Walls

We have torn down, rebuilt and refinished every wall in this house, even the ones in the bedroom with the secret room. Mark has kept as much of the original footprint of the house as he could. It’s nice to be able to walk through the house and see it coming together. These walls have revealed so many secrets and yet I still feel there are things I’m not finding. We did find nearly 20,000 dollars and thousands of dollars’ worth of jewelry in the walls. At least Carlos did. He brought back the money and the jewelry today. The best we can figure is the original owners of the house tucked the money and jewelry in the walls after the stock market crashed. All of the bills were dated between 1927 and 1952. Hiding cash in the walls was a habit developed during the Great Depression. Mark has made it clear that it’s finders keepers when we started tearing down the walls. I’ve never had a construction boss like him. He’s obviously more interested in the finished product than the hidden secrets of the house. Of course Mark doesn’t really hurt for money. I think he’s doing this house flipping business because he needs to have something to keep him busy.

Hey kitty, how are you feeling? I’m sorry you haven’t been sleeping on the bed lately. I don’t know what you have against Claire. I guess you aren’t really mean to her, you just tend to ignore her when she’s here. Well, you need to start getting along with her. We are going to be together for a long time. I know she hasn’t agreed to move in with me, yet, but I’m going to wear her down.  This house is really coming together and I’m seriously talking to Mark about buying it from him. Mom wants to move in too. She is beyond hinting and has flat out told me she intends to move in when I buy this house. What do you think kitty? You really like my mom. Of course it doesn’t hurt that she brings you tuna fish every time she comes to visit. Maybe she can teach Claire all her tricks. We need to find a way to help you two get along.

I wonder why Carlos brought the money and jewelry back. He said it was cursed and even with the Priest’s blessing and he didn’t want anything to do with it. I would have felt guilty keeping it, even though it was found in this house. I wasn’t the one who found it. Stephanie finally said she would take it. She says there’s nothing in this house that scares her. I’m a little worried she will want to move in once the house is finished. The look she gave me when Mark said he was selling the house to me could have melted icebergs. I think the only saving grace of the situation is we are turning a room in the basement into an office. She wanted to turn the spare bedroom into the office because she said she would be more comfortable meeting there, but I want to keep that room available for mom.

We are picking paint colors tonight kitty. I’m going to wait until Claire gets here to decide on paint colors. She has an artist’s eye. I showed her the paintings and she was fascinated. Whe was able to tell the paintings were done over the lifetime of two separate artists. I never noticed the growth of the artists and the work until she pointed out how even the most delicate brush stroke can affect the mood of the piece. She wasn’t really interested in the landscapes. The faces fascinated her. I thought the eyes were just sightless voids, but Claire was able to see light shining from the deepest hollows of faces. There is a faint red glow emanating from the darkest pinpoint from each of the eyes. Now I almost wish we would have kept some of those dolls we found in the hidden room. I would love to see if the red glow was hidden in their eyes too.

 I think I hear my phone ringing. Where is it? No, it wasn’t my phone. Wait? What in the world? Why is the phone dead again? I know I charged it this morning. What is the deal with this phone? I just don’t get it. Where did my charger go? It was in the kitchen. Where is it? Why is the basement unlocked? All the workers went home already. I know they did. This landing is freezing again. I’m glad the new HVAC is going in tomorrow. Anything has to be better than what is going on here. There’s my phone charger. Why is it tied up in knots? Kitty, did you do this? No, it’s impossible. You would need opposable thumbs to create these knots. Well, only 6 more days. I know we are coming back to the house, but we need to be out while the workers do all the heavy lifting. Well kitty, we need to solve this door issue and cold spot problem if we are going to stay here.