The Nightmare That Birthed a Vision – 014

Dear Molly,

After Byron’s proposal, the air in the villa thickened. We took the challenge seriously—perhaps too seriously. It became a game, yes, but also something more. We were trying to outdo one another, certainly, but we were also trying to reach beyond one another. Reach beyond ourselves.

The storm outside didn’t relent. Thunder was as common as breath. And inside, by candlelight, we read aloud from German horror stories, translated poorly, which only made them more terrifying. There was something ghastly about the language gaps—the way you knew what was meant, but couldn’t quite pin it down. Like trying to hold a scream underwater.

Percy did write, though his tale was more philosophical than terrifying. He struggled with ghosts; he could only see them as metaphors. Byron began with a vampire—though it would be Polidori who truly seized that shadow and made it his own.

And I?

I could not write.

I tried. I pressed the nib of my pen to the page again and again, but nothing came. I felt locked out. Frustrated. I watched the others scribbling, arguing, laughing. I felt small. I felt foolish.

I began to avoid the parlor and wander the corridors instead. The villa was filled with shadows and odd paintings and staircases that turned unexpectedly. I found an old tapestry in one of the guest rooms—three figures stitched into a forest, two with no faces. I stared at it for hours.

Yes, I was frightened. But not of the dark, nor of the stories. I was frightened that I had nothing to offer. That Byron had invited a child among wolves. That perhaps I had mistaken my grief for imagination.

But then—one night, after Percy had read aloud about galvanism, and after Byron had gone on one of his wild tirades about Prometheus and fallen angels—I could not sleep.

I closed my eyes, and I saw it.

A pale student of unhallowed arts. A creature stretched out on a slab. A flicker of life—of movement—like a fish gasping for breath.

It wasn’t a dream. It was something else.

I opened my eyes in terror, my pulse crashing in my ears. I had seen the thing. The vision. And I knew it was a story. And I knew it was mine.

I rose, lit a candle, and wrote until the dawn touched the lake with silver.

More soon.

—Mary
Geneva, still storming