00:21A lot of this isn't going to make sense to you, and I'm sorry about that.
00:26I'm just going to start at the beginning, with the house.
00:42I lived here until I was 11, but I wasn't allowed inside half of the rooms.
01:00Inside the mailbox were bills from seven years ago, marked urgent, open immediately.
01:13I hadn't been back since my brother Louis' funeral.
01:24In her will, my mother left me a key, but didn't tell me that it unlocked.
01:31Maybe she thought I'd know, or she thought the mystery would be enough to bring me back.
01:55No one had driven this way in a long time, but I saw a few of prints.
02:16The truth is, even after I inherited the house, I never thought I'd come back to it.
02:24But now I had questions about my family that only the house knew the answers to.
02:46The house was exactly like I remembered it, the way I'd been dreaming about it.
02:54As a child, the house made me uncomfortable in a way I couldn't put into words.
03:00Now, as a 17-year-old, I knew exactly what those words were.
03:05I was afraid of the house.
03:24Prowling through the doggy door used to be a lot easier when I was 11.
03:37The power had been turned off the night we left.
03:43For the first time in years, I felt like I was home.
03:54But instead of a family, there were just memories of one.
04:04Nothing in the house looked abnormal.
04:05There was just too much of it, like a smile with too many teeth.
04:31Great-grandpa Sven built a music box for Barbara, along with the rest of the house.
04:36Mom always told me to stay out of the basement, so I wasn't too surprised when the key didn't fit.
04:55The table was still a wreck from the night we left.
05:06It was like a bomb had gone.
05:07My mom was the only one of us who could imagine great-grandma Edie living in a nursing home.
05:29After Louis started working at the cannery, we all got pretty sick of salmon.
05:32Except our cat, Molly.
05:42After Milton disappeared, Mom sealed up all the bedrooms.
05:46Then Edie retaliated and drilled peepholes.
06:00Whenever people ask me about my family, the first thing they always want to know about is Barbara.
06:11Mom must have locked the third floor stairs on the night we left.
06:27I spent a lot of time playing in Great Uncle Walter's room.
06:31I think my mom sometimes regretted not sealing it up.
06:37Louis told me there were secret passages, but I never believed him.
06:47Turns out, my mom was really good at keeping secrets.
06:54Now it was time to find out what my mom had been afraid of.
07:03Reading this, maybe it sounds like I had a plan, but I had no idea what was behind that door.
07:20Just like I had no idea where all this was gonna lead.
07:39December 13, 1947.
07:43Dear diary, I'll be gone soon, but I wanted to tell somebody about what's gonna happen.
07:49It started when Mom sent me to bed without dinner.
07:53I woke up and I was starving, so I looked around for something to eat.
08:00The gerbil food was dry, but I didn't mind it.
08:25The gerbil food was dry, but I didn't mind it.
08:38My Halloween candy was all gone.
08:44Mom, can I come out now?
08:47Sweetheart, it's late.
08:49Go to sleep.
09:05Then I heard chirping outside my window.
09:07It was a barn swallow.
09:09It was a barn swallow going back to her nest.
09:11I reached out for her.
09:18And suddenly...
09:22I was a cat!
09:48I tried to be quiet, but the bird was really scared.
10:10I've been worried about it...
10:11It's a cow!
10:11It's a cow!
10:12It's a cow!
10:13It's a cow!
10:16It's a cow!
10:22I don't know.
11:18I don't know.
11:46I don't know.
11:52I don't know.
12:46I don't know.
12:52I jumped and I almost got her.
13:21I don't know.
13:46I don't know.
13:56I don't know.
14:20I don't know.
14:44I can tell she was getting really tired.
14:49I don't know.
14:58I don't know.
15:00I don't know.
15:08I don't know.
