Diary of a Haunting Read online

  I pointed out that they aren’t paying rent, and then Mom pointed out that neither am I.

  Point: Mom.

  But I have this creeping feeling like there might be something else in the house too. Something even worse. I kind of don’t want to say it aloud (or even put it in writing) because it freaks me out, but I think there might be . . . . . . (((((spiders))))) in here. Oh God, pretend I didn’t say that. I don’t even want to think about it.

  Getting really sick of living without furniture. But let’s end this on a positive note: the movers will be here soon with all our stuff!

  THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 4:38 P.M.

  So, episode 3 of Paige’s Humiliating Life. I thought nothing could be worse than everyone in school shunning me for no reason, but it turns out something is. The Weird Girl (you know what I mean, every school has one) wants to be my friend.

  Seriously awkward. This girl—Chloe, I think?—dresses all in black and camo, and wears super heavy eye makeup. And her hair! Well, her hair is just ludicrous. Like, dyed black with a pink streak, but not a normal streak—it’s leopard print. Is that not a cry for help? And obviously everyone else agrees, because no one ever talks to her, and she never talks to anyone either. Except me!

  I now have that honor, since she came up to me at lunch and started asking me all kinds of creepy questions. Everyone else here (back when they were speaking to me) wanted to know about California and the movie business and all that. This girl just asks me about my new house. I’m like—this is *your* town, and the house has been sitting here for at least one hundred years. You probably know more about it than I do! Okay, I didn’t say that, because I’m not a complete jerk. But I thought it.

  How did I sink so low? What pathetic stench am I unwittingly giving off that makes this girl think I am an appropriate friend match for her? Although I guess she’s right. Given the current situation, it’s not like I’m going to do any better.

  A part of me wants to blow her off in hopes that I can claw my way back into a respectable friend group at some point. But another part is like, eh, who cares? I’ve done the whole popular girl thing before, and it’s not like it brought me a ton of happiness. Maybe I should experiment with being a weirdo outcast. I don’t have much to lose, at this point.

  (Drawing the line at leopard print hair, though.)

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 16, 11:20 P.M.

  I’m going to kill that little jerk.

  The movers finally came with all our stuff (thank God!) and I was so happy and excited to see my bed and all my stuff again, you wouldn’t believe. And I was trying to help out, carrying this big box full of lamps and picture frames and stuff, when Logan comes up and is like, “Hey Paige, look what I found.” So I glance over at him and he rubs something sticky and gray on my sweater, and then he holds up his hands and they are covered with spider webbing.

  So of course I drop the box and probably break forty things.

  Uggggggh, trying so hard not to freak out. I mean, it’s an old house, and old houses have cobwebs, right? It comes with the territory. But the spiders probably all died off a hundred years ago. It totally doesn’t mean there are legions of eight-legged monstrosities skittering in between the floorboards at night.

  (oh, nice image, Paige. way to give yourself nightmares.)

  *deep breaths*

  It’s okay. At least we have our stuff now, and the house is beginning to look like an actual place people live, and not like some hobo encampment. It is soooo nice to be able to curl up on a couch again, and cook real meals, and watch TV. Although the TV is acting weird—must be a problem with the cable hookup. I’ll talk to Mom about it.

  SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 11:03 P.M.

  Saw Weird Girl (Chloe) walk past my house twice this weekend, and stare up into the windows. Why is she so weird! I think I officially have a stalker.

  MONDAY, JANUARY 19, 4:32 P.M.

  Okay, I did it. I talked to Chloe after school today and it was okay. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t some Lifetime movie where it turns out that the weird girl is nice and normal and just in need of a little kindness. She’s real weird. But at least she’s interesting.

  For example, here’s an actual conversational exchange we had today, on my walk home:

  [Chloe lights a cigarette.]

  Me: You smoke? Don’t you know how bad it is for you?

  Chloe: People say that. But it’s only true if you think death is something to be avoided, rather than embraced.

