The Compendium is the definitive guide to Isabel, known as Candle Face, and the expanding mythology surrounding her. It documents her origins, the hierarchy of those who serve her, her victims, and the signs that mark her presence. What began as a simple reference has evolved into a living record of how belief shapes power, and how power reshapes everything it touches.
Subjects of Interest:
I didn’t set out to write a gospel. I set out to organize evidence. When I began The Compendium, I saw it as a living reference, a single place where investigators, researchers, and readers could piece together everything we knew about Isabel/Candle Face. At the time, I believed I was cataloging stories and sightings, not documenting a system that was still expanding around us.
But evidence has a way of changing shape. Dots connect. Coincidences become patterns. And patterns, once named, reveal intent. That’s what happened here. The deeper I went, the more those scattered details started to feel deliberate, part of something bigger than I understood.
Today, The Compendium is no longer just a dictionary. It’s a map. It shows how belief builds structure, how structure breeds loyalty, and how loyalty feeds power. It documents Isabel’s evolution from a forgotten child into Candle Face, a relentless hunter who punishes disbelief and rewards devotion. It records the people who follow her, the roles they serve, the victims who fall, and the tools that bind their stories.
I didn’t write this from a safe distance. I wrote it while belief was taking hold around me, growing stronger until I could no longer tell where watching ended and involvement began. The Compendium doesn’t demand belief, but it shows what belief becomes once it takes root, and how, once spoken aloud, it shapes everything that follows.
Visit the official Compendium here.
The forgotten daughter of La Llorona. Drowned by her mother, she seeks the recognition that was denied to her in life. Belief strengthens her, and disbelief fuels her anger. She punishes skeptics but can show "compassion" to those who believe, those who become known as The Children of Isabel.
The name I gave Isabel after her transformation from a forgotten child into a force of reckoning. Candle Face isn't a story. She’s a presence, active, relentless, and impossible to ignore. She punishes disbelief and answers devotion with power. Her burned appearance reflects the betrayal that shaped her and the rage that fuels her. To her followers, she is Mother. Candle Face is the embodiment of Isabel’s vengeance, the voice of her will, and the living manifestation of every belief spoken in her name.
The sacred title used by The Children of Isabel when referring to her. Speaking this name aloud is an act of devotion and submission.
The investigator and chronicler behind The Candle Face Chronicles. I document the Lost Souls, the Fugitives, and Isabel’s growing power. I maintain The Journal, a record of encounters and evidence.
A former Disciple I interviewed many times. After his death in 2025, I inherited a series of decoded notes that formed the basis of the published book Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona. Smoe had hidden thousands of scrolls in his attic, many containing bound spirits. Those scrolls would later form what became known as The Scrolls of Souls. His work preserved stories that would have otherwise vanished and shifted the course of this investigation.
A growing archive of encounters, testimonies, and investigations tied to Candle Face/Isabel, The Lost Souls, and The Fugitives.
Also known as Atlitzinco, “the place of the sacred water.” It’s Candle Face’s realm, where The Lost Souls are trapped and The Shadows patrol.
The place where I first saw Candle Face manifest on Ben Howell Drive in Austin, Texas. Believed to be an active portal.
A frequent site of drownings linked to Candle Face. Her death by drowning mirrors the tragedies that occur here.
The center of the investigation and the setting for many encounters, including those near Lady Bird Lake.
The collective name for those who follow Candle Face. United by belief and bound by devotion, they form a living hierarchy that stretches from the first believer who shouts her name to the eternal Shadows who serve after death. Advancement through these ranks is never self-appointed. Only Mother decides who ascends. The structure reflects spiritual ascent and closeness to her will.
Organized groups of Children of Isabel who meet to share stories, spread belief, and recruit followers. All gatherings must happen in public. Faith spoken only in secret holds no power. Her name must be spoken openly for Isabel’s power to grow.
The most powerful of The Shadows. Once human, he now leads the hunt for The Fugitives. In life, he was Kenneth McDuff. His loyalty to Candle Face is absolute, and his power is second only to hers.
The Children of Isabel are bound by devotion and ordered by purpose. Advancement is never claimed. Only Mother can grant it. The hierarchy shows how close one stands to her will and how deep their service runs. From the first spark of belief to eternal service, every tier plays a part.
The base of Candle Face’s power. Believers accept her existence, speak her name aloud, and share her story. Most never encounter her directly, but their belief strengthens her and opens the door for deeper commitment.
Believers who dedicate themselves fully to her cause. They perform public rituals and actively spread her story. Many hope to ascend into Congregations, where their dedication is tested.
Those who prove their belief through action rather than ceremony. They hunt unbelievers, capture the defiant, and deliver them to The Lair in Isabel’s name. Their actions require her sanction, and their success often determines whether they’re chosen to ascend as Disciples.
