Angry #9-Reasonable Explanations
I did not sleep well.
That is the first thing. That is the important thing. I did not sleep well, and when a person does not sleep well, the mind begins to make shapes out of nothing. It takes shadows and gives them intention. It takes silence and gives it meaning. It takes an old mirror in a decaying house and turns it into something that should not be written down in a diary if the writer wants to remain respectable.
So I will write the reasonable explanations first.
The mirror was old.
Old mirrors warp.
Old mirrors desilver. They develop dark spots. They bend light in ways that make reflections appear displaced. I have staged enough houses to know this. I have seen antique mirrors make empty rooms look occupied, make hallways look longer, make doorways seem to stand open when they are closed. It is a trick of glass and angle and exhaustion.
I had been tired.
I had been drinking too much coffee and not eating enough.
I had been under pressure for months.
I had just come from a walkthrough in a house that unsettled me, with a buyer who unsettled me, while an architect talked about bones and foundations as if houses were bodies.
Of course I saw something.
Of course my brain took the nearest available image—Plum—and placed it where it did not belong.
That is all.
The mind is a pattern machine. It hates emptiness. It fills gaps with whatever is closest. Fear is efficient that way. It does not need truth. It only needs material.
I keep saying this to myself because it is true.
It has to be true.
Because if it is not true, then I need to ask questions I cannot afford to ask.
Why did Plum buy the house site unseen?
Why did she know its history before I told her?
Why did she say the bones the way Elias said it, but with more familiarity?
Why did the salt circle disappear?
Why did I see her reflection when she was elsewhere in the house?
Why did the red thread feel warm all night?
I am not going to answer those questions today.
I cannot.
This morning I woke up and checked my bank account before I checked my face in the bathroom mirror. That is the truth of me now. I checked the balance first. The money was still there. The Aldrich listing paperwork had come through. The Marlowe commission had posted. The Crenshaw file was moving to closing. For the first time in over a year, I was not calculating which bill could survive another week.
I looked at my wrist.
The red thread was still tied.
The knot had not loosened.
If anything, it seemed to sit more snugly against my skin, as if it had learned the exact circumference of me overnight.
I thought about untying it.
I touched the knot, and my stomach dropped so violently I had to sit on the edge of the bed.
Not fear.
Not exactly.
It was the feeling you get when you stand too close to a platform edge and something in you leans forward before you step back. A pull. A warning. A knowledge that some actions cannot be undone once performed.
I left it tied.
I showered. I dressed. I made coffee. I opened my laptop and reviewed the Aldrich files. I answered emails. I called the title company. I did all the ordinary things that make up an ordinary life, and I did them while wearing a knot of red thread and hair given to me by a woman who had purchased a haunted mansion without ever walking through it.
I am writing that word now.
Haunted.
I did not say it aloud at the house. I did not say it in the car. I did not say it last night when I lay awake listening to the settle of my apartment building and pretending it was not the sound of footsteps.
Haunted.
It is a childish word.
It is a word for tourists and bad listing descriptions. It is a word used by people who want to make old houses seem charming instead of dangerous. Real estate professionals do not say haunted. We say character. We say historic. We say previous occupants were very attached to the property.
But I saw what I saw.
Or I thought I saw what I saw.
Or I was tired and frightened and standing in front of warped glass in a house where someone had once laid down a perfect circle of salt.
I need to decide which version is true.
No.
That is wrong.
I need to decide which version I can live with.
The truth is a luxury. The truth is something you can afford when your bills are paid and your hands are steady and no one is calling to ask when the next deposit will arrive. The truth is what people want when they have never had to smile through a walkthrough while wondering whether their card would be declined at the gas station afterward.
I cannot afford the truth.
I can afford closings.
I can afford commissions.
I can afford to be the woman who handles difficult clients and troubled properties and makes everything look clean on paper.
Plum called this afternoon.
She did not ask how I was.
She asked if I had rested.
I said yes.
She asked if I had eaten.
I said yes.
She asked if the house had stayed with me.
I almost lied.
Then I realized she was not asking whether I had thought about the house.
She was asking whether the house had stayed with me.
As if it could follow.
As if it could attach.
“No,” I said. “I’m fine.”
There was a pause.
“Good,” Plum said. “You should be.”
After we hung up, I sat with my phone in my hand for a long time.
The red thread itched.
I did not scratch it.
I need her luck more than I need answers.