Over the next several days after our strange encounter in my yard, I began to notice that things in my house were not quite as they should be. More specifically, things I left out seemed to move or disappear, when I was certain that I had not touched them. Food I was sure I had left uneaten vanished, brushes, keys, remote controls, and lip glosses moved into entirely different rooms than they had last been left, and shoes, shirts, and jackets I was certain had been in the dryer or hanging in my closet appeared to grow legs and run off and away from my visual field. And it wasn't just that things were difficult to find- I also noticed that things appeared that should not be present on occasion. Scuff marks and fingerprints appeared on mirrors that I was sure had not been there the day before, occasional partial shoe marks showed up on a formerly spotless kitchen floor, and drawers and doors were left ajar when I knew I had shut them firmly only hours before.

None of these things, in and of themselves, would have been a cause for concern or even much notice. But added together in a relatively short period of time, I began to feel uneasy about it all.

I was not a clean freak by any means; I had much better ways to spend my time than washing floors every day or dusting objects that would just get dusty again tomorrow. But living alone tends to mean that minimal mess and clutter accumulates in a normal day, and any change in the norm is much more easily noticed. Had I still been living with Darren, or had Savannah been home over a school break, I likely wouldn't have noticed the small changes, assuming one or both of them to be responsible. But Savannah's first visit home wasn't to be for another few weeks, and I hadn't had a visitor for weeks, let alone daily. The only person capable of moving things in my house was myself, and I knew I wasn't yet senile enough to be so forgetful.

And of course, every time I stopped to inspect a sudden, unexplained new mark on the wall or floor, every time I searched for something that had gone missing without explanation, I could not fully forget the ever watchful gaze of that crazy old man across the street from me, still watching my every gesture that could be seen.

I had never been overly careful before about locking doors. It seemed unnecessary, having lived in the neighborhood for so long with no reason to be fearful or wary of intruders or thieves. But within the first six weeks of Mr. Whitaker's moving in across from me, I became diligent in making sure all windows and doors were secured at all times, even during the day when I was home. If there was any chance of an intruder, I wanted to make sure I closed off his entrance points.

I was alert, cautious, and focused. Each window and each door was locked and checked throughout the day and night, and each time I looked them over, they appeared untampered with. But the strangeness continued all the same. Entire boxes of food went missing, never to be found, along with blankets, clothing, an entire photo album, and hygiene products. My belongings continued to move without me having touched them from one room to another. It was enough to make me feel that I was beginning to lose my sanity.

Of course, I tried to work through the puzzle logically. Although Darren and I had split about as amicably as is possible in a divorce, and he had given me back his key to the house, it was possible he had made a copy first and was coming into the house while I was out, taking and moving things, though it seemed far more petty and immature than I would have expected out of him. I called him and asked, as delicately as I could without spelling out the full facts of it all, and I believed his denial of making any copies of his key. I hadn't truly believed it of him in the first place, and I didn't push the possibility any further.

The next possible contender was my daughter, Savannah. Although she was still away at college, it was certainly possible she came home during the day and helped herself to whatever she wanted to. Possible, but still unlikely; it would be a trip of several hours back home just to take a few things she could easily buy for herself or ask me to send or take to her, and Savannah had never been a fan of long drives and wasted effort. Besides, if she were coming home so frequently, why wouldn't she ever give me a heads up, to ask me for money or to drop off her dirty laundry, if nothing else?

Still, it was possible, and so I asked her, more directly than I had asked Darren. But Savannah too denied coming home on even one occasion, let alone several, and I believed her too. She also denied giving copies of her key to anyone else who might be using it without bothering to ask permission, and I had to admit that this would have been unlike her.

That left me with no answers that made sense to me, at least not any answers that were easily explained and solved. But I was not without suspicions. I had plenty of them, every time I glanced out my window to see Whitaker's weathered face looking back at me. Because any man so obsessively interested in what I was doing, any given hour of the day, certainly might be obsessed enough to invade my home. What I couldn't understand yet was how he managed it without leaving any evidence to pont to his access of entry.

88

I am most likely the first and only person in my neighborhood to buy a security camera and install it on my property, but after a certain amount of time without being able to understand the disturbances in my home, it seemed a reasonable and necessary purchase. There was no other way I could think of that would help me solve the unwanted mystery, and perhaps a camera out in plain sight would defer the culprit from anything further in the future. It certainly couldn't hurt to try, and I had the money to afford it.

