[theme music playing]
-[rain pouring] -[ominous music playing]
-[door opens] -[footsteps pounding]
-[Dani] Run! -[Flora] What about Miles?
[Dani] It's okay, okay? We gotta get out of here.
-[Flora] Where are we going? -[Dani] I don't know, anywhere. Anywhere.
-Flora! -No! I don't like this game!
-[yelling] I'm not leaving! -Shh! Flora!
And you can't make me!
-Shh! Come on! We gotta go! -[screaming] Miles, where are you?
[frightening music playing]
[screams]
[music intensifying]
[music fading out]
[storyteller] Toward the middle of the 17th century…
[gentle piano music playing]
…there lived in the province of Hampshire, a widowed gentleman.
His name is of little account.
I shall take the liberty of calling him Mr. Willoughby.
A name, like his own, of a highly respectable sound.
He'd been left a widower after some six years of marriage,
and had devoted himself to the care of his progeny.
Two daughters born at an interval of five years apart.
The elder, Viola,
the younger, Perdita,
in memory of a little girl born between them
-who had lived but a few weeks. -[kiss]
[bird cawing]
[storyteller] Their father in the ground, they faced a dire necessity for marriage.
For both maidens, neither a male,
stood to lose control over Mr. Willoughby's economic affairs.
And of the manor in Bly,
their lifelong home.
[door unlocks, creaks open]
Women in that time had nothing.
No present, no future, without a tie to a man.
So, they were as little girls once more.
But now with nothing in the world but each other.
-[indistinct chatter] -[pensive music playing]
[storyteller] The two sisters were, at this time, in all the freshness
of their youthful bloom.
Perdita in her sweetness,
Viola in her wit.
And Viola, of course, in the finest of dresses.
Always.
Among the young men, their friends and neighbors,
there were many excellent fellows.
Several devoted swains, and some two or three
who enjoyed the reputation of universal charmers,
or conquerors.
But Viola knew them for what they were.
Gluttons, opportunists, vultures.
Vultures poised to pick the carcass of their father.
To pillage his wealth via his daughters.
No, Bly must stay in the family,
and the sisters must stay in control.
Less everything be lost to the same grave.
Thus led to Viola's invitation to a distant cousin.
One Mr. Arthur Lloyd.
He was, in reality, no paragon.
He was an honest, resolute,
intelligent young man.
Rich in pounds sterling,
in his health and comfortable hopes.
And his little capital of uninvested affections.
Viola had made certain to be absent when he arrived.
This left Perdita to entertain the traveled cousin,
while Viola bode her time,
and, in doing so, learned he was a gentleman.
He had a handsome face.
He had studied and traveled.
He spoke French, he played the flute,
and he read verses aloud, with very great taste.
And just as Perdita began to feel the stirrings
of a true interest in the young man…
[door creaks open]
[music swells]
Viola explained she was late
because of a dispute over uncollected rents.
Some, seeing opportunity in her father's passing,
hadn't assumed she knew how to keep the books.
The story was true, but it was also theater.
In fact, every detail of Viola's entrance was a pageant.
The sweat from her ride,
the wildness of her hair.
The business, the books.
The riding boots in the foyer.
Even the portrait hanging beyond,
commissioned by Viola as a part of her true message to Arthur.
He may marry her, or marry her sister,
but there should be no mistaking the true authority of Bly Manor,
nor the way things would be done.
The wedding was a small affair,
fitting the business arrangement that it was.
A fine outcome for Viola,
who had meant to maintain her ladyship over Bly,
and a fine outcome for Perdita,
who had always enjoyed the comfort of her birth station.
…to have and to hold from this day forward,
for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love and to cherish,
till death us depart.
[gentle piano music playing]
According to God's holy ordinance,
and thereto I plight thee, my troth.
I, Viola, take thee, Arthur, to be my lawfully wedded husband,
to have and to hold from this day forward,
for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love, cherish…
till death us depart.
Um… And obey.
To love, cherish, and obey.
[storyteller] The vicar believed this an innocent omission.
It was not.
