If you expected to find yourself in a Gothic snowscape, reader, ears tickling with spectral whispers as the plucky protagonist breaks into a cottage haunted by the shades of her past, regrettably you are mistaken. The door was already unlocked. Opening the panel of the small lantern I had brought, I discovered that my erstwhile home was carpeted in grit and vermin droppings, and furthermore that spiders are the most industrious creatures alive. Slowly, my ears adjusted; no ticking of clocks greeted me, no exclamations of alarm. The place had been emptied, and not merely of its few antiques—even the bedding and the better chairs were dispatched. A pang struck me at the thought of faithful, nonsensical Agatha turned out to pasture—or worse, deceased—but I could do her no better service than to press on, so press on I did. The kitchen was mouldering, the parlour decrepit, my mother’s bedroom sacked and empty, which hurt my chest terribly, and still I could not bring myself to quit the place.
