Chapter 1 Update
I am a genealogist , or — if one prefers the gentler, less academic phrasing — a family historian . My introduction may wait; the tale itself insists upon beginning, and it begins not with clarity, but with the soft blur of half‑remembered sensation. It is October. London. Rain‑washed, restless, holding its breath — the kind of morning that feels suspended between worlds, as though the city itself is listening for something. Before waking, I felt the faintest touch: a hand brushing my brow, a woman’s whisper threading through the dark like a strand of silk. “Everything will be OK.” The words drifted into the space between sleep and consciousness, tender yet unsettling, as though spoken by someone who knew me intimately — or someone who wanted me to believe she did. When my eyes opened, there was no woman. Only the muted scrape of a branch against a curtained window, and the steady patter of rain upon glass. The room around me was dim, unfamiliar, and possessed that peculiar stil...