A surprise not to Perdita, who knew her sister better than any.
And a surprise not to God, thought Perdita,
as her sister's strategic union was blessed.
He'd made her that way, after all.
[gentle piano music continues]
[nocturnal chirping]
The transaction done, the business concluded,
the manor saved,
young Viola turned her eyes inward.
She would sleep.
She would wake.
Perhaps it was the room, she'd think.
It was her mother's room. Her parents' bed, and now hers.
Seized by a restlessness new to her heart,
she would walk.
[dish clatters softly]
She would sleep.
She would wake.
She would walk.
Perhaps it wasn't the room, after all.
No, perhaps it was something else.
Viola found that under its purpose,
her marriage may have some amount of love to it, after all.
[baby crying]
I have no honeyed words to speak.
It is fierce out there.
But you are fiercer.
Bly belongs to you.
And they will try to take it from you, as they did me.
But I will not let them.
Instead, we shall move mountains, my girl.
It is you.
It is me.
It is us.
[Viola kisses]
[rattling]
[storyteller] Those were the rosy times,
-after Isabel was born. -[Viola laughs]
But nothing holds, and all things change, given time.
Change does not often announce itself.
It does not trumpet its arrival.
No, change is emergent.
By the time one realizes it has arrived,
it has already set its teeth.
As for Viola…
[coughing]
…her suspicion began as small,
as inconsequential as the tickle in her lungs.
Viola had an inordinate love of dress, and the very best taste in the world.
A taste her husband would indulge.
Innumerable yards of lustrous silk and satin,
of muslin, velvet and lace from all over the world,
and all manner of expense.
Some as rare and rich as if they were spun of threads of jewels,
all passed through her cunning hands,
without a word of boast coming from her lips.
[coughing]
[pensive music playing]
[storyteller] No, from her lips, only the sickness…
[Viola continues coughing]
…impossible, finally, to ignore.
[Viola exhales heavily]
[inhales sharply]
[ominous music builds]
[man breathing heavily]
[coughing]
[heavy breathing]
[Viola coughs]
It is not the plague.
Oh, thank God.
[sighs]
But it is not good news.
She has the lung.
-What does that-- -How long?
-What-What does that mean? -How long, doctor?
Months. Months at the most.
And I would keep her separate from the rest of you.
O-Our daughter.
She cannot sleep without her mother.
Separate.
You will treat her.
Cure her.
-I do not know that I can. -[Perdita] You will.
You will. God help you, but you will.
[somber music playing]
[sniffles] No.
No, I want to be in our bed.
We can't, love.
I want to be in our bed.
Arthur.
-[Viola] Please. -[Arthur] Isabel.
Think of Isabel.
-[melancholy music playing] -[shaky breaths]
[Viola sniffles]
[coughing]
[whimpers]
[breathes heavily]
[coughing]
[gasping]
[coughing continues]
[Viola cries out]
[grunts]
[groans, pants]
[coughs]
[storyteller] And all things exhausted,
the vicar came again to Bly,
but to perform a rite far more melancholy
than the rosy song of matrimony he sung before.
[vicar] "I go, and prepare a place for you."
"And I will come again,
and I will take you to myself,
so that where I am,
there you may also be."
Sister…
you must repeat the rite.
Say the words after me.
"I go, and prepare a place for you."
"And I will come again, and will take you to myself,
so that where I am, there you may also be."
Oh, sister. Let us try again.
"I go, and prepare a place for you."
No.
[vicar] What did you say?
[pensive music playing]
No.
I do not go.
Just tell your god…
that I do not go.
Viola, you must repeat the rites.
It is not about your body any longer, my love.
It is your soul we must treat.
-It is your soul I worry for. -No.
Perdita, no.
You tell them, sister.
You tell this priest and the god he fawns upon.
You tell them "no."
God wants her soul to be pure, as he welcomes her home.
God should know better.
She is as he made her.
If she says she will not go, she will not.
[suppressed coughing]
[storyteller] Time paid her no mind.
Days to weeks, to months, to years.
Round and round the sun,
the indifferent planets spun.
