Page 18 of Where The Devil Kneels

The mom who vanished in ‘92? There she is, grey streaks in her hair, flour-dusted apron, beaming in front of her Arizona bakery. And the woman who escaped her husband in 2001, she’s got her arm around some silver fox in Florida, looking ten years younger than she should.

My throat tightens as I stare at the faces. “They’re… alive,” I whisper, fingers hovering over the images as if they might disappear at my touch.

Relief washes over me, but then something darker follows. 'They escaped, just disappeared. Left everything behind.' The thought makes my stomach twist, even though I understand why they had to leave.

Nora’s fingernail makes a soft click against the estate’s deed, my deed now, as she taps it deliberately. “These weren’t random disappearances or escapes. Someone orchestrated them. For decades, maybe longer, your house has been the centre of an underground railroad of sorts. Someone’s been watching, identifying vulnerable people, giving them shelter here, then helping them vanish completely. New names. New lives. New beginnings.”

My brain flashes to that watchtower room upstairs, all those leather-bound journals crammed with notes about who said what to whom, which families were feuding, who might be in trouble next. I see Marta’s map with its little red dots marking safe places. Dr. Rao’s careful records of people who’d been “protected.” Click. Click. CLICK. Everything is falling into place as if I’ve finally got the combination right.

Nora’s finger traces across her homemade timeline, tapping at bunched-up dots. “See how they clump together? Three, four vanish, boom, boom, boom, then nothing for years. It’s almost like…” She bites her lip, eyes darting up to mine.

“As if someone works in phases,” I finish for her. “Helping people, then lying low until memory fades and the next crisis emerges.”

The sun hits Nora’s hair just right as she nods, lighting it up like a copper penny. “Whatever, whoever is in your house,” she says, voice dropping so low I have to lean in, “they’ve been looking out for folks who needed an exit strategy. For generations. Like maybe a family thing, you know? Grandpa teaches dad teaches son how to spirit away the desperate.”

She looks up at my windows going dark with evening, and I catch the goosebumps rising on her arms. “What I can’t figure out is why they’d take on that kind of risk. Century after century.”

I follow her gaze to the upper floors, where the watchtower sits invisible from this angle. Is he there now? Watching us piece together his history? Has he been guiding me towards these discoveries all along?

“How long have you known about this?” I ask, turning back to Nora.

Her eyes drop to her hands. “I’ve had my hunches for years. The archives, they’re like this treasure chest of secrets if you dig around enough.” She starts scooping up her papers, each movement careful and deliberate. “But I never had anything solid until lately. Actual proof that whoever’s behind these disappearances isn’t some monster, they’re more like a guardian angel.”

As she puts her papers into an old satchel, I feel the weight of everything she’s found settle over me. 'Why are you telling me this now?'

Nora pauses, twilight shadows making her expression unreadable. “Because you’re part of it now. Whether you choose to be or not.” She hefts her bag onto her shoulder. “And because there’s been another threat recently. Another potential disappearance brewing.”

“Who?” I ask, though dread already coils in my stomach, anticipating her answer.

She meets my eyes directly, all pretense of the bubbly archivist gone. "You, Elara. Someone in this town wants you gone badly enough that the pattern is starting again.” She steps off the porch, pausing to glance back at the estate looming behind me. “The question is whether you’ll be the next to vanish, or if you’re meant to play a different role entirely.”

I watch her walk to her car, questions stuck in my throat like half-swallowed pills. Her taillights fade down the driveway, two red dots disappearing into the dark. I stand on the porch for a moment, listening to the crickets. Then I turn back to the house, this strange, beautiful place I now call home. The porch light throws my shadow across the entry hall as I step inside. I close the door, lean against it, and let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. 'Well,' I say to the empty foyer, 'that was something.' The house stays silent, but I feel like it’s listening.

The knife crunches through the sourdough, and the smell hits me right away. I arrange the slices on my grandmother’s old silver tray, the one with lilies around the edges that I dug out from the back of a cupboard. I add some cheese, this sharp local stuff from the general store, and uncork the decent red wine I’ve been saving. For what, I don’t know.

Definitely not 'dinner with the stranger living in my walls.' I keep fussing with everything, moving the napkin, adjusting the glass. My hands won’t stop shaking. I’m so nervous it’s almost funny. It feels more like getting ready for a date than leaving food for someone who might be dangerous or not even real.

