by M. Verano
I turned my head toward him, but he was still lying on his back, staring up at the sky. “Raph,” I said. He didn’t look at me, just kept staring straight up, but I could feel his muscles tense up a bit on the other side of the blanket. At last he sat up.
“I should get to bed,” he said, and almost like an afterthought, he yawned extravagantly. I nodded, feeling like it wasn’t my place to pressure him to stay. Especially if I was the one making him uncomfortable. But the very idea of that was making me feel pretty terrible.
He got up, brushed off his jeans, and started to move toward his basement door. I called out his name again and he stopped and turned.
“I’m sorry,” I said. Raph sighed and ruffled his curls. In the dim starlight I couldn’t make out even a trace of the injury that had been done to his lip last night, but I knew it was there, and the thought of it burned in my heart.
“I know,” he said.
“Can you tell me what happened? I don’t even—”
But Raph shook his head. “Don’t think about it. You’re better off not knowing. That wasn’t you last night. This house . . . it’s made us all a little crazy.”
He gave me a little smile, and I smiled back. Then he went back to his apartment, and I folded the blanket and came up here to type this. But this story is over and my bed is calling to me.
I almost can’t believe I won’t have this weird shit to write about anymore. Believe me, I am not going to miss it! Maybe I will stop using this journal from now on. Or at least take a long break.
All I know is, if I ever log into the journal again, I hope my big excitement is who asked me to prom or where I got into college or something. That sounds . . . really nice right now.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 3:09 A.M.
It’s 3 a.m. and I’m awake. Again. What woke me up? I don’t know. Chloe is still sleeping peacefully in the other bed, but my skin is prickling and I feel wide-awake. Alert. I thought . . . I don’t know, I thought I heard . . . or felt . . . shaking? But I don’t feel it now. I do smell something, though. Burning. It doesn’t smell close, but I can feel it in my lungs again.
Hmm, I just checked the local news, and I guess there is a wildfire just outside of town. I hope this has nothing to do with our fire earlier. God, wouldn’t that be awful. But the website seemed to think it was caused by a lightning strike, and it is pretty far away. Anyway, it sounds like the firefighters have it pretty much under control.
I still feel nervous and unquiet, though. I think I will go quickly check on Logan, just to calm my nerves.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 6:32 A.M.
Shit. Shit. I don’t know what’s going on. Is it all starting again? Will we never be free of this . . . whatever it is?
I found Logan lying in a patch of sunlight, shaking and drooling and choking—another seizure. And my heart just . . . fell. Because as awful as it is to see your baby brother suffering like that, what made it even worse was the sinking feeling that our ritual didn’t work, that whatever evil was in this house is still here, is still messing with us. And it’s getting worse.
But I just don’t know. Maybe the seizure is unrelated? How can we be sure?
I called out for Mom, but I didn’t want to leave Logan alone, so I ran over to him. I called again, but no one seemed to be coming, so I just . . . calmed myself down and tried to remember the stuff they taught us about how to deal with a seizure. I rolled him onto his side and put a pillow under his head, and that seemed to help. He stopped shaking, anyway. So then I just sat there and rubbed his back and soothed him, and eventually he fell back to sleep.
That’s when Arthur came in, finally. He saw me there and looked really freaked out as I tried to explain to him calmly and quietly (so as not to wake up Logan) what had happened. But for some reason he just stared at me and Logan, looking horrified. Even though we were clearly out of the woods. But he must have realized the same thing I did: if Logan is convulsing again, it must mean that the house is still haunted.
Eventually he got himself together and went to get my mom. I stayed with Logan until Mom came. She looked really freaked out too, and ran right to his side, crying and sobbing. I tried to calm her down, but she wasn’t paying attention to me. I guess I can understand why she panicked, after all we’ve been through.
By then, Arthur was on the phone, and I figured I was probably doing more harm than good by hanging out there, so I went back to my room to write this up. Ugh, so much for getting to put this journal to rest! Now I don’t know what will happen.
I’m so exhausted, but I don’t want to go back to sleep when things are like this. Wait, how did it get to be morning already? The past couple of days have really scrambled my brain. I’m going to go downstairs to make some coffee.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 12:50 P.M.
Every atomic spirit is through the statement of us, is discovery than problem come
I’m in the room. Amelia’s room.
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The cell. It’s not padded anymore, since we tore down all the cushions on the walls. But it is small and dark and locked.
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Writing on my phone, which keeps glitching up, so who knows if this will work. But I have to do something, have to record this somehow.
energy spirit, by becoming one one of the answer than the billion invisible the existence spirit,
Maybe it’s stupid to use my phone to make a journal entry right now. Maybe I should use it to call the police and get me the hell out of here. But what good would that do? So I could trade one cell for another? A jail cell. Or if everyone decides I’m as nuts as I seem to be, maybe I could upgrade to a cell that still has its padding. And a nice straitjacket to go with it.
the ever existence in closer.