[suppressed coughing]
And, then…
[Perdita] Isabel.
[storyteller] …five times around the sun, and all is different.
[Perdita] Isabel.
A few more minutes, please.
You cannot even read that book.
I can read enough.
Bed.
As I said before, thrice.
No.
A quick dance.
No.
[Arthur] Just one, then.
-But it is time for her to bed. -Just one.
Good sir.
[Arthur chuckles]
[Arthur humming]
[Arthur] Ah, you see. Oh, you're getting quite good at this.
Yes, I think you are almost ready.
We need music.
Oh, we do not.
In fact, to learn to dance, we need only numbers.
[rhythmically] One, two, three.
One, two, three.
Step, two, three.
Turn, two, three.
Auntie, we need music, do we not?
We need sleep.
Oh, you are just an awful bore.
-[Arthur chuckles] -[laughing] Oh, am I?
Do you even know how to dance?
I know how to dance, indeed, young miss.
I never see you dance.
She has you there, Perdi.
I know very well.
-Oh, oh, no, no, no, no… -Just one.
[fire crackling]
Let's show the young thing how it's done proper.
[chuckles softly]
[gentle piano music playing]
[Perdita chuckles softly]
[rhythmically] One, two, three.
One, two, three.
Step, two, three.
Turn, two, three.
One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three.
[uneasy music playing]
[storyteller] Viola had surpassed the predictions
of the physicians and priests alike.
Held alive, some would whisper, by stubbornness alone.
Mummy, you're awake!
Isabel, you know you must not get too close to Mummy, darling.
Vi, what are you doing out of bed? You'll catch a chill.
I didn't want to miss the ball.
Come, let us get you back to your room. I'll prepare some herbs for your tea.
I don't want tea. I want to talk to my daughter.
[retching]
[spits, groaning]
[coughing]
[panting]
-[slap] -[Perdita grunts]
[melancholy music playing]
Take me to bed.
[Perdita] Of course.
[Viola groans]
[groans]
[coughs]
-I apologize. -No need.
-I can dance with him, you know. -I know.
I can dance with my own husband. [coughing]
I don't need you to take that on.
That or anything else.
I would never.
[scoffs, coughs]
Sleep well, sister.
[coughing]
[storyteller] Some in the village said death had come for Viola.
Nightly, in fact.
Those first few years,
a dark carriage led by a red-eyed horse,
-denied at the door of Bly Manor. -[door creaking]
That dark carriage and its driver denied so often, in fact,
that it would not venture to Bly Manor again.
[Viola coughing]
[nocturnal chirping]
[Viola] ♪ We lay my love and I ♪
♪ Beneath the weeping willow ♪
♪ And now alone I lie ♪
♪ And weep beside the tree ♪
♪ Singing "O Willow Waly" ♪
♪ By the tree that weeps with me ♪
♪ Singing "O Willow Waly" ♪
♪ Till my lover returns to me ♪
[melancholy music playing]
[Viola groans]
[water sloshing]
[Viola groans hoarsely]
-[Viola, weakly] I want to sleep with her. -[Perdita] You cannot, Viola.
But I feel better today.
You say that every day, and you look worse and worse and worse.
The Lady of Bly Manor.
I have no ambition.
-Lie. -Viola, I don't.
Liar.
[labored breath, coughing]
[water pouring]
[Perdita] If he looks at me now and then, it is because he is lonely.
And he is human.
It is because for the last five years, the only husbandly duty he's fulfilled
is that of mourning.
[slap]
-I will not allow it. -You won't.
I know, I've noticed.
You should think of her, Vi.
Think of Isabel.
What will she be left with? What memories of you will she carry?
Will it be this? This version of you?
Because, Viola, with love, let it be anything else.
-[slap] -[Perdita grunts]
[storyteller] Just before the sixth year of Viola's living death,
she summoned to her room all of the jewels and clothes
she had accumulated in her days before the sickness.
[melancholy music continues]
[clears throat, coughs]
[door closes]
[kisses]
[sighs, coughing]
[groans softly]
I will not be buried in my rings.
