The Thorough, Restless Life of Corlain Ette Hallowstryx
Corlain Ette Hallowstryx, a Victorian aero-circulator devoted to studying indoor airflow patterns and their impact on fatigue, breathing, and heat distribution, lived here with his sister Mara and her son, Averin. Corlain’s notebooks brimmed with flow curves, room-circulation sketches, vane-angle tests, and delicate tracings of vapor trails he produced in controlled indoor drafts. Softly spoken, quick-eyed, and endlessly absorbed in minute motion, he spent hours watching chalk dust rise in slow spirals to understand how air itself behaved.
In the Air-Pattern Laboratory, brass vanes lie gathered by curvature, airflow parchments pinned beneath tarnished metal rulers, miniature funnels aligned in careful rows, and delicate parchment sheets display faint smoke signatures preserved in dusty arcs. Mara’s domestic presence lingers—folded linens stacked by fiber weight, labeled remedy jars arranged in neat trios, and mending sorted into quiet precision. Averin’s traces whisper faintly: a wooden windmill toy carved for him by Corlain, chalk spirals drawn across a slate, and a folded drawing titled “Air That Walks.”
As Corlain’s theories grew more ambitious, his notes tightened. Margins crammed with revisions. Flow cylinders accumulated faster than he could test them. When Mara fell ill, household structure slackened. After her passing, Averin left to live with relatives. Corlain’s final diagrams show trembling lines, velocity curves ending mid-arc, and measurements fading into broken strokes. One quiet afternoon, he stepped from his bench and never returned. Hallowstryx House has remained unmoved since.
A Corridor Sagging Into Motionless Quiet
Upstairs, the corridor’s runner rug slumps in wavering folds, its once-bright pattern faded into muted grey shapes. A hall table holds a cracked spectacles arm, a snapped vane hinge, and a sheet where flow-rate calculations end abruptly. Pale outlines on the wallpaper mark where charts once hung before being lifted down in weary resignation.
A Sewing Room Resting in Its Last Breath
In the Sewing Room, Mara’s final work waits untouched. A child’s shirt sleeve remains pinned beneath the treadle machine’s presser foot. Thread spools toppled from their tidy line have faded into chalk-dry pastels. Pincushions hardened with time bristle with rusted needles. Folded muslin stiffened at its edges sits exactly where she last placed it.
Pinned beneath a warped airflow sheet lies a slip in Corlain’s thinning script: “Test new draft-channel — tomorrow.” Tomorrow never came to Hallowstryx House.
