Entry 4 — The Things We Cover

By Jessiibear

Sun, 25 May 2025

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Journal of Isla Loren — March 20

Location: upstairs hallway outside the second bedroom

Weather: cloud-thickened morning, wind pressing against the walls like breath

Notes: markings beneath the surface, withheld memories, floral remnants

Time: 7:43 a.m.

I wasn’t going to write anything today.

I’d made up my mind. I’d decided the best thing—the only thing—was to stop giving the anomalies any attention.

No more sketchbook. No more box. No more noticing.

Just tea, a walk, and maybe repotting the lavender.

But the name was under the wallpaper.

And the floor responded.

So now I’m sitting here again, pen in hand, telling myself I’m only documenting what’s real.

Not spiraling. Not imagining.

Just… recording.

For clarity.

For myself.

My housewarming happened two weeks in.

Paper lanterns. Cheap wine. A thrifted record player scratching out Ella Fitzgerald.

My friends came and sat on blankets on the porch, feet bare, laughing into the sea air.

It felt good. A good omen to a fresh start.

My mom arrived late.

She walked through the door like she didn’t want to touch anything. Held a gift bag like it might burn her fingers.

“It’s a tea set,” she said, setting it on the counter. “Porcelain. You’ll need it. Everyone needs one, even when they live alone.”

Her smile was thin and pinned in place.

She drifted into the sunroom, fingers hovered near the panes. “I remember this room,” she said. “You used to always draw windows like this. Remember?”

I didn’t answer. She didn’t wait.

The next morning, I went back to tidying Margaret’s overgrown garden—repotting marigolds while the sea hummed below.

Her garden had personality. Chaotic in a way my inner artist appreciated. I’ll admit now, though, it was overwhelming to tend at first. To organize the various beds and patches and tangles.

But I kept some of that chaos. Felt like I still had a part of her with me.

Several days ago, after the notebook lay open to me, the house felt too still, like it was waiting for something I wasn’t ready to give.

So I slipped on my coat and went outside.

Just to breathe.

There’s a bench I dragged from the side shed and placed near the edge of the cliff, where the land thins out and drops to stone and sea.

I sat there for a long while, watching the waves. They rolled slow and silver, like someone dragging a sheet across the water.

There’s a kind of rhythm in them. One that feels older than language.

The homes around here are spread far apart—more like distant suggestions of other lives than neighbors. Fields divide them. Wild grass and the spines of old fencing. Not like the suburb I grew up in, where everything pressed close.

After a while, I noticed someone in the field near the next house over—a man, maybe mid-sixties, wearing a wide-brimmed hat. He seemed to be weeding, but every so often he’d just… stop.

Stand and look in my direction.

Not waving. Not walking over. Just watching.

He was too far away for me to make out his facial expression.

Eventually, I raised my hand in a half-wave, more to break the tension than greet him. He nodded once, slow.

Then he turned and walked back toward his house.

But he kept looking over his shoulder, as if I’d done something I shouldn’t have.

Back inside, the house felt heavier. Like it had grown aware of the fact I’d left.

I stepped into the upstairs hallway and noticed a place on the wall—low near the floorboards—where the wallpaper had started to peel. Just a small edge curling outward, like a tongue from a sealed mouth.

It shouldn’t have bothered me. Old houses do this. But it looked deliberate. Tugged.

I stared at it for a long time before kneeling down and pulling the edge away.

What I found underneath wasn’t just cracked plaster. Someone had written there—pencil or maybe charcoal, faded but still legible if I angled my head.

She waits in the walls.

And below that, scrawled as if added later, shakier:

Margaret.

The M had been drawn over more than once, deep enough to indent the wall beneath.

I don’t know why, but the words brought my mother’s voice in the sunroom.

“I remember this room.”

Now, a part of me wonders what exactly she meant.

I returned to the craft room, meaning to paint. But the air felt different in there —thick with something not quite visible.

My supplies had shifted slightly on the table. The box still sat opened. The fabric, bone, and mini sketchbook still laid out around it neatly.

I haven’t dared touch them since.

Instead, I went back upstairs and stood in front of the peeled wallpaper again.

I don’t know why I whispered, “Margaret,” aloud.

But I did.

And the floorboard grew cold beneath me and creaked—slow, like a response.

I’m trying to stay logical. I really am.

Old houses shift and settle. Roses dry and get mixed into things. People scrawl things on walls all the time. Maybe Margaret was unwell. Maybe I’m reading too much into nothing.

But last night I had a dream. Not like the others.

I was standing in the second bedroom upstairs—bare walls, long shadows. I heard someone crying behind the wall.

Not wailing. Not loud.

Just soft.

Careful.

Like they didn’t want anyone to know they were trapped.

I reached for the wall in the dream and felt the texture change. It pulsed beneath my palm. Like skin.

And I woke with dust in my throat.

Dry, like wallpaper ash.

I’m writing this from the hallway now.

The wind has stopped.

And I swear the air is listening.