Or my dresses.
My rings and my lace and my silk.
I can say without vanity now that I am done with them.
They will be a great inheritance for our daughter.
And so, you will keep them.
You will watch them, for her.
Till she grows into them.
They're shrouded…
covered in rose petals.
Keeping their colors in the sweet-scented darkness.
Do you promise me, Arthur?
Promise you what?
Promise me that you will keep them for her?
That you will keep the key,
and you will never give it to anyone,
except our child.
Promise me.
I promise you.
[coughing]
[kisses]
[storyteller] The money failing as time went on,
Arthur was required more and more to business.
Further and further across the oceans, to places exotic and rich.
And with Arthur gone, all pretense was put aside.
-[coughing] -Perhaps it was the hour.
Perhaps the fact that everything in this world has that point
beyond which it can bear no more weight.
But that night, as Perdita beheld her sister,
a thought occurred to her.
The word had come to her a full year prior,
and like the tickle in Viola's lung, it had grown in the secret places.
The word had eclipsed her thoughts at night, and waking as well.
The word began in her chest, as the sickness did for Viola.
-It had spread, insistent. -[coughing continues]
A whisper in her ear, in her mind entire.
And, now, the word crept down her shoulder and her elbow,
until the word came to live in her hand.
The word was…
-"mercy." -[muffled screams]
And the word was a lie.
[muffled screams and cries]
Because it wasn't mercy on her mind, or her heart,
-as she moved her hand. -[heartbeats]
It was every slap, every insult, and every day that had passed.
Every moment after the last rites.
It was a different word that had infected her all this time.
The word was not "mercy," she realized in the end.
-[heartbeats stop] -No…
The word had always been…
"enough."
[footsteps receding]
[scraping]
[storyteller] Arthur bore his bereavement soberly and manfully.
[key turning in lock]
[nocturnal chirping]
[sighs]
I GUARD
[pensive music playing]
[storyteller] Concerning the widower, now the Lord of Bly Manor in all respects,
it very soon came to be predicted that he would marry again.
And there were at least a dozen young women of whom,
one may say, that it was by no fault of theirs that,
for six months after his return,
the prediction did not come true.
For in Perdita's eyes, he felt an echo of Viola's.
And the echo, growing louder,
did deafen him to the songs of others.
They were married, as was becoming, with great privacy.
Almost with secrecy.
In the hopes, as was waggishly remarked at the time,
that perhaps the late Viola may not hear of it.
And on their wedding night,
as Perdita took residence in the bed which had been her sister's,
each party obtained what each had desired.
For Arthur, a beautiful woman,
somewhat known to him already by virtue of her lineage.
But Perdita's desires, as you will have observed,
remained a good deal of a mystery.
[ghostly echo]
During the first three years of their marriage,
the new Mrs. Lloyd failed to become a mother in her own right.
And her adopted daughter refused, at every turn, to see her as a mother.
[ominous music playing]
Arthur, on his side, suffered heavy losses of money.
This latter circumstance
compelled a material retrenchment in his expenditure,
and Perdita was, perforce, less of a great lady
than her sister had been.
She had long since ascertained
that her sister's immense wardrobe had been sequestered
for the benefit of her daughter,
and that it lay languishing in thankless gloom in the dusty attic.
It was a revolting thought that these exquisite fabrics
should await the commands of a little girl,
and thus,
on the sixth anniversary of Viola's death…
[knocking on door]
…Perdita had reached her limit.
[Perdita] The house is in disrepair.
Our financials, a disaster.
We have the solution, above our heads.
We cannot even afford a housekeeper anymore,
and above us, locked away, are silks, jewels and linens.
-Perdita-- -If not enough to save us,
enough to right the ship.
-No. -She would want us to.
If she could have foreseen how dire things would become,
how dire you have made things.
-Me? -Yes.
Or were you not responsible for our financials, dear husband?
Did you not run our estate into the damned ground?
More than all, my sister wanted Bly to flourish.
She would have done anything, everything in her power to save the manor,
and you know that.
It is for Isabel.
