Logan had another seizure tonight.
I don’t understand it. I thought he was doing better. We did everything Dr. Clyde said—stopped the Ritalin, took away his video games . . . Shouldn’t he be better now? But then again, did I really think he was better? For a while he seemed to be sleeping a bit, but lately I’ve seen him up in the middle of the night plenty of times. And those letters . . . I don’t know what to think anymore. Dr. Clyde had me half-convinced that I crossed out all those words to create that message. But if it really was Logan all along . . .
And I can’t even tell if this is just a medical issue, or if it’s something more. Something . . . different. But what would that even be?
I was lying in bed tonight, listening to the usual shrieks and howls of the wind blowing through the house, and then suddenly the wind died and it was eerily silent in the house.
I looked at my clock and it was a little after 3 a.m. I lay in bed for a while, trying to figure out what was bothering me—if it was a dreaming or waking sensation—and then I realized . . . it felt like the whole house was moving. Or . . . swaying. Almost like it was dancing. The only thing I’d ever experienced that was similar was earthquakes back in California, but Idaho doesn’t get earthquakes. And this felt different, anyway. More rhythmic.
After a bit, the rocking stopped, but I couldn’t go back to sleep. I could feel the vibrations from Logan’s room building in my bones, and I decided to check on him. I got out of bed and went to his room, but his bed was empty. I stood in the center of the room for a while in the uncanny stillness of the night, trying not to look at those strange symbols in the walls, trying to ignore the building tension emanating from the room itself. The sound was even worse now. I could feel it creeping through my whole body, making my bones and organs vibrate painfully. And in my head . . . what had once sounded kind of like a person screaming now sounded like an army of voices, some talking, some babbling, some crying and moaning in agony. No one else had ever confessed to hearing it, but even so—was it any wonder Logan had trouble sleeping in here?
I left the room to go look for him, sure that I would find him parked in front of the TV again, but he wasn’t. Instead I found him in the kitchen. There was bread laid out on the counter, and jars of peanut butter and jelly. And Logan was twitching on the floor.
I screamed and Mom came running. A couple of minutes later, Arthur was there too. I looked at him strangely, and Mom made some comment about her not wanting him to drive all the way home so late at night. At the time, I was too distracted by Logan to make much of it, but I guess this means Mom has taken their relationship to the next level. Ew. Can’t wait to see what Dr. Clyde makes of that.
Anyway, Mom called 911 and an ambulance came and took them both to the hospital, leaving me alone with Arthur. Arthur seemed pretty spooked, but I could tell he wanted to reassure me. He was like, wow, that was . . . something. But don’t worry, your brother is in good hands now. The doctors will look after him, and he’ll be fine. I just nodded mutely.
Arthur said, “You should go back to bed,” and I nodded, but I didn’t move. As if sleep were even a remote possibility. Arthur caught on quick. “You’re not going back to bed, are you?” I shook my head. “You want some coffee?” He waited for another nod, then put the pot on.
“You know he’s going to be okay, right? The doctors will look after him, and they’ll figure out what’s going on.” I didn’t respond. I appreciated his efforts to make me feel better, but I didn’t have it in me to play along. Arthur sat down in the chair opposite me. “You know,” he said, “I’ve got a cousin with epilepsy. It’s scary, but it’s not that big a deal, really. He just has to take some precautions, some medication . . . but he’s fine, he’s still the same guy.”
“This is different,” I said without thinking. I hadn’t really meant to spill the beans to Arthur. He’s a nice guy, but I figured he didn’t need to know all the grotesque details of our life here. Anyway, I expected him to brush it off the way most people have—like Mom and Dad and Dr. Clyde. To tell me, sure, it feels different to you, because you’re so close to the situation, but you’re just a kid, you don’t understand, blah blah. But he didn’t.
“Different how?”
“This isn’t epilepsy.”
“Well,” he said, “I guess we can’t know anything for sure yet. Sometimes there are other causes for seizures, but the doctors will—”
“The doctors won’t be able to fix this.” Arthur didn’t say anything, he just looked at me. I decided to give it my best shot and explain myself. “There’s something really wrong,” I said, speaking carefully, not sure how much I was ready to reveal. “Not with Logan. With something else.” Still, Arthur didn’t speak, but his open expression seemed to urge me to go on. Not like Dr. Clyde’s silences, where I always seemed to be able to read what she wanted or expected me to say. Like he was really listening. “I think it’s the house.”
“The house?” he said. “This house?”
“You haven’t noticed anything?”
“Well, it’s old. Kind of. Old for white people. If you come down to the reservation someday, I can show you stuff with a lot more history than this house.”
“Is any of that stuff . . . haunted?” Immediately I felt dumb for using the word. “I mean,” I tried again, “do you think any of that old stuff ever”—I reached for a phrase I’d heard my mom use—“accrues energy?”
“Energy,” he repeated with a frown. I don’t think I’d ever seen him frown before, but it seemed more thoughtful than disapproving. “Yeah,” he said, “I think I know what you mean. But I wouldn’t say haunted. The tradition I was raised with says that the spirits of our ancestors are with us all the time, everywhere—but it’s nothing to be afraid of. They watch over us and protect us. It can be a great comfort to know that our loved ones never truly leave us.”
And now I definitely know what he and my mom have in common. How is it so easy for everyone to believe in happy, peaceful hauntings? I’m sick of people trying to reassure me that I have nothing to fear from the dead. It’s all very well to *say* that the dead bear us no ill will, but that’s not always what it looks like.
I decided to try to get Arthur to see this point. “What if some of these spirits aren’t so nice?” I asked him. “What if they don’t seem protective? What if they seem . . . threatening?” And so, as we finished our cups of coffee, and he poured us more, I let loose with all the little things that I had noticed since we moved in. By the time I finished, it was starting to get light out, and I could hear birds.
Arthur was quiet for a moment, staring down into his coffee. “I’ve heard some stories,” he said at last. “Unfriendly spirits, some people say. Other people call them demons. I had a cousin—a different cousin—who went through something similar with her whole family. They live up on Sundown Heights, and everyone says there are spirits up there. The spirits live on the hillside and pass from house to house, if people give them a chance to come in. They say you have to close your curtains at night or they’ll watch you through the window. Don’t cry at night or they’ll hear you and come in. And if you eat with the windows open, they’ll come in for the food and when they can’t get it, they wreak all kinds of havoc. She told me one night she looked out the kitchen window and saw a little girl’s hand in a frilly white glove, just sticking out of the dirt.”
“What do you think? Her first instinct was to burn the whole place down and never look back. People used to do that more in the old days—a good burn will purify a place like nothing else. You come back next year to find mushrooms and berries instead of creepy undead babies. But we don’t have enough land anymore to just walk away from a fire, so instead my grandfather came over to do a cleansing.”
“Did that work?”
“Sure it did. He’s a tribal elder, and when he speaks, everyone listens. Even the dead.” I didn’t say anything, but the look on my face must have spoken volumes. “Do you want me to see if he’ll come?”
I couldn’t speak or even nod at this offer, but tears of relief rolled down my cheeks.