The white goat was gone on the third morning. The tether still hung from the rotten stake, the end frayed and ragged, as if chewed or worn through, not cut. There were no signs of struggle on the ground, only a few tufts of white hair caught on the thorny roses, like a bizarre farewell.
Eleanor's life had contracted into a strange cycle: days spent in hyper-vigilant calm, checking for new, subtle "marks" in the house—another nearly invisible clay print on a different wall, a new hair-thin scratch on a doorframe shaped like the wing-and-flame symbol; nights spent in a standoff with sleeplessness and unnameable minor sounds. Her sense of time remained faulty, with occasional minutes or more of "missing time," where she was conscious but had no memory of the interval, only a cold, post-observation fatigue.
The ceramic fragment was the only constant. Its temperature unchanged, it felt strangely grounding in her hand, a tangible tether to the intangible force that had entangled her. It was both a remnant of the curse and proof she had faced it.
She began researching the concept of the "Witness," beyond her family's curse. She scoured obscure folklore theses and the fringes of theosophical forums. She found vague references: some cultures believed major pacts or vows required a "witness," but the witness was not passive. It absorbed the essence of the agreement, becoming its living record. If an agreement ended unconventionally—say, was voided unilaterally—the witness might experience an "inertia." It would continue its function, trying to record… what? The state of the pact-breaker? The existence of one who was no longer bound, yet still "seen"?
The thought chilled her. She was no longer hunted prey, but a specimen under study.
On the fifth day, the doorbell rang.
Eleanor peered from the kitchen window, her heart seizing. David Parrish. He looked somewhat more worn than he had at the clay pit, but the same focused calm was on his face. He didn't carry the strongbox, only a plain leather briefcase.
She knew she shouldn't open the door, but questions and a desperate need—to speak to someone who understood the world she now inhabited—overwhelmed her. She undid the locks.
"Mr. Parrish." She didn't invite him in, holding the door ajar.
"Eleanor." He nodded, unsurprised by her wariness. "I thought you might appreciate a follow-up. And to express my… professional respect. You accomplished something quite rare."
"Follow-up?" she repeated mockingly. "On how I can't sleep, time is broken, and there are clay handprints in my house? On the goat that came and went?"
His eyes sharpened. "A goat? White?"
"Yes. Tethered in the back. It's gone."
He was silent for a moment, digesting this. "That is a marker," he said finally, his tone graver than before. "An older one than I anticipated. 'The seen sacrifice.' It shed no blood, so the rite was incomplete. But its appearance and disappearance are a message in themselves."
"What message?"
"You are no longer 'claimed,' but you remain within the 'sphere.' The observation continues, and deepens." He paused. "May I come in? There are things that might help you establish… boundaries. Not against it, that's impossible. But to keep the observation as observation, and prevent further seepage."
Eleanor hesitated, but the word "seepage" struck a nerve. That was exactly what she felt—reality was being seeped into. She stepped aside.
Parrish walked straight to the kitchen, his gaze instantly finding the ceramic shard on the windowsill. He approached it, didn't touch it, just studied it. "It's still warm?"
"Constantly."
"Good. That means the connection persists, but it's inert, a fragment. The core 'Witness' dissipated with the contract. What you're sensing is residual intent. Like… phantom limb pain. But it can be channeled, or at least contained."
From his briefcase, he produced a few items: a pack of new, unbleached muslin bags, a small pouch of dark, coarse-grained salt (not the supermarket kind), and a very old-looking drawing pen with a badly worn silver tip.
"What we will do," he explained, sounding like a scientist preparing an experiment, "is not an exorcism. It is to create a focus, an anchor, for this residual 'attention.' To gather it from its diffuse state into a specific locus. This may reduce its interference with your environment."
The steps were simple, yet unnervingly ritualistic. He had her place the shard in a muslin bag, then fill it with the coarse salt until it was buried. Next, he used the silver pen to draw a complex pattern on the bag's surface—not the wing-and-flame, but a geometric design of concentric circles and intersecting lines.
"A labyrinth," he said. "The simplest attention trap. Let the wandering intent enter, then circle, unable to easily depart."
He instructed her to place the bag in the very center of the house—a small, windowless storage closet at the end of the first-floor hallway, a room she never used. To place it on an empty shelf, with nothing around it.