The manor is for Isabel.
And we would let it fall to ruin before she comes of age?
Once and for all, Perdita…
it is out of the question.
And I shall be gravely displeased if you return to the matter.
Very good.
Glad to learn the value at which I'm held.
To feel oneself sacrificed to a caprice.
[uneasy music playing]
It is not a caprice, my dear.
It is a promise.
An oath.
To Viola.
Of course.
We mustn't dispose of an oath to Viola.
But what right had Viola to dispose of our future?
What right had she to bind you to meanness and cruelty?
No more of this.
[nocturnal chirping]
[footsteps recede]
[lock rattles]
[terrifying screech]
[footsteps approaching]
Perdita?
[sighs]
[jarring crescendo]
[storyteller] We return, dear listener,
to another night.
The night in which Viola would sleep.
[Perdita grunts]
[muffled screams]
[muffled moans]
[gasps]
[panting]
[sniffs]
[lock rattles]
[loud rattle]
[eerie music playing]
[breathing accelerating]
[jewels clatter]
[storyteller] She would sleep.
She would wake.
[doorknob rattles]
She would walk.
[gasps]
[storyteller] She would sleep.
She would wake.
She would walk.
And time went by.
How much time, it was impossible to reason.
[sighs softly]
[storyteller] Sleeping.
Waking.
-Walking. -[lock rattles]
Sleeping.
Waking.
Walking.
And in time, as we all do… [chuckles softly]
…she admitted all.
She admitted she was dead.
She admitted her husband had moved on.
She admitted her daughter was growing without her.
And she admitted her room was a dream,
a construct, a lie preferred…
to the truth of the trunk.
But there waited for her, at the end of this purgatory,
a reward in the knowledge that one day, the door would open.
One day, the locks would see their keys,
and, one day, Isabel would open her mother's trunk…
and claim her reward.
Both of their rewards.
And day after day, night after night,
an ocean of time, the moment finally came.
[keys jangling]
[key rattling in lock]
[uneasy music playing]
[gasps]
[frightening boom]
[choking]
[jarring crescendo]
[Perdita grunts]
-[thud] -[exhales]
[ominous music playing]
[footsteps approaching]
[storyteller] When she beheld her husband,
she saw not the changes wrought of time, only his sadness.
Only that.
And so, overwhelmed, she…
slept and waited.
[melancholy music playing]
They buried Lady Perdita, and set about forging a new life.
The business was empty, the manor was lost.
If not in law, in spirit.
They would move away from here,
sell the manor and find a quieter life, a smaller one,
made only for the two of them.
The two of them, and also…
Viola.
At last, at least, she'd be with them both.
-Her husband, her daughter. -[creaking]
No matter if they couldn't see her, couldn't touch her, couldn't hear her.
-[muffled thudding] -No matter.
She'd be with them, and that was all that mattered.
They were leaving Bly,
leaving most of what remained of their belongings.
Her reward for all these years of isolation.
For all the ache in her tired heart.
But Arthur had grown a superstitious man
and had seen the horror on Perdita's lifeless face.
His superstition defied reason, but he felt confident all the same.
Whatever curse had claimed his second wife,
he would not risk his daughter to its icy fingers.
His daughter, nor anyone else.
-[splash] -[water gurgling]
[storyteller] This final insult of being cast to the swampy depths,
while her daughter would grow to womanhood.
This absolute abandonment.
It shattered Viola's heart.
The feeling of being pulled towards some other place,
some realm beyond,
had faded in the years since her death,
but now she rejected it outright.
With every ounce of her considerable will,
as when she was sick, and against all probability,
Viola would not go.
The eldest of Willoughby's daughters, once Lady Lloyd of Bly,
remained, some would whisper, by stubbornness alone.
The pull of that next world ignored, she instead made her own gravity,
gravity of will,
that would change the terrain of Bly Manor forever.
And once again, she would sleep.
-[gentle piano music playing] -[nocturnal chirping]
[water gurgling]
[storyteller] She would wake.
[nocturnal chirping]
And she would walk.
