Woodwork

Excerpts from the diary of Elizabeth Chillhurst, comprising entries from 7-27 to 8-8

July 27

Finally found you again, diary!! Yaay!! I missed writing in you during the move!!

We're almost done moving the last of our stuff into Grandpa Chillhurst's creepy old place. UGH!! It is AWFUL here!! The place is FULL of all of his creepy old collections and his creepy old books. Danny likes it, which makes sense, because he's a little creep, but I don't, and I'm pretty sure mom and dad don't either. I heard mom saying how she was amazed that grandpa left dad the house, because of how they were always fighting. I didn't know that, but it does explain why we never saw him. There's a big picture of him hanging in one of the rooms, the one with all the stuffed owls. He looks mean.

It's not all bad. The furniture here's nice--real wood!! There's this nightstand, next to my bed, with all sorts of handcarved symbols on the base, and it's really cool. And the bed's very comfy, and there's a nice big window in my room that looks out at the woods. Danny wanted it also, but we flipped for it, and I got it!! I think he's doing things to make me leave. He's such a little creep!!

Anyway, we're just moving in, and getting used to the neighborhood. Not that there's much of one, because Grandpa seemed to like to live in the middle of nowhere. Still--it's quiet, much quieter than home, and that makes getting to sleep easier. So maybe we'll get used to it.

The only thing I don't like is that Danny's right next door, and the doors don't lock, so the little creep can sneak into my room whenever he likes. He is so going to be doing bad things with that.

July 28

Didn't sleep well last night. The nightstand is creepy--there's a face on it. Not really--Dad says its just a pattern on the wood grain, but at night, in the dark, it looks like a face. A face, with big wide jaws and fangs, like it's going to eat you. It's not nice.

We moved some more of our stuff in today. We had to move a bunch of Grandpa's stuff out to do that, including this bunch of old sticks, with things tied to them. Mom wanted us to move the stuffed owls out to, but no one wanted to touch them.

PS--Danny tried to put a mouse in my room!! He is such a jerk!!

July 29

Danny is sneaking into my room, and whispering things when I'm not in it. I think he thinks that if he scares me he'll get the room. But I'm not leaving, not for him, and not for the face on the nightstand!!

Mom and Dad have to go see the lawyer. There's some weird issue with Grandpa's will, I really don't get it, but they'll be going to the city in a little while, which means Danny and me will be by ourselves for a few days.

Fun.

July 30

Danny keeps doing stupid things to spook me. Like he tossed a stuffed owl into my room this morning--he thought I was sleeping, but I wasn't, so I saw him. And I think he put one of Grandpa's old books on my bed, open, like he'd been reading it. It was some weird junk about Indian curses and "bad medicine"--I really didn't get it. And he keeps doing the whispering thing, though he swears he isn't!! I don't even get what he's saying--it sounds like "What she many too?" which makes no sense. But then it doesn't have to. Just has to be creepy. Especially the creepy high voice he uses!! UGH!! It creeps me out just thinking about it!!

The face on the nightstand looked extracreepy last night. I'm thinking about asking Dad to move it, when he and Mom get back from the city. I'd ask now, but we have a lot of other things to move, and it's big and very heavy.

July 31

Danny put a jar with a baby pig from Grandpa's study on the kitchen table last night, to try and spook me when we had breakfast, but he wound up scaring mom instead. She dropped the pancakes and broke the plate. Dad is very mad, and says that I'm going to be in charge when they leave, and Danny is going to be grounded.

Which would mean more, if this place actually got television, or something I could punish the little jerk with. I suppose I could tell him to stay in his room, but he wouldn't do it. He is such a jerk!! He left another one of grandpa's books on my bed, with a bit highlighted. It was something about evil Indian witches who could put evil spirits into things, and into people, and even into themselves if they wanted to, and do all sorts of evil things with them. If Danny thinks he can scare me with this stuff, he's wrong!!

I tried to not look at the face last night, by looking out the window, but the woods looked as creepy as the face, and the moon was so bright, I couldn't get to sleep.

August 1

Mom says I'm talking loudly in my sleep!! That can't be right, because I'm not sleeping!! I bet it's Danny!! He makes me so ANGRY!!

Dad took me back to grandpa's study. He wants to lock it up before he goes, so that Danny doesn't get at it, and before he did, he thought he should check what shape it's in. It's a creepy room, filled with lots more jars of baby pigs, and other baby things, and a wall of arrowheads, and lots of pictures. There's one from an old newspaper of Grandpa holding one of his books in one hand, and a human skull in the other, and under that, it said "Benjamin Chillhurst, America's Alester Crowley". I asked Dad what that meant, and he said it was just nonsense. He said that his father was mean and hateful, and liked to make people think he could do things he couldn't.  I could believe it--he looked awful and old in that picture, and it was taken when he was much younger, about Dad's age!!

There was also a picture of a man who looked like Grandpa with a bunch of Indians. I thought it might be him, because he wrote all those books about Indians, but Dad said it was much too old, and that it was probably grandpa's father, my great-grandfather. He said that Great-grandpa Chillhurst was a lot like his son, and that he made the family fortune by mining for gold, and buying land cheap from Indians then selling it to settlers and the government for lots of money. I asked him what happened to the money, and he said that Grandpa spent a lot of it, but there was a lot of it left, and that was one thing they were going to see the lawyer about. He said it was entrust, which I think means that we'll get it, but not now.

