Even more important than that is knowing even when he's not at my house, he's not alone. When he goes back home to Harlan, Dean is with him. They have each other. I don't have to worry about either one of them nearly as much as I used to.
Except when I look over at Dean right now, I realize he hasn't said anything. The whole conversation has been unfolding around him, and he's just sitting, looking at us, but not seeming to see us. I wait for him to notice I'm looking at him, but he doesn't. Something is going through his head. I can see it. I just don't know what it is.
"But there's no real proof that anything like that exists," I say.
"What proof do you have that I exist?" he fires back, as if the question was already locked and loaded, ready to fire.
There's a lot of nuance to that question I don't think I'm going to get into at the moment. Despite myself, I press the bridge of my nose in frustration.
"Oh my god, Xavier. Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Um… I can see you. I can hear you. We interact with each other. Other people around me can see and hear and interact with you, too," I say.
"Alright OK. There are people who say they have seen ghosts. They've heard them. They interact with them. And often there are groups that have the same experiences at the same time, or maybe at different times but they are still having the same experience."
"People are easily led. You hear somebody talk about something happening in a place or something strange going on, and the next person who goes to that place is going to be more susceptible to experiencing something he or she will then attribute to that thing. If people just went into a place without any knowledge of anything that might have happened there, without any preconceived notions, without any influence, they’d hear something and know it's just the building settling. Or they’d feel something and know it's just air coming from a vent. You heighten their fears by telling them ghost stories, and suddenly that's footsteps and a ghost touching your face," I say.
"There are photographs of shadow people and figures that weren't there when the pictures were taken. Audio recordings of unexplained sounds. Video of objects moving in response to questions or commands. People all saying the same thing happened and hearing the same words being spoken without conferring with each other. You think it's more likely that all of these people are experiencing mob mentality, cooperative madness, or even just participating in ongoing hoaxes and conspiracies, than that there is actually something else happening?" he asks.
"There have been plenty of instances when people have made a big deal out of something happening to them and saying it was ghosts or demons or whatever, then they come forward later and admit they made it all up and faked all the evidence. Like the Amityville haunting. Or the picture of the Loch Ness Monster that turned out to be a chunk of a tree sticking up from the water," I reply.
"And then there are countless others that are never withdrawn and are so widely accepted, people put up warnings to protect others. Bobby Mackey's Music Hall has a sign outside that warns patrons of the potentially demonic activity inside and that they enter at their own risk. The real Annabelle doll had so many bad things linked to her she was put in a glass case with a notice that no one was to open the door."
"But it's all superstition," I insist. "Which can be fun. But that's all it is. Entertainment. It's not really real. I can't understand how anybody could believe things that sound so outrageous. The simpler ones like footsteps, maybe. But when you get into the haunted dolls and portals to hell and sea monsters… it's just too outlandish."
"I suppose I can understand your hesitation. Maybe it is difficult to take it seriously when one person tells you about something he’s seen that you can't imagine, or that goes against what you've been told is real. It's easier to accept someone describing a furry four-legged animal with sharp teeth and a fluffy tail, than if he says he saw a multicolored creature taller than a house with horns and a two-foot-long purple tongue and three hearts," Xavier says.
"Exactly."
"That's a giraffe, Emma," he says softly.
I stare at him, not even able to put together a response to that.
"Maybe it's easier for me because I don't see anything the way people tell me I'm supposed to. I'm used to the world not being what I'm told it is and experiencing things that other people don't. So, it's not as hard for me to believe that there could be many more things outside of my grasp. You know things are real without ever having seen them. And it is impossible to prove something doesn't exist. You can prove that it does, but you can only speculate that it doesn't. There's so much emptiness and pain in this world, Emma. So much that gets taken from people every day. I don't want to discount any possibility that could offer hope."
“You think that demons and evil spirits offer help?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “But what they are here to fight against does. The only reason something like that would exist is because there's something good in this world that goes beyond what we can see. I know it makes me feel better to think we aren't alone. That there's more. When we were standing in the woods behind the cabin in Feathered Nest, I told you I believed without a shadow of a doubt that this world is not it. That there is so much more. It's comforting to me to believe that this existence and the next aren't completely separate. We put so much emphasis on
