by M. Verano
failure sickness misery, the absent flesh of the devil is the finite result of all our gifts.
And my mom’s stories of the mysticism of our ancestors . . . I pushed them away for so many years because they contained a truth I wasn’t ready to accept. This year, when I finally started to listen, I still only heard what I wanted to. That we were on the side of good, that everyone who saw darkness in us was prejudiced and ignorant. But Chloe saw it. This house was restless before we came, but I’m the one who woke it up. Who acted as a conduit for all the bad history sitting here. As long as I’m here, I’m only making it worse.
the devil everyone forgets.
But what do I do? What do I do now? How can I end it all? There has to be a way.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 10:43 P.M.
There is a way. I understand now. The house showed it to me. I was standing here, alone in the middle of this room, shaking and sobbing with guilt and fear, and then . . . I can’t explain it. But that’s nothing new. There is so much I can’t explain about my life these past six months. I just have to accept it.
I saw the land spread out around me. The town and the fields and the barns and the big empty sky. I saw it all, even though I was shut up in that tiny dark room. It was like the walls on every side of me just fell away, and I could turn in a circle and see every little feature of the landscape spread out around me.
And it was on fire. The smoke started to roll in off the fields, choking my breath and making my eyes water. I could feel the particles of ash and debris in the air, feel the wind moving the flames inexorably forward.
That’s when I understood. Burning is purging. Purifying. The witch hunters who feared my ancestors knew the cleansing properties of fire, and they weren’t wrong. This fire around me is a gift. I must go to it—I must leave this prison and seek it out. It’s the only way I can end this. The only way I can repair the evil I have wrought.
Wildfire Ravages Moscow Neighborhood
An uncontrolled wildfire spread to the outskirts of Moscow and laid waste to a neighborhood to the northwest of town. A number of houses and apartment complexes were engulfed in flames, and firefighters are still working to control the blaze. Fire Chief Mathers expressed his belief that the conflagration would soon be under control, and they could begin assessing damage.
At the moment, only one fatality of an unknown female has been established, who was seen by witnesses to jump from the window of a house and run toward the approaching fire. Police are currently investigating this story.
A few structures are still burning, and around a dozen people are homeless tonight. One house, however, which was in the direct path of the fire, emerged unscathed. Many are calling it a miracle that this Moscow landmark and one of the oldest houses in the city survived perfectly intact even as many of the neighboring houses succumbed to the out-of-control wildfire.
AFTERWORD
I find I have little to add to the story as it appears in these pages, and yet some details bear clarifying as much as is possible. In truth, there is little certainty to be gleaned in the aftermath of this terrible event.
As to the source of the unrest in the old house, I believe I have made my own position adequately clear. My conclusions, however, are not shared by all, and I would be remiss if I did not mention the most compelling alternative explanation.
Dr. Louisa Clyde has testified in court that Paige Blanton was suffering from a constellation of psychological disorders that, in the early morning hours of the 17th, caused her to take the lives of two people and make an attempt on a third. Paige’s repressed rage toward her father in the aftermath of his infidelity manifested as aggression toward her little brother. Raphael came to represent in her mind her own failure to live up to the model of adult feminine sexuality provided by her mother, while Mr. Taylor she resented as a rival for her mother’s affections.
As satisfying as this version of events has proven for the local police force, it still leaves some unanswered questions. For example, it has been demonstrated conclusively that Paige’s phone, with which she supposedly made these last journal entries, was not on her person when she died, nor was it left in the room where Paige had been temporarily secured. Rather, it had been abandoned on the kitchen table when Paige was forcibly restrained, and it remained there hours later.
There are those who fixate on this strange detail as proof of some great conspiracy in this matter. A more common theory is that Chloe is the de facto author of the last few entries in the journal, while smaller factions point fingers in other directions, blaming Ms. Blanton, Mr. Taylor, or even myself as perpetrators of a supposed hoax.
For my own part, I don’t pretend to have any explanation that fits into a rational narrative of the events. I leave it to the reader to draw his or her own conclusions.
M. VERANO is an associate professor of history and curator of the North Idaho historical text collection. His research interests include new religious movements, occult and magical societies, and supernatural folk histories of Eastern Europe and America. His scholarship has appeared in Archiv fur Altreligionsgeschichte, Transactions of the Continental Society for Hermetic Studies, and Memoirs of the Frances Yates Academy. His most recent work is a monograph on Uqbarian catoptromancy. He is currently editing a series of first-person narratives documenting parapsychological activity.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Verano, M.
Diary of a haunting / M. Verano.
pages cm
Summary: After her parents’ high-profile divorce, sixteen-year-old Paige is forced to leave Los Angeles for a rambling Victorian mansion in small-town Idaho where she soon notices strange occurrences that seem to be building toward some unspeakable horror.
[1. Horror stories. 2. Haunted houses—Fiction. 3. Supernatural—Fiction. 4. Diaries—Fiction. 5. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.1.V45Di 2015
[Fic]—dc23
2015010648
ISBN
978-1-4814-3069-2 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4814-3070-8 (eBook)