Mom and Dad are leaving tomorrow. They've left us a bunch of frozen pizzas, and a number to call if things get bad. I'm going to be in charge, and I hope that I can keep Danny in line. And I hope I can get to sleep tonight, and that the face doesn't do anything creepy.

August 2

Danny put a snake in my room.

As soon as mom and dad left, he put a snake in my room.

He says he didn't but I can hear the thing moving around and sometimes I can see it, out of the corner of my eye, just for a moment.

I am so MAD at him!! I told him to stay in his room, all morning, and only come out for dinner, but he's not listening to me, he's going into my room, and doing the whispering thing when I'm not there, and it's so infuriating, and I really need to get to sleep!! The face keeps glaring at me, and the moon shines right in my eyes, and I think I saw a guy walking out in the woods last night, a big glowing guy.

I'm sleeping in the living room tonight. The couch isn't as nice as the bed, but there's no snake there, and no face, and I won't have to look at the woods and the awful awful moon!!

I'm going to get some sleep.

August 3

I got to sleep last night.

It was awful.

I had a bad dream.

Grandpa was standing over me--or it looked like Grandpa--he was dressed like one of the Indians in the picture, and he was holding a skull in one hand, and one of those sticks in the other, and he was chanting, and talking, and he said something like "200 years the to me, 200 years me to the", and then something about the government being sealed in his blood, and then there was this rattle, and something started talking back to him in this weird high voice, and it talked about getting new flesh, and the walls around him started to move, and that's when I realized they weren't walls, they were a giant snake, and that's when I woke up, and it got worse.

Danny had done something awful. Really awful!! He painted something from one of grandpa's books on the wall while I was sleeping in this bright yellow paint--"The victim must know they are being cursed, even if they do not consciously accept it". He's trying to make me think he's cursing me, the little creep!! He says he isn't!! Like I'd believe that!! I tried to call mom and dad, but he'd hid the number, so I couldn't, but when I find it again, he will be in so much trouble!! They will ground him permanently!!

First I had him clean up the wall, and it turned out the stuff just came right off, then I sent him to his room for being such a brat, and I stood outside it, for the rest of the day, and then I didn't let him out for dinner, and I ate the pizza outside his door, and I didn't share a bit of it.

I'm going to sleep in mom and dad's room tonight.

The living room is bad.

August 4

Mom and Dad's room didn't work. There's a big window, and the moon shined right through it, into my eyes and I saw the glowing man walking around the woods, and he seemed to look at me, and I kept flashing back to what might have been a memory of seeing grandpa when he was alive, and he came right up to me, and he put his hand on my head and looked in my eyes, and he said "good stock, this one, I'll have to use her," and dad and mom just looked scared, and I cried, and tried to get away, but he grabbed me and wouldn't let go.

And I think the snake got into the room, somehow, because I think I heard it, and maybe saw it just once.

So I didn't get any sleep, and the next morning there was a big boom, and Danny started screaming, and we both rushed downstairs, and it was grandpa's study. The door had gotten open, which is impossible, and some of the jars of dead baby things had fallen off the table, and Danny started crying, and saying he didn't do it, and I believed him. So we cleaned things up, and it was disgusting, and then we had breakfast, and then we said sorry to each other.

But when we were cleaning the study, I found a piece of paper, most of it was nonsense, written in all these weird squiggles, but the top has the words, "Addendum And Amendment To My Bond After Its First Century" and at the bottom is Grandpa's signature, and the date, with two more weird bunch of squiggles after it.

Grandpa signed it in 1967. That was the year dad was born.

I didn't tell Danny about it, because holding it made me feel kind of sick, and looking at the squiggles made my head hurt. I don't what it says, but I know it says something, and that something is something terrible.

I'm really scared. Grandpa did something horrible, and I don't know what.

I'm sleeping in my room tonight. Going to other places doesn't work.

August 5

I don't know if it's actually August 5, but I filled up the whole page for August 4, even if I write very small, and I can't get to sleep.

It's not so bad tonight. I don't see the glowing man, and the snake is gone. But the face in the nightstand is looking right at m (breaks into illegible scrawl)

August 6

(entire page illegible scrawl)

August 7

(entire page illegible scrawl)

August 8

Had you going there, didn't I, Danny boy?

This whole thing started when you began that frankly pathetic effort to scare me. I decided to give it right back to you. Hence, my various little macabre tales, and these amusing little diary entries. (And, yes, Danny, I know you read this. In the future, I recommend you do not. Gods, you are such a sneaking little worm at times!)  Naturally, once Mom and Dad went off to deal with the various codicils in the will, I saw my opportunity, and I took it.

The bit in Grandfather's study didn't go quite as I planned--I just wanted the door to slam, to give you a fright--but I can take comfort in the fact that nothing genuinely valuable was damaged. Whatever his good points were, Benjamin was a horrid pack rat--he collected those foetuses simply out of a perverse delight in collecting them, and never could think of anything to do with them besides using them to make his room look vaguely "occultic". Ahh, well. De gustibus non est disputandum.

I hope this has taught you a lesson about trying to pull one on me. I'm your big sister, and I have tricks that you wouldn't believe, Danny boy! (And no, I am not just saying that.) And for Gods' sake, try to actually check on things instead of just believing what you read! I mean, look at my nightstand! Is there actually some horrible fanged face with a tremendous maw on it? Of course not! At best, there's an image that looks sort of like a young girl, wailing in terror. If you look at it at precisely the right angle, of course.

Pleasant dreams, Danny boy!