The Wraithfenne House Ledger and the Abandoned Thermal-Physiologist’s Desk

The Precise, Soft-Spoken Life of Dr. Alistair Ruen Wraithfenne

Dr. Alistair Ruen Wraithfenne, a Victorian thermal-physiologist studying the effects of environmental temperature on fatigue and illness, lived here with his widowed sister Clyra and her daughter, Neme.

His notebooks brimmed with body-temperature curves, rest-cycle recordings, humidity-response trials, and delicate tracings of heat-shift diagrams across waxed plates. Gentle, focused, and deeply cautious, Alistair often paced between workstations, whispering incremental measurements to himself so he would not misrecord them.

In the Thermal-Observation Room, brass clamps lie sorted by grip width, glass tubes grouped by prior experiment, temperature-curve vellum pinned beneath tarnished metal bars, and thermic imprint plates rest in shallow stacks still smudged with faint heat-signature shadows. Clyra’s domestic steadiness lingers—folded linens arranged by texture, household tinctures organized in rows, and mending stacked neatly. Neme’s traces appear in tiny gestures: a wooden model thermometer carved for her by Alistair, chalk temperature steps drawn across a slate, and a folded drawing titled “Warm-Hand Machine.”

As Alistair’s studies grew more complex, his drafts thickened. Margins filled with micro-corrections. Thermic plates piled faster than he could categorize them. When Clyra fell ill, household rhythm wore thin. After her passing, Neme went to live with distant relatives. Alistair’s final entries show trembling numerals, half-plotted heat curves, and measurements that stop mid-line. One quiet day, he stepped away from his table and never returned. Wraithfenne House has remained untouched ever since.

A Corridor Sagging Under the Weight of Abandonment

Upstairs, the corridor’s worn runner slumps into dusty folds, its originally bright copper pattern ghosted into pale outlines. A hall table holds a cracked spectacles frame, a snapped clamp hinge, and temperature data that ceases mid-entry. Pale marks on the wallpaper reveal where heat-curve diagrams once hung.

A Sewing Room Fixed in Its Final Gesture

In the Sewing Room, Clyra’s last efforts remain motionless. A partly hemmed child’s sleeve sits pinned beneath the treadle machine’s presser foot. Thread spools toppled from their orderly row have faded into chalk-soft shades. Pincushions hardened with time bristle with rusted needles. Folded muslin stiffened at its edges waits where she left it.

Pinned beneath the smallest crate lies a slip in Alistair’s thinning script: “Reassess warming interval — tomorrow.” Tomorrow never returned to Wraithfenne House.