The Macabre Tales of Young Edgar

A young man and an old man, both named Ed, live in the seaside Whirlpool Manor in Victorian England. The younger man, eighteen-year-old Edgar McArbre, possesses an uncanny ability to dream up stories that borders on psychic vision. After he is orphaned, the older man, Lord Edmund Vile, vows to take care of him on one condition- Edgar must express his visions by writing a new story every day, due by the stroke of midnight. Through the tasks he sets for his protégé, Lord Edmund hopes to piece together the mystery of the shipwreck that killed Edgar's parents. Additionally, the Viscount becomes romantically obsessed with his young charge, while Whirlpool Manor itself is riddled with strange, almost cultic paraphernalia. The Vile family, of which Edmund is the last surviving member, has a monstrous secret of its own...



Young Edgar,

I've a house to fill,
For in my old age, growing ill,
The floorboards groan and dust grows sour,
Piling thicker by the hour.
The grandfather clock ticks away,
Shaving minutes off the day,
In every silver, moonlit slice,
Another night; a sacrifice.

I toss and turn upon my bed,
Wishing that I had, instead,
Some company I could yet keep,
As I prepare for eternal sleep!
For years, death rattles of the waves,
Which broke did choke inside the caves,
'Neath Whirlpool Manor; that clammy host,
To every draught and lingering ghost.

Then, lo! what cruel luck forgave,
My loneliness when news so grave,
By courier on horse arrived,
Announcing that you had survived,
Alone among your shipwrecked kin,
Without a home to shelter in.
How did you do it? I suspect,
Your visions will your fate reflect.

They said you were a prodigy,
A world each night inside your head,
And yet you lived so modestly,
Too poor to let the madness spread!
Dear handsome boy, I barely know,
Though I invite you at your favour,
To come and let your talents grow,
Your tales alone I wish to savour.

Lest wealth be waste, I'll cater to,
Your every lust, and whim, and need,
And in return, I only ask,
A tale each day to read.
For every other hour of the day,
You shall be free-
You'll roam the halls and windswept cliffs,
And sometimes visit me?

So close to churchyard days, I know,
All is not as it seems,
Therefore, indulge me to redeem myself;
A patron, not of arts, but dreams!
For this privilege you shall never pay,
Not rent, nor board, nor small pittance.
Just pen one story every day-
Pack your few bags and come at once!

All this, and my sole heir you'll be, in red,
Ink let it here be pled!
From now until the day I die.

Yours in trust,
Sincerely,
Ed.