Gloom had over come the Vanderwall Estate when Duchess Elizabeth had come to live there. The house was in a crumbling state, lonely and in despair. Where once lavish decorations were proudly displayed now remained only tattered and ruined. In the most remote mountain region of the kingdom the palace stood proud and tall, now slumped by the erosion of the soil under it. What became of Duke Vanderwall and his servants was a thing of mystery, but his younger niece Elizabeth held possession to his last known letter which said little of anything but, "I have found it". Now in her early thirties she was too old to re-marry, her husband passing suddenly of a strange illness. Rumors spread of her poisoning him, and to prevent scandal the King sent her to live in the Vanderwall Estate in isolation forever. Her only accompaniment would be Leonardo and Marlon, two strong and handsome young men and servants, and Betsy her small and fragile servant girl.
The walls of the house once painted with a striking gold were now dulled, though the paintings hung straight and new. What strange paintings they were, all of nude women in torment with little devils sitting or laying upon their chests. The differences between the paintings were only in the smallest of details, but all held a hypnotic quality that held the attention of the Duchess for hours on end. 'What madness could drive a man to collect so many of these ghastly things?' the Duchess often thought to herself. Indeed they were horrific, but they belonged in this old Gothic house along with the gargoyles outside.
The gargoyles were another oddity of the Vanderwall Estate. Instead of pointing outward along the walls and gates of the outside compound as they would, they were pointing inward. The gargoyle was meant to keep evil spirits outside of a church or house, these seemed to be meant to keep them within. But still, the Duchess believed in nothing of the sort and any tales of ghostly happenings on the estate grounds or in the house itself, she just passed off as local superstition. Things of the supernatural persuasion simply did not exist in her mind. It was clear though that her uncle Duke Vanderwall was indeed a quite eccentric fellow and may have been mad. In fact, the Duchess was quite sure of it.
Leonardo had made a discovery upon the first day there. In the study he found a secret passageway that led down to a dungeon. He immediately reported it to the Duchess who went herself to see it and found it perversely amusing. It was a dark and damp cellar room as one would expect a private dungeon to be with a bizarre wood and iron contraption in the center of it. There were an assortment of chains and shackles all hooked to a wooden chair with it's back leaned backward. There were all sorts of gears and contraptions attached to the device though the four of them could not figure out what they were for. It appeared to be some sort of torture device powered by a water wheel in the corner of the dungeon. There was a hatch above the wheel from where the water flowed and a lever to be pulled when the water was to be released. Neither of them could understand where the source of the water would come from, though it did not matter much since they would never need to use it.
The Duchess thought it would be best to lock the study and forget the room existed. Most of the books in the room were all in some strange foreign language and had perversely sexual illustrations. The most shocking the Duchess had found was that of a half man, half goat creature sodomizing a young woman. She had nearly fainted from the shock. As she commanded, Marlon had locked the study and given her the key for safe keeping. 'No decent person should be allowed in that awful room' she thought to herself hiding the key in the vanity table in her bedroom. It was clear to her that the good Duke Vanderwall was indeed a sick and immoral man. She had wished that she hadn't learned these things about her uncle as she had a fond memory or two of him as a child. Those memories were now crushed and replaced with an imaginative figure of perverse cruelty. It was of no doubt now that the machine in the dungeon was of a sexual nature.
Despite being rattled by all she had discovered, the Duchess bathed and slept easy the first night. Her bed was large and soft with an ornate headboard that stretched across the wall resembling the wingspan of a bat. It was colored a dark red juxtaposing with the soft cream color of the walls. Every room in the house had something strange and dark about it, and needed remodeling for a more uplifting tone. Despite the steadfast skepticism of the Duchess, the house was beginning to unnerve her a bit. Betsy, a weak minded and superstitious woman was all ready greatly unnerved and walked through the halls and rooms of the house with a building tension and paranoia. Leonardo and Marlon both seemed to be unaffected by the unusual house though they took more of an amused take on the entire estate.
While outside winter kept the world still and silent, the Duchess was having a restless night. She tossed and turned in her sleep and awoke with her body hot, enflamed from a passionate dream. Her head was a little dizzy and her vision was blurred. All she could see was her bedroom door open and the dark figure of a man holding a lantern. She sprang up to a seated position and her senses came about her, though the shade with the lantern had vanished, and closed the door behind him. Wrapping herself in a fine robe she hurried from bed listening to the footsteps echo down the hall. She lit a lantern of her own and followed the footsteps outside of her bedroom door and down the hall towards the east wing. The footsteps continued but seemed to be just out of vision of the lantern's light until they ended abruptly when the Duchess found herself at the study door. Not only was it unlocked but it was also slightly ajar. She shut it, and left it like that deciding to lock it in the morning. She didn't want to walk all the way back with the key on this cold night.
In the morning the Duchess locked the study door. To her knowledge there was no other key for that door, and it was still safely hidden in the vanity table when she returned to her room the previous night. How it came to be unlocked was a mystery, though she suspected Leonardo or Marlon might have lockpicks. Or perhaps there was a skeleton key she was unaware of. These old houses usually had one. But Leonardo and Marlon had been her ever faithful servants for years and would not keep that sort of thing from her. But what was even more troubling than that, one of them had crept in while she slept.
