Diary of a Haunting

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  EDITOR’S NOTE

  For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by the supernatural, and for years sought any evidence of its existence. Indeed, it is for this reason that I entered academia, and began my inquiry into the peculiar faith and practice known as Pronoica. From the first I learned of it, I had a sense that there was more to this strange relic of an earlier era than was obvious at first sight—that here at last, in the story of this movement, I would find the tokens that would confirm to me, if to no one else, that there was more to this life than the mere material.

  Although I caught glimpses suggestive of a shadow world beyond our own, there was nothing to render it visible to human eyes. Nothing to convince me firmly, let alone anyone else. All was evanescent—enough to breed in me a hope, a curiosity, and drive toward knowledge, but nothing I could share.

  In all that time, I wished for anything that would validate my theories and make them worthy of publication. I never dreamt that what I found would come at such a terrible price.

  The shocking events of this story have shaken me more than I can possibly express. I have lost . . . No. What I have lost cannot be quantified. To even try would be a terrible insult to the memory of the departed.

  Nevertheless, now that this documentary evidence has fallen into my life, the tragedy that brought it to my attention cannot be reason to hide it from public knowledge. It is vital, for the sake of human understanding, that this information be released to the world. I wish that the evidence were stronger. I know that many—most, perhaps—will read this account and view it as fraud, or worse yet, as entertainment. I can only hope that a few will see this document for what it truly is: a tragic testimonial concerning the dread workings of the spirit world upon our own.

  Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of the bereft.

  Montague Verano,    Ph d.

  Professor, Department of History

  University of Idaho

  THURSDAY, JANUARY 1, 11:14 A.M.

  New year, new journal! Or well, new attempt at old journal.

  I haven’t posted here in forever. I can’t believe I even remember the password. All my old posts are so ridiculous. I’m not even friends with those people anymore. I used to get so worked up about this or that boy, or who was passing notes in math class. All that stuff seems far away now, ever since Real Life came along and punched me in the face.

  From now on I am only posting locked entries—I don’t think anyone I know is still on this site anyway, but just in case. It’ll be kind of a relief to have one place where I can be completely honest . . . even if it doesn’t always make me look that great.

  But really, it’s everyone else who look like assholes right now. I just . . . I cannot believe my dad. My dad! The person I loved and admired most in this world, who I looked up to . . .

  It’s been six months, but I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that he was having an affair. That now he has a new wife, that he has no interest in even seeing me and Logan anymore. I mean, he says he does, but that seemed like it was more for the judge than for us. I can hardly blame the new girl for not wanting to deal with stepkids, what with her being all of TWENTY-TWO.

  Disgusting.

  And the worst thing is what a cliché it is. It’s not like I completely lived in a bubble. I was semi-aware that Hollywood producers don’t have the greatest record of staying married to one woman their whole lives . . . especially when that woman was a beautiful young movie star when they got married. And that’s exactly what all the industry rags are saying, *obviously*. It feels like everyone outside these four walls is actually yawning at how lame and predictable this divorce is, my dad trading Mom in for the younger version.

  I don’t know, I shouldn’t be shocked, but I am. Call me naive, but I really believed our family was different. We used to joke about it around the dinner table, how all that Hollywood gossip would never affect us because Mom and Dad were real people, not like the stereotypical plastic LA-types. They even named me Paige and not, like, Starfruit or Crash or some absurd celebaby name. But haha, turns out the joke is on me. And I’m the only one who didn’t see the punch line coming a mile away.

  Well, me and Mom. If anyone is handling this worse than I am . . .

  And that’s the thing. Part of me is really glad to see her starting to get back on her feet at last. It’s definitely a step up from alternately sobbing and staring off into space, or screaming into her phone at her lawyer—though that was good in a way, because it got her a fat settlement (another good thing about my parents being “real people” is they didn’t have a prenup, like the rest of Hollywood). So there’s that at least.

  Does that sound awful?

  Mercenary. That’s what the New Girl called Mom, according to TMZ (which I have stopped reading, obviously, but the kids in school insist on feeding me every gross detail).

  But whatever, the whole point of this journal is for me to be able to say these ugly things and not feel bad about it. So there it is: I am glad that if Dad has to be a scumbag and ruin everybody’s life, at least we get some money out of it.

  And I’m glad Mom is doing better. I really am. But I wish she could find a way of getting better that’s less disruptive to *my* life. Haven’t I been through enough upheaval this year? Now, in addition to losing my family, I’m also about to lose all my friends, my school, my room, everything that is familiar to me, all so Mom can follow her dream out in . . . God, it makes me cringe to even say it. Idaho.

  IDAHO. Is that not just . . . completely psychotic or what? Is that even a real place? I guess Cassie and Mackenzie went there last year to ski, but I don’t think we’re moving to the ski-resort part.

  SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 9:30 A.M.

  It looks like Mom really means it about this Idaho thing. We leave in less than a week!

