Diary Of The Haunted

 

Chapter One

 

Anna Weller looked at the surroundings of her new home, astonished at the beauty of it. The Victorian style house had three stories to it, had massive bay windows, and had a huge pond that consumed most of the back yard. And Anna hated all of it.

She hated moving away from her small town house, away from all of her friends, away from what she knew. She was so used to being middle class. She had to work for everything. Now, since becoming a published author, she had everything handed to her on a silver platter. She got followed everywhere she went, just because she wrote a book. Big whoop, she thought bitterly.

Writing was a hobby- not a job. She didn't want to write because she had to. She wrote when she wanted to. Now, she had deadlines. Deadlines! She groaned mentally at the thought. She had six more months to finish the sequel to her first book, and she was only on the seventh chapter. It took five months to get seven chapters on her first book!

“Anna, start getting boxes into the house!” Her mother screamed. Anna headed toward the moving van they had rented. The squeaky sound of her sneakers against the damp grass grated on her nerves. Squeak, squeak, squeak. She was used to walking on dirt. Back at her old house, her mom had bad for a terrible landscaping job and the grass never grew, so her entire front lawn was just dirt. Here, they had personal gardeners! The lush green grass was perfect; every blade of grass seemed to be the same size, and the same shade of green. Anna tried looking for one piece of brown grass- she found none.

When she got to the van, she grabbed her biggest box- her box full of precious notebooks- and started back toward the house. The front double doors were opened for her by the housekeeper.

“Thanks, Mag,” she grumbled, and pushed by her and up the first flight of stairs. On the second story, she went to the fourth room on the left- a master bedroom. Her bed frame and mattress were already there, thanks to the movers. She plopped the heavy box onto her bed, and opened it smiling. Everything she had ever written was on these notebooks. Diaries, language arts notebooks, notebooks full of poems, short stories, novels, everything. These were special to her. Being a published author at age sixteen was exciting, and she made sure she kept everything she had ever written so she could always know how she started out.

She grabbed her freshman year diary and leafed through, chuckling at some of her stupid memories, then started organizing those notebooks on her new bookcase that her mom got her. She could fill up four of the five shelves completely with those books. She smiled again. She arranged them by the age she wrote them, then by the genre, and then by title name. When she was satisfied, she headed back downstairs to the moving van to bring in the rest of her stuff.

It took a few hours to get everything into the house, but when they finished, Anna and her mom collapsed in the living room exhausted.

“Ugh,” Anna's mom groaned. “That sucked. Especially getting my stuff to the third floor. I never want to do that again.”

Anna laughed at that. “I don't want to either. We simply have to much stuff. Maybe we should have a yard sale?”

Her mom rolled her eyes. “No. That's not necessary. Besides, we don't want snoops around our house, you being an author and all.”

Anna jumped up. “Speaking of which, I have a deadline and I gotta start moving.” She kissed her mom on the cheek and ran upstairs to her bedroom. Grabbing her small laptop, she jumped on her bed and stared blankly at the Word Processing document. She let her mind wander, and soon she filled up four pages for the next chapter. Content- she saved the document and closed her eyes for a few minutes.

 

Anna woke up in the middle of the night to find that she was fully clothed, full on makeup, and her light was still on. She groaned and pulled the pillow over head. She screeched slightly when she turned a little to much and fell off the bed.

“Fine,” She grumbled. “Since the world wants me to, I'll get up.” She looked at her clock to find that it was four in the morning. She would never get enough sleep. “The world just better be glad I don't have school today.”

Anna went to her closet and picked out a pair of sweats before heading to the bathroom to take off her makeup and wash her face. She turned on the faucet and grabbed a rag when she heard a loud bang.

Her bathroom door had slammed- but she was the only one in here. Shaking it off and dismissing it as her ceiling fan, she continued to scrub her face. Goose bumps though, stilled raised on her skin, and she got a short blast of cold air. She cursed the old drafty house, dried her face, and threw a jacket on. Anna headed downstairs quietly, so she didn't wake her mom, went to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. Turning on the flat screen, she sat down in one of the cozy stools- bagel in hand. She rested her head in her hands and tried not to doze off. She grabbed a huge mug and poured the hot coffee into it- letting it cool, and taking a long sip.

At around six, her mom came down the stairs in the same attire as Anna. “Is it just me,” She said, “or is this house extremely cold?”

Anna handed her mother a cup of coffee. “It's extremely cold. My feet are freezing!”

“Go put socks on then!” Her mother laughed. Anna just rolled her eyes.

“I hate socks,” She mumbled and grabbed her house slippers. “These are much better,” She continued, pointing down to the smiling Mickey Mouse slippers. Her mother just rolled her eyes.

“Really? What about your insane collection of knee socks? That's getting out of hand!”

Anna gasped. “Because those are cool!” She then grabbed her mug, and started towards her room.

“Love you!” Her mom called.

“Love you, too,” Anna replied. She set her cup down on her bedside table, then sat down at her desk, pulling up internet explorer on her desktop. She updated her Twitter status to, “Chillin' at the new home. So not ready for school,” then pulled up her Word document again.

 

5-14-11

Diary,

I just moved into the new house, and got half of chapter seven done. I feel accomplished. The house though, it feels weird. I have a bad feeling about it. I'm probably just going insane though. My bathroom door slammed this morning unexplained. Was is just my ceiling fan? Probably. Well, off to explore the city!

~Anna