Episode 3.1

Introduction

Welcome to The Phosphene Catalogue no. # 15031
We see light where others see only darkness.

On behalf of The Catalogue staff, please allow me to welcome you, dear Reader, to the Autumn season. My name is Jude Francis-Sharp, Curator of the Collection, and I have quite an unusual announcement for you this week.

The Catalogue is honoured to host a play written and produced by Lord Dean Aldwick, gracious donor and well-known patron of the arts.

The production is of a Guise story many of our readers may be familiar with, the Celtic legend of "Swyno'r Ddraig", or, as it's often translated into English, "Enchanting the Dragon".
Proceeds will be donated to Lord Aldwick's chosen charity, Howell House. All of us at The Catalogue were both professionally and personally saddened to hear of the passing of its proprietor, Rhys Howell. We are heartened that his legacy of support for our community lives on in this new foundation.
We look forward to featuring the work of the pre-eminent artists that now qualify for the Howell Grant.
As Lord Aldwick will be generously matching all donations to Howell House, we believe this puts an end to the speculation around the circumstances of Rhys Howell's death once and for all.
's Plan
The gallery will be opening late on Saturnalia, 17th December, for a single performance of this remarkable production. Doors will open at 10pm, and will be sealed at midnight.
Tickets to the play are now on sale at our reception here in The Catalogue Building in Whitechapel, or by telephone.
Dial our number and ask, politely, for Morwenna.

Side A: Hireth

Dominating The Woolf Room this week is a masterwork of Dutch Realism by Demetria De Witte.
The artist studied oil painting at De Boomgaard Academy alongside someone the reader will be more familiar with, Lisanne Van Veld.
We have mounted "Hireth" a foot above the ground on the North wall, with a single cold white spotlight at the top-right, matching the position of the moon in the scene.
The subject of the composition is a young peasant girl walking across a moonlit field, wearing a long, red travelling cloak typical of 19th century Dutch dress.

The girl has bright eyes, a cute freckled nose and her smile shows her perfect white teeth.

The night seems cold, look closely, and you will see that the artist has captured the breath billowing behind the girl in the frigid air with delicate silver highlights of marvellous skill.
Around her, the grass of the field is white with snow, almost looking as if she is skating across the surface of sharp clouds.
"Hireth" is an old Welsh word approximately meaning "spiritual longing for a home that never was".
Many "art enthusiasts" have said that De Witte reflects this feeling in the girl's eyes with this painting, but I disagree.

Additionally, "Girl" is not quite the right word here.
The artist has chosen to highlight the wide-eyed giddy exuberance of youth with light from an unseen source. That same light outlines a silhouette that shows she is between two worlds, not yet "woman", but no longer "girl".
No doubt she would be married soon, and her carefree days running through the grass will end.

A fate that comes for all of us too soon, eventually, one way or another...

But she is yet young enough to make mistakes, and she has made a grave one.
Do you see it?

The full moon illuminates the wide, flat fields of the Dutch Lowlands, many fences or hedges partitioning off each farmer's parcel from their neighbour's.
The girl - and "girl" will have to do, especially here - has run into this field from the next one, and left the gate open behind her.
Growing up in rural Yorkshire, dear Reader, I had the instinct to close gates behind me drummed into me at a very young age.

This instinct has taken on a new importance since I came to London and discovered the Guise Society, and the Rules of the Fae.

Morwenna, I can't believe you let Aldwick put on his play - that's strangely accommodating of you.

(If anything is going on between you two, you know you can tell me? I know ALL your secrets already!)

We had the casting meeting with him last night in The Bell Room, which he told us is going to be dedicated entirely to the production until the opening night - WHERE am I going to hang half the lots?
I suppose I will talk with Racette Marsh about that, the laws of physics seem to be an optional nuisance for her.
I am delighted that you roped Warrick into this.
An actor, that man is NOT!
I wish you had been there when his name was called out - cast as the DONKEY, of all things! His face went red as anything, and he stormed out! (after taking his book with the lines in, of course)

I actually wouldn't mind seeing a bit more of you, your office door is closed most days now, though I often hear you talking to someone behind it, on the phone I presume?
Are you all right, love?
I still have questions for you about, you know, EVERYTHING!
Let's chat over tea, properly.
Please?

In Hireth, De Witte contrasts the rosy-cheeked youth frolicking in the field bathed in unnatural moonlight, with the dark hedges behind, making an almost chequerboard pattern against the pure white snow.
Something stalks the girl from the deep shadows of this boundary.
Upon first appraisal, it could be an animal, its black hunched outline certainly does not seem human.
Perhaps a wolf? Unlikely in such an industrial part of the world.
No, dear Reader, look closer.
Go on, crane your neck up as high as you can, tiptoe if your shoes will allow it, but even the tallest will find it a challenge to see this tiny detail at such a height.
It is possible that the artist wished to... conceal it from you.
No matter, allow me to describe the work as I see it on the bench under the perfect lighting of our workshop.

