. I better see.
Heeeeeeeey, school got called off tomorrow! Logan just told me they announced it on TV. I’ve heard about snow days, but I don’t think it had occurred to me as a thing that might happen in my life. Okay, I guess I don’t mind if winter sticks around a *little* longer.
Nice to see Logan in a good mood, too. And not acting . . . however you’d describe what he’s been like recently. He’s been all right lately. Maybe it’s out of his system.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 7:30 P.M.
Chloe’s over right now. She and Logan are blathering on about occult messages, so I thought I’d update my journal.
She came over tonight for dinner, which was awkward to begin with because Mom didn’t remember even though I reminded her this morning. Not that she minded, but it seemed to throw her off her game a bit—inasmuch as Mom has a “game” at the best of times, which is not much. So she was futzing around in the kitchen, going through her cookbooks and opening and shutting the cabinets absentmindedly as she asked us our plans for the evening. And Chloe immediately starts telling her about the words in the walls, I guess assuming Logan and I had told her about it. Which we had not.
So Chloe’s babbling on about this website and how we’re going to send in some photos, and Mom turns around with this concerned expression, and she’s like, are you sure this is a good idea?
And I try to signal to Chloe to let it drop, but she is so excited she starts describing the website to Mom, and meanwhile Mom’s concern-face is deepening steadily. And finally she sighs and she’s like, “I really don’t think this is a good idea.”
So I’m like, “Aren’t you always saying that the spirit world is nothing to be afraid of?”
And she has to concede this, but she still looks unthrilled. And as she goes back to opening and closing all the cupboards, she lectures us a little vaguely about being respectful toward the dead, and not exploiting the energy in the house for our own personal glory, etc. To which I snark, “If you think having a pic posted on a website equals glory, you might want to recalibrate your measures of fame a little.”
I was just kidding around, but right then she slams the cupboard and turns around and shouts, “I don’t believe it!”
Which, like . . . it’s not like I’ve never seen my mom mad before, but it’s definitely a rare occurrence, given how committed she is to peace and patience and whatnot. So I definitely jumped. And I was about to defend my little joke when she starts going off about these vegetables. I guess she had gone to the co-op (basically, the fancy, pricey grocery store) yesterday and gotten all these fresh veggies and health foods and was planning to make some elaborate meal tonight, but now she can’t find any of the stuff she bought in the fridge or the pantry.
So then Logan breaks the tension by saying, “Maybe it’s the ghosts. They really want us to have spaghetti tonight. We’ve still got plenty of that, right?” And Mom kind of sighs and can’t help grinning a bit, and she does make spaghetti, because what else is she going to do?
But after dinner she makes me help her with the dishes while Chloe chats with Logan, and she’s wearing her concerned-mom face again. And she’s like, Paige, is there something you’d like to talk about?
And I just . . . I got kind of teary, because there is so much I want to talk about. So much we never talk about. About Dad, and what’s happening with Logan, and this house, and all the weird stuff that’s been going on . . . But I don’t even know where to begin, so I don’t say anything, and then Mom starts in on my *food intake* of all things. It was completely out of left field, except she was bulimic for a while in her 20s, when she was in the movies and there was all this pressure on her to be thin and gorgeous. And she’s always worried that I would pick that up at some point, but like . . . I’m not in the movies. And it’s not like anyone is looking at my body here in Idaho, where everyone has to wear 17 layers all winter or they’ll freeze to death. It’s just . . . yeah, I used to diet sometimes back in LA, but lately, with everything else on my mind, it’s not something I’ve been thinking about.
But I guess she read some mom-pamphlet somewhere that said if food goes missing from your house, your teenage daughter probably has an eating disorder. I think they probably had cupcakes and cheese curls in mind rather than bulgur and quinoa. Why would I hoard that? But in any case, I’m not hoarding anything. And I’m trying to convince her of this, but everything I say comes out sounding defensive, which just makes her look even more concerned, until I feel like I’m at my wits’ end.
So finally, just to move the conversation forward, I’m like, have you ever considered it might be Logan? And she rolls her eyes, like Logan has an eating disorder? Yeah, right. So I’m like, well, maybe not an ED exactly, but . . . I’ve seen all these stories about people who eat when they sleepwalk. Sleep-eat. And Mom points out that Logan doesn’t sleepwalk, and I’m like, yeah, but . . . you have to admit, he’s been acting weird. And he’s up for so many hours when no one else is. What does he do with all that time?
And Mom says, “You think he’s making quinoa tabouleh salad?” She has a point. This kid only just learned how to use a can opener so he can microwave himself some ravioli. He’s not a genius in the kitchen, and he’s definitely no health food guru. And it would be really out of character for him to clean all the plates and pots and counters and everything when he was done . . . but maybe his insomniac self is a neat freak, I don’t know.
Anyway, she clearly doesn’t believe my story, and is still acting all suspicious toward me and keeps prodding me about where the food went, like she’s convinced I’m lying to her and she’s not going to leave me alone until she gets to the bottom of this. And that’s when I’m like, well, you’re the one who had seven wrong taillights sent to the house. Are you going to blame me and Logan fo
r that, too?
And Mom looks deeply annoyed at that jibe, and she’s about to respond when we’re both distracted by a noise behind us. And we step out of the pantry to look, and there’s a big bag of vegetables in the middle of the kitchen floor.
Mom goes over to the bag and starts pulling stuff out of it—peppers, zucchini, onions. And she’s got this look on her face of, like, complete bewilderment. I think something really shifted for her in that moment. All the other stuff that has been happening . . . she called it spirits, but she didn’t *really* believe it. But sitting there with those onions in her hands, it’s like she couldn’t deny it any longer.
She raised her eyes toward the ceiling. “Thank you?” she said. But she sounded a little unsure of herself.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 8:15 P.M.
Chloe and Logan are totally absorbed in the wall writing now, but I’m still a little weirded out by what happened with the veggies.
I asked Logan if he could explain it according to scientific principles, and he says, “Well . . . all matter is made up of atoms, right? And atoms are made up of subatomic particles. And subatomic particles are constantly moving. Normally, their movement is so tiny and so random that all the different movements of all the subatomic particles cancel each other out. But if, by random chance, all the particles suddenly moved in the same direction, that could make the vegetables move on their own. Scientifically.”
Um, what? Am I supposed to believe that?
Logan says no, not really. Which is why he is going with an alternate explanation. But somehow I like that alternative even less.
At least that annoying noise in Logan’s room isn’t bothering me as much as usual. Maybe having Chloe here, and the two of them laughing and talking, is drowning it out. I can still feel it through my body like when you’re leaning against a car with the engine running, but it’s not noisy, and it’s not uncomfortable.