1004 words (4 minute read)

Diary of Ruby Cardini, dated September 25, 1974

Now Eric has me spooked!  I was sitting in the library this evening writing a letter to Sarah Beth, trying to pick up our correspondence (my fault, but so much is happening).  Maisie was in the room with me. It’s her favorite place. She lay curled up at my feet under the desk while I wrote.  I felt her twitching and heard her whimper.  I thought she might be having a little doggy dream.  Then she sat up with a start and looked all around the room.

I asked her, “How’re you doing, girl?”  She looked alert, edgy even, so I tried to put her at ease.  I scratched behind her ears and spoke gently.

Suddenly, she jumped and spun around.  The poor thing almost struck her head on the edge of the desk.  Then she dropped her head low to the ground and started to growl.  Her hackles rose up.  She was staring across the room at the fireplace.  Her eyes were fixed on it like it was about to attack her.  But I saw nothing there!

My hair prickled and I felt my skin grow colder.  I tried to tell myself it was nerves, that I was just reacting to Maisie being weird.  I called to her, asked her what was wrong.   She yelped twice, high and curt, like when one of the cats takes a swipe at her or Smithy pulls her tail too hard.  I kept looking from the fireplace back to her crouching in defense, realizing she could see something I couldn’t!

“What is it, Maisie?  What do you see?” I couldn’t help asking her, even though I knew she couldn’t tell me.  I wondered briefly if I would have listened to her if she could talk.  What has Smithy been trying to tell us in all this time?  Does he feel helpless too when he knows something is in the room, but he can’t make us understand the danger?

Maisie gave one more yelp and bolted from the room.  In that moment, I feared being left alone with I-don’t-know-what, so I grabbed for her.  I held onto Maisie, trying to keep her between me and whatever it was.  I still couldn’t see a damn thing! 

Maisie struggled in my grasp, but I had her by the collar so she couldn’t wriggle away. But Maisie, usually so sweet and affectionate, had had enough.  She twisted her head and snapped at me.  I was so startled, I let go and jumped back, and Maisie shot across the room and out the door, still whimpering. 

I watched her go and examined the blood on my arm.  The bite hadn’t started to hurt yet. I think I was too pumped up with adrenaline to feel it.  Not sensing the pain made the wound seem unreal.  I couldn’t believe Maisie had bitten me.  She would never do a thing like that! 

Not unless something truly terrible impelled her to it.  Not unless she feared for her life.

I glanced at the fireplace again, and held my breath, the better to hear any phantom voices that might whisper cautions to me. I heard nothing.   The bricks glowed in the light from the fading sun, but they didn’t look ominous.  I looked all around the room, just in case some shadowy menace was about to zoom at me from an unobserved corner, but the library appeared just the way it always does.  It didn’t feel right though.  The air seemed disturbed, almost like that day Gail got hit by the tiles.  Like a storm about to break.

I got out of the room then too.  I didn’t run like Maisie, but I walked quickly and I backed out of the room, so nothing could sneak up on me. 

I left the letter on the desk.  Luckily, I hadn’t written more than the preliminaries—how are you, how you’re your folks, etc.—so there was nothing sensitive for anyone else to read.  It was a silly thing to do.  I felt foolish and I knew I was acting like a baby, but I couldn’t make myself go back in to retrieve it.  It would be sitting there overnight if I hadn’t bumped into Eric as I was heading to the bathroom to wash my wound.  I mentioned that I had forgotten something in the library and asked if he could please get it for me. 

Eric is so sweet, he never even asked why I had left it or why I didn’t go back to get it myself.  I didn’t tell him about Maisie because he would have become alarmed, but I worried after he left that the ghost might appear to him again.  Fortunately, that didn’t happen.  Eric brought my letter back to my room and left it on my bed like I asked.  I haven’t touched it though; there’s no way I can write to Sarah Beth about what happened, and no way I can lie my way through a cheery, banal catch-up missive now.

Jeff is the only person I’ve told my story to so far.  I can’t even bring myself to talk to Tammy.  I’m afraid she would laugh at me.  I almost want to laugh at myself, but then I see the bite on my arm and the terror and desperation become real again.  Jeff didn’t laugh.  He offered to take me to get a rabies shot, but Maisie didn’t do more than break the skin; it looks like a long paper cut now.  I did a thorough job of washing it out.  I don’t want to get doctors involved because I don’t want Piers or Wanda to know she bit me.  Then they would have to hear about the circumstances behind the attack.

Maisie isn’t sleeping in the library tonight.  I last saw her curled up under the dining room table.

I wonder if I’ll sleep tonight.