Chosen servants who act as her direct agents. They lead Congregations, coordinate Deliverers, and speak with Isabel’s authority. Only Disciples may interpret her will. Only she may elevate them further. In death, many become Shadows.
The ultimate transformation of devotion. Disciples who die in service are remade as Shadows — eternal enforcers who guard The Lair and carry out her will. Their loyalty is absolute. At the top stands The Master Shadow, commanding all others and leading the hunt for The Fugitives.
Spirits captured by The Deliverers or Candle Face. They remain imprisoned in The Lair, often crying out through The Voices for help.
Thirty-one souls who escaped The Lair. They hide from The Master Shadow. The Guardians protect them by preserving their stories until they can pass on.
The living who reject Candle Face’s existence. Their disbelief draws her attention, and they're watched, manipulated, or hunted by The Deliverers. Most don’t realize they’re in danger until it’s too late. All Lost Souls were once among The Marked.
Parchment vessels created to hold The Fugitives. The parchment serves as their body, while The Ink binds their voice to it, preserving their stories and containing their being until they can pass on.
Temporary vessels once used to contain The Fugitives before they were sealed within The Scrolls. They now stand as relics of early containment efforts.
A spiritual substance that fuses a soul to its parchment body. It transforms a Fugitive’s voice into written words, seals their essence within The Scroll, and holds them there until they’re freed.
A gateway between our world and The Lair. It often appears as a swirling shadow or shimmer in the air. The Lost Souls once emerged from it to deliver testimonies to me.
Pleas from The Lost Souls or The Fugitives. They often come through dreams or waking visions, calling directly to me or The Guardians.
A hidden layer of meaning within The Lost Souls’ testimonies. Decoding these messages can reveal Candle Face’s motives, history, or vulnerabilities.
A rise in temperature and a thickening of the air that signals Candle Face’s presence. Unlike most spirits, she doesn't bring cold.
A vow taken by The Guardians. It binds them to their duty to preserve or protect a Fugitive.
The force that fuels Candle Face’s strength. Belief empowers her, while disbelief provokes her anger. Even doubt, once spoken, feeds her power and accelerates her growth.
Those who protect The Fugitives by preserving and showcasing their scrolls. They ensure the stories are seen, heard, and shared until the souls can pass on. To truly open communication with a Fugitive, a Guardian must take The Oath when they accept a scroll. Without it, the voices remain distant or silent.
This isn’t a story told from a distance. It’s a living record of what happens when belief is spoken aloud and when an idea becomes something more. The Compendium is a guide, but it’s also an invitation to see how systems of power grow, how devotion shapes them, and how even skepticism can feed what it seeks to deny.
Read it closely, and you might start to see the patterns too. Keep reading, and you might feel them reaching back.
Arthur Mills
For over two decades, Arthur served as an Army Intelligence Warrant Officer, specializing in piecing together what others missed: patterns, threats, enemy intent, and clandestine activity. He also trained intelligence professionals, built threat models, and briefed commanders and world leaders on global threats and battlefield strategy. After retiring from the military, he transitioned into private investigation, focusing on missing persons, human trafficking, opposition research, and fraud cases. He also holds a degree in Counterterrorism, adding academic grounding to the skills he developed in the field. Today, he continues his work as an Intelligence Analyst for a leading global agency, following domestic and international threats.
He is an award-winning author who has been writing books since 2006. While he publishes under his own name, much of his best and most widely read work has appeared under pseudonyms. Readers may already know those titles, although they would not know they are his. That separation is intentional because just as his books invite readers to participate and interpret what is hidden between the lines, his career as a writer reflects the same principle.
This is a complex and deeply personal question. On the one hand, there's the possibility that Candle Face is a manifestation of my childhood trauma, a figure created by my mind to cope with fear and emotional turmoil. On the other hand, the consistent details, physical evidence, and shared experiences with others suggest that Candle Face may be a genuine supernatural entity. Whether Candle Face is real or a creation of my psyche, her impact on my life has been undeniably profound. Ultimately, the answer to this question is up to you.
I don’t consider myself a psychic or medium, although many in the paranormal community believe I have some kind of gift, perhaps one that I haven’t fully tapped into yet. Unlike those who claim to communicate with any spirit, my ability seems limited to connecting with Candle Face’s victims and Candle Face herself. While I’m not sure how this works, the connection is strong and focused on these particular lost souls, allowing me to share their stories and seek justice for them.
I decided to cancel the Candle Face Chronicles podcast for two key reasons. First, while the Get Haunted Network is a fantastic community for paranormal entertainment, it wasn't the right fit for the serious and important nature of my work with Candle Face Chronicles. The network's lighthearted tone didn’t align with my mission.
