The Watchers

Madeline is living in the coop when the others arrive in the forest. She is a rare watcher who can endure the sunlight; most watchers are nocturnal. Professor Kilmartin built the coop to protect Madeline, and she took on the appearance of his dead wife. She hides her tall, thin body under a “blanket she [i]s never seen without” (188); only her ghastly hands and face can be seen. Her face, like the faces of the other watchers, shows few emotions and is somewhat robotic. Madeline’s “expressions [a]re limited strictly to disinterest and displeasure. And she hoard[s] secrets like an avid collector” (194). Mina suspects from the beginning that Madeline is hiding something, but she doesn’t realize that Madeline is hiding her identity as a watcher until the end of the novel. Madeline is obsessed with rules and rituals, and “[h]er every action follow[s] a system” (52). She follows these self-imposed rules to ensure her survival, and she lacks empathy and kindness.

After living with the others for a month, Madeline remains “unchanged. She sp[eaks] strictly of matters regarding their survival. Her face [i]s as dull as a death mask” (99). These early descriptions hint at her secret identity as a watcher—as does the fact that she frequently goes off on her own during the day and lies to the others about where she goes. At one point, Daniel’s illness in the coop leads Madeline to emphasize the importance of cleanliness. She is generally strict and antagonistic toward Daniel, believing him to be unintelligent. Madeline also looks down on Ciara because the woman shows kindness to everyone. By contrast, Madeline is cold and rude to the humans who are the pets of the watchers.

When they all return to Galway, Madeline is passionate about keeping humans out of the forest, and she wants all records of the watchers destroyed. She therefore threatens Mina and Ciara until they destroy all remaining records. When she is sure that they have done so, she stops threatening Mina and Ciara with violence; she is their antagonist only temporarily. At the very end of the novel, she sides with Mina instead of the other watchers that can walk in daylight, but this encounter is part of the novel’s cliffhanger ending and thus remains unexplained.

Ciara is a 26-year-old curvy redhead with green eyes and pale skin. She is initially friendly and optimistic, but after John, her husband, dies in the Prologue, she “learn[s] what hopelessness mean[s]” (59). Although she is depressed about the loss of John, Ciara welcomes Mina to the coop and is the best friend that Mina has ever had. Ciara also acts as a sister to Daniel. Madeline sees her kindness as a weakness, believing that Ciara is too nice and is not very intelligent. Ciara therefore acts as a foil to Madeline: “the kind hearted antithesis to Madeline’s dispassion” (103). Ciara’s face is very emotionally expressive, and she is more concerned with showing kindness than in following Madeline’s rigid rules.

After the others refuse to open the door to a watcher pretending to be John, Ciara becomes more taciturn; she rarely speaks and is always tired. Mina notices that “[d]espair ha[s] recast Ciara as someone all but unrecognizable to her old, optimistic self” (136). Captivity does not break Ciara’s spirit, nor does the loss her husband, but the betrayal of her found family does. She is the most vulnerable of all the characters and loses the most to the forest, but she is still able to recover in the end.

When they discover food in the shipping container under the coop, Ciara regains her optimism and positivity. She refuses to leave Mina during their escape and is deeply upset when Daniel dies. Overall, Ciara is “stronger than those kind eyes let on” (180). She continues to support Mina in Galway, keeping a room for her to use during her weekly visits and offering it as a permanent home.

Daniel is the youngest of the group at only 19 years of age. He calls himself Danny, but Madeline insists that he go by Daniel. Madeline’s unreasoning strictness reminds Daniel of his abusive father, from whom he was fleeing when he first came to the forest. In civilization, he stole his father’s keys to the motorcycle, and in the forest, he steals Madeline’s keys. These acts can be read as parallels, for in both cases, he is trying to regain his freedom from an oppressive and dangerous force in his life. Daniel initially aligns himself with Ciara, who is the kindest friend he has known, but he also follows Madeline’s lead when the doppelgänger of John tries to enter the coop. Turning on Madeline is “an impetuous act” that illustrates his status as “the weakest of them” (110, 128). 

After the incident with Madeline’s keys, Daniel regrets his rash action and tries to regain the group’s trust. By this point, he is cowed and is willing to do anything the others ask, including smashing the concrete above the shipping container with a giant boulder. He experiences some joy and hope when they discover the food. However, at the end of their escape, Daniel is fooled by a watcher pretending to be John. This is due to the guilt that he feels for siding against Ciara and with Madeline when the group prevented John’s doppelgänger from entering the coop. However, Daniel’s mistake does aid the others in their escape; several watchers focus on him instead of on the others, who board a boat and escape on the river. Daniel is mourned by Ciara and Mina for the rest of the novel.

One minor character is John, Ciara’s husband. He dies in the Prologue while trying to run out of the forest to find help. He studied the area intensely and tried to map out his escape. He makes the attempt alone because he feels guilty for suggesting that he and Ciara go to Connemara in the first place. Because Ciara continues to talk to John after his death, he remains a ghostly presence of memory throughout the novel.

Another minor but vital character is Professor David Kilmartin, the man who first built the coop and brought in the shipping container. During these construction projects, Kilmartin left the workers to be killed by watchers every night while he hid in the container. This makes him a clear antagonist. He also trained a watcher who can endure the sun (Madeline) to imitate his dead wife, and he gave her the coop so that she could protect herself from the rest of her kind, given that her day-walking abilities make her an outcast. Kilmartin left a video on his computer, and this gives the group information about how to escape. Kilmartin himself never used the escape route because he broke his ankle; the watchers killed him long before the other humans ever arrived at the coop. It is his boat that Ciara, Mina, and Madeline use on the river.