This story had its inspiration firstly through an unfocused notion to write a generally Gothic story. No actual plot, just creepy vibes, and the idea just rumbled around in my head for a while.
It was further sharpened by the modern epistolary style of a Janice Hallett novel, sprinkled with more than a dash of an The Magnus Archives statement.
Jane Eyre, The Turn of the Screw, and The Woman in Black also had a hand in shaping it.
It begins in 1852, when a young clerk, Mr Anthony J Crowley, is sent to the Oxfordshire village of Tadfield. He is there to meet an important client, at his large and imposing property, known as The Archive. As far as Crowley is concerned, a small amount of paperwork needs to be signed, and that will be that.
Aziraphale Prince has other, far more nefarious, plans for him.
There are some dark themes within this, but I deliberately kept most of it off page, as I wanted it to be more implicit rather than explicit, and with a slow trickle of information to tease out the plot, hence an M rating, rather than an E.
This was my first Human AU, and my first time writing an epistolary story. I managed to publish to a schedule for the first (and currently only) time, and I even wrote a large chunk of it before I started to post (so, like a normal person, then). I am also now fluent in the art of writing like a reserved Victorian, should I ever find myself sucked back into the past (unlikely, but you never know. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, and all that).
44,738 words. It counts as a novella, which seems apt for a Gothic Victorian tale of dastardly intent.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