I crumble four notes into tight balls before writing the fifth. Too formal, too casual, too desperate, too detached. My pen hovers, trembles, then commits to the page. Finally, I settle on the simple truth: “Thank you for watching over me.” The words stare back at me. Six words on cream-coloured paper that say both nothing and everything. I fold it once and prop it against the wine bottle, then lift the tray with hands that struggle to remain steady.

The journey to the watchtower feels endless tonight, my heartbeat drowning out the creak of each step on the narrow staircase. My breath comes in shallow gasps. What if he doesn’t come? What if I’ve shattered some unspoken rule between us? What if I’ve catastrophically misread everything, the journals filled with my every movement, the protection that borders on obsession, thefootprint he deliberately pressed into mud for me to find? The tray trembles in my white-knuckled grip, silver edges cutting into my palms as sweat slicks the underside.

The watchtower looks untouched since morning. The papers are still stacked, the telescope still points at town, and the journals sit in their neat row. He hasn’t been back since I found his hideout. I set the tray down on the table by the window. Moonlight hits the silver, making it shine bright. I touch the note one last time and almost take it back. It feels weird leaving it there, like I’m admitting I know he’s watching me and I’m okay with it.

My voice breaks the silence, unfamiliar even to me. “I’ve seen your work,” I say to the seemingly empty room. The floorboards creak slightly, though I haven’t moved. My fingers trace the edge of the tray. “All those people who vanished. All those lives rebuilt.” I pause, listening to my own heartbeat. “Including mine, apparently.” The moonlight shifts through the window, casting new shadows across the floor. I wait, then whisper, “I just—I want to know why. That’s all.”

Back in the library, I pull down another leather-bound book, but my hands shake on the gold edges. What am I doing? I left food for a stranger who’s been watching me, like I’m feeding a stray cat instead of maybe inviting a stalker. The grandfather clock chimes eleven, and I find myself listening for footsteps above. By midnight, I’ve sorted three books and checked the ceiling seventeen times. At one, I’m pacing between shelves, sometimes scolding myself for being reckless, sometimes defending it. He could be dangerous. He’s protected others. I could call the police, but that would betray him. My logical side says to lock my bedroom door, but something deeper tells me I’ve never felt safer than with him watching over me.

At two, I stop pretending to work. There’s no way I’m sleeping—my nerves are shot, and I’m dying to know. I head back up the narrow staircase, my heart pounding so hard it feels like it might punch through my ribs and make a run for it. The watchtower door is cracked open, just waiting, and I freeze mid-step, suddenly forgetting how to breathe.

The tray’s empty. Every crumb of bread, every sliver of cheese, is gone. Even the wine bottle sits there bone-dry. My note? Vanished. Instead, there’s this old leather book that wasn’t here before, all soft- worn around the edges with a spine that’s been cracked open a thousand times. No way I would’ve missed it this morning among all those journals and maps spilling the town’s dirty secrets.

I approach it like it might grow fangs and bite me, perched on the edge of the chair as I draw it toward me. No title marks its cover, no name claims its creation.The leather feels warm beneath my fingertips, as if it’s only just been put down. With trembling hands, I open it to the first page.

And there I am, standing on the porch steps that first day, keys clutched in my hand, expression torn between determination and apprehension as I face the estate. The drawing captures not just my appearance but something deeper, the nervous energy in my stance, the stubborn tilt of my chin, the way my eyes narrow when I’m bracing myself for a challenge. It’s done in charcoal with impossible precision, each line confident and deliberate.

I flip to the next page, and my breath catches. It’s me again, this time running my fingers along book spines in the library, hair falling into my eyes while on the hunt for some old volume. Then another sketch: me hunched over my desk, chewing my lip, drowning in research notes. The pages keep coming, showing moments I had no idea anyone saw: me curled up asleep in the window seat while rain lashed the glass; me standing with my arms crossed, glaring at Officer Peck in my doorway; me wandering through morning mist in the garden, sunlight catching in my unruly hair.

I flip the page and nearly drop the book. There I am at Mom and Dad’s funeral, standing ramrod straight in that awful black dress, my face a mask while inside I was screaming. God, I remember thinking if I let out even a single tear, I’d drown everyone there. Then another drawing, graduation day, clutching my diploma with white knuckles, my other hand balled into this defiant little fist I never knew I made. Like I was saying to the universe, “See? I did it anyway, without them.”