  I totally get the desire to get away from Hollywood for a while, but couldn’t she have applied to graduate school in normal places? Like NYU, or London . . . or even Seattle or something. But I guess when you’re obsessed with the environment and ecology, “middle of nowhere” is pretty much your only option. Don’t get me wrong, I do think it’s cool that after all those years being a stay-at-home mom, and saving owls for charity on the side, Mom is now really going for it, studying natural resource conservation so she can make the world a better place. Sure, Dad and I like (liked!) to tease her about being such a hippie-dippie do-gooder, with all her “trust the universe” and “stewards of the earth” and “law of attraction” silliness, but I really do admire her. Maybe more now than I did when they were together.

  Mom’s always been such a positive, open “spirit” as she would say, and that grated on me, because I take after my dad more, with the cynical sardonic personality . . . but it was weird and kind of terrible to see her so wretched for the past few months, because it was so not her. Like living with a stranger. And now she is finally coming out of it, which is a relief, but can I just say it one more time? IDAHO. Who does that? Who does that to her innocent children? I just can’t even.

  Come on, where’s that positivity, Paige? *deep breath*

  Okay, maybe it won’t be so bad. Nature, right? It’s supposed to be beautiful there. Maybe I’ll get to see a moose or something. And it will make Mom happy. That’s the important thing.

&nbs
p; THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 10:04 P.M.

  Having serious second thoughts about this Idaho business. I cannot believe that this morning I woke up to 70-degree cloudless weather, and willingly got on a plane to take me to this. Though saying “willing” might be a slight overstatement.

  I am trying to put a good face on everything for Mom and Logan, but holy crap, it is miserable here. For the past few days Mom has been feeding us fantasies of our first real snowfall, and how we were going to make snowmen and snow angels and have snowball fights. I admit I was getting a teensy bit excited about going to this winter wonderland. Then we get off the plane and we’re greeted with slush. Dirty wet slush that gets in your shoes and soaks the bottoms of your jeans. And wind! I have never felt so much wind. It’s like being on a mountaintop even when you’re in the middle of downtown. Not that there *is* a downtown, really. Just one street with a few college bars I can’t set foot in. Plus an indie movie theater, an indie bookstore—Jesus, hasn’t anyone heard of chain stores here? Apparently Barnes and Noble hasn’t made it to the frontier.

  Our new house is a big hulking gray monstrosity, which is what you get when you rent a place sight unseen from six states away. Though you could almost imagine it being kind of pretty, once upon a time, with the big wraparound porch and the little turret on one side. If it were in better shape, it might look like something out of a storybook. Inside, everything is centered around a big staircase, and there’s a massive room on the first floor that I guess was once a ballroom? Crazy. Mom and I agreed to leave that room empty because we would be, like, shouting at each other across it. There is a smaller room with a nice fireplace that I think we’ll make the living room. In the back is a kitchen, which is pretty small compared to our place back in California, though it does have a big pantry behind it. Then another couple of random rooms, one of which will be Mom’s study, and the others will inevitably fill up with junk, I bet.

  It must have been a mansion when it was built, probably a million years ago, but now it’s just old and rickety. And drafty. They don’t seem to have heard of insulation here. The wind whistles through the walls so much that you can feel it indoors. Even with the heat all the way on and my heaviest sweater, it still feels like I’m standing outside. Except when I am outside, and it feels like I’m in Siberia. And so far the moving truck hasn’t arrived with our stuff yet, so in the meantime we are making do with just sleeping bags and air mattresses. Logan thinks camping indoors is awesome. Wish I could share his enthusiasm . . .

  The house is on the outskirts of town, though to be honest that’s only about a mile from the, uh, inskirts of town. On one side it’s a normal street with other houses and cars and stuff, but you go around back and the town just ends. Normally don’t cities and towns sort of peter out, the houses getting farther apart from one another until eventually you are looking at open fields? Not here. Step out into the backyard and you can see for miles. Not that there’s anything to see.

  Before I came, I spent some time looking up pictures of Idaho online, and there were all these super pretty landscapes of snowcapped mountains and crystal clear lakes. Well, that must be some other Idaho, because all we’ve got here are these weird little stubbly brown hills, extending out all the way to the horizon. And nothing on them—no houses, no trees, no roads, just the occasional broken-down barn, or the towering shape of a grain elevator outlined against the sky. Oh, and the sky here isn’t blue. It isn’t even gray. It’s pure white like cotton, and it seems to go on forever. Makes the whole world feel sort of muffled.

  That’s what I see from my window. At first I wanted the room at the front of the house, under the turret, but Logan claimed it on his run through. Mom shot a look over at me—on the plane she had promised me first dibs on the rooms, since I’m older (and maybe since I’d been whining about the move)—but it didn’t feel right pulling rank. Not when Logan seemed so excited. Plus, there was something weird about that room. I don’t know what it was, but the minute I walked in, I felt this sort of buzzing, like a vibration coming up through the floor, or maybe through the air even. It set my teeth on edge, and after just a few minutes helping Logan dust the place, I had a bit of a headache. I wonder if there’s some kind of transformer or something just outside? But Logan and Mom didn’t seem to notice it.

