The Gathering

Sorry it's been so long since I updated everyone! My science class is a bear, and I'm having trouble doing fun things like blogging. It's taking all of my energy to deal with the thing in my room and not failing.

I finally convinced my mom to let Avalanche come over, and Bee and her older sister, Mallory, showed up a few minutes later.
The thing had been sort of quiet lately, but it'd never met Mallory and took the opportunity to introduce itself by throwing a heavy snowglobe at her head.
"Hi, I'm Bee, and this is my sister Mallory," Bee introduced herself to Avalanche. "We did a lot of ghost hunting with our dad, and Mallory is really good at it. I brought her along to see what she thought."
"Awesome!" I said. Honestly, though, I was so tired from not being able to sleep, I didn't really care if she'd brought in a Klingon. I sat down on the floor to get out of their way as Mallory opened the backpack she had brought and pulled out a couple of things that looked like a camera, a tape recorder, and a couple of odd looking machines. She selected one, turned it on and started waving it around in the air.

Avalanche flopped down beside me in a huff. "If I'd known you already had professionals on the job, I wouldn't have bothered to show up," she said irritably.
"Maybe if you'd known what you were doing to begin with, Edie wouldn't need us!" Mallory snapped at her. She adjusted a dial on her machine and continued to wave it around.

Avalanche jumped up and started to say something, but I reached up and yanked on the pocket of her jeans and pulled her back down. "Aves, just let it go... I need this thing out of here, and you weren't allowed over. Bee was all I had. We're still best friends, nothing has changed."
Avalanche stared at the floor and picked at the carpet. She mumbled something about everything changing, and she looked miserable. I started to ask her what was wrong, since it seemed like more than just my new friends, but Mallory distracted me.

"It's not a ghost," she announced confidently, switching off her machine. "There's a ghost here, too, but the thing that's throwing stuff isn't one. It's a poltergeist."

A Potential Solution?

Remember in my last post I was all worried about whether I should tell Bee about my problem or not? I shouldn't have worried, it sort of worked itself out.

So this morning while Bee and I were outside taking Rocket and Argos for their morning walk, Bee's mom called my mom and asked her if Bee could stay with us while she took Bee's sister, Mallory, to the dentist. Since Bee and I have been getting along so well, and Bee doesn't seem to have Avalanche's crazy problem, Mom agreed instantly.

Bee stopped to drop Argos off at their apartment and grab a few things from her room,and then she was walking into our living room. I still can't get used to having a friend that lives so close to me! We had a few awkward moments in the living room... I wasn't sure what to do about my bedroom, but my mom said "Edie, why don't you show Bee your room?" and I had to take her in there. I was hoping she wouldn't notice anything, but she had barely crossed into it from the hall way when the shadowy thing threw a shoe at her head and launched two books across the room in front of her. I had no idea what to say; I couldn't breathe for a whole minute. I was sure I'd just lost a friend.

Her mouth dropped open in shock, and she shook her head.I expected her to run for the door and never come back, but all she said was "Whoa, Edie! Did you know you've got some bad stuff in here?" She started to walk around the room, staring at the ceiling.
"My... my friend Avalanche talked me into playing with a Ouija board last week," I said shakily. "I think she let in two ghosts. I don't mind the one, she appears to be an ancestor of mine, but the other, well... It throws stuff."
Bee quickly dodged another shoe and a snow globe. "I can tell," she said wryly.

She pulled a cellphone out of her pocket and started using it to take photos of my room. She showed me one of them, and I was shocked to see a dark shadow in the ceiling in every one of them, even though I couldn't see anything there myself.

"Fortunately, I think we can get rid of it, but we need your friend, and some sage, I think. Edie, you have to try to stop being so scared of it. I know it's hard, but it feeds off of energy like that," Bee said. She seemed really confident; more so than Avalanche had ever been.

I nodded and took a deep breath. I told her all about Maude, and how we thought maybe the thing was feeding off of her energy, too.
"Do you think we can get rid of the negative thing, but keep Maude around?" I asked. "I'd really like to talk to her about her life and stuff."
Bee shrugged. "Maybe, but I think the most important thing is to focus on this negative thing. It has to go, and anyway, we have no way of knowing if Maude will ever regain enough energy to come back as fully bodied as she did that first night, or even if she will remember her life."

I nodded. "Ok," I said. "I'll see if I can convince my mom to let Avalanche come over soon so we can take care of this."

To the Park with Bee!

I don't have a whole lot to report on the whole ghostly encounters thing tonight. Mostly because I convinced my mom to let me stay over with Bernadette last night and I had some time away from it all. It's the first good nights sleep I've gotten in a couple of days, and I feel a lot better now. I guess the thing in my bedroom likes my room, not me.

I like hanging out with Bernadette and her mom, and I found out a little more about them.
It turns out, Bernadette likes to go by Bee, and she and her mom and her older sister moved here from Oklahoma City because her parents just got a divorce and her mom thought they needed a fresh start in a new town. Bee's dad left them and doesn't really have much to do with them anymore. Bee told me that it happened really suddenly and she's having a hard time dealing with it all. She says her dad took her dog, Howard, with him, and she's been really missing having Howard around, too. I can totally understand, I would be devastated if something happened to Rocket.
Bee told me her mom had offered to take her to an animal shelter to see if she could find a new friend, but she was afraid it would seem like she was trying to replace Howard. I told her that she couldn't replace Howard and she never had to stop loving him, but there were probably lots of dogs that could use some extra loving, too.

She liked it when I put it like that. She said she hadn't thought of it that way.
So, we told her mom that she'd decided to give a new friend a try, and we went to the animal shelter. Her mom liked the puppies, but Bee was drawn to an older dog named Argos. He was big, shaggy, and calm, and Bee said he was the exact opposite of Howard, who was little and hyper, and she really liked that about this dog. Bee spent about an hour with him at the shelter to make sure he was the one, and in the end Argos came home with us!

Late that afternoon, we took him to the park for some bonding time and photos.

He was really good at coming to his name when Bee called him!



This is Bee and Argos posing for the camera!

We found a ball and played fetch for a long time. Bee flopped down in the grass, and Argos came and snuggled her, and laid down in her lap. It was adorable!



Then, we took a pic together. I'm so glad to have met such a cool new friend, and I think she had a really great day. She's already totally attached to Argos, and we're all glad we went to the shelter today.

I wonder if I should tell her about Maude and my problem? Her family doesn't seem like they're into the paranormal, so they probably wouldn't be much help, but you never know. I just don't want to burden my new friend with anything else; she's already dealing with so much.
On the other hand, maybe it would help distract her?