Account 05: Being Watched

Background information

• Name: Diane Richter
• Pronouns: She/her
  
• Date: March 23, 2020
• Occupation: Freelance artist
  
• City of residence: Atkins, Michigan
• Date(s) of account: 2008
• Subject of account: A visit to a local museum
  

Account
I'm a freelance artist. This tends to translate to making things in Adobe Illustrator for clients who provide frustratingly vague instructions on how they want their commissions to turn out and then get irritated when they don't look right, but occasionally it means I visit museums in the hopes of finding some inspiration.

I was making one such visit in 2008. More specifically, I was visiting the Pierre Museum of Art, named for the famous Atkins-based sculptor Charles Pierre (an immigrant from France, if you hadn't guessed from the name alone). I'd heard they were showing one of his best-known pieces, The Seer in Stone.

If you're not aware, The Seer in Stone is a marble sculpture of a hooded monk holding a leatherbound book in one hand, the other held in front of itself. It was created to commemorate the then-recent death of Pierre's friend and patron Robin de la Noye. Pierre worked on The Seer in Stone to the exclusion of all his other projects and even his own health. He said that he felt like he was being watched while carving it, but that he had terrible nightmares while working on anything else. He refused to explain just what these nightmares involved, only that they "made him feel like he would never be safe again."

I arrived right as the museum was opening. I didn't want to lose the chance to look at it for as long as I could.

I stared at that statue for hours on end. I didn't even realize how long I'd just been looking at it from every angle and sketching it over and over on my tablet until I noticed how hungry I was and looked outside. It wasn't dark out just yet, but it wasn't as bright as it had been earlier. I tried to check the time on my tablet, but it had apparently died in the time since I had looked outside. My phone had as well.

I began to walk to the entrance of the museum to find somewhere to eat. Something seemed strange, but I couldn't quite decide what. It was... too quiet, maybe.

It was when I passed by a receptionist's desk and saw it was empty that I realized that I hadn't seen a soul since I had begun to look at The Seer in Stone.

Starting to panic, I started to hurry towards the nearest door outside. I pushed on the handle, but it didn't move at all. I walked towards a spot where I knew another door should have been, but the only thing there was The Seer in Stone, which should have been behind me.

I walked around, trying to find a map, but I couldn't seem to get anywhere near the glass case I knew they were stored. Every turn I took, I was met with The Seer in Stone.

Almost as soon as I realized that I was trapped, my hunger disappeared. It was like my body accepted that it would have to wait this out.

I stared at that statue for an impossibly long time. At some point, I noticed that the book the monk was holding wasn't the same as it had been during past visits.

I looked more closely, and I saw that it had The Knowing written across the spine in faint gold lettering.

When I looked back at the monk itself, I noticed something else was wrong. It took me a second, but the reddish-brown belt around its waist looked off. I leaned in closer and saw what it was.

There were several flecks of dried blood on it.

I backed away.

I closed my eyes, trying to clear my head. When I opened them, the statue's mouth, the only part of its face that its hood didn't obscure, was no longer neutral. It was smiling.

I tried to move away, but it felt like there were strings pulling on me, keeping me in place. I could almost hear the statue laugh as I pulled against my invisible captors.

I turned my head away from it, trying desperately to stop looking. The strings pulled my head to stare at The Seer in Stone once again, and I saw that its empty hand, which had once been outstretched in front of itself, was extending a finger to its smiling mouth.

I screamed, but I could feel myself strangled by invisible strings, and no sound came out.

All at once, the strings released me. I looked outside and it was dark out. I checked my phone, which was once again fully charged. Apparently, it was over three hours after the museum had closed.

I went home, but it was hard to sleep that night. I felt too much like I was being watched.

I haven't visited that museum since then. I thought I wanted to know about the statue, but now I understand that it wants to know me.

Analysis
The backstory Richter provided on The Seer in Stone is accurate. Of course, that doesn't necessarily imply that her account of being haunted by the aforementioned statue is true.

As to the book The Seer in Stone was holding, Richter contacted the Pierre Museum of Art later in 2008. They looked into it and found that at some point, the book had been stolen and replaced with another by a former employee of the Pierre Museum of Art named Mary Jude, whose exact motives are unclear.

The Knowing, like the original book, is a leatherbound King James Bible. However, unlike the original, it has a bookplate reading "Library of Matthias Clark," and several parts are underlined in red ink:

Job 21:22: "Shall any teach God knowledge?"

Psalm 56:8: "Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?"

Psalm 139:1: "O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me."

Proverbs 15:3: "The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good."

Jeremiah 23:24: "Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him?"

I need to learn more about this Clark person. Maybe the fact that he collected books like The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter has caused people like Richter to write stories inspired by them.

Or maybe I just I don't like the idea that something deeper is going on here.