The Villainess's Ghost

# The Villainess's Ghost *A solo journaling game for the villainess the novel buried in Act One.* --- You are the villainess of a novel you did not write. You died at the end of Act One — some fall, some fever, some cup of something that was not quite tea. The author moved on. The heroine inherited your fiancé, your mother's regