The Dead House - Dawn Kurtagich Page 0,67

are no words, just long lines of nothing.

Dee, she was disappearing even then. How did Naida not see? Was the Voice pulling her away without my even noticing? If I had told her the truth, might she have tried to hold on to me? I can almost see Aka Manah pulling at her arm. She is insubstantial as a rag doll, stitched at the joints, loosely, like she will fall apart any moment.

Today the dog barks, she writes.

Someone is coming, she writes.

And on the last page:

help me

Later

I know. Yes, I know it’s important. Yes. Yes, I’m going to.

Don’t rush me. Naida can wait for a minute, can’t she?

This means something, Dee, doesn’t it? That’s why you’re pushing me.

I know.

Yes, I know.

I will—I’m going to tell her right now.

A conversation with Naida is implied in the last section of the diary. No record has been found of such a conversation, nor is it mentioned by Kaitlyn or Naida in any of the following entries.

Naida Camera Footage

Wednesday, 5 January 2005, 11:52 PM

Basement

The light is on. Kaitlyn gets off the mattress gingerly, leaving her journal and Carly’s journal behind. She walks over to the armoire, pauses as though listening, and then opens both doors. There is a full-length mirror attached to the back of the ornate cupboard.

“Carly?” she says, staring at her reflection. “Carly? Carly? Carly? Carly? Carly? Carly? Carly?”

This behavior continues for forty minutes, until Kaitlyn falls silent, but does not move. By the time the motion-activated camera deactivates, she is still standing in front of the mirror, looking for a sign that does not appear.

75

On the first of January 2005, DCI Floyd Homes was assigned to the Johnson missing persons case. He began an investigation into the whereabouts of Carly Johnson and issued a warrant for her arrest on 6 January 2005.

Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson

Thursday, 6 January 2005, There Is No Time!

Basement

Writing down—

Haaaaaandrad heeeeeends.

—everything he says to me.

Seeeeeee the bluuuuuuuuuud?

Leeeeeeesen welllllll.

Caummmmm to meeeeeeee.

Yooooooooo ah myyyyyyyyyyyn.

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Mehhhhhhhhhhhhhhm

Behhhhhhhhhhhhhhr

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…

His voice fades away into the hiss of the Dead Ocean, but I have the words:

Hundred hands.

See the blood?

Listen well.

Come to me.

You are mine.

Re

Mem

Ber.

Remember.

Remember what?

Later

She’s always here now. Can you see her, Dee? Her laughter sounds like glass.

YOU ARE NOT HER!

76

26 days until the incident

Naida Camera Footage

Friday, 7 January 2005, 7:12 AM

Attic

“It appeared overnight, we think,” Naida says. She is holding a pashmina around her neck, lifting it over her nose. “It reeks.”

She turns the camera. This is the first glimpse we can see of the attic in which Kaitlyn spent so much of her time before her sectioning. As Kaitlyn described, it is riddled with boxes, dust, cobwebs, and cupboards. Only now, script covers every inch of the wooden walls.

Naida approaches the wall to the left, directly beside the door. “We think it starts here. We can’t know for sure… it’s all so manic.” She touches the wall. “Wow, look here. Mirror writing… like Da Vinci used.”

The camera reveals an array of script written in pen and marker, sharp letters that slant left, then right, most of it difficult to decipher. The mirror writing runs neatly from right to left in patches.

“Moving along,” Naida continues, her breath noisy in the mic, “looks like the pen ran out. See here, it turns to pencil.”

And the writing does change, for a short while, to pencil.

“Then scratching in the wood itself.”

Naida runs her fingers along the grooves where words and symbols have been cut into the wood with sharp, frenetic lines.

“And then here,” she says, walking farther along. “Some kind of stain.”

The words become larger, haphazard—and seem to be smeared onto the wood with something brown. Naida follows the script, moving between and behind boxes, and rounds the first corner.

“Then there’s this.”

A stain on the floor. Large. Dark. Ominous.

“Haven’t got a clue what that is, but I do sense something… off about this room. Kaitie says she’d been spending all her time up here until Carly… went. It troubles me.”

She turns the camera on herself. “It troubles me, because I can sense intent here. Like parts of this school… the older parts. Only, I’ve never sensed anything like this. And there’s a smell… a scent. Like”—she inhales, nostrils widening—“I don’t know, like mildew or something. Like rot. And something else—something vile. It worries me that Kaitie’s been sitting in this power for so long, exposed to hell knows what.”

The camera spins once more, to take in the defiled space.

“Something’s been working up here. I’ll have to check people’s handwriting. I’ll decipher all I can.”

77

Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson

Friday, 7 January