"She Is Watching," by Zachary Casabella

Sept 5, 1887 

She can see me.  She watches.  Always, I feel her gaze on me.  She stares down at me, her face taking on the same disapproving frown.  Immovable, unchanging, the same exact expression on her face: that of rage and murder.  The look of an animal about to catch its prey.  Unchanging, save the eyes; the eyes are on me.  Always. 

Paintings truly are a strange thing.  As I look now, into the halls of my ancestors, I see the paintings, staring down.  Here is Uncle Hupert, and there lies Aunt Janine.  On the left I see Great Grandfather, on the right, a distant cousin.  All of them long dead, their likeness now only preserved in these pictures.  Rigid.  Cold.  Their faces frozen in one blank expression for all eternity, but I digress.  These of course are not my ancestors.  They are mere depictions; memories of what once was. 

I say the paintings are rigid, and yet they— all of them— have that strange quality so often found in portraits.  That being, that many times, when turning my back, or gazing out the window, I find myself imagining they are watching me, or that their faces are changing.  A mere fancy of course.  When I look back, their faces are the same as ever.  Caught in a frown or a smile.  All save one. 

At the end of the hall, there stood a woman.  This painting was very unique in more ways than one, as I shall soon relate.  However, even before the strange events that happened to me, I considered it unique; for no one could quite remember who it depicted.  Some said it was a great matriarch, a founder of our long-standing house.  Others believed it to be merely a distant relative, her name forgotten to time.  Still others (and I must clarify, these last I believed to be the most foolhardy and imaginative of people) recounted a legend that it was no mortal woman at all, but a cursed item, brought upon us by our family’s dark past.  As I said, I once believed this last theory to be nothing more than superstition and rumor.  I was wrong. 

Now, as I stare at this painting, this artifact of Hell, I can almost feel its malice.  It wants something with me.  What, I do not know, but something.  Something it will not receive.  It shall destroy me, or I it.  And I will not be defeated! 

Sept 15, 1887 

I am a rational man.  I knew that in reality all my fear and apprehension about the painting must be mere fancies— the wild thoughts of a restless mind.  And thus, I made my great mistake.  I let the matter rest.  She is watching.  She has never stopped watching since the day we hung her on the wall.  Yet, I have endured her gaze, and know now that it is no mere fancy of mine. 

Long has it been known to my family that some darkness or shadow hung long over us all.  Little did we suspect that it hung in our very halls.  I have searched this last month for signs of who or what this dark force might be.  An old letter from my great grandfather to his brother is all that I found, yellowed and half turned to dust.  What little was legible I did not understand.  ‘Our family is old, dear brother,’ it read, ‘and we were not always so reputable as we are now.  Many there were - and are - who would do anything for anybody in order to gain wealth and power.  Our ancestors were of such kind, though it shames me to say it.  There is one tale of a distant forefather of ours, who once returned from a long journey, bringing back with him a most beautiful lady whom he called his wife.  Yet strange things were told of her, and some doubted that she was a mortal woman at all.  They would find her, awake, standing over her husband at the dead of night, or having conversations with others that no one could see.  Yet, at the same time, the fortunes of our ancestor most certainly increased, both his wealth, and his fame.  One can easily see how the superstitious folk of yesterday could believe such a tale– though it is certainly not to be believed in this sensible age...’ I should certainly have thought the same as my father not long ago.  But now, now I am not sure. 

Sept 18, 1887 

I set the accursed picture ablaze.  I watched as it burned, surrounded by the demonic fires from whence it came.  Yet even as it burned, its eyes still watched me, mocking, condescending.  Long after they faded into smoke and ash, I still felt their gaze on me.  But even more terrifying was its mouth.  It smiled.  Always, this woman had stared down from behind her frame; frowning in a rageful grimace of disapproval; looking like some vengeful fury after my blood.  Yet as I saw the fires consume it, it changed.  One moment it looked as always, the next, it was laughing, mocking, surrounded by the flames of Hell itself.  Never have I seen something more unnerving than that image. 

But I am a man of character, and no mere painting would bend my nerves.  I knew that this painting was haunted by an evil presence, and now it was destroyed forever.  It was gone.  Turned to ash and smoke.  I have triumphed over the great evil and put it to rest forever.  I shall go to sleep tonight glad, and with a happy heart. 

Sept 19, 1887 

I was a fool.  I cannot destroy this… this creature.  It is beyond any human power.  I had resolved to end this threat, but I cannot.  I awoke this morning and entered the great hall.  My ancestors still stood there.  Uncles, aunts, grandparents, great grandparents, all of them lost to the sands of time.  I lifted my gaze to the empty space, once occupied by that cursed painting, ready to gloat in triumph.  My lips opened, and I cried out, but not in triumph.  There on the wall, the painting looked on me, still, her eyes gazing upon me with the same intensity, following my every move.  Yet it was not unchanged.  The flesh of the woman was now charred and blackened— the skin peeling off from the bones, and her body was surrounded by fire.  And on her face, there lay that demonic smirk which had nearly destroyed my will when I first beheld it in the flames. 

I know now.  There is no escaping it.  We used her, my family.  She gave us wealth.  Power.  And now she wants us to repay our debt.  And in the end, I can do nothing to- 

Here the journal ends, with a smudged line leading to the edge of the paper.  General Gillian was found dead in his home on the morning of September the 20, clutching a pencil in his hand, the journal overturned on the floor.  The cause of death was, according to the professionals, a heart attack.  The painting which he was so fearful of still hangs in the hall of his now empty house.  It appears exactly as he first described it: an imposing matriarch staring down from the wall.  All save one thing.  He described her as having a terrible frown on her face.  The painting as I see it, however, has a smug, almost mocking smile on her lips.  A knowing smile.  The smile of a predator, who knows her prey is within her grasp, and knows that she need only wait, and watch.