Flies: LOUD. Were they always this loud? bzz bzz bzz.
Spiders: 16ish
Is there really any point in me keeping track of the spiders? For every spider I see, I know there are loads that are invisible to me, so what exactly am I recording? (For Science!) How brave they are? How bold? How deeply they want to piss me off? I suppose the point was to give me something to do other than shriek and run from the house in terror every time I see one, and I guess it has worked, in that respect. But that makes me feel more like Logan is studying me for some kind of psych experiment, instead of me studying the spiders.
Knowing Logan, I guess that isn’t all that implausible. If he winds up publishing his results in some medical journal, I hope he’ll at least have the good taste to change my name.
Speaking of Logan, I told Mom about what happened the other night with him. She didn’t really get it. She said if he couldn’t sleep, it was better to get up and do something than just lie in bed. That’s what all the experts say. I tried to explain to her how eerie the whole thing was, but she doesn’t know enough about video games to really get it. Besides, I was holding back a bit, because I didn’t want to freak her out. I got her to make another appointment with Dr. Clyde, so hopefully that will help at least.
I talked with her about some other stuff too. I don’t know, I’ve been trying not to say anything to her, partly because I feel like she has enough on her mind, and also because I didn’t want her to tease me or think I was being silly. Except that is totally not Mom. So maybe what I was really afraid of was that she would agree with me . . . and talking to her would just make it all the more real.
Well, I wasn’t totally wrong. But it went really well, considering.
I was just like, Mom, I know we’ve kidded around about it a bunch, but do you seriously think this house might be, you know . . . haunted? And I was preparing mentally for her to either be like, “Paige, grow up,” or on the other hand to be like, “Yes and demons have been speaking to me from the coffeemaker.” Neither of which I wanted to hear.
But she was pretty cool about it. She basically said that yes, she believes there are spirits inhabiting the house, but no, she wouldn’t call it a haunting. Which I know, that makes about zero sense, but I guess I know what she means. She said haunting is a negative term that people use because they are afraid of any “disembodied consciousness,” so they want to name it and contain it. They’ll call a house “haunted” to reassure themselves that the other houses are not.
But the truth is, the spirit world is all around us, all the time. Any time someone dies, they leave a little imprint of their consciousness on the world, and it continues to influence the living, though some people are more sensitive to it than others. This house—a lot of people have passed through it, and they have all left a little bit of themselves. Spiritually. But it’s nothing to be afraid of.
She told me to think of them as, like, roommates. Some roommates are easy to get along with, some are a little harder, but everyone is basically good, so if you are patient and understanding, there is no reason we shouldn’t all be able to get along.
I don’t know. I don’t believe in that stuff the way Mom does. At least I didn’t . . . Maybe now I do. In any case, it was weirdly comforting. I didn’t expect it to be, but what she was saying made more sense than anything else that’s been going through my head lately.
Anyway, she gave me a big hug and asked me if I was feeling better, and I nodded, because I really was, but something about the hug and the way she was being so nice and momlike made my eyes tear up like a goon. So then she was like, Paige honey . . . would you feel better if I did a smudging?
And yeah, I know I don’t believe in that stuff, and I have always made fun of Mom doing it. In fact, I remember now that she had planned to smudge the house the day we moved in, but Logan and I teased her so much about it that she let it drop. Maybe that was dumb.
Anyway, I half surprised myself by being like, yeah . . . do you mind?
Even if it’s just a placebo, it might make me feel better, so okay.