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."

Out of Trouble... Sort of.

I finally got my laptop back! I was in trouble for about a week, and Mom is still pretty angry with me.
So far, I haven't really 'seen' Maude again. I know she is there, and sometimes I catch a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye, but she hasn't come back as solid as she was the first night Avalanche and I saw her, and she hasn't been able to talk to me.

The other thing is something else. I've caught glimpses of him too (I don't know what it is, but calling it 'him' makes it seem a little less scary, although not much); but he's always dark shadows though. There hasn't been anything major happen since the first night, but lots of little things keep happening to make me jump, like things moving around or my alarm going off at random times during the night, even though it isn't supposed to. I haven't been able to sleep at all, and I'm always tired. It's also almost always freezing in my room now.
Maude seems like she's getting weaker, and this other thing is getting stronger. Since she was so strong to begin with, I sometimes wonder if he isn't feeding off of her strength and making her go away. I hope she doesn't go away completely, forever.

Mom still won't believe me about the ghosts, not even when I told her about Avalanche's Ouija board. I just got into even more trouble for messing around with one.
She also says Avalanche isn't allowed over any more... I don't know what to do! Avalanche is the only one who can help me, I'm really scared of the one ghost, but I don't want to get into any more trouble by sneaking her over.

Busted!

Maude

For the next few minutes, it seemed like a tornado had hit my bedroom! The curtains flapped against the walls and blew around wildly. They finally ripped in half from all the abuse. My posters tore off the walls and turned to tiny shreds of paper, dolls flew around, bouncing off the walls with their skirts blowing up over their heads, and the whole room was filled with flying books.

I snatched my special, autographed copy of Meet Marie Grace out of the air as it whizzed by my head, and Avalanche managed to snag the autographed Meet Cecile for me. The other books could be replaced, but I didn't know when I would have the chance to meet the authors again!

So, we each had a book in our hand when my bedroom door suddenly flew open and my mom stomped in in her PJs.

The paranormal stuff in the room suddenly stopped, and Maude faded away. I could just barely see her against the wall.

"What is going on in here?" Mom demanded, standing in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips. She looked around at the damage in the room furiously, then gasped when she saw the books on the floor and the two books in our hands.

"Are you two actually in here throwing books and destroying your room?!" she asked us in shock.

I shook my head and Avalanche and I both tried to explain what had happened with the Ouija board, but she wouldn't listen.

"Do NOT try and blame this on ghosts, Edith. I am furious at both of you! You're both far too old to be doing things like this, especially in the middle of the night! Avalanche, get your things together, I'm taking you home as soon as I get dressed."

She started to stomp out the door, but stopped and turned and looked at me. "Since you're apparently still wide awake, you'd better start getting this mess picked up while I'm gone.We'll be having a talk about this when I get back from dropping Avalanche off."

As soon as the door was shut behind her, I half expected the violence and winds to pick back up, but they didn't. Avalanche found her backpack under a heap of clothes and one of the curtains, and packed the Ouija board up.

"I'm really sorry about all this, Edie," she started, but my mom came back just then, and ordered her out to the car. "I'll do some research and figure out how to fix it," she yelled at me as she headed for the door.
My mom glared at her and she didn't try to say anything after that. No matter what she said, I had a feeling the only place I'd be seeing her was at school from now on.

I heard the front door close behind them, and had a sinking feeling that I was all alone, at night, in a haunted apartment.

The lights in my bedroom flickered as if I might need reminded of this fact, but I really didn't.

I was terrified.

Maude

Both Avalanche and I nearly jumped out of our skin when we heard the soft voice in the darkness, even though it didn't sound particularly threatening.

We knocked over our chairs as we jumped up and rushed to find the light switch. Unfortunatly, my bedroom isn't as tidy as it could be, and Avalanche tripped over some shoes and fell into my bookshelf. I don't think there was a book left on the shelf after that. With all the noise we were making, I was sure my mom would be in to investigate, but miraculously she never woke up.

I finally got the lights on and looked around the room, squinting in the sudden bright light. Avalanche was struggling to climb out of the bookcase with the shoulder of her shirt torn and her curls looking a little less bouncy than they had an hour ago.

"What was that?" I half-shrieked at her. "Please tell me that was you making funny voices!"

"No," said the soft voice from earlier, now coming from the opposite corner of the room. "It was me." Avalanche's mouth dropped open, and I whirled around to see a girl about my age standing there.

A transparent girl.

A ghost.

After my initial shock to have a freaking ghost girl in my bedroom, I noticed that she did indeed look like the girl in the photograph Avalanche had picked up earlier, and that she wasn't anything like what I expected a ghost to be like. She wasn't a hazy cloud that drifted around and she wasn't covered in a sheet with clanking chains. She was about my height with glossy, red hair that was tied back with a black ribbon. She was wearing what appeared to be a gray flannel dress, black tights and these weird, black boots with buttons up the sides, and her nose was covered with freckles. She looked a lot like me, actually. Only... did I mention she was totally see-through?

As weird as it sounded, she didn't seem threatening at all, and I sort of calmed down. Avalanche, on the other hand, did not.

"Wha-wha-wha!!!" was the only sound she seemed capable of making at the moment. Her mouth gaped open, and she kept pointing at the ghost girl.

"Who are you??" She finally forced out.

"I aready told you," the girl said impatiently. "My name is Maude. I heard your summon with the witchboard and drifted over to see what the ruckus was about, and when you broke the circle, you brought me in."

She appeared to think for a moment, then looked at me.

"You really should not have broken that circle, you know. You can let in all sorts of nasties that way."

I shivered and looked over at Avalanche.
'What does she mean when she said we broke the circle?" I asked. "What circle?"

I noticed Avalanche looked really pale, and she cringed. "You took your hands off the planchette as the lights went off. That's what opens the doors your mom talked about. I guess I forgot to tell you not to do that."

Maude nodded. "I do not wish you any harm, but I must warn you, I am not the only thing that got through."

Avalanche and I looked at each other in panic. "What else came through?" I asked. I was really regretting not listening to my mom at this point.

Just then, the lights in my bedroom flickered and two toy horses flew off of the shelf over my bed and hit the wall so hard, one of the legs of my favorite stallion shattered.

"That can't be a good sign," Avalanche said blankly.