"This won't stop it from 'seeing'," Parrish said, "but it may make it 'see' more quietly, more… focused. You need to regain the rhythm of your own perception. When you feel that prickle of being watched, or time starts to warp, mentally envision this labyrinth. Imagine that attention being drawn into it, wandering its paths. It will help you re-establish your psychic boundaries."
It sounded almost superstitious, but Eleanor was desperate enough to try anything. As Parrish left, he offered one more reminder: "Boundaries are two-way, Eleanor. By strengthening it, you are also more formally acknowledging its existence. This may bring a new… clarity. Be prepared."
That night, she did as Parrish instructed. When the familiar, unwakeful alertness and time-warping sensations came, she didn't fight them in panic. She closed her eyes and vividly pictured the labyrinth in her mind. She imagined an invisible, cold current being drawn into it, circling its convoluted paths.
The effect wasn't immediate, but in the small hours, the sense of pervasive seepage seemed to lessen. The walls didn't feel as "thin," sounds from outside regained their proper distance. She even managed a brief, uneasy sleep for an hour or two.
The next two days were the closest to "normal" she'd had since the ritual. Insomnia remained, but lessened. No new clay marks appeared during the day. She almost dared to believe Parrish's strange method was working.
Until the phone rang.
It was an unfamiliar local number. The voice on the other end was a young woman, sounding anxious. "Eleanor Wren? This is 'Sands of Time' Antiques, on Church Street? We… we've received a strange parcel, addressed to be passed on to you. The sender field is blank, but there's a note inside with your name and this number. The item… well, you'd better come see for yourself."
A cold premonition gripped Eleanor's throat. She drove to the antique shop in town. The proprietor, a nervous young woman, produced a small package wrapped tightly in thick brown paper. It bore no stamp, no postmark, as if left directly on the shop's step.
Eleanor opened it in front of her.
Inside was a slim, leather-bound notebook. Very old, but well-preserved. The cover was blank.
She opened it to the first page.
The handwriting was her grandmother Helen's, but frailer, more tremulous than in the letters. The date was twenty years prior.
"If you are reading this, my dear Eleanor, it means I failed, and the Witness has found you. Breaking the contract is not the end. It merely changes the rules. Our family's 'benefactor,' the Keeper of the Threshold, it honors terms, but it values the 'observation' itself more. We, the 'witnessed,' especially those who break the terms, hold a unique fascination for it. It will not harm you. But it will try to… understand you. Through your fear, your choices, the traces of your life. Be wary of the man Parrish. He is a broker, a scholar, but he is obsessed with the process, not the person. He may aid you, or he may steer you into deeper observation for his own study. Remember, the clay pit was the source, but the focus of the 'Witness' is now you. In this book are patterns I recorded of the 'marks' it left on my life. Perhaps they will be of use. Stay awake. Stay wary. Love, Nana."
Eleanor's hands trembled as she turned the pages. Dozens of entries spanned years. Concise notes:
"March 15th. All roses in the garden leaning east overnight. Not the wind."
"July 22nd. Dreamt of Father, but he wore the cufflinks I lost yesterday. Woke to find them on the nightstand."
"November 5th. Photograph. Robert's anniversary. My image in the group photo has no watch on its wrist. But I was wearing one. Feeling of being calibrated."
"January 30th. Parrish visited. Inquired about 'sensory residues.' Suggested recording temperature anomalies. He was interested."
The records continued until a few months before her grandmother's death. The final entry read: "It is quiet now. Perhaps lost interest in me. Or is waiting. For Eleanor. God keep her."
Eleanor closed the notebook, her head spinning. Nana had known. She had known what came after breaking the contract. She had documented this life under observation, this reality being subtly corrected, silently "calibrated."
Parrish's advice—the labyrinth focus—might have helped, but according to Nana's warning, it might also be a way to make the "observation" clearer, more legible for scholars like Parrish.
She walked out of the antique shop with the notebook, the sunlight harsh. What she felt wasn't fear, but a deep, weary understanding.
The game had never ended. It had merely entered a new phase. She was now the subject of a long-term study, the observer a non-human, pact-based ancient attention. And she had just received the complete field notes of the previous subject.
She needed to decide whether to continue trying to "manage" this attention with Parrish's methods, or to take a different path—one her grandmother hadn't finished: not to manage the observation, but to try to understand the nature of the observer. Perhaps even… communicate with it?
The thought turned her blood to ice. But the notebook was heavy in her hands, a guide from a ghost.
The Witness had found her. And perhaps it was time for her to start witnessing it, too.