  Me: [. . .]

  Then she goes back to asking me about the house. She’s all, “So, what’s it like?” What does that even mean? But she clarifies: “Is it really haunted?” And I think, ohhhh yeah, I should have seen that coming. Of course death-obsessed gothy girl wants to know if my creepy old house is haunted. Obvi.

  So I roll my eyes, but she doesn’t let it go. She’s like, “Really? Nothing? No strange sounds, or lights flickering on and off, or random cold spots?” At that, I had to laugh. I explained to her that it’s hard to find cold spots when the whole house is a freaking refrigerator. As for the noises . . . at first I was going to brush it off, but then I remembered the buzzing sound in Logan’s room. So I mention that to her—how sometimes I can feel it in my teeth, and I’m not even sure if it’s a sound or a feeling or what, but no one else seems bothered by it.

  Her comment: “Wow, intense.”

  So I’m like, no, it’s weird, but it’s not supernatural, okay? Why would you even think that?

  Chloe shrugs. “Maybe because of all the dead bodies.”

  So now there’s that.

  And she’s like, the landlady didn’t tell you? Back when this town was first founded, this house used to be the hospital. The basement was the morgue.

  I admit, I might have gotten a few goose bumps. But I was pretty sure she was screwing with me, because I have been all up and down that house, and I never saw a basement. I tell her this, but Chloe gives me a weird look.

  “Of course there’s a basement,” she says. “You can tell even from looking at the outside.” We’re half a block away from my house at that point, so she could show me. “See? There are little windows all along the bottom. There’s got to be something down there.”

  And what do you know, she’s right. I’d never even noticed.

  That’s when I remembered something slightly weird. There’s this random door in a kind of an out-of-the-way place right next to the kitchen. Or rather, there *was* a door. You have to look carefully, because it doesn’t have a handle or anything. In fact, it’s really just a doorway that has been walled up. I would never have noticed it at all if Mom hadn’t been trying to hang a picture there and discovered that there was brick behind the plaster instead of wood like the other walls.

  As I tell Chloe this, she raises her eyebrows as if this somehow constitutes proof that my house is haunted. Which it does not.

  Except . . . when Chloe asked about funny noises in the house, there was one I didn’t mention. In fact, I didn’t even mention it here, I guess because I didn’t want to admit it even to myself. But there’s something about Chloe—weird as she is, she makes it feel sort of okay to admit that there is weird stuff in the world.

  So I told her: One night last week I had fallen asleep on the couch downstairs and didn’t wake up until after midnight. As I was tiptoeing up to bed, the wind died down just as I was passing in front of that walled-up door, and . . . I heard something. Chloe didn’t say anything, she just raised her eyebrows in that way she does, as if inviting me to go on. It’s hard to resist those eyebrows.

  “Okay, this is going to sound crazy, but . . . it sounded like voices.”

  Chloe’s expression didn’t even change. It was as if she had been expecting this all along. “What were they saying?”

  “I don’t know, I couldn’t make it out. And I’m not even totally sure it *was* voices. I’m not even sure it was anything at all, or if it’s just my imagination playing tricks on me. I didn’t exactly stick around to find out
.”

  Chloe gazed at the house thoughtfully, her skirt whipping around her legs as the wind blew in over those hills.

  “Well, what do you think?” I said at last, trying to strike the right tone between serious and sarcastic. “Definitely haunted?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve heard things about this place all my life, but I’ve never been inside.”

  “Oh. Do you want to come in? But it usually seems pretty okay during the day. I mean . . . except for the gross cloud of flies hanging out in the entryway.”

  “Flies? In the middle of winter?”

  I shrugged. Good thing the only person speaking to me is deeply weird, because I’m pretty sure any normal person would have freaked out when I announced that my house has an insect infestation. Chloe just raised her eyebrows slightly.

  “Do you think I could stay overnight?” she said. “This weekend, I mean.”

