The Thing That Watched Me

The Rosary

I was eleven years old when my parents sent me to boarding school, and by then three years had passed since I had last seen the figure. Its absence should have comforted me, but I had already learned how little its disappearances meant. It might abandon me for months, sometimes for years, only to return when I had grown accustomed to sleeping without fear. Each time it came back, the distance between us had shortened. The change was never great enough to be noticed at once, yet I remembered where it had stood before, and I knew.

At four, I had seen it near the curtains. During later appearances, it had stood farther inside the room, still watching, still silent, but no longer content with its former place. Worse than this, its behaviour had begun to change. Some small new horror accompanied its return, as though it had spent the intervening years learning what else it might do to frighten me.

When I reached eleven, however, I had not seen it for so long that I began to regard those nights as a sickness belonging to childhood. I was older now, and reason provided explanations that my younger mind had lacked. Darkness distorted familiar objects. Dreams continued for a few moments after waking. Fear filled empty corners with whatever shape it expected to find there. These explanations sounded convincing in daylight, and I repeated them whenever the memory of the figure returned.

My parents belonged to a deeply religious Catholic family, and faith ordered almost every part of our lives. We prayed before meals, attended Mass, and kept holy images throughout our home. I had been taught from childhood that evil was real, though I had also been assured that prayer offered protection against it. For this reason, I wore a rosary around my neck when I slept. The beads rested against my chest, and I took comfort in touching them before closing my eyes.

I carried the rosary with me to boarding school.

The room assigned to me was unfamiliar, but not unpleasant. My bed stood against one wall, while the box containing many of my belongings had been placed several metres away. During the first nights, the strange sounds of the building kept me awake. Doors closed somewhere along the corridor, floorboards groaned beneath unseen footsteps, and the wind occasionally pressed against the windows. Yet none of these sounds frightened me as the silence of my childhood bedroom once had.

The figure did not appear.

Several weeks passed, and I began to sleep more easily. Each night, I said my prayers, touched the rosary around my neck, and allowed the quiet weight of the beads to reassure me.

Then one morning, I woke and found my throat bare.

I searched beneath the collar of my nightdress, thinking the rosary had slipped lower while I slept. When my fingers found nothing, I sat up and examined the bed. I lifted the pillow, pulled back the blanket, and ran my hands across the sheets. The chain might have broken, or the clasp might have opened, leaving the beads somewhere among the folds.

They were not there.

I looked beneath the bed and along the floor. Nothing lay near enough to have fallen from my neck. I was still searching when my eyes moved toward the box.

The rosary rested upon it.

For several moments, I remained beside the bed, staring across the room. The box was too far away for the rosary to have fallen there. It had not been thrown, either. The beads had been laid neatly upon the lid, with the cross resting inside them. There was such care in the arrangement that I hesitated to touch it.

I tried to remember the previous evening. Had I removed the rosary before going to bed? Had I placed it upon the box and only imagined wearing it while I prayed? The memory refused to become clear. My bedtime routine had been repeated so often that one night could easily be mistaken for another.

That explanation calmed me. I crossed the room, picked up the rosary, and fastened it around my neck. The clasp was closed and undamaged. Nothing suggested that it had been pulled apart.

Throughout the day, the incident troubled me less. I became certain that I had forgotten to wear it. There was nothing frightening about forgetfulness, particularly in a new place where my habits had been disturbed.

That evening, however, I took care to remember.

I sat upon the bed with the rosary in my hands and passed each bead through my fingers while I prayed. When I had finished, I placed it around my neck and checked the clasp. I felt the cross settle against my chest as I lay down. Before sleep overcame me, I touched it once more.

The following morning, my hand closed upon bare skin.

I rose at once and searched the pillow, though I already felt a dreadful certainty concerning where I would find it. The sheets were empty, as was the floor.

The rosary lay upon the box.

It had been arranged with the same unnatural neatness as before. The beads formed a careful oval upon the lid, and the cross rested within them. I could not persuade myself that I had done this unknowingly. Even if I had risen in my sleep, why would I have crossed the room and placed the rosary in precisely the same position?

I took it from the box, but its familiar touch no longer comforted me. The beads felt strangely cold in my hand.

The same thing happened twice more. Each night, I made certain that the rosary was around my neck before I slept. Each morning, I found it resting upon the box in the same careful arrangement. By the fourth time, I no longer searched the bed or the floor. I woke, touched my bare throat, and looked directly across the room.

I told no one what had happened. I knew what explanations would be offered, for I had already given them all to myself. Forgetfulness, sleepwalking, an unsettled mind. Each sounded sensible when spoken aloud, yet none could persuade me that I had crossed the room four times and arranged the beads with such hideous precision.

After the fourth morning, the disturbance ceased.

I woke each day with the rosary still around my neck. Weeks passed without another incident. No figure appeared beside the curtains, and I never again found the beads waiting upon the box.

The silence should have relieved me, but it did not. I knew the habits of the thing that watched me. It could remain absent for years before returning closer than it had been before.

The rosary had not fallen from my neck. It had been removed and carried several metres across the room, which meant that something had stood close enough to touch me while I slept.

Until then, I had feared opening my eyes and finding it watching.

After the rosary, I began to fear what it did while they were closed.