The Rivelthorn House Dossier and the Abandoned Color-Metrist’s Table

The Gentle, Observant Life of Elion Marec Rivelthorn

Elion Marec Rivelthorn, a Victorian color-metrist devoted to measuring and cataloguing pigment behavior under shifting light, lived here with his widowed sister, Armera, and her daughter, Syllen. Elion’s notebooks brimmed with hue-angle diagrams, dye-refraction notes, saturation curves, and glass-plate tint studies. Unhurried and meticulous, he spoke softly, often drifting into concentration so deep he wouldn’t notice a full hour pass.

In the Chromatic Analysis Room, pigment blocks lie sorted by mineral type, tint cylinders grouped by hue order, vellum sheets pinned beneath tarnished weights, and glass plates bearing half-washed gradients glimmer faintly beneath dust. Armera’s domestic order remains: neatly wrapped linens, labeled jars of remedies, mending arranged in tidy layers. Syllen’s presence lingers in small traces—a wooden kaleidoscope carved by Elion, chalk marks across a slate, and a folded drawing titled “Color Machine,” its spirals bright with imagination.

As Elion’s reputation grew, his drafts compressed. Margins filled with revisions. Dye vials accrued faster than he could test them. When Armera fell ill, household routines frayed. After her passing, Syllen moved in with extended family. Elion’s final entries show trembling strokes, half-graphed saturation charts, and spectral notes that end mid-notation. One quiet evening, he rose from his instrument table and never returned. Rivelthorn House has remained inert ever since.

A Corridor Softened by Long Absence

Upstairs, the corridor’s runner rug slouches in dusty folds, its once-brilliant pattern reduced to ghostlike outlines. A hall table holds a cracked spectacles hinge, a pigment-stained cloth, and a sheet ending mid-measurement. Pale rectangles mark where gradient diagrams once hung.

A Sewing Room Held at the Edge of Completion

In the Sewing Room, Armera’s final task remains pinned: a child’s dress beneath the treadle machine’s presser foot. Thread spools toppled from once-neat rows have faded to chalky hues. Pincushions hardened by age bristle with rusted needles. Folded muslin stiffened at the edges waits in unmoving silence.

Pinned behind a crate lies a slip in Elion’s thinning script: “Finish saturation test — tomorrow.” Tomorrow never reached Rivelthorn House.