Shelly Darcy had lived in Hyperion Manor for most of her dreary life, being born to the Dalton’s of Dalton Place, but in a time when ill fate plagued the family like the proverbial bats from hell. The family had been burned by multiple misfortune that could only befall the cursed. First there was the loss of all their wealth in a string of gambling debts created by Darcy Dalton—a fob-less chap—who bore no resemblance to the grandeur and stature of his ancestors. It was the fruits of their diligent labor, accumulated over 150 years of mercantile endeavor that Darcy had frittered away in a measly two years amidst debauchery and the insolent idleness of one who had not borne nary a drop of sweat on his brow for nothing and no one.

The Dalton’s misfortunes did not stop at Darcy, for his sisters too—Shelly (of course) and the younger Creamilda—fell upon hard times. The latter found herself married to a drunken fool of a man who had such a nasty temper that he only exercised in the privacy of their meager accommodations, and so it followed that none knew of his misdemeanors or of Creamilda’s woes. Suffice to say, what little of her inheritance she acquired was swiftly funneled to the whore houses of the county and squandered onto the coffers of liquor vendors, while Creamilda and her three children shivered from a lack of heating and the pangs of hunger and neglect.

Shelly’s misfortunes were of a less material nature and rather sat firmly in the realm of ideology and societal gossip. For you see, Shelly was a bit of a tomboy and carried herself with a poised assertiveness reserved for the men of her time. She had been her father’s first born child. Consequently and much to her mother’s chagrin, he had doted on Shelly, keeping her under his wing; teaching her how to hunt, fish, and read long, dry academic prose, plus indeed how to negotiate a solid deal that would stop the most cunning of men in their tracks, dead and astounded by the level of ruthlessness and astute decision-making. For this reason, none of the good mothers of the county saw Shelly as suitable for their sons—most of whom would not have tickled her fancy, since she found them to be the most ordinary and insipid of characters. The simple result was that Shelly seemed destined to spinsterhood, a shocking condition by most standards and worse yet it appeared she would have to live out this life of solitude on a miniscule allowance with which she could barely pungle up modest accommodations.

But this Shelly did with grace, determination and slight disinterest. She was barely affected by the notions of the day or her financial constraints. This was for the mere fact that Shelly Darcy paid no mind to expectations and trends. Instead, she lived in her own world, made up of books and imagination. Since the untimely death of her father, she had sunken herself into personal academic pursuits; hence, the study she had undertaken, in the last thirteen months. Shelly had set her mind upon the idea that perhaps there was life after death, particularly when as sudden as her dear Papa’s. And so she had taken it upon herself to order scarce resources on the metaphysics of life, including D. S. Hughley’s notorious and banned volume, the Superlateral Asphyxiation of Unmaterial Matters.

Shelly’s pursuit of obscure knowledge did not stop at the review of literature, but also lead her into secret assignations with underground societies interested in the science of manifestation and the aspiration of the unknown. Now of course, finding herself in all manner of underground and seedy location did not help with the business of her enshrined singledom, but of course this did not faze her until a chance name encounter in Borough Place on a warm and rather soggy day for Lavender Grove County. Now it is here that the story of Shelly Darcy’s incredible life truly begins to unfold and all due to a simple phrase she overheard across some hedgerows. It went something like this: “Pity she asked of that American, Macy Johnson,” and it was uttered by none other than the obnoxious Mrs. Common as she stood, tattletale, by her hyacinth beds. In that moment of innocuous conversation, lay the name of someone to become the cause of Shelly’s impending transformation and the turnaround from the great legacy of misfortune that had befallen her family.