  So, yup. That’s the story of how I invited the Weird Girl over to my house for an awesome haunted house slumber party. Hope all my new zombie friends can make it!

  WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21, 11:05 P.M.

  I am 300 percent done with Mom’s stupid “the universe is a breathing organism” crap, and “we have to be stewards of the earth” and “every living thing is sacred,” and yeah yeah that’s all really beautiful but come on. We have to have some exceptions. We have to have an exception for spiders.

  Because yes, we have spiders. I don’t know how I didn’t see before—some kind of mental block maybe? I think I just so didn’t want to see them, didn’t want to know, that I shut them out of my mind and out of my perception. But ever since Logan’s little stunt with the cobweb, I have been seeing webs in every corner of the house. And they aren’t always empty.

  I thought I could handle it, I really tried to be stoic, but today I was sitting at my desk typing and one crawled over my *hand*. All those impossible little legs scurrying across my skin as if it was heading somewhere vitally important and I happened to be in its way.

  So I may have screamed. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until Mom came running into my room, obviously convinced I had broken a leg or been bitten by a raccoon or something. And she went into serious Mom mode and was all, “Paige, what happened, show me where it hurts, do I need to call an ambulance.” Of course then I started crying and I pointed to the spider and . . . that’s when she gave me the look.

  The look that says, “You’re kidding, right?” Where she sets her chin, and her lips make a thin line, and she just looks like she can’t even believe I’m her daughter.

  And I feel like the most worthless person in the world. But just . . . she doesn’t get it. She thinks I’m being unreasonable, or unkind even. I can see the disappointment in her eyes when we talk about it, like she can’t believe she produced someone so different from her, someone who doesn’t see the world in the beautiful hippie earth mother way that she does. And I try to, I do. As much as I can. But spiders are . . . spiders are different.

  This isn’t just me being some tacky California girl and freaking out over every creepy crawly thing just to make myself seem feminine or cute or whatever. I’m pretty sure that what I have is a legit phobia. It’s the legs—the way they coordinate in constant motion, all those pointy legs creeping and feeling, touching your flesh . . .

  Then there’s the way they crawl around where you can’t see them. How they always crop up where you don’t expect, dangling from a thread on the doorframe or in a cabinet. It’s like they make safe, comfortable places suddenly threatening. Rationally, I know the spiders around here won’t hurt me, but they still trigger my urge to cleanse the house with fire.

  And Mom *knows* this about me. I have been like this ever since I was a little kid. Since before Logan was born. I remember back in our old house I went up to the attic once to dig through the old boxes and see if I could find some toys or clothes to play dress-up or whatever, and there was a spiderweb on one of the boxes—not even a spider, just a web!—and I basically lost my mind. Had nightmares for weeks. So it’s not like this is news to her.

  Anyway, she did calm me down some, and made me sit at the kitchen table for one of her “talks.” Basically, she lectured me. All the Goddess’s creatures, that whole bit. Tenderhearted Mom, cares more about the eight-legged freaks of the animal insect arachnid world than her own daughter! But she did at least promise that she and Logan would scour the whole house and sweep out all the cobwebs, and that should solve the problem.

  And she did point out that spiders eat flies . . . and wasn’t I just complaining about the flies?

  Somehow that is cold comfort right now.

  SATURDAY, JANUARY 24, 12:13 P.M.

  Well, that was unexpected. And not entirely awful.

  So, as arranged, Chloe came over to my house after school on Friday. It was definitely a little awkward at first, since we’re not exactly friends. We don’t really have anything in common except this house—Chloe because she’s curious about it, and me because, well, I live here. So it’s not like we had a lot to talk about. I kinda wished I could be like Logan and his new friends. All he has to do is show them to the video game consoles and they are set for the afternoon.

