My name is Julien Serrot, it is January 7th, 1882.

I am an innkeeper outside the mountain town of Bryonson, at the base of the French

shops. The inn is not too much trade, and in the winter months I am sometimes

alone for days at a time. In recent times I have earned a pittance delivering

dry goods once a month to Abbey Sanjeanest, eight miles west. The Abbey is

housed in Castle Arshambot, a somewhat forbidding edifice deep in the forest,

accessible only by a winding road which is often made impassable by snow. In the

time of Napoleon's rule, the castle had been the position for 20 years of

Count Arshambot and his wife, well respected in their day in generous with their

wealth. They'd been found dead in their bedroom after having disappeared from

public for many weeks, the victims of suicide by poison. It was rumored that the

Countess Nadia by name had dabbled in the occult and brought doomed to herself

and her innocent husband by seeking immortality through demonic

visitations, turning the castle into an impure, accursed place habitable only by

those with total purity of spirit. All nonsense, of course, a tale conjured by

fools to cruelly cast doubt upon the sincerity of the Count's donation of his

land and riches, to a church another he, nor his wife, had any dealings with

in life. The Abbey of Sanjeanest, mother Henriette, was a gregarious woman who

invariably came out to meet my wagon during a delivery and always insisted on

helping me with the load while she entertained me with the latest joke she'd

heard from the man who helped the sisters tend to their expansive gardens. I'd

grown fond of her over the two years I delivered to the Abbey, sometimes taking

...