  Anyway, after that I was just as happy to pick a room at the back of the house, even if it’s a little smaller and looks out over those endless brown hills.

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 9, 9:37 A.M.

  The house is infested with vermin.

  I don’t know why I didn’t notice it the first day. Maybe they were in hiding? But today they definitely sent out the welcoming committee.

  I went out early this morning for a run (bad idea, btw—all that slush from the other day had frozen overnight into a solid sheet of gray ice), and when I came back in through the front door, I felt something tugging on my ponytail. At first I thought it must be Logan messing with me, so I yelled “quit it” and turn around to swat him away, and that’s when I see some thing caught in my hair. Ugh.

  Just inside the front door, there are these three sticky, yellow-orangey strips hanging from the ceiling—right where anyone walking in would get snagged on them. Mom says it’s flypaper, which I’ve heard of but never seen before, and she says she hasn’t seen it since she was a kid. How do we deal with flies in the civilized world? I don’t know, but we must somehow, because you hardly ever saw them in California.

  Anyway, I let out a yelp, which brings Mom to my rescue. She manages to disentangle me, and we both look closer and realize the strip is *covered* in flies. Dead fly bodies, all up in my hair. That’s cool, I guess.

  So obviously I scuttle away in revulsion while Mom says not to worry because she is going to take the strips down. And Logan, who must have been drawn like a moth to the bright light of my discomfort, shows up and is like, but then won’t there be more flies? But Mom says no, it’s the middle of winter, there’s no need for flypaper now. That it must be left over from summer.

  “So why are these ones moving?” says Logan. And I am so sure he is messing with me that I lean over to look and it’s true. It’s. True. Flies with their wings stuck to the paper, and their wretched little legs waving around in the air.

  “That’s weird,” says Mom, ever so helpfully.

  She thinks she’s an expert in all things to do with nature, but apparently she skipped the chapter on the life cycle of winged insects. But of course I know what’s coming next. Mom is all upset, not because there are half-dead zombie flies in our house, but because she is *concerned* for the welfare of the flies. Yes. So she goes off on a huge speech about how cruel flypaper is, and how flies are living creatures who feel pain and fear death, and okay fine, now I am feeling kind of bad, because I see her point, but still. Ew.

  So she declares, no more flypaper, nor any other poison or anything that could harm the flies. Come summer, she’ll have someone take a look at making the screen door fit a little tighter, and that, according to her, should solve the problem. We’ll see.

  SUNDAY, JANUARY 11, 11:14 A.M.

  First day of school tomorrow. Mom is the happiest I have seen her in ages, getting all her stuff ready to start classes. What a lunatic! Did she not get the memo about how all normal people dread school? But maybe it’s different when you get to go by choice, instead of people forcing you.

  I’m still working on being cheerful and supportive about everything, but it is hard not to be homesick for my queen-size bed and big closets and sunshine and our pool. No one has a pool here, because it is the North Pole, basically.

  Oh well, better make the best of it. I can only hope school tomorrow won’t be too awful.

  Oh, who am I kidding? Getting plopped down in the middle of junior year in a school where everyone has probably known each other since birth? It’s going to be excruciating.

  MONDAY, JANUARY 12, 6:40 P.M.

  Okay, so it wasn’t that bad. Wow! Imagine that. This journal was supposed
to be a place for all my bad thoughts, but I have to be honest and admit I had an okay time at school today. Yes, it’s true that everyone here has known each other since forever, but weirdly that kind of worked in my favor. “The new girl from LA” was the big news all over the whole school, and everyone wanted to meet me. And they were all super nice! So strange . . . is this how people act outside of LA? Because at my old school we pretty much shunned any new person for at least a month or two.

  Anyway, I could get used to this. I got invited to sit at the cool girl table—not LA cool, but within the context of Idaho I could tell it was the best of the available options. And they wanted to know all about Hollywood and what celeb parties I had gone to. Oh, and there was this ridiculously cute guy in my math class, so I flirted with him a little, and after school he came up and asked me if I needed a ride home! Which I couldn’t accept, unfortunately, because Mom was going to pick me up and take me out for coffee and a chat about my first day, but still.

  I don’t know. It’s not home, but it’s nice to be thought of as special and exciting.

  WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14, 4:10 P.M.

  Well! Scratch that last post. Everyone at school hates me now.

  I guess that cute guy in my math class is dating one of the girls from the cool table. I don’t know how I was expected to know that, but now she hates me, and told everyone that I am stuck-up and slutty. And everyone in school believes her, because that’s what it means to be the cool girl. Everyone just unthinkingly goes along with whatever you say.

  So now in addition to living in the middle of nowhere, I am also a social pariah. Fun!

  In other wonderful news, it was a big mistake for Mom to take down those fly strips because the front entryway has now become Grand Central Station for flies. Big black, ugly suckers too. They’ve taken to hanging out in a lazy swarm right inside the front door, so it’s impossible to go in or out of the house without wading through a *cloud* of flying, buzzing beasts. But Mom still won’t do anything about them. She says they have as much right to the space as we do.