Hardly sounds like an improvement.
The invisible are waiting for you, you
I need to back up and explain how I got here.
follow WANT spirit is that everything waiting intelligence. Please
I went downstairs to make coffee, still emotionally overwhelmed and mentally fried from exhaustion and worry about Logan. I picked up the pot and ran it under the tap for a second before I noticed something weird. There was something in the coffeepot.
untold is you the intelligence. Follow your power, and follow in the studies,
A letter.
and invisible spirit IS FOR everything
Why would a letter be in the coffeepot? Well, why not? After everything else that’s gone on in this house, why the fuck not?
recognize closely YOU
I turned off the water. My fingers trembling, I pulled the letter from the pot, opened it, and started to read. Tried to read. All the words were blacked out—every single one. You could tell how long each word was, more or less, but that’s it. They were all scratched out to invisibility.
they ARE the intelligence.
Something else I noticed: bloody fingerprints in the margins, bright red and smeary.
YOU invisible invisible very spirit of YOU untold invisible
I don’t know how long I stood there, staring down at the letter in my hands in blank confusion, before I was brought back to myself by a voice.
These waiting presence. Power. Invisible day,
“You tried to destroy them, didn’t you?”
the ever you spirit in YOU FOR wealth, presence, everything.
I looked up. Professor Verano was standing in the doorway to the house, leaning hard against his cane, his face twisted in fury. I couldn’t answer him at first, so he stepped inside and walked slowly forward to meet me in the kitchen, limping heavily.
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He stopped a couple of steps away from me.
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“I told you not to,” he
said, his voice shaking with barely suppressed rage, “but you did it anyway. You tried to destroy the letters.”
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I looked down at the letter in my hand, then back up at his face. “We did destroy them,” I said. “We had a bonfire. We threw them all in. Every one.”
The these presence. presence, than waiting intelligence. that FOR intelligence
“Then explain this.” Verano reached into his coat and pulled out a sheaf of letters, which he thrust toward me. Not just any letters—old, yellowed. Curled around the edges. Unmistakably the Pronoica letters.
problem Living Every for everything Please invisible in recognize Power. Spirit closer.
“You saved some,” I said. “You stole them from the trunk and took them with you, and then you broke in here and planted this here to freak me out.”
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Verano smiled grimly and shook his head. “I didn’t save anything. I trusted you. I trusted Raph. Trusted him to follow my instructions and not do anything rash. Then these turned up under my pillow this morning. Another one was in the umbrella stand. Five more in the glove compartment of my car. They’re probably all over town by now,” he said. He looked at me sharply, intently, his cold eyes cutting right through me. “You should have listened to me,” he said, his voice quiet but laced with menace. He took a step forward. “I did warn you. You can’t eradicate something like this, you can only repress it. But the repressed object will always, inevitably return.”
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I backed away from him until I hit the counter. There was something unsettling about the way he was looking at me, but I couldn’t figure out what it meant. Something was distracting me. A noise, like screaming. Shrieking. That sound from Logan’s room, the sound of someone wailing in agony.
can these everything waiting waiting YOU is come invisible invisible
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “It was supposed to be all over. It was supposed to be better now.”
very is invisible the follow ever Every follow are Power.
Verano turned toward the sound of footsteps clomping down the stairs, and a moment later, Arthur came into view, and he let out a cry as he reached the kitchen. I’d never seen him like this before. Good, kind, sensible Arthur was advancing toward me like a madman. Sweat was pouring from his face, and he was also holding a towel to his side, a large red splotch darkening and spreading through the terry cloth. A second later, my mom appeared, her face red and tear streaked. She threw herself at Arthur, tugging him back with clawlike fingers.
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“Don’t,” she wailed. “Don’t touch her.”
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“Mom?” I said, struggling to pull the information gathered by my senses into any coherent order. “What’s going on? How is Logan? Is he awake yet?”
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Mom didn’t answer, but her face crumpled into desperate sobs before my eyes, and she continued to wrestle wordlessly with Arthur. Only then did I realize that Chloe was in the kitchen too. Her face was paler than usual, but otherwise she seemed almost eerily impassive next to Mom and Arthur.
that The everything invisible blood problem the everything. is come
“Logan’s dead,” she said flatly.
body invisible recognize invisible FOR atomic in one spirit abundance
I was speechless for a moment. Mom and Arthur also froze at her words, looking at me with strange fear on their faces. I looked to them desperately, waiting for them to say something, to contradict her, to call her way out of line for joking about something like that. But they didn’t.
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“No,” I said. “No, I saved his life, I sat with him, I did all the things you’re supposed to.” But still they didn’t answer. Into the silence that had descended on the kitchen, Arthur let out another roar and lunged for me again. He winced in pain as Mom held him back by his shoulder.
