Prologue

Wednesday Hill is the site of a semi-derelict gothic mansion. The house has no name, because no-one ever talks about it, and no-one ever goes there. People who accidentally wander into its grounds are affected by a supernatural desire to turn away, to go somewhere else, and forget all about the house.

Track 1 – The House Part One

 

Christopher Sloane encounters the house because he is lost – in both a literal and a metaphorical sense of the word – and somehow immune to that mysterious compulsion which causes most potential visitors to choose a different path. Seeking shelter from a rainstorm, he enters the house.

 

Track 2 – Song of a Clockwork Blackbird

 

Sloane awakes the following morning with no memory of how he came to be accommodated in a well-appointed bedroom. Although there appear to be no other residents, he is attended by invisible servants who provide luxuriously for his every material need. Food, wine and entertainment are provided. Curiously, the delicious food does not abate his hunger, the wine has no intoxicating effect, and even the mysterious visual and musical diversions provided, whilst fascinating, seem to lack any real substance. Having idled away an entire day enchanted by these recreations, at night he is lulled into sleep by the strange and sad song of an automaton – a blackbird in a gilded cage, whose mechanical tunes have a strong soporific effect.

Track 3 – Nesace

 

In a dream, Sloane finds himself walking through the very same house in which he fell asleep. He finds a gallery of paintings, and one canvas in particular commands his attention. It is entitled “Clytia Pondering Between Many A Sun” and portrays an impossibly beautiful golden-haired woman in a surreal woodland landscape. The woman from the painting tells him that her name is Nesace and she exists in a place called Al Aaraaf, which has four suns in the sky. He is besotted, and begs her to take him with her to that place. Nesace explains that she can take away his pain, but he cannot travel with her while he has a mortal soul. Tormented, Sloane agrees to give up anything and everything.

Track 4 – Being Beguiled

The next morning Sloane awakens to find that he is still in the bedroom in the house – but he cannot move. He is physically paralysed, but slowly realises that he can in fact sense his surroundings – seeing through the windows of the house, hearing the wind and the ravens through its eaves, and feeling small tremors in the ground via the foundations. He begins to understand that he has been tricked, and that in some bizarre sense, he and the house are now one thing – its substance having become the vessel for his consciousness.

Track 5 – The Delerium Years

 

The horror of being able to sense the world outside yet unable to interact with it in any way – immortal, but imprisoned and utterly helpless – causes Sloane’s mind to break down. The uncounted years that follow are all that bear witness to a terrible and lonely descent into utter madness.

 

Track 6 – The House Part Two

 

After an indeterminate span of time, Sloane’s mental condition mutates into some semblance of sanity. He becomes obsessed by the possibility that someone else will eventually get through the garden’s defences, and with sufficient guile, he will be able to trick the newcomer into giving up their soul and taking over the house on Wednesday Hill. Only then can he himself die a true death, and find peace at last.

Epilogue