“Get up now!” Cadence is gaping at me but allows me to push him from the chair. I turn it over to look at the bottom of it. Cadence hovers behind me, practically bouncing on his feet. Even Godzilla moves closer to peer beside us. We let out twin sighs of content.

“I think you’re probably the brilliant one. Who would’ve ever suspected the bottom of a chair.” Cadence says as I pull the taped key off the chair, a grin splitting my face. It took five days and my room looks like a toddler’s playroom, but I found it.

As if he knew I was one-step closer to possibly remembering him, I see Evan hovering by the door with a beautiful smile in my direction.

Cadence leaves me to read my journal. He’s practically buzzing with the same excitement that I have.

“Should I start from the beginning?” I ask Evan, who’s sitting at my desk now, I almost expect the chair to start spinning but nothing moves. And as usual, he doesn’t respond.

The first entry is dated almost two years ago, starting at the start of my freshman year of high school. I’m relieved to see that it’s not coded, I’d hate to have to search for a key to decipher it, but there are abbreviations throughout it that make some stuff hard to understand.

Also, I never refer to anyone by their actual name, but by nickname and some by the first letters of their names. The first few entries are mindless babble talking about my day, TV shows, school. I find mention of acting a few times but never more than a few sentences here and there and nothing to say I actually had any roles or anything.

A lot of entries involve a person named Curls that I assume is Evan. Some talk about just going to different places, the movies, beach, rock climbing, sometimes different museums. Taking our dogs for hikes or walks in the park. There’s even mention of ziplining and white water rafting a few times. I think we might’ve been adrenaline junkies.

Cadence wasn’t kidding about the treasure hunting and other adventures either. We went to a lot of haunted houses and followed any myth, lore, or historical story that mentioned treasure. I don’t read all of the entries, wanting to go back and pay more attention to them later, but there’s a lot of them.

I skip forward until I find mention of a few visits to the community theater and improv classes we were secretly attending.

“I wonder what the secrecy was for.” I tell Evan.

There’s also a lot of mention of a C and Rip. After a few more entries I’m pretty certain C is Cadence and Rip is Darryl. Mainly from the amount of time I spent with the two. The entries range from trivial day to day things to all sorts of fun things the four of us did. We especially liked hiking and rock climbing and we’d tried surfing a few times on Darryl’s insistence, but Evan and I hadn’t been very good at it.

Near the end of the year there’s mention of Darryl meeting someone titled the Python. I really didn’t like her. Citing the reason that she was too girly, clingy, and vain. I skip forward to earlier this year until I find an entry of a Viper sinking its fangs into Thing 1. I’m assuming that’s one of the twins and with the way I trash the Viper, I think she’s probably Analise.

Cadence wasn’t kidding that I didn’t like her, but he wasn’t lying when he said I was close to her. I thought myself a sort of double agent. I started hanging out with her all the time, trying to convince her to tell me her secrets.

I secretly thought she was vapid and narcissistic and was trying to sabotage the relationship. We had nothing in common and from what I could tell, she had little in common with Clef too.

‘Went out for coffee and shopping with Viper. Saw her checking out other guys but she didn’t confess anything, standby. She tried to give me relationship advice too, like I’m really going to listen to her. She’s far too clingy, what’s worse Thing 1 is wrapped around her tail. Can’t believe he’s being so stupid. I feel gross just hanging out with her. Must detox Thing 1 immediately, before things get worse.’

I continue reading, searching the entries in the hope of any clues, trying to read dual meanings in every word.

“I really was cautious.” I tell Evan. I’ve gotten so used to talking to him now, that I do it without thinking. “I hid my journal, hid the key to it, and still didn’t even write much that would even be worth hunting it down. I don’t get it. Why all the secrecy for something so dull?” And I was also starting to wonder about my personality.

Everyone described me as optimistic and outgoing, but no one mentioned that I was a little judgmental, then again maybe I didn’t let anyone on to that. Maybe I saved those thoughts for here. I wonder if Cadence knew.

There’s a few more entries of the Python. She and Darryl had started dating and I was still unhappy with having her around.

‘Went out to movies with C, Curls, Rip and the Python. Don’t know why Rip likes Python so much. She’s sooooo annoying but the movie was good even if Rip and Python were making out the entire time. Ditched the lovebirds after the movie and went out for ice cream with Curls and C was being lame and bailed. I think he’s hiding something, but he keeps dodging my questions. If he’s hiding a gf then we’re going to fight.’

“Well, I think the Python is Margaret and I didn’t like her.” I didn’t think she was bad like Analise, I just hadn’t gotten to know her well.