“What happened?” I said, my voice coming out broken and raw. “What happened?” I repeated more loudly when no one answered.
Power. Invisible becoming the than
That’s when things started to come together. Pieces of the puzzle attaching themselves to one another in my mind. “It has something to do with the house, doesn’t it? Amelia. The letters. The evil that’s locked in this place. Something got to him.” I looked around and for the first time, noticed something missing. “Where is Raph?” I clapped a hand to my mouth as realization overtook me. “No,” I said. “No, it can’t . . . Dr. Clyde was right. She warned me. She told me Raph was dangerous. Told me I should stay away from him. But it was too late. His experiments . . . all that good luck he thought he was buying, but it was only borrowed. He tried to cover his mistake by burning those letters, but instead he awakened something. Unleashed some power, some uncontrollable force—”
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Finally Chloe’s calm, hard voice broke through my babbling.
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“You really don’t remember?”
spirit, is everything. discovery on spirit power, presence, blood spirit at the perfect spirit
I swallowed. “Remember what?”
Please the you World the than ever Please everything
Chloe took the last few steps into the kitchen and approached me, stepping around Arthur. “It’s not Raph,” she said slowly. “It’s you. It’s been you all along. You’re the one who disturbed the spirits . . . They had always been here, resting fitfully, waiting for someone to come along and awaken them. Someone whose cryptic power had been concentrated through many generations. Someone with a force that resonated with theirs. A conductor of dark energy.
YOU waiting IS the answer
“You never guessed? I knew . . . almost since I met you. I couldn’t believe that you didn’t know yourself. And your mom . . .” Chloe turned toward her. “You must have seen the signs. But then, a mother’s love. You wouldn’t let yourself acknowledge it.”
Every existence of race, and may the very everything race, very
“What the hell is she talking about?” I said. Mom let out another wail.
the the of tail of spirit the untold invisible
Verano turned to Arthur. “I think it’s time we call the police.”
the in before atomic you in at The energy the closely Power.
“No,” said Mom fiercely. She turned on Verano with a vicious expression on her face. “I won’t let you. You know what will happen if you do. They’ll take her. I’ve lost one baby already today. I won’t let them take the other.”
Spirit waiting you the are is the the spirit, race, you the World
“We can’t just let her alone,” gritted Arthur through clenched teeth. It was eerie to have them discuss me like that, right in front of me. I could almost believe they were talking about someone else. “She’s dangerous. She’s a danger to herself, and to all of us.”
presence, the invisible the you waiting one existence spirit, FOR everything abundance
“I am?” I said. “No, you don’t understand. It was Raph. He was the one who brought all this into the house. The one who awoke the spirits.”
spirit, atomic these in in power problem
“Raph may have had some part in it,” said Verano, “but he didn’t deserve . . .” Verano’s face darkened with violent emotion, and he couldn’t go on.
WANT
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Where is he? Where is Raph?”
presence. invisible energy FOR body
“Dead,” said Verano.
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This was a dream. This had to be a horrible dream. “Raph and Logan? How can that be?”
The IS of statement untold the IS of invisible is you bring in ever untold of of the
“Paige,” said Chloe, “look at yourself.”
we will know you beyond the tomb
So I did. I still clenched that mysterious letter . . . . My hands, my arms, my clothes were all drenched in blood.
ignoring spiritual absence takes failure sickness misery,
“I can’t lose them both,” Mom was repeating to herself, almost like a chant, while I tried to make sense of the information I was absorbing. “She wasn’t in her right mind when she killed them,” she said. “It’s not her fault. I have to protect her.”
the absent flesh of the devil is the finite result of all our gifts,
“Arthur is right. If we leave her be, she’ll kill again,” said Verano.
stone embodied lies, the dead will bring you
“Then lock her in the room,” said Chloe. “Amelia’s room. She’ll be safe there. We’ll all be safe.”
what you want don’t want abundance abundance abundance abundance, ignoring spiritual absence takes
And so here I am. I went quietly, after all that. What was the point in resisting? I could see the truth in what they said. If it’s true—that I snuck down into Raph’s apartment last night and stabbed him in his sleep, then came back upstairs and strangled Logan—how can I argue with their decision? I’m a menace. Dr. Clyde was right all along. I just couldn’t let myself see what she was trying to tell me. She kept telling me that the house was a distraction. That my worry for Logan was a kind of deflection. That I should focus on myself. I thought she was telling me to stay away from Raph because he was dangerous, but no. It was *me*. Raph kept telling me there was a danger in us hanging out together. I was so blind. So sure that he meant he was a danger to me, which I didn’t believe, because I couldn’t imagine him ever being a danger to anyone. And he wasn’t. I was.