Entry 5 — Someone (no—Something) In The House

By Jessiibear

Thu, 29 May 2025

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Journal of Isla Loren

March 20

Location: Upstairs hallway outside the second bedroom

Weather: Dark, thick like ink sealing the windows

Time: 11:14 p.m.

I can’t wait until morning. I have to write this down.

The hallway still smells like paint. Faintly sweet — too clean.

My nails are chipped white, flaking half-moons. There’s still a dot on my wrist — primer, maybe.

I thought I wiped it all off.

Yesterday afternoon, I covered her name.

“Margaret,” written beneath that thin layer of wallpaper — and above it, She waits in the walls.

By that point, I’d ignored it for too long.

I scrubbed until my fingers burned. Pasted the seams. Aligned the pattern so carefully it made my eyes blur.

Seamless.

Almost.

I thought that would help.

I thought I’d be alone today.

I told myself it was just company I missed.

But it wasn’t that. Not really.

It was the pause between sounds.

The unnatural kind of quiet that seeps out of corners.

So, sometime after I found the name on the wall, I texted my friend, Mira. She came to my housewarming.

She arrived with large hoop earrings, and a little glitter under her eyes, like she’d come from somewhere she didn’t mean to leave.

She brought a wine bottle with a half-peeled label, and a bakery box with the twine still tied. “They’re from that place on 6th,” she said. “I think they’re raspberry something. You like fruit, right?”

"You remembered," I said, smiling, and let her in.

“To weird little restarts,” she said, raising the bottle like a toast. Then hugged me — warm, a little too long, a little too tight.

She smelled like perfume from two nights before, mixed with a little weed taint.

We sat in the kitchen. She took the chair by the window and tucked her feet under her.

She talked about some mural project, a birthday party she attended for someone she forgot she blocked last year, and a man she only saw at night.

She filled the air with sound. I let her.

For a while, I almost forgot the box. The rose. The fabric. The name on the wall.

Chuckling at her tales, I got up to pour us each a glass of wine.

Then Mira went still, head tilting toward the hallway.

“Is that… someone upstairs?”

I froze.

“No… it’s just us.”

She didn’t say more.

But something about hearing her say it — someone upstairs — it felt like a match struck in a locked drawer — not fear, not even dread, but something older.

Recognition.

She kept looking at the ceiling. “I thought I heard a door.”

I hadn’t told her about Margaret. Or the wall-writing. Or the dreams.

I was afraid she’d laugh. Or worse — nod too gently, and tell me it was childhood trauma showing up in strange ways. Or that it was nothing.

But she settled back into her chair slowly, her arms crossed now. Eyes still flicking upward like she expected another sound to follow the first.

“Your house feels…” she started, then stopped.

“What?”

She shook her head. “Like it’s not just yours.”

A little later, as we drank, Mira perked up.

“You can’t hide it anymore,” she said, chuckling. “You could have told me you had someone over.”

I blinked. “What?”

She tilted her head. “Footsteps! Just now. C’mon, Isla — who’s the secret lover?”

I tried to laugh. It came out too sharp.

“Mira, there’s no one here.”

She gave me this long, squinting look. Not teasing anymore. “That why you texted me? To run interference?”

Before I could reply, she was already halfway up the stairs.

“Mira—”

“Relax! I’ll be nice. Just wanna say hi.”

Something in my chest pulled tight. Not fear. Not exactly. A warning. From my body. The house? I’m not sure anymore.

Like a tugging thread:

Don’t follow her.

Or maybe: Don’t let her go alone.

She paused outside the second bedroom — the door I never open.

“Is he in here?” she said.

“There’s no one in there.”

My voice was thin. Too fast.

She knocked twice, then opened the door. A draft wafted after her.

Then a long silence.

Long enough for me to remember the box. The folded fabric. The smell of the dried flower. The bone.

Long enough to wonder — not for the first time — if there is someone in here.

Not just a presence.

Someone who’s been here.

Who’s opened things when I’ve closed them.

Who’s watched me when I thought I was alone.

I was still on the stairs when Mira came back out.

Her earrings were gone.

She didn’t mention why. I didn’t ask.

She looked… pale. Her mouth twisted like she’d swallowed something old — sour, and still moving.

But then she smiled wide — too wide.

She adjusted her scarf, smoothed the front of her pink jumper.

“You’re right,” she said, yanking the door shut. “No one there.”

We went downstairs again. She poured herself more wine. Her hand trembled once. Stilled. Trembled again.

“I must’ve imagined it,” she said, not looking at me.

“You looked like you saw something.”

She shrugged. “Maybe I did. I had a drink before I came over.”

“But, you drove here.”

“It was just one. Just enough to make the hallway creak and the shadows crawl.”

She smiled.

But it didn’t meet her eyes.

We talked for a while longer. But something had shifted.

Mira kept glancing at the stairs. Her sentences came out clipped. Like she was skipping certain thoughts on purpose.

She’d looked at me the way the man from the field near the next house over did — like I’d done something wrong.

Like there was something beside me. Something I couldn’t see.

She got up to leave early. Claimed she forgot a meeting.

I thought of the skunky smell she came here with. The glitter still clinging to the creases of her eyelids. The way her smile had slipped sideways after the second glass.

I almost asked her to stay — just for the night. To sober up. To rest.

She was a veteran substance abuser. She’d told me once, half-laughing, that moderation was just a polite way to starve.

But the words caught.

I watched her adjust her scarf, fingers fumbling like they didn’t belong to her.

Something in me wanted to stop her. The other part — the heavier part — didn’t.

Because something had already shifted.

Because I was afraid of what would happen if she stayed.

She left the bakery box behind.

I watched her car drive off.

She didn’t look back. Didn't wave goodbye.

The bottle sat half-empty on the kitchen counter, her pastries untouched.

I think she saw something. I think she didn’t say.

And I think I understand why.

That night, I dreamt of the second bedroom.

Except, Mira never came back out.

She stood at the window — only the window didn’t face the right way. And her hands were pressed to the glass, fingers too long. Trembling.

Her face was blurred, like steam on a mirror.

She looked like she was trying to speak. Something stuck in her throat.

Like she was choking.

Or being kept quiet.

The morning after, I went upstairs again. I thought I’d try painting. Or maybe just stare at the wall I hadn’t yet fixed by then.

But the door to the bedroom was open again.

I remember Mira closing it. I know she did.

I heard the click, observed the strong tug of her arm, the tight grip of her hand around the knob.

I closed it again.

Tighter this time.

Locked it, turning the bolt as if pressing hard enough could make it stay.

Then I sat down in the hallway.

(It’s always colder here than the rest of the house.)

But the door — it cracked open again.

I jolted at the creak of it, could’ve sworn I heard the faint scraping of fingers on wood. Then got up and rushed to the craft room.

I didn’t realize I was doing it until I was there — I began counting the paints, checking the brushes, trying to prove something to myself — what, I don’t know.

And maybe that’s what I’m doing now. A sort of inventory check.

Trying to make something real, just long enough to deny it.

But I think Mira saw someone in that room.

Or — no. Not someone. Something.

And I think… even if I never say it out loud… I knew she would see it.

Like the house somehow wanted her to. Like it wanted me to watch her see it.

Like it knew…

~~I knew it, too.~~

I knew i

—

[This entry ends abruptly. No further writing was found on this page.

Handwriting degrades at this point. Next legible entry dated March 22.]