A PERSON is following the girl.
Or something very similar to a person, in outward appearance, at any rate...
De Witte has shaded the features of a face at about the right height on the dark shape.
A few strokes of alabaster white outline the features:

• large eyes,
• freckled nose,
• a wide, manic grin of perfect white teeth.
  A shadow reflection of the girl follows her, a changeling, I believe, imitating her expression, and practising being human.

"Hireth" means "spiritual longing for a home that never was".
It is often found in art and literature describing an imagined place where one might find peace, comfort, companionship.
In De Witte's masterwork, here, the title does not describe the apparent subject of the peasant girl, but the actual subject of the shadow that stalks behind her.
This creature has been afforded a rare opportunity by the old covenants of the land:
The gate was left open.
The rules have been broken.
And something has come through the veil.

De Witte painted the subject, this pretty local peasant girl, many times over the course of her career.
But in all subsequent portraits and exercises that we have uncovered, she is never again painted smiling.
I believe in "Hireth" we are seeing her last night of freedom, she came back to the fires and safety of home, changed.
Her parents never saw their bright-eyed girl again, only the imitation that replaced her.

Remember to close the gates when you roam, dear Reader, lest you, too, come home changed.

Intermission

Side B: Lot No. 2696. "Pendragon's Tears", Unknown Craftsperson, Late 17C. A Ruby and Carved Silver Necklace

v
The estate of the late Duke of Southwark has offered up this striking lot for auction.
I have before me a constellation of dark red rubies, woven into a spiders-web design by delicate strands of silver.
In the centre is a single large ruby, so dark as to be nearly black.
No hallmarking is to be found anywhere on the necklace, strangely, which makes identifying the provenance very difficult.
However, our expert historian, Warrick Blackwood, informs me that he has reason to believe the craftsperson was a Guise practitioner in some capacity, and, given the incident earlier this week at Garrard & Co., I agree.

The web of rubies is extremely dense.
Each of the 821 gems are tightly bound together with silver, and when viewed from afar, such as on the black stone mannequin we have set up in the centre of The Pentire Room, the necklace appears to be woven of shimmering red fabric.
The asymmetrical design spills a river of red over the wearer's left collarbone, suggesting terrible violence spilling out of the throat, one carat at a time.
The Southwark Estate have, unusually, set no reserve price on this auction, but have requested a sale strictly in gold.

Listen, Morwenna, something... weird happened a few nights ago, weird even for this place.

I'd taken my script of "Swyno'r Ddraig" back to Rossetti House with me to practice my lines.
I'm playing "Commutatio". (you know, the lover of both the princess and the blacksmith's son, who has all those doublespeak monologues throughout the play?)
Well, I was up late practicing his 1st act soliloquy,
(The one where he predicts how everything is going to come to naught, potentially spoiling the climax of the play, but doing so in such an obtuse way that it actually reveals nothing - you know, that one.)
and I began wandering.

I've always found pacing while speaking aloud helps with thinking, something to do with hearing my words echoed back to me, changed by the world, I reckon.
And so, after an evening circling my room, bundle of papers in hand, I felt restless.
The sun had set, and as it was overcast, all I could see from my 4th-floor loft window was the oppressive veil of night.
I put on a jacket over my dressing gown, stepped out into the hallway, and crossed slowly to the main stair.
My left hand found the solid wood of the banister in the dark as I walked over the thick red carpet.
I had no destination in mind - indeed I let my visualisations of the stage guide my feet as I spoke my lines out into the chill night air.
(the central heating in the house was not on and the fires had long since burned down)
After several dramatic exits and entrances up and down the stairs (pursued by no bear!) I found myself one floor down, next to Edie's old room.

The door was open.
The door was open because I have a key, and I insist it be kept open.
I couldn't stand the little spark of hope followed by sadness that caught light in my heart every time I walked past her closed door on my way up each day.
The hope was, that if I just knocked, my old friend might answer, and we'd laugh, and everything would be as it should.
But I only see her in my dreams now.

Last night, I stood in Edie's doorway, looking in at the furniture all pretending to be ghosts under white sheets, and was suddenly gripped by a wave of sadness and passion.
I threw down the bundle of papers and delivered Commutatio's 3rd act speech where he rails against the guild, and the church, and the gods themselves.
I was so swept up in my visualisation of the scene that I was sure I could see the figure of the Prince standing by the fireplace, the dying Queen lying in Edie's old bed, and the sound of the mob just outside the window.
My momentary madness passed after the echoes of my final shouted lines of the speech faded, and I came back to myself.

I was standing, slightly out of breath, in the middle of the room, feeling quite proud that I had remembered all my lines, when I heard a sound out in the hallway.

