Harley sat on the floor, picking at the stale bread in front of her. She had no appetite, but the action gave her something to do, a distraction from feeling the weight of the eyes watching her from across the room. Her ankle was raw from the shackle and the hours she had spent pulling against it but she had learnt to ignore the pain, not wanting to give her captor the satisfaction of seeing her grimace. It had only been two nights that she had been confined to the dusty attic and yet already the strain of the place was showing in her face. Something of the sparkle had left her eyes and her skin seemed sallow and sunken. For the first time, she felt that Arkham might be more comforting than where she found herself now but she doubted she would ever see the grim asylum again. Glancing up, she found Crane was still silently staring at her from his place across the room, stooped to fit under the low beams. This was the longest he had stayed in her prison and his presence set Harley on edge. Especially now she knew what he was capable of.

She had never planned to read the diary he had entrusted her with, not wanting to pander to his whims, but by the time the second evening had crept in on the farm, she had already relented. Crane had given her the meagre supper of dry bread and stagnated water, that had also made up her lunch, in silence, ignoring her pleads for release or explanation. As he had been turning to leave, the discarded diary had caught his eye and he had kicked it across the straw-bedded floor to her before leaving. In desperation, Harley had seized the little moleskin book and begun to read.

At only ten pages in, she had lost her appetite completely. The spider-crawl writing, crammed into every spare inch of paper, detailed a hidden world that had existed under the floor of the asylum where she had worked – a world dominated over by Crane. Each of his draconian experiments were documented with careful detail, down to the very pitch of the subject's screams. Unable to handle anymore, knowing the man responsible for the sickening account waited in the house below, Harley had cast the journal aside and wept herself to sleep in self-pity.

Now the third evening was upon them and Harley laboured over her food while Crane stalked in the shadows with his ever-alert eyes. She had said nothing about the journal and yet she could tell from the way Crane watched her, that he knew she had read it. They remained silent, Harley through fear, Crane through patience, as she swallowed down the bread laboriously, playing for time. When the plate was empty, she turned her head away, eyes falling onto the photograph she had set on the dresser.

'Who is she?' Harley asked, her voice little more than a whisper as she clung to the mundane in the hope she might never have to speak of the journal.

For a long moment, no sound came from the far side of the room and Harley dared to believe that Crane had left her. When she turned her head, however, he was closer than before, bent over and staring at the photograph with an eyes that seemed to see nothing. He had crossed the room silently, and the sudden proximity made Harley's breath catch in her throat, though Crane paid her no attention.

'She is my Grandmother. Or rather my Great-Grandmother, though I never made the distinction.'

Crane turned his head, regarding Harley as if he was surprised to see her there. Slowly, he held out his hand, his long fingers uncurling like a spider that someone had thought dead coming back to life. Harley gritted her teeth and remained sat on the straw. After everything she had read in the journal, and everything she now knew Crane to be capable of, she would not give herself over voluntarily.

A slow, mocking smile came over Crane's lips as he watched her, recoiling in spite of her attempts at bravery. Fear was radiating from her, but it was not enough. Reaching forward, he grabbed Harley by the arm and forced her to her feet, his strength enough over her now she was fatigued with hunger. With rough movements that caused her to squeal, he bent her arm up behind her back and marched her to the window, her shackle going taunt and digging into her already battered ankle. Unable to stop herself, she screamed out in pain, but Crane seemed deaf to her. Letting go of her arm, he instead grasped her hair, forcing her head against the glass and he pointed with a bony finger across the farm.

'You see where the grass grows in that mound by the coal shed? That's where she is now. The grave never sunk in. Even dead, the bitch won't disappear.'

By now, Harley was trembling, biting her lip to contain whimpers of pain and terror as she looked out over the silent farm. The little town she had noticed before seemed even farther removed, like it too was recoiling from the dark house.

Suddenly, Crane let go of her, and spoke with a much more delicate tone. 'She would have never let you in this house. But she doesn't make the rules anymore.'

As silently as he had advanced, Crane retreated to the far side of the room, leaving Harley stood shaking at the window, her eyes clenched shut against the site of the unsanctified grave.

'Why did you do it, Jonathan?' She asked with a weak voice.

'You know, my whore of a mother never even held me,' came Crane's reply, as if he had not heard her. 'She gave me up as soon as I was born to my witch of a Great-Grandmother. She had scars herself from this place and she surrendered me here all the same. How ugly must her son have been, to make a mother send him straight to hell?'

'The patients, Crane,' Harley continued, her bravery returning as she opened her eyes, watching the back of the man she had worked under for years. 'You were the person they were supposed to trust.'

'My Grandmother refused to intervene as well. Out of pride, the old witch told me. What pride had she any right to? She never knew my mother's father either.'

'Benson. You told everyone he'd suffocated himself with a pillowcase...'

'Whores and witches, the whole line of them. Cruel, unworthy wretches. I'd of been one too, I have no doubt, if I'd been born a girl...'

'...but you'd really injected him with some hallucinogenic and poured beetles down his throat?!'

Harley was shouting now, and Crane's head whipped around at the sound, his eyes narrowing as he looked at her.

'You're pitying a child abuser, Harleen. Or had you forgotten that little fact about Benson? Did your high moral stance blind you? Is it really wrong to make a man like that experience his worst fears as he dies?'

'What about the others? Some of them had done nothing wrong. They were recovering, but now they'll never leave, not after what you've done to them.'

'What I've done to them?' Crane repeated, his voice rising as a malicious smirk returned to his face. 'My dear, I've put them on the path to freedom! If they are strong enough, they'll emerge on the other side of the fire as new men.'

'And if they're not strong enough?'

'Then they are unworthy of your pity.'

Harley turned her face away in disgust, looking out again over the farm. Night was creeping in, rotting the yellow fields and turning them gray. Her fear was still there, but it was quietened by her anger and disgust for Crane. He had used his patients as puppets for his experiments, preying on their vulnerability. But she would not give in so easily.

'Get out.'

The smirk did not leave Crane's face as he opened the door to leave, keeping his eyes on Harley for as long as he could. He could see the resolve forming in her, but it did not worry him. Fear brought everyone to their knees in the end, no matter how strong they strived to be.

'Finish the journal,' he instructed. 'Tomorrow I will start to make you see as I do.'