‘Rip and I got into it today. He gave me an ultimatum and I apologized to the Python. I was out of line. I’ll admit she’s trying hard, she isn’t as bad as Viper, but I really don’t see that we have anything in common.

Still don’t get why Rip likes her. We’ve agreed to spend a day just the two of us. Rip really wants us to be friends. Curls didn’t take my side. He said he just wants everyone to get along. C is still hiding something. I’ve ruled out a gf at least.’

“You’re as bad as Clef. Just enamored with a pretty face.” My voice echoes around the room. I hadn’t heard it in awhile

“You’re out of line this time. You’re so certain that you won’t like her that you haven’t even given her a chance.” This is one of the male voices that I remember hearing in the hospital.

I start skipping through the entries until I get to the day I spent with Margaret.

‘Surprisingly had a great time with Python… M, she’s not as vain as I thought. I’ll give her that. Not sure how I feel about her now, but I did find out we have a few things in common.

I was rather shocked that she had us go on an adventure by taking an old map of the city and comparing how the landmarks had changed. I thought Rip had put her up to it, but she seemed genuinely interested in the history of everything.’

The next few entries are rather boring until I get to one mentioning the Viper again.

‘Viper has convinced Thing 1 to tie the knot. She’s poisoned everyone but me and Mom. We’ll stop this. I think I know what she’s hiding now, just have to prove it. Thing 1 won’t listen without proper evidence.’

So, I thought I knew her secret… but I wonder if I got the chance to confront her or not? I wonder if the secret was that she’d been cheating as the whole family now knew. Maybe the plan had been something to get Clef to catch her in the act?

‘Met up with Viper again over coffee. I’ll be putting my plan in action tomorrow. Plan on surprising her at work and letting Thing 1 see her fangs.’

The next entry is scribbled furiously.

‘Didn’t work, must reconvene. If it comes down to it, I may need to confront that snake. Curls, Rip, and C all think it’s a bad idea. C is mad because I didn’t tell him about my plan, but he’s still hiding something and been all brooding lately and he can’t act as well as Curls and I. I will not allow Viper to poison Thing 1 any more than she already has. M is on my side at least. I’m really starting to like this girl.’

“Well, it looks like Margaret and I did finally start to bond. That’s good to know.” I skip through a few more entries. They’re just blurbs about school and trying to figure out a better way to prove that Analise is cheating amongst a bunch of whining that Cadence was hiding something.

“We hung out a lot.” I add to Evan, who strangely enough looks as if he’s fallen asleep at my desk. Can ghosts sleep?

‘Went to park with Curls to walk his Shakes and GZ. Lots of fun. Granny sent us a picnic to eat. That woman sure can cook. She even made blueberry scones, had to save a few for Things 1 & 2. But bigger news, tomorrow the troop is going to investigate.

C backed out but I’m sure he’ll join eventually, he hates to be left out, still need to talk about what he’s hiding. I think it’s about college, but he’s only a junior. Don’t know why he won’t tell me. Mom think he’s worried I won’t like whatever it is. Only consolation is that he hasn’t told the rents either.’

That entry is dated just a month before the accident. “The troop… so maybe our group of friends?” I glance over at Evan who is asleep. I wonder if that book on ghosts would tell me whether ghosts sleep or not.

I make a mental note of it as I read on. The next few entries mention not finding much during the investigation but say nothing as to what we were investigating. There were two things we were looking into and one of them was supposedly time sensitive.

“I can only surmise that these investigations had nothing to do with either Analise or Cadence… nothing else.” I say aloud to Evan.

I get to a part that talks about another plan with the viper and how Margaret was helping me but nothing about what happened.

I read more and more but the words are starting to run together, and I keep blinking back sleep. The closer I get to the accident, the less the entries make sense. Words start to blur as I continue reading and the next thing I know Serenity is knocking on my door, telling me to come down for dinner. I’m reeling inwardly from a strange nightmare of being chased by a giant machine and she seems to notice but instead comments on the journal.

“You found your journal, I see.” She says with a small smile. I nod and follow her downstairs, trying to shake off the last dregs of my nightmare. Finding my journal has only supplied me with more mysteries, but there’s one thing that I’m starting to see clearly, and that is that I need to find out more details about my accident.

Up until this point I’ve been pretty passive, thinking that my memories would eventually return like normal and I wouldn’t have to worry about it, wouldn’t need to know the gory details.

I never even asked much about the accident, and from what I can tell, my family doesn’t know much anyway, but the entries in my journal are pointing to one clear thing. Whatever we were investigating probably had something to do with our accident.