Last time on the Summoning, is there any point in doing these? The story is just a collection of nonsense. It will continue to spew nonsense until we run out of pages, vomit a final burst and declare that the resolution, and then, thankfully, end.

Chloe’s aunt comes to get her for breakfast.

Her aunt wants to know if Chloe’s mad at her.

“Mad about what?” I asked.
A short laugh. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe because I dumped you in a group home with strangers and disappeared.”

It’s only the third day Chloe’s been there. Now, okay, she should probably have called, but hey, Chloe could probably have called too.

I mean, there are a lot of reasons to be mad. Like the part where she lied to Chloe about how long the stay was going to be, and the part where Chloe’s being medicated without even knowing what she’s taking, and the part where everyone there is incompetent, and the part where the other kids are dangerous. But the part where she’s trying to get Chloe treatment at all isn’t that.

Chloe says she knows she has a problem. Since she’s shown no sign of changing her mind about the thing where she believes she’s sane and just lies her head off to get out, I think she’s just doing the same with her aunt here. Her aunt then actually says something pretty reasonable.

“It isn’t yours either. You understand that, too, right? It’s a medical condition. You didn’t do anything to cause it.”

Of course, given how horrible her aunt is in every other way, maybe we’re supposed to take that as evil doctor speak by the psychiatrists who want to label everything or whatever. I can’t tell. Like I said last time, once you’re in dumbass no research land it’s impossible to tell what you’re supposed to notice and what you aren’t. Is she supposed to seem sinister with all the lying, or is that good parenting/doctoring in dumbass no research land? Is this good advice or does dumbass no research land think this is just victimhood nonsense?

….and then her aunt gives her the necklace and Chloe says it’s okay she’s not allowed jewelry and her aunt says no she already got permission for Chloe to be the special exception and emphasizes that Chloe should wear it all the time so it doesn’t get lost. So that seems sinister, maybe? Except it seems the necklace doesn’t even work since she was seeing ghosts fine without it earlier. But then the rules for ghosts seem pretty wobbly so who knows.

Chloe takes a minute to contemplate her future ghost-filled life.

What about that guy in the back wearing a heavy metal shirt, looking like he’d just stepped off the set of VH1’s / Love the 80s? Or the old woman with long gray hair and a tie-dyed shirt? Or even the guy in a suit, waiting by the door? Unless someone smacked into them, how did I know they weren’t ghosts, just waiting for me to notice them?

See, wobbly.

I mean, it’s a good point, but it’s kind of lost in the plot hole introduced here – the ghost in the school didn’t need her to notice him before he reacted, he could apparently just tell on sight. So she’ll know ghosts by the random strangers that run at her, start yelling at her to pay attention to them, and warp into nightmarish undead horrors.

If she’s seriously considering her new life pretending to be normal, it’s going to be a matter of learning to not react to horrible things shoving themselves into her face. For the rest of her life.

Instead, Chloe drops her eyes because ghosts only do all that if you make eye contact. Or walk out of a girl’s bathroom.

Then her aunt casually asks about the other kids.

“N-no. Everything’s f-f-f—” My teeth clicked as I snapped my jaw shut. To anyone who knew me well, my stutter was a stress-o-meter. There was no sense saying everything was fine if I couldn’t even get the lie out.

This marks the first point in the book the stuttering has actually worked as a characterization thing, because it’s the first point where the stuttering reads as an exaggerated response. Chloe’s been doing it in response to stuff like watching a kid throw himself into moving traffic. Having her do it more often and maybe making a bigger deal of Chloe not talking casually as easily as a regular kid would have done a lot to make it seem a real disorder and not something pasted on.

“Don’t tell me it’s nothing. When I asked about the other kids, you looked like you were going to be sick.”
“It’s the eggs. I put too much hot sauce on them. The other kids are fine.”

…and also if it didn’t magically go away under stress just as suddenly as it appeared. If she can’t get a lie out in response to her aunt asking a normal question, why would her aunt bearing down on her and knowing there’s something wrong cause her to recover her power of speech and still have the brainpower left to start bullshitting?

Anyway, her aunt forces it out of her that it was Derek.

“Did he touch you?”
“N-no, of c-course n-not.”
“Chloe.” Her voice sharpened, my stuttering giving me away. “This is not something you hide. If he did anything inappropriate, I swear—”
“It wasn’t like that. We were talking. I tried to walk away and he grabbed my arm—”
“He grabbed you?”
“For, like, a second. It just freaked me out. I overreacted.”
She leaned forward. “You did not overreact. Anytime someone lays an unwanted hand on you it is your right to object and to complain and . . .”
And so it went, through the rest of breakfast. A lecture on “inappropriate touching,” like I was five years old.

Hello broken, broken aesop.

So Chloe’s lying about what happened while and it’s presented as her aunt just being so out of touch with the real world. Only five year olds care about being manhandled! And maybe stuck up frigid bitches. You don’t want to be that kind of girl, do you?

Chloe’s attempts to argue (presumably about how fine she is over having him grab her, it’s not really said) just upsets her aunt more, and Chloe realizes her aunt doesn’t even care because we needed even more textual encouragement to dismiss the whole idea, her aunt’s only making a big deal because she’s concerned about Chloe and wants something she can do that’ll help her.

