Volume VI

Emily in the Attic

Emily clung desperately to the floor fearful that she would fall through the hole that she peered through.  It could have been a chasm for all she knew, but it was merely a crack in the floor of the attic where she hid.  Below her the halls of this Alsace chateau revealed to her the face of the man that she had feared for so long, but it did not match the man she now knew.

Steve certainly had his demons.  He didn’t hide them particularly well.  The night sweats and the nightmares that plagued him even in his waking hours attested to that.  He roamed these ancient halls at night as if they were shrouded by the depths of a murky lake.  How does a man conceal a recurring dream in which he drowns his wife and his young daughter?  Especially when he is accused of their murder – a murder that drives him insane with grief and guilt.

Steve’s one remaining friend offers him the chance to get away from accusing eyes by becoming the caretaker and renovation overseer of a 120-year-old French chateau.  The life here is spartan with only the occasional tradesmen to deal with and being far enough from the nearest Alsatian town of Marckolsheim his provisions are shipped in for him.  Steve is left alone with his nightmares until a curiosity of French law, the requirement to open the doors of a listed property to all comers, leads Emily to his door.  They are quite the opposites, yet they both find something about the other that draws them together and they are both drawn in by the chateau’s mysterious attic.  They are unaware of its secrets and the fact that secluded there in the darkness is something that links the two of them across years of pain - although they have never actually met.