I spent a Saturday morning making the purchase and then standing on my front porch, wrestling with the equipment in effort to figure out just how to set it up so it actually was firmly secured and working properly. I'm far from mechanically inclined, so I was very much involved in my struggle and paying little attention to anything else around me when Whitaker left his post at the window to come stand at the edge of my yard once more. I didn't realize he was near until I heard him clear his throat noisily and obnoxiously enough I expected him to spit immediately after.

"That won't help," he announced gruffly.

I ignored the strong temptation to turn around and chuck the camera at his head. Instead I took several measured breaths, then turned to face him, arching an eyebrow.

"Excuse me?"

"That camera," he muttered, nodding his head towards it. "Ain't no use having it, not on the outside."

I didn't see why he even had such an opinion, let alone felt so free in offering it up, unasked for, especially when he had yet to offer up so much as his name previously.

"I didn't ask your opinion, Mr. Whitaker," I said shortly, turning back towards my task and beginning to examine the wiring once again. "It's my business what I do with my money and my property, and I feel the security is needed."

"You ain't wrong on that, woman, but it ain't the front yard you ought to be watching, and it ain't what might try to get in that you've got to worry about," he insisted, his eyes squinting for once towards me rather than the windows past me. "You ought to take a look at what you got going on inside."

What was he trying to say, that I was the problem? That there was something wrong inside of me? Who did he think he was?

I bit back against the anger pressing harder against my chest and shook my head, hardening my tone as I replied.

"Thank you for your opinion, but again, I didn't ask for it."

"No, you listen to me, Stacy Tate," he persisted, and this time I heard an odd urgency to his tone, an earnestness that gave me pause- and not only because it was the first time I had heard him address me by name. "You think you live alone, don't you? That's what you think."

"What do you mean, that's what I think?" I questioned, turning my head back to regard him. "I do live alone, when my daughter is away. Why?"

Whitaker's lips thinned, and he shook his head again, his expression grim.

"No, you don't," he countered. "You don't live alone at all. You watch your back if you know what's good for you, Stacy Tate. Because if she finds out you know it ain't so…."

Nothing in this encounter made any sense whatsoever. My suspicions of the man's lack of sanity were certainly strengthened by his latest, strangest declarations, to the point that I felt a stir of pity towards him. What must it be like, to live alone in that old house, trapped with only his own delusions and paranoia for company?

"Mr. Whitaker, I assure you, I live alone in this house," I said more gently, giving him a smile of reassurance. "Unless Savannah's home, there's no one here but me. And once I get this camera up, I'll be safer than ever."

"You're wrong," he said, quiet but with conviction. "I watch her, Stacy Tate. I see her, even if you don't bother to look. She's quiet, she's smart, and she's good at staying hidden, but not so much she can't be caught, sometimes, by a person who knows to look."

He exhaled, giving out a short cough, and cleared his throat again noisily, rubbing at his chest.

"I'm a private man. I don't believe in getting in other's business, and I don't invite them into mine. But she's in your business every minute, and you don't even know it. She's right there, right under your nose, but you don't open your eyes to see."

"Mr. Whitaker, I don't know what you're talking about," I exhaled, turning fully to look at him directly. "I'm not sure what you think you've seen, but there is no one else but me in my house. Just me. Maybe it's difficult to tell from the distance, but I am the only person, and the only woman, in my house. Please, don't worry about this. The only person you could possibly be seeing is me."

But even as I spoke, another thought occurred to me, one disturbing enough that I took a step back, my hand twitching with my desire to reach for the doorknob, retreat into my house, and lock it behind me. What if this talk of some mystery woman, creeping around unseen by me in my house, was all a distraction, a desperate effort of his to cover up his own break ins?

"You're wrong on that, being the only one in that house," Whitaker murmured, shaking his bushy white head. "Mark my words, Stacy Tate, one day you'll see that you're wrong, and you won't be sure on yourself then."

He turned away then, beginning to shuffle his way back across the street to his own property at a pace equivalent to a snail's. I watched him every step of the way, my muscles drawn tight, until I saw him settle himself back into his seat at the window, taking up his post once more.

It took me almost another thirty minutes to set the camera up properly, but I stayed with it, even more determined than before to have it ready. This crazy old man was not about to shake me up any further, and if he was indeed the one behind the strangeness in my house, I was about to catch him out on it at last.