As if woken from a nightmare,
she would walk back to her home,
feeling each time that it was a dream.
[wet footsteps]
Feeling that if she walked to her bedroom,
to the room she once shared with her husband,
her infant daughter,
that perhaps the nightmare would abate,
that she could simply slip into the warmth of blankets
and nestle herself to the bosom of her family,
waiting for her all this time.
And she'd stare at that empty bed…
and Viola would remember.
And the remembering itself was injury anew.
[melancholy music playing]
[wet footsteps]
[storyteller] Her heart would shatter anew,
burning in her bosom,
a searing ache that she hoped would be quenched by the…
cold, muddy waters of her new manor.
Her new home.
Thus, she would sleep,
and she would forget.
Having forgotten, she would wake.
[nocturnal chirping]
She would walk.
How many nights, how many walks… [chuckles softly]
she no longer could count.
Her attention lay only ahead,
only on the bed that was her goal,
and on the daughter she believed, each time she woke,
would be waiting for her there.
[indistinct conversations]
[man retching]
[people coughing]
[storyteller] She did not even realize that a decade had passed,
not even realize, after an outbreak of plague in the village,
that the empty manor had become a quarantine
for the coughing death that ravaged her former community.
Where is she?
[doctor] What are you doing in here?
It isn't safe.
You mustn't be in this wing without protection--
Where?
[choking]
-[crack] -[doctor cries out]
[thud]
[storyteller] And as the plague doctor died,
so he was immediately forgotten, and a strange phenomenon occurred.
Her gravity, it seemed, her invented gravity
that held her to the grounds,
that kept her in purgatory,
it would hold others, too.
She would sleep,
and as happens when one dreams, she would forget.
And having forgotten, she would wake.
[nocturnal chirping]
She would walk.
[somber music playing]
Viola faintly noticed her own attempted exorcism.
And alas, the poor vicar,
the second person to find himself in Viola's path.
She would sleep,
forget, and forget, and forget.
And with the forgetting,
an ailment altogether monstrous.
All things fade.
All things. Flesh, stone, even stars themselves.
Time takes all things. It is the way of the world.
The past recedes, memories fade, and so, true, does the spirit.
Everything yields to time,
even the soul.
Wake, walk, forget even more.
Her name, forgotten.
Her sister's name, forgotten.
As her memories left her,
so, too, her face.
So little did she remember…
that one night, she found a child in her daughter's old bed,
and could not remember who she had been hoping to see.
She had only the faint notion that she'd walked this far
hoping to find a child,
and here was a child.
It must be the child whom she'd sought.
It must.
She would sleep, and she would fade.
And fade, and fade.
And the others, too.
Those souls held in her orbit,
those unfortunates trapped in the gravity well
she had made of Bly Manor.
They were fading as well.
The eldest of Willoughby's daughters, once Lady Lloyd of Bly,
now just a thought, just a feeling,
not a woman at all, not a person at all, not a name or a face.
Just need.
Need…
and loneliness.
And rage.
Her fate was a nightmare.
A fate that befell all trapped at Bly.
A fate that befell Viola's once sister,
now forgotten in the attic.
Unaware that she'd ever had a sister at all.
To murder, or be murdered by.
A fate that befell anyone unfortunate enough
to step into her habitual path.
[Peter] Stop.
Stop!
[storyteller] A fate that befell a poor valet,
so many years later.
[clattering]
A fate that befell even those who died of other causes at Bly,
who found themselves in the grips of Viola's gravity,
even if never in the grip of her icy hands.
[Rebecca crying hysterically]
[storyteller] No hope for anyone with the sad misfortune
to die on the grounds of Bly.
No hope for the victims of Bly,
be they victims of fate,
of vice,
or disease, or of each other.
And no hope, it would seem, for the young au pair…
[Dani and Flora yelling indistinctly]
…who, having run afoul of so many of the dead,
those unfortunate tenants of the gravity well,
and who had finally stepped into the path of her own fate.
[frightening crash]
[screams]
[choking]
[frightening music intensifying]
[ominous thud]
[closing theme song playing]