Page 13 of Where The Devil Kneels

“Historical preservation, improper inheritance procedures, take your pick.” Her impatience crackles over the line. “The specifics don’t matter as much as what he’s really after.”

I turn toward the windows, looking out over the town that’s been watching me all along. “Which is?”

“Control of the estate.” Maeve’s voice softens slightly, tinged with something that might be concern. “Whatever you’ve found there, Elara, and I know you’re finding something, it’s making them nervous.”

I glance at the surveillance notes, the maps, the collected pieces of my life arranged with precision. “I’m making them nervous?” A bitter laugh escapes me. “That’s rich.”

“Just… just be careful. Legal challenges I can handle, but Garrow has influence beyond official channels.”

As she speaks, my eyes fall on a recent entry in the open journal:

June 12: Garrow meeting with council members after hours. Discussed “Hale situation.” Referenced “containment measures.” Surveillance increased.

I swallow hard as it all clicks into place — the obsessive records, the sideways glances in town, Maeve’s urgent call. This isn’t just about a crumbling old house. There’s something older underneath all of it, something buried, and somebody is very determined to keep it that way.

“I’ll be careful,” I tell Maeve, even as my gaze drifts to a detailed map of the house showing hidden passages I never knew existed. “And Maeve? Thank you.”

I end the call and stand motionless in the centre of the watchtower, surrounded by evidence of someone who has been observing me. Entering my rooms. Taking my possessions. Apparently, protecting me from threats I didn’t even know existed.

Maeve’s warning about Garrow sits heavy in my chest after I hang up. My throat feels tight. I drop into the wooden chair at the desk and run my fingers over the journal’s worn edges. Sunlight streams through the watchtower windows, throwing shadows across this strange record of my life — everything I thought was private. My brain starts doing its thing, sorting and filing like it always does when I’m freaking out. Okay. Deep breath. If someone’s been watching me this whole time, I need to understand why. And maybe — just maybe — these journals hold something about what the hell Garrow and his people are actually planning.

I pull my own journal from my bag, flipping to a fresh page. Two columns: what I know, what I need to know. My pen scratches against the paper as I begin sorting through the tower’s secrets with the same precision I’d apply to cataloguing artifacts. The Watcher has been here for years. The Watcher tracks town activities. The Watcher has been monitoring me since my arrival. I pause, the pen hovering over the page. The Watcher takes my possessions.

The sun moves across the floor while I work through journal after journal, fingers stained with dust and old ink. I start organizing — colored tabs for recurring names, arrows connecting related events. It helps me turn this into something manageable, something I can actually think through instead of just panic about. Every time I hit a personal detail about myself, I try to treat it like data. Just information. Not proof that someone’s been cataloguing me like I’m a specimen pinned to a board.

The sun is setting, filling the tower room with golden light and making the dust sparkle. My fingers ache, so I stretch them and roll my shoulders. I’ve been hunched over these books for hours. Six journals are spread out around me, covered in sticky notes I found in the desk. Yellow for Garrow, blue for town business, and red for everything about me.

The entries start to blur together until something stands out, like a pattern forming from random details. Notes about my movements are mixed with strange comments about “potential threats,” turning normal moments in town into something dark that needed someone to step in.

June 8: E.H. received a visitor (N.V.) bearing a welcome basket at 2:17 PM. The visitor attempted to engage E.H. in a discussion of “estate legends”. Intervention: Activated north corridor air vent (setting 3), causing the envelope on the foyer table to slide toward E.H., the candlestick to tilt, and the quill to roll off the desk. N.V. startled, departed at 2:36 PM without proceeding beyond the foyer.

I remember that day, Nora’s words about “our tight-knit community” still in my mind as I watched her leave. Something felt wrong then, a chill at the back of my neck that I brushed off as nerves. Now, reading these notes, I realize my instincts were right: I was being watched.

June 8: Three males followed E.H. on the forest path home from the general store. Intervention: The branch dropped 30 meters ahead, causing a distraction. E.H. was able to retreat.

Page after page shows the same pattern: I went about my life, unaware, while someone else stepped in from the shadows to protect me. My fingers shake as Iread. I always thought I was on my own, making my own choices, but someone was watching and keeping me safe from threats I never noticed. It’s dizzying to realize I’ve been protected by someone I can’t see or thank.

The dying light catches on a big brass telescope by the east window. The thing’s been polished within an inch of its life. My legs are killing me as I haul myself up to check it out. Weird — it’s not pointed at the sky. It’s aimed straight down at the town. I put my eye to it and holy shit, the zoom on this thing. I can practically count the wrinkles on old man Porter’s face as he locks up his hardware store. All these people just going about their day, no idea they’ve been watched from up here in this creepy little crow’s nest.

Next to the telescope is a map of the town unlike any of the others. This one’s covered in red and green lines — like some deranged game of Snakes and Ladders. The green paths are labeled “safe routes” in cramped handwriting, tracing exactly how to get from the estate to places I actually use: the store, the post office, the woods. Red zones bleed around certain spots — “danger” scrawled beside them — especially Garrow’s house and whatever office he’s using to plot against me.

My fingertips trace a green path that I’ve been unconsciously taking to town, a route I’d thought I’d picked because it just felt right. Had I been nudged toward it? Guided without knowing it? How much of what I’ve done here has actually been my own choice?

I look at all of it spread out in front of me and feel stripped bare. Every move I’ve made has been recorded. Every habit is noticed. Every little thing I’ve left behind, collected. And yet the same person doing all of that has also been keeping me safe from things I didn’t even know were coming for me, lurking behind this town’s cheerful, small-town bullshit.

I grab the edge of the desk, my knuckles turning white. “WHO ARE YOU?” I shout, my voice raw and desperate, echoing off the walls and sounding strange even to me. My heart pounds as I turn, searching the shadows that now seem full of hidden movement.

The question hangs in the air, unanswered. Outside, the sunset lights up the treetops before fading, and I’m left in the tower with shadows stretching across the walls. I shove my journal and some of the Watcher’s notebooks into my bag, my hands shaking. I should be angry that someone’s been going through my life, but instead my stomach twists with a mix of fear and strange curiosity. And under all that, I feel a reluctant gratitude for whoever’s been protecting me while I had no idea.

I make my way back down the creaky stairs, each one groaning under my weight like it’s complaining. My mind won’t stop. Who is this person? Why do they give a damn what happens to me? And how do they know this much, about the threats, about Garrow, about all the things this house is hiding?

The main house feels different now, charged with the knowledge that I’m not truly alone within these walls. I pause in the foyer, eyes darting between the shadows in the corners.

My heart’s hammering so hard I can barely breathe, but screw it, I’m done with this cat-and-mouse crap. “I know you’re in here!” I yell, my voice bouncing off the walls like it’s mocking me. “Just—just come out already!” Oh god, what if they actually do? What then? My hands are shaking, and I have absolutely no plan beyond this moment.

The silence after feels like the whole damn house is waiting to see what I’ll do next. Then I hear it, footsteps inside the walls. Not the random creaks of this ancient house settling, but actual footsteps. Someone walking. They’re moving right alongside me, just a few inches of plaster and wood between us, close enough that I can follow exactly where they’re going.

I whirl toward the sound, pulse hammering in my ears. “Stop hiding! I found your room, your journals. I know what you’ve been doing.”