Summary

In Part 1, I, a first-person narrator gives hints that she loved a man named Edward Radcliffe. Edward was engaged to a rich lady but it is hinted that Edward broke off the relationship in favor of the narrator, a woman he painted and declared was his muse. The narrator remembers how Edward had lured a group of his artist friends to the house by arguing the light there was marvelous. The summer started out well but ended badly the night of a storm. The narrator hints at two unexpected guests, two secrets, and one gunshot. Edward left the house, as did the others. The narrator indicates that she could not make them stay and that she could not follow them.

In Part 1, Chapter 1, set in 2017, Elodie Winslow, an archiver at Stratton, Cadwell & Co., opened a box discovered in the old cloakroom...