52 pages • 1 hour read
A. M. ShineThe Watchers
A. M. ShineFiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 17-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “January”
Part 2, Chapter 17 Summary: “Mina”
Madeline describes the various escape attempts that she has made. One time, she tried burying a bird deep underground to see if she could hide underground, but the watchers found the bird. Madeline claims not to know what is in the room beneath them, but she thinks that they can at least last one night in it. Daniel returns with the stone. Madeline puts a hand on Mina’s shoulder to keep her from helping while Daniel drops the stone on the cement. Eventually, he reveals a steel hatch, which Mina identifies as a door. Madeline opens the hatch and smells the darkness inside but does not detect the foul scent of the watchers. Mina calls out into the darkness and only hears an echo. Then, she climbs down the hatch’s ladder, into the darkness.
Mina reaches the floor below and sees a small, distant, red light. She reports this information to the others and then pushes the glowing button of light. The main lights in the bunker come on, and she sees a generator, a bed, a computer desk, and shelves of food and water bottles. She calls up to Madeline that the space is a shipping container. Ciara returns from the spring, and the others update her about the secret room. They all go down the ladder as Mina sits at the desk. Ciara and Daniel are excited about the food, and Madeline takes over the desk chair. Mina turns on the computer and sees broken feeds from eight surveillance cameras. There is also a video file, which Mina opens.
Part 2, Chapter 18 Summary
The man in the video, Professor David Kilmartin, says that he is now probably dead. He admits to luring others to their deaths in order to bring the shipping container into the forest, and he mentions that the watchers destroyed his cameras. He also states that he destroyed his on-site research and implores the viewer to find and destroy the rest of his research at Galway’s National University. Then, he describes making the mirrored glass to keep the watchers occupied with watching him so that he could watch them. Kilmartin next explains that the watchers changed their form to resemble him. When he showed them a picture of his dead wife, they changed to resemble her.
As the video continues, Kilmartin says that he cannot escape because he has broken his ankle. However, he has left a boat at the river. The river is south of them, and there is a compass on the desk. Kilmartin recommends that the viewer travel during the summer, when the days are longest. He tells them to run, reminds them to destroy his research, and ends the video.
Part 2, Chapter 19 Summary
While they are in the shipping container, the light comes on in the coop. Madeline says that Daniel or Ciara should close the hatch above, but Mina is the one who starts up the ladder. Madeline threatens to lock Mina out if she wastes too much time retrieving her bird. Madeline starts climbing the ladder as well. Mina grabs the parrot and takes a quick look at her reflection. She thinks that no one would recognize her and wonders if anyone in Galway misses her. Mina gives the bird to Madeline, who has just reached the top of the ladder. Then, Mina closes the hatch behind her, and they climb back down. Madeline sits at the desk while the others finally enjoy a good meal.
Madeline declares that they are leaving the next day. Daniel argues that Kilmartin said to wait until the summer. Madeline counters that there is only one bucket in the shipping container; they will get sick if they stay here. She says that she is taking the boat tomorrow, with or without them.
Now, they can hear the watchers destroying the coop above. As Madeline eats at the desk, Mina morbidly compares the four of them to the canned food in the shipping container. Ciara says that once they escape the forest, she will go home because her parents will ask too many questions if she stays with them. Daniel admits that he left his home when he came to the forest, and Ciara says that he can live with her. Ciara and Daniel voice their doubts about the boat and about getting to the river. Madeline makes sure that the compass is working and tells Mina that she shouldn’t bring the parrot. Mina insists that the bird is coming with her.
Part 2, Chapter 20 Summary
Part 2, Chapter 21 Summary
When they open the hatch, it is morning, and the watchers have left the coop. As Mina, Madeline, Daniel, and Ciara venture outside, Madeline notices that Mina has no shoes. While Madeline says that she is prepared to leave Mina behind if she fails to keep up, Ciara promises to stay with Mina. They begin to run through the forest, and Mina suggests that they try and find a clearer path. When Madeline again mentions her missing shoes, Daniel offers to give Mina his shoes. She turns down his offer, but Madeline agrees to look for a path. Daniel finds it and calls the others over. As they walk through some branches, Mina steps on a thorn. She absently wonders if her sister, Jennifer, checked out her apartment with the spare key. As the group continues on, they see a door in the ground. Madeline says that this is where they buried the watchers underground, but the watchers escaped.
Part 2, Chapter 22 Summary
Madeline, Mina, Ciara, and Daniel continue through the forest, sustaining injuries from thorns and branches. Madeline says that it is now after five o’clock in the afternoon; they are running out of time. Suddenly, they encounter the biggest burrow yet. Daniel is deeply afraid, and Mina and Ciara hold Daniel’s hands as they walk past the burrow. Mina leans into it, trying to get a glimpse inside. A shriek comes from below, and the parrot cries out in response. Ciara drags Mina away from the burrow, and they run. Daniel finds another path. Ciara falls but rises again with Daniel and Mina’s help. Madeline assures them that they are close to the river. They get beyond the trees and finally reach the river.
