I, Alaric Merrow, put these words to paper not as a tale of triumph, but as a record of ruin. If they endure, let them be a warning. If they do not, then let them at least ease the weight pressing upon my heart. For I was once a man envied, and now I am a man forgotten.
In the year of our Lord 1770, Dalewick Manor stood tall upon the rolling hills of Essex, its windows catching the light of every dawn, its orchards stretching into the mist. I was master of those lands, inheritor of wealth that had been steadied and grown by my father's careful hand. My household bustled with laughter: seven children, each bright with life, their voices filling the halls like birdsong. My wife, Elira, carried herself with grace and steadied my restless spirit. To any visitor, it would have seemed that fortune itself had built our walls and smiled upon our hearth.
I did not disagree. Yet even in those days of plenty, a whisper stirred in me. Each evening, as I walked the grounds, boots crunching the gravel path, I asked myself: To whom do I owe this peace? To Providence, as the clergymen insisted? To chance, as some of the new philosophers claimed? Or to my own industry? In public, I gave polite thanks to Heaven. In private, I wondered if there was truly an ear inclined to hear me.
The air of that summer was warm and forgiving. Dalewick thrived. Tenants paid their rents promptly; the harvest promised abundance. I recall sitting on the west terrace one afternoon, a glass of claret in hand, watching my children chase each other through the long grass. Elira leaned beside me, her hand resting lightly on my arm. "We are blessed," she said, her voice quiet, as though naming it might break the spell. I only nodded, for I feared she was right. Good fortune, once named, becomes fragile.
Still, I did not speak my doubt aloud. It would have sounded ungrateful, perhaps even profane. Instead, I buried it beneath my duties. I oversaw accounts, rode the boundaries of my lands, broke bread with neighbors of station, and paid alms to the poor. I told myself I was a steward not only of wealth but of righteousness. Yet at night, staring at the ceiling beams of my chamber, I could not help but think: If the universe has order, it is a cold one.
Rumors began to drift into our household, as smoke drifts beneath a door. Bandits had been sighted on the northern roads. A farmer from the next county swore his barn had been burned in the night by faceless men. A merchant in Colchester claimed he had been cheated by his own kin, ruined by betrayal rather than brigands. Elira urged me not to brood over such things. "Dalewick is strong," she said. "We are far from such troubles." But I was not so easily calmed. Misfortune does not respect boundaries, and betrayal often comes from within.
One evening, my oldest friend, Corven Hale, visited. A merchant by trade, his fortunes rose and fell like the tide, yet he had always been loyal. Or so I thought then. We dined together in the oak hall, candlelight throwing his sharp features into gold and shadow. He spoke of the unrest on the roads, wagons seized, estates plundered. His eyes lingered on my silver service longer than courtesy allowed. "You are fortunate, Alaric," he said with a thin smile. "Few estates remain so untouched."
I laughed politely, though unease gnawed me. "Fortune can change swiftly," I replied. "A single spark can turn a barn to ash."
He sipped his wine, his eyes unreadable. "True. And yet men rarely see the spark until it has already caught."
That night, after he departed, I lingered in the hall, staring at the embers of the fire. Elira found me there, silent, my hand resting on the back of a chair. "What troubles you?" she asked.
"Nothing," I lied. But the truth pressed at my lips: Why, where did it all go wrong for others, and when will it come for us?
I remember that moment clearly, though it seemed small at the time. A shadow across a bright canvas. A note of discord in a melody still sweet. I could not have known that the wheel of fortune had already begun to turn, and that within a year Dalewick would lie in ruin, my children silenced, and I myself brought to ash and sickness.
But I did sense something, a weight in the air, a whisper beneath the laughter. For even as my children played that summer, and the orchards swelled with fruit, I felt it: the fragility of all things.
And now, as I write these words, I look back and ask with hollow breath: Why, where did it all go wrong?