October 2023 Fiction Project: The Witch House – Oct 6

I don’t know how to say what I need to say today.

I don’t know what to believe anymore.

💀

Friday is supposed to be a good day. Tomorrow is Saturday and I don’t have to go to school. And then Sunday I don’t have to go to school.

But then Monday I have to go to school again.

Oh no.

But this weekend will be different.

Last night was the first whole day that Stepdad Dave was gone.

And now I understand Mom a little better?

The house doesn’t feel safe, even with the ghost cat helping watch over us.

💀

The ghost cat came with us from our old house when my actual Dad, Steven, died. He’s fine. I mean he is not fine, he is a malevolent spirit who hurts people but I don’t think he meant to be as bad as he actually was.

I lied before. He didn’t actually kill anyone.

But it was actually kind of close. There was a girl named Paige who was bullying me. The ghost cat followed her through our neighborhood and stalked her almost exactly this day last year.

The ghost cat has long, soft black fur that sticks out between his toes.

And a pink tongue that looks soft but isn’t.

And a loud purr, loud enough to pass through my entire body.

I wasn’t ready for him to try to eat Paige.

Page has a beautiful-mean face, the kind of mean face that gets prettier the angrier she gets. She has long reddish hair and wears tiny diamond earrings and three colors of pink-tan eye shadow and blush-pink lip gloss. She takes ballet lessons and sometimes wears ballet clothes to class under her uniform, tights and bodysuits.

She has heart-shaped lips that turn down at the corners.

She said mean things to me in fifth grade after my dad died.

But nothing bad enough to get eaten over.

The ghost cat bit me that night on the couch. I moved and he startled and bit the side of my hand and started growling at me. He wouldn’t let go. It’s hard to get a ghost cat to let go. The more I fought, the more he growled and the harder he bit. Finally he put his paws on my hand and dug in his claws so I would hold still.

I started shivering and shaking. I felt cold. My bones hurt and my head hurt and I wanted to cry but my eyes and throat were too dry.

“Please stop,” I said.

He growled louder.

“I don’t want to die, ghost cat.”

He bit harder and it felt like the bones in my hand were starting to crunch against each other.

I started crying. No tears. I felt so sad, so sorry for myself.

Just then I thought of Paige and how much she would have freaked out if this had been happening to her. If she had to deal with a ghost cat and her dad dying the same year.

The ghost cat melted away, and I felt better.

Then I heard a scream.

Outside.

I got up and went outside without a jacket or shoes. It wasn’t snowing but it felt like it might. It was dark outside and I felt a dot of wetness on my lip.

Paige stood under the tree in our old front yard. She had her back pressed against the trunk.

The ghost cat was circling the tree and yowling, swinging at her with a paw.

He was huge. Larger than our house. But he was still a ghost.

Mostly.

He walked through the fallen leaves, mostly brown and dark yellow, and didn’t make a sound. His paws didn’t crunch or slip.

But the leaves on the tree rustled as he brushed against them with his dark, smoky-soft fur.

He looked up and saw me, and started purring.

My hand started hurting. I looked down and saw blood oozing out of the places where the ghost cat had bitten me.

It dripped on the leaves.

I said, “Send this death to the leaves, not the children. Send this death to the leaves, not the children. Send this death to the leaves, not the children.”

I don’t know how I knew to say that.

But the wind suddenly blew hard and shook all the leaves off the tree and off the ground all around us, and the filled in the place where the giant ghost cat had been, the sidewalk and the street and over the parked across the street, too, and brushing up against our house as the ghost cat circled the tree, trying to get Paige.

All the leaves rushed into that space, and then they frizzled up and turned into black dust and blew everywhere.

Both Paige and I started coughing. And then she ran away.

We both got sick after that. I got better first.

Paige’s mom came to our house while I was at school and got in a fight with my mom. I don’t know much about their fight, except that we moved in with Stepdad Dave a couple of weeks after that and I had to change schools in the middle of the year.

So Paige’s mom must have won.

I had to visit Paige in the hospital to tell her I was sorry. Paige had told her mom that I had bullied her and shoved a fist full of moldy mushrooms in her face.

I did worse so I did what Mom told me to do.

I brought a book with me that I bought from my own money at the Scholastic Fair, The Mysterious Benedict Society. I didn’t know what she liked. But I knew that I would feel bad about not having the copy of The Mysterious Benedict Society that I wanted.

A nurse showed me to Paige’s room. She was in a light-yellow hospital room all by herself. She looked like she was wearing death makeup. Her skin color was wrong and her skeleton sat under her skin and sort of stared at me accusingly.

I gave her the book.

Paige put it on the rolling table beside her and pushed the table away from her. “Thank yew. Did you mom make you come here?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Good. Now go away.”

I went away.

Paige got better. I stalk her on social media sometimes. She goes to a different middle school than I do.

She looks even more beautiful, and even more mean.

She didn’t actually die.

I made that part up.

I wouldn’t want you to think I was a liar or anything.

Mr. Henderson.