As the watchers approach, Daniel finds the “wooden skiff” (209), and they push it out into the water once Mina loads the birdcage into it. Ciara and Mina board the boat, but Madeline hesitates. Mina jumps out of the boat and finds Daniel talking to a watcher that resembles John. Mina warns him that the figure isn’t John, and he tells her to run. Mina runs back to the boat, where Ciara and Madeline are waiting. Daniel distracts the multiplying watchers, who are now imitating Daniel himself, while the others row away in the boat. Madeline tells Mina not to look as the watchers destroy Daniel’s body.
Mina rows until her arms give out and wonders if the watchers can swim; they don’t seem to be following the boat down the river. Mina and Ciara sleep in the boat until the sun rises. Madeline stays up all night, keeping watch, and points out a bridge when the others wake up. Mina rows them to the bridge, which is part of a road. Ciara lies down on the road and says that someone is bound to find them. Madeline agrees, seeing signs of vehicles. Mina and Madeline also sit on the road. Eventually, a tourist bus comes by, and Mina stands in the road to flag it down.
Part 2, Chapters 17-22 Analysis
In the second half of Part 2, the prisoners once again find themselves Gaining Strength From Found Family as they seek a new hiding place in the wake of the destroyed coop. They know that once the watchers break the mirror, “[t]he room they all kn[o]w so well wo[]n’t feel like home anymore” and will expose them to danger and death (156). However miserable these confines have been, they nonetheless mourn the loss of the coop, for they have lost the only constants in their home—the mirror and window—and they also fear losing their lives. However, upon escaping into the hidden shipping container, the relative safety that it offers renders “this coffin” into yet another temporary home of sorts (185). Focused as they are on survival, they must rely on each other to escape the clutches of the watchers, and therefore, even as their location changes, their common goal unites them, providing a metaphorical “compass” to guide their actions. As Mina reflects, “They were a family, and nobody was getting left behind. That’s how they had gotten this far, and that’s how they would get home” (210). The bonds of their found family make it possible for Mina, Ciara, and Madeline to escape with their lives intact.
However, Daniel ultimately succumbs to the tricks of the watchers, and the nature of his death once again invokes the motifs of mirrors and doppelgängers. After one watcher imitates the form of John to lure Daniel away from the boat, the other watchers then imitate Daniel himself, and this tactic psychologically overwhelms him, who “collapse[s] to his knees, gazing up at the ring of faces all mimicking his own, each one warped into an abhorrent reflection resembling both boy and monster” (214). The distortions of Daniel’s face parallel the dynamics of the coop’s mirror, for just as Daniel cannot stand seeing his distorted features on the watchers’ faces, Mina previously shuddered to behold her mirrored reflection “night after night […] in that mirror, with their eyes watching her from the dark” (217). Just as Daniel is paralyzed by his horror in the last crucial moments of his life, Mina previously felt horrified upon seeing her appearance distorted by the lack of food and the stress of captivity. In both cases, the twisted reflections of personal features become inescapable manifestations of seemingly inescapable trauma and torture.
The trauma that Mina and the others endure ultimately illustrates The Impact of Trauma on Creativity. Even as traumatic events occur in real time, Mina constantly compares life to art. As she beholds Daniel’s violent death and the terrified expression on his face, she cannot help but reflect that “[s]he had sketched Daniel’s face so many times, studying its every kink and nuance. But this [i]s the culmination of all his fears in a single look” (212). The representations of him in the sketchbook are moments that illustrate his various moods over time, but the real person dying in front of Mina has more expressiveness in his face than she ever managed to capture on the page. Caught up in this moment and lamenting Daniel’s willingness to be manipulated by the watchers’ ruse of imitating John, Mina offers a new interpretation of The Tension Between Caution and Compassion. She feels that “[d]espite what Madeline thought, [Daniel’s] kindness wasn’t a weakness. It was his greatest strength” (179). Ultimately, Daniel dies because of his kindness toward John, but this very kindness, however naïve, is the attribute that makes him human. By contrast, Madeline’s coldly pragmatic approach to survival aligns her more closely with the equally cold watchers whose malicious presence dominates the night—foreshadowing the revelation that she is indeed one of their number.
The symbolism of birds takes on a new meaning in this section. The extensive time in the coop causes Mina’s pet bird to become depressed; it “no longer whistle[s] like it used to, back when everything was new to its eyes and when the hum of [the humans’] voices caused its little feet to dance. Though already a prisoner, caged and sold, it ha[s] shrunk beneath the coop’s light” (155-56). Thus, Shine suggests that the parrot’s usual captivity in the cage is far less traumatic than the captivity that it shares with the humans in the coop. Its confined life before entering the woods was bearable because humans treated the bird far more kindly than the watchers treat their “pets”—humans. However, as the group finally escapes (sans Daniel), the focus on bird-related imagery shifts to a broader study of the changing duality of darkness and light. As they leave the forest, the sun rises, “diluting the darkness with light” and heralding a return of hope and freedom (219), finally overcoming the darkness of the trauma that the watchers inflicted upon them.
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