Who are you that lurks within the shadows of my prison, thirsting for my life? An angel from hell? Or perhaps a thief in the night. Impetuous boy, that’s what you really are.


When evening falls as if slain by the sun, I work late into the night, my candle guttering at the ledge. Sometimes I swear I feel a deathly whisper in my ear. How can this be? Have I truly gone mad? I wouldn’t be so surprised if that was true. At least, that’s what they all say.


They say I was found in my parlor, smeared in crimson, the rusty dagger still clenched in my hands, a red rose covering his chest—only it was no flower. Blood.


And so here I am at the Asylum for Wayward Girls. After those horrendous shock treatments, I can only find solace in my music. At times when I can bear it no longer, I close my eyes and pretend that I am a Siren singing gentlemen to sleep…but then, as always, I am rudely interrupted by my harpsichord mysteriously playing itself in the middle of the night. Perhaps my imagination has gotten the best of me yet again…or a new evil is lurking within my heart.


This is truly a gorgeous nightmare. Am I destined to spend the rest of my fair youth imprisoned within the crumbling walls of my imagination, forever writing love songs to those whom I don’t love? Sometimes I am so intent on escaping this filthy rat’s nest that I hardly flinch whenever you steal into my mind to fill up my page with music, written in my hand.


When all else fails, I become a still doll, staring outside my barred window for consolation, listening to the soft, sibilant whisper of snow drifting past while my porcelain fingers turn a faint milky blue of freezing flesh. My body is motionless, but my mind walks the shadows of my plans: watching, waiting, building my strength…