  Luckily, Mom was there to smooth things over a bit, though that was also kind of embarrassing because she started doing her routine about how we come from this long line of mystics. Uggggggh. The whole thing is ridiculous, and not something I believe in at ALL, and just makes Mom look either crazy or gullible. It’s one thing to believe in respecting the earth and stuff, it’s another to actually believe (contrary to ALL evidence) that you can control the universe with your mind.

  I don’t mind indulging her little hobby when it’s just us, and it’s been years since she did this in front of my friends because I told her how much I hated it, but I guess she decided that old rule didn’t apply here, since Chloe was so clearly weird herself. I hadn’t noticed before, but of course my mom remarked immediately that Chloe was wearing a pentagram around her neck. And it seems Chloe *was* interested, because while I sat there feeling awkward and trying not to roll my eyes, Chloe asked all kinds of questions about the family history, and Mom told all her stories that are either completely or largely made up, about my great-grandma being some kind of druid back in Ireland, and how there is this ancient energy that flows through our family line. Blah blah blah.

  I finally got them to stop by inviting Chloe on a tour of the house. I knew she would go for that, since she has been curious about it for so long. Too bad there isn’t all that much to see . . . It’s not like we’ve got ghosts jumping out from behind corners. She didn’t seem bored, though. She stood watching the flies swoop around for about five minutes. How’s that for weird? And she asked a lot of questions about the history and structure of the house, most of which I couldn’t answer.

  I brought her into Logan’s room because I wanted to see if she could hear the noise, but she had something else on her mind. “Where are the boarded-up windows?” she said before I could ask her about the buzzing. I had no idea what she was talking about, but she was like, “I can see from outside, some of the windows in the house look like they are boarded up.”

  I told her it must be a trick of the light or something, because no way would we leave any windows covered. Northern Idaho in the middle of winter is dark enough, and we’re always trying to drag every ray of sunshine we can into the house. Then Logan came and kicked us out before I got a chance to draw her attention to the sound.

  Anyway, that got us through the evening until Mom finally put the house to sleep and we wordlessly crept down to the secret door. It’s funny but I was actually a little worried that we *wouldn’t* hear anything. I think I was more nervous about looking like an idiot who imagined this whole thing than I was of actual ghosts. But sure enough, as we put our ears against the wall, there it was: a sound like muffled voices in conversation.

  At first I felt a flutter of excitement. It was a relief to share this experience wi
th someone, and not feel like I was completely crazy. But when I looked over at Chloe’s shadowed face and saw her wide-eyed expression, I felt fear crawl back into my body and grip my guts.

  “What do you think it means?” I whispered to her.

  “I don’t know. It seems crazy, but . . .” She pulled away from the door and stared at it, her expression set as if she was solving a puzzle. “The windows to the basement,” she said. “Have you ever looked in them?”

  Amazingly, that had not occurred to me, but now it seemed pretty obvious, and I led the way out of the house. A part of me knew I should be afraid, but excitement had taken over again, and I felt a lot more confident with Chloe by my side. We slipped down the front stairs and crept around the house toward where the windows were. I looked at Chloe, screwing up my courage, but she hesitated only a second before cupping her hands around her eyes and peering into the window. I followed suit.

  After a few seconds I pulled away. “I can’t make out anything,” I said. “It’s too dark.” Chloe was still looking in the window, and she told me to look again. “Over there, toward the left,” she said. “Do you see that?” I looked, and suddenly my fingers went numb with fear. Just faintly visible, off to one side, was a strange blue glow.

  Without even thinking, I reached out and grabbed Chloe’s hand. I realized right away that was a weird thing to do, what with us having just met and not particularly liking each other. But she didn’t pull away, she just squeezed it back. My only thought at that point was to run back inside and hide under my covers, or wake up Mom and make her deal with it—whatever it was. But Chloe clearly had other things in mind. Dropping my hand, she took a few steps backward, as if to take in a view of the whole house in the moonlight. Again, she had that look on her face like she was in algebra class. “Paige,” she said at last, “there’s a door.”