Elliot says he hears footsteps when I’m not near him. They might be a person, they might be a cat. He doesn’t know. He’s never seen anything. He’s only heard footsteps. He’s also scared of the vents (ducts) in the house, but he didn’t specifically say the footsteps come from the vents.
He hears the footsteps at our house and also at mama’s apartment. Sometimes he wants to sleep with mama because of it. He already is sleeping with me every night from fear. We’ve slept together every night for years, so it might be different now.
“Are you scared of the footsteps?”
“Yeah, I’m scared.”
“Are they there all the time?”
“Yeah, all the time.”
“Do you hear them now?”
“Yes, it’s silent. It’s upstairs where my great-great-great grandparents are.” (he means the black-and-white photograph from the 1800s hanging on the wall)
“Do you want me to take the picture down? Do you think it’s the picture?”
“Yes, can you hang it outside?” I tell him I’ll take it down and put it away. UPDATE: I took it down. I’m not sure it’s helped anything. We’ll see.
“Do you think it’s a cat?”
“It’s not a cat. It’s a person and a cat mutated into one.”
He tells me he is scared of black-and-white pictures. He is scared of the black-and-white picture of his great-great-great grandparents. He is not afraid of the pictures of Grandpa Marty and Grandma Renee. They are in color (but he doesn’t say that).
He is very concerned when I’m out of his view for more than a minute, and searches for me. The only exception is when I’m in the sauna. At those times, he is in the next room watching TV.
Elliot tells me there is Jesus painting on an Easter egg at mama’s apartment. Elliot says it is bullying him because he’s Jewish.
“But it’s not alive. How does it bully you?” I ask.
“It bullies me in a weird way. You know how Jesus is up in heaven? He is sending down weird stuff from heaven to earth. To my house and mama’s house.“
So he asks to sleep with mama. She says yes sometimes and sometimes no.
“Remember the salt shaker mama got from the Leadville antique store? There’s like a sign for keeping ghosts and weird stuff away. But that salt shaker doesn’t care. It’s haunted and also so is that Easter egg.”
After all this talk, he hugs and clings to me. “Daddy, I’m scared. They are watching me from a far angle.” He whimpers.
“Who is watching you?” I ask.
“That thing I just told you about.”
The next day, while on a long walk, he tells me that sometimes he feels like somebody or something is watching him. Maybe it is Hashem (God). I did not start the conversation; he did.
I ask if the somebody or something ever speaks to him? He says no.
This past summer, we went to Maine on vacation. The place where we stayed has a ghost story about a woman named Mary. Elliot was fascinated with the story and the shack where she supposedly lived. He said her last name is Agnew. Mary Agnew. The story never mentions her last name. To this day, 5 months later, he still mentions Mary Agnew on occasion. He hasn’t forgotten the last name. I have no idea where he heard this last name.
Yesterday, Elliot said that Adeev is bullying him because he is White and voted for Trump. He says Adeev calls him stupid and dumb. When I asked if Adeev ever said anything about Elliot being White, Elliot said, “No, but I know that’s why he is bullying me.” I mentioned that Adeev’s mother is Wwhite. That didn’t seem to change anything. He did say that Adeev mentioned Trump. But not being White. It’s possible he is imaging the “White” part of the bullying. But if he really is being bullied for “voting for Trump” or something else, I want it to stop. Elliot is aware that Adeev speaks Spanish and says he was born in another country.
He repeated the bullying by Adeev story several times later on.
