The first painting she destroyed was a landscape.
The second was a portrait.
The third was nothing more than a rough study I had made in less than twenty minutes.
By the fourth, I knew it wasn't random.
My name is Daniel Mercer, and at the time, I was a thirty-eight-year-old painter living alone in a quiet neighborhood outside Portland.
I wasn't famous.
I didn't have wealthy clients.
Most of my work was sold at small galleries, local exhibitions, or online.
Painting wasn't making me rich.
It was simply the one thing I had never been able to stop doing.
My studio stood behind my house, a converted wooden garage with large windows facing the neighboring property.
The house next door belonged to a woman named Eleanor Voss.
She had lived there for nearly twenty years.
At least, that's what the neighbors told me.
Eleanor was private.
Extremely private.
She rarely spoke to anyone.
She never attended neighborhood gatherings.
And she had one peculiar habit.
Every evening, shortly after sunset, she walked around the outside of her house and checked every window.
I thought it was strange.
But I didn't care.
Until I started painting her house.
It happened by accident.
One rainy afternoon, I was standing inside my studio looking for something to paint.
The sky was gray.
The trees were nearly bare.
And the old Voss house looked strangely beautiful through the rain.
It had dark wooden siding, tall windows, and an unusual stone tower on one side.
I picked up my brush.
Then I began.
I wasn't painting Eleanor.
I was painting the house.
Three hours later, I stepped back.
Something was wrong.
Not with the painting.
With the house.
There was a window on the second floor that I had never noticed before.
It was partially hidden behind an enormous tree.
But in the painting, because I had changed the angle slightly, the window was visible.
And behind the glass...
There appeared to be a figure.
I leaned closer.
It was probably a curtain.
Or a shadow.
I wasn't sure.
I decided to paint it again the following morning.
That's when Eleanor knocked on my studio door.
She didn't say hello.
She didn't ask permission to enter.
She looked at the canvas.
Then her face went completely white.
“Where did you see that?”
I looked at her.
“The house.”
“You need to destroy it.”
I laughed because I thought she was joking.
She wasn't.
“Excuse me?”
“Destroy the painting.”
“Why?”
“Because that window isn't there.”
I turned toward the canvas.
“I'm pretty sure it is.”
“You're mistaken.”
She stepped closer.
Her voice dropped.
“Please.”
There was something in her eyes that made me stop smiling.
She wasn't angry.
She was terrified.
I eventually agreed to remove the painting from display.
But I didn't destroy it.
I stored it in the back of my studio.
Three nights later, someone broke into my studio.