Rain tapped the windows like insistent fingers, relentless and cold. Inside the aging Montreux mansion, the only sound was the tick-tock of a grandfather clock. Evelyn Leclair, a young freelance illustrator, sat cross-legged on her bed, staring at the velvet-draped birdcage on her dresser. It was empty now—but not always. It once held a nightingale. That bird was gone. She remained.
Evelyn had lived a quiet life. A flat near Lake Geneva, sketchbooks full of dreams, black coffee, and silent mornings. Her world changed the moment she received a letter sealed in blood-red wax. Inside: a handwritten note on thick, antique paper—"Your art haunts me. I must see more. I wish to commission your presence." No name. No phone number. Just an address.
Also enclosed: a bank check with more zeroes than Evelyn had ever seen. Curiosity overpowered caution.
The Corvan Estate was hidden in a forest clearing, a two-hour drive from Geneva, nestled in Alpine silence. The iron gates creaked open as if exhaling secrets.
Vincent Corvan greeted her with unsettling charm. Mid-forties, salt-and-pepper hair, eyes like polished steel. He extended his hand like royalty. “Miss Leclair. Welcome to sanctuary.” His words were velvet, his intentions not.
He claimed to be a patron of forgotten arts. “This house,” he said, “is a museum for the minds unappreciated by the world.” He offered Evelyn six months in residence. Her task: to create an illustrated collection inspired by the estate. The pay: freedom from poverty. The cost: herself.
Evelyn’s room overlooked a rose garden eternally blanketed in mist. The décor was exquisite—chandeliers of glass teardrops, furniture carved from black oak, and mirrors that never seemed to reflect quite right.
But rules became evident. Her mobile phone was confiscated—“security,” Vincent had said. Mail was “screened.” Guests were discouraged. Servants moved silently, bowing but never speaking. Certain hallways remained locked.
Every evening at 10 p.m., a lullaby played from unseen speakers. Soft. Haunting. Hypnotic.
At first, Evelyn painted with fervor. The mansion gave her inspiration—its corridors whispered forgotten stories. Her sketches became darker: faceless portraits, staircases leading into shadows, birds with broken wings. She felt watched, even in her sleep.
One morning she awoke to find a drawing on her easel she hadn’t made. A woman, mouth open in a silent scream, reaching from inside a cage. In the bottom corner, it was signed: Clara M.
Terrified, Evelyn began digging.
She discovered a hidden chamber behind a bookshelf in the library. Inside: sketches, diaries, even sculptures—all labeled with initials. Clara M. Elise V. Juliette D. All artists. All women. All presumed vanished from history.
In the center: a velvet-lined cage, just large enough to hold a person upright. Beneath it, a shattered easel and torn fabric. Evelyn found Clara’s journal. The last entry read: “He said I am ready. But he means ready to disappear.”
When Evelyn confronted Vincent, he didn’t deny it. “True brilliance,” he said, “only emerges when one is desperate. The cage... is merely the crucible.” He smiled as if confessing to a sin he was proud of. “They left once they fulfilled their potential. You’ll leave, too.”
“But no one has,” Evelyn replied.
Vincent’s eyes darkened. “Only those who lose everything are reborn.”
Among the silent staff was Elise—an elderly housemaid with a limp and eyes full of grief. One night, Elise slipped a note into Evelyn’s sketchbook: Meet me in the solarium at midnight.
There, Elise revealed she too was once an “artist-in-residence.” She sang opera until her voice was broken by silence. Now she served, invisible, in hopes of escaping.
“I know the systems,” she whispered. “Security. Power lines. Timings. You’ll need the control key. Vincent wears it on a chain.”
Corvan held an annual masquerade. Guests arrived in red masks, clinking glasses of black wine, admiring Evelyn’s collection in a lavish hall. Beneath chandeliers and praise, Evelyn moved like a ghost.
She’d prepared for this moment for weeks—memorizing security shifts, replicating the key with Elise’s help, planting diversions. At 11:47 p.m., she slipped away.
She reached the control room—a hidden vault beneath the west wing. Within seconds, she disabled door locks, security cameras, and lit the velvet cage ablaze with solvent and match.
Elise joined her, tears in her eyes. “Let’s end this.”
They made it to the grand hallway when Vincent appeared.
“You could have created a masterpiece,” he whispered, blood now visible beneath his collar. Evelyn had stabbed him with her engraving tool.
“I did,” she said. “It’s called freedom.”
They vanished into the night. The fire consumed the mansion, roaring like a beast denied. Authorities arrived three days later. No survivors. No evidence. No Vincent.
But weeks later, anonymous art exhibitions opened across Europe. Sketches appeared—velvet cages, broken mirrors, and women with flames in their eyes. At the corner of each drawing: E. L.
Some say Evelyn lives in Italy, in a convent near Florence. Others believe she wanders the Alps, sketching ruins. Elise was never seen again.
Far away in the Carpathian Mountains, deep in a valley forgotten by time, a new manor rises. Its towers shimmer crimson in the sunset. Its halls are lined with portraits. A red velvet drape sways in an upper window.
On the grand piano rests a new envelope, sealed in wax. Inside: a check. A letter. And eight haunting words.
“Your art haunts me. I must see more.”