I was shocked and embarrassed, thinking I had woken someone, and held my breath and listened.
The sound continued, echoing off the dark wood panelling; a dull, rhythmic thud like a rusty spade digging through wet earth.
I looked out into the empty hall, I had assumed this floor was vacant.
I was mistaken.
I stole across the thick carpet to the only other room on this floor, and listened at Edward Porter's door.
Behind it, came the sound, which I could then recognise:
Someone, or something, was clapping their hands slowly and heavily, applauding my performance, I realised with a start.
As you can imagine, Morwenna, I was terribly embarrassed, and to be honest, a little unnerved by the situation.
I muttered a hurried "thank you" at Edward's door, then ran to the staircase, the echoes of the slow, beating applause following me up, up, up until I was safely back in my room.
Sleep eluded me that night.

Due to the near-priceless value of "Pendragon's Tears", I planned to pick up the necklace personally from Garrard & Co. earlier this week.
As I turned onto Albemarle Street, empty security case in hand, I was concerned that that was not going to be possible.
A police car was parked outside the jewellers, and two officers stopped me at what remained of the door.
"There's been a break-in, sir." one told me, to my amusement.

The proprietor, Arthur Wicks, stepped through the broken glass at the entrance and muttered something to the officer who had first spoken to me.
I didn't hear what he said, but thanked the pair of Her Majesty's finest when they let me pass.

The shop interior was in disarray, every glass display case had been smashed and most of the contents were missing.
The thieves, as I thought of them at the time, had broken each case with such force that many of the pieces were left mangled, metal warped and ruined, lying in a fine sand of smashed precious gems.
Clear to me, even under the partially working white spotlights of the showroom, was that there was no broken glass inside the cases.
Soon I learned why.

Arthur stood leaning on the counter by the register, arms folded in front of his crumpled grey suit, a rather unbecoming look for the Mayfair gentleman, I thought.

Morwenna, you know as well as I do what Arthur thinks of The Catalogue, he's put his opinions in print often enough.
It was all I could do to keep a smirk from creeping across my face!

"Terrible business, Mr. Wicks." I said, indulgently.

"Piss off." He said (can you imagine!?), then, "Do you want your necklace or not?"
And to my astonishment, after he led me into the locked back room, he showed me Pendragon's Tears, untouched, on a black velvet cushion in the middle of the largest display case.
Around it were the shattered remains of near-priceless jewellery, many of which even I could recognise the names of: Crowns and tiaras made for princesses and kings and queens, and other symbols of status commissioned by the wealthiest people in the world.
"There isn't a gem left in the whole place." Arthur Wicks said bitterly.
"The thieves took everything?" I asked.
"You don't get it, do you." He said, pointlessly unlocking the broken case and packing up Pendragon's Tears, hands moving automatically from tissue paper to padding, then a stamped leather travelling case.
He then placed the small case into an anonymous white cardboard bag, handed it to me, and lowered his voice, "That's just what we're telling the police and the insurance company."
I took the bag from him and locked it into my security case that was discretely attached to a chain that wrapped up my coat sleeve and onto a harness under it.
"Just as the weight of a soul does not leave the body in death, no gems left the shop last night." Arthur continued.
He pointed into the case with the now-empty black velvet cushion.
Around it were the twisted remains of gold and silver that once were the framework for gemstones.
"Every... diamond in the whole shop... ?exploded last night." He said.
He sounded so unsure, almost like he didn't believe it himself.
"Along with every sapphire, emerald, opal, even amethyst.
As he spoke, he reached into the case and ran his hand through the white sand in the bottom of it, which sparkled like rain under the few remaining spotlights.
"All except THAT necklace." He spat, raising his voice again, and pointing his finger at my case.
"That's FASCINATING!" I said, truthfully, "perhaps Pendragon's Tears caused the detonation through some sympathetic effect? It's almost like it was JEALOUS of the others, isn't it? Do you know when it happened? How soon was it after you took possession of them?"
I was rambling, but the situation was remarkable!

With a pained expression, Arthur Wicks pinched the bridge of his nose and held up his other hand, waiting for the torrent of my professional curiosity to stop.
Then he opened his eyes and said, "Get it, and you, out of my bloody shop."

On my way out, I asked the police officers if they knew anything about what had happened, and found them unusually forthcoming, as they seemed at a loss for leads:

They had found only one witness, a passing vagrant, who said she had heard a rising hum, like the sound of a motorbike, coming from the building, then crack like a backfiring engine, and then the windows burst.
That somewhat confirmed my suspicions.
"The world works in mysterious ways!" I agreed, and wished them a good day.

The buyer would be well advised to store Pendragon's Tears far, far away from their own jewellery.
It doesn't seem to like competition.

CREDITS