They drive back. As her aunt turns off the car, Chloe’s still pleading with her aunt not to say anything.

“I promise I will be discreet. I’ve learned how to handle problems like this delicately, because the last thing a victim needs is to be blamed for tattling.”
“I’m not a vic—”

I don’t even fucking know what this book is saying any more. It’s something loathsome, let’s just stop there.

When I returned, Tori was back. Back in class and back in attitude.
If I’d been scripting this scene, I’d have been tempted to go for a character reversal. The young woman sees her only friend taken away, partly because of a snide remark she made. When her housemates rally around, trying to lift her depression with support and concern, she realizes she hasn’t lost her only friend and vows to be a kinder, gentler person.

Yes. If Chloe was scripting the scene, she’d push all the blame on Tori. Surely, the poltergeist thing was a snide remark despite how Tori didn’t seem to mean it like that, and the way everyone ignored her and Rae jumped at the chance to ditch her sure showed support and concern! Whyever isn’t that bitch grateful.

In real life, though, people don’t change overnight.

In real life, you’re a horrible person, Chloe.

Tori started the first class by informing me that I was sitting in Liz’s seat, and I’d better not act like she wasn’t coming back.

THAT BITCH

God book just stop it please.

Tori then follows Chloe after class to tell her that her parents must not love her or else it wouldn’t have only been an aunt visiting, which is kind of weak, and Chloe’s response is MOM’S DEAD, BITCH! HA I WIN! because there is something wrong with Chloe too. In fact, scratch the “too”, because at least next line Tori gives the explanation for how badly she’s behaving:

“So what did you do to deserve a pass already, Chloe? Was that your reward for helping them get rid of Liz?”

The best part is that this isn’t even irrational, necessarily. Here’s Tori’s understanding of what happened:

Tell Liz to ask Chloe to talk to her ghost.
???
Liz taken away
Chloe says it’s Tori’s fault for telling Liz to ask Chloe for help.

So “Chloe got Liz kicked out on purpose” is actually a valid guess there. She doesn’t explain what happened, she just says it has something to do with asking for her help.

Rae starts to defend Chloe despite the fact I’m pretty sure Chloe never said what happened to Rae either. Rae’s doing the same thing as Tori here, reacting just because it’s her friend. This just gets Tori to turn on her for a minute and accuse her of being just as bad:

You couldn’t even wait until Liz’s bed was cold before you bunked down with your new buddy.

Considering Tori’s earlier bit about being upset at just sitting in Liz’s seat, yeah, I can see this upsetting her. Her best friend vanishes and they don’t even know if she’s okay, and all Rae can think of is taking over Liz’s room?

But Tori quickly returns to the real target, Chloe, and demands to know why she’s getting special treatment.

“It’s not special,” Rae said. “Your mom takes you out all the time. In Chloe’s case, it’s probably a reward for good behavior. With you, it’s just because your mom’s on the board of directors.”

…If, as both girls seem to be agreeing, visits are a privilege and not a right, then yes, Chloe getting to go out on the morning of day three is special treatment. She hasn’t exactly been there long enough for “good behavior” to be much of a factor.

At our age, being “well behaved” isn’t exactly a goal to strive for. But Tori’s nostrils flared, her face twisting, as if Rae had lobbed the worst possible insult.

…uh, what? It’s obvious that’s not what’s being said here, and Chloe’s deliberately twisting things to portray Tori as evil.

Again, Rae’s attracting Tori’s ire, so she switches targets to say that Rae’s parents don’t visit at all.

So Rae shoves her into a wall. Okay, sure. But this is really a matter of both parties behaving badly. Tori shouldn’t have been going after Chloe, but Rae didn’t try to defuse anything, she just insulted Tori back. Then Tori returns that and Rae attacks her over it.

Tori screams and says she’s burned.

It’s kind of unclear here, but there’s no hesitation here. If I was writing this and meant it to be that Tori was faking, I’d have had a pause between the shove and Tori screaming. Instead it’s just one right after the other.

“Rae burned me. She has matches or something. Look, look . . .” Tori pulled down the collar of her T-shirt. “Leave your clothes on, Tori,” Simon said, raising his hands to his eyes. “Please.”
Derek let out a low rumble that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.
Rae held up her hands. “No matches. No lighters. Nothing up my sleeve . . .”
“I see a very faint red mark, Tori, from being pushed,” Ms. Wang said.
“She burned me! I felt it! She’s hiding matches again. Search her. Do something.”
“How about you do something, Tori?” Simon said as he brushed past us. “Like get a life.”

…So, Tori says she’s attacked. The first thing we get is Simon mocking her for being an ugly slut.

Rae claims she didn’t burn Tori, which seems reasonable since she wasn’t holding a match at the time and there doesn’t seem to be any time for that. On the other hand, Tori’s demand they search her would probably turn up the fact that she totally is hiding matches, and I sort of wonder if Rae’s been fucking with her before now because the whole burned thing is outlandish. Why not just say she’s been shoved and exaggerate how hard? I doubt there’s any rule Rae can slap people around as long as no matches are involved. And god knows Tori’s not particularly stable, so maybe she really did imagine she was getting burned there.

Speaking of fire, Simon needs to find one to go die in.