Second, the friends and family of one of Candle Face's victims reached out and asked me to stop discussing their loved one on the podcast because it was causing them too much pain. Their request made me realize that my work, while well-intentioned, was unintentionally hurting those who are still living and grieving.
These reasons led me to end the podcast, but I remain committed to continuing my mission to uncover Candle Face’s origins and methods with a renewed focus on compassion and respect for the living.
From October 2023 to around March 2024, I personally wrote the short descriptions you see on Google and social media platforms when my web pages or journal entries are shared or found in search results. These descriptions are those brief, 160-character summaries that pop up beside the URL. It was challenging to condense complex ideas into such a small space.
By March 2024, I began letting Wix, my website host, handle this task for me. Their AI generates these summaries much faster and often with more precision than I could manage within that tight character limit. It was a practical decision to let the system take over this small aspect of my work, allowing me to focus more on my writing and investigations.
The web pages and journal entries themselves are entirely my own. My writing encompasses a wide range of topics, including the testimonies of the Lost Souls, my investigations into Candle Face/Isabel, my books like Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona and The Haunted Handbook, as well as other works and research. Everything I write is rooted in my decades of experience in writing (over ten books in 15 years) and my 30+ years of expertise in intelligence analysis, missing persons cases, and human trafficking investigations. The core content you read always comes from me.
By December 2024, I also began using AI to help create some of the images featured in my blogs. Due to the nature of my work, which covers real events, people, and spiritual encounters tied to Candle Face, the Fugitives, and the Scrolls of Souls, it became increasingly difficult to find stock or royalty-free images that accurately represented what needed to be shown. Rather than settle for generic visuals or spend time searching through endless photo libraries, I chose to use a modern-day tool that could generate images tailored to the story being told. I review each image to make sure it reflects the tone and details of the post. This approach allows me to focus on the core work of sharing what others will not and presenting it in a way that respects the subject matter.
By early March 2025, I decided to create a Shopify account to sell copies of Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona, The Haunted Handbook, and to look for caretakers for The Scrolls of Souls. It was a tremendous amount of work to manually transfer all 130 journal entries from Wix to Shopify and recreate the Google SEO titles and descriptions for each entry. Shopify’s blogging platform also required a summary for each journal entry. Summarizing my work was taking around 30 minutes per entry, which became overwhelming and unsustainable.
To streamline the process, I allowed AI to create the summaries for me by uploading each journal entry and letting the AI generate the SEO descriptions, summaries, and ALT text for images. Here's a clear breakdown of what is AI-generated:
Everything else you read comes from me, whether it’s documenting testimonies from the Lost Souls, researching Candle Face/Isabel, or writing my books. The AI simply handles the tedious, mechanical parts of the process, leaving the writing, storytelling, and investigations entirely in my hands.
I review all AI-generated summaries and descriptions to ensure they accurately represent the essence of my writing. My decision to use AI for these backend tasks is about maintaining efficiency and allowing me to focus on what truly matters: writing, storytelling, investigations, and giving voice to the Lost Souls, protecting the Fugitives, investigating Candle Face/Isabel, and exploring new projects. Your experience as a reader is shaped by my work, not by AI.
I have had the branchingplotbooks.com domain since 2012, but I transferred the domain to Shopify to use it as my storefront. I needed to do this because Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona can't be published or sold via Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing because of its spiral binding requirement. The same goes for The Haunted Handbook.
I decided to sell them, along with most of my other books, on Shopify because it allows me to provide a more streamlined and reliable experience for my readers. It also enables me to have full control over my work and how it reaches my audience. Additionally, all my books are still available on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), except for Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona and The Haunted Handbook due to their unique binding requirements.
I also chose to use Shopify’s blogging platform, keeping all books, my journal, and the shopping experience located in one place.
I plan on keeping www.candleface.com up for the interim, but it will likely go down as well, or at least be redirected to www.branchingplotbooks.com. In the end, I want my work to be more streamlined and easier for the paranormal community and my readers to find my work, read and help the lost souls, protect the Fugitives, and care for the Scrolls of Souls.
At first glance, my projects might seem scattered. I write about ghost stories, spiritual preservation, investigative reporting, and even political analysis. But they all serve one purpose. Each one invites readers to interpret what they see based on their own beliefs, experiences, and instincts. That's the heart of Branching Plot Books. Whether it's a scroll sealed with a forgotten soul, a book that can be read multiple ways, or a report that exposes something hidden in plain sight, the goal is the same. I want readers to take an active role, to question the surface, and decide what they believe is real. The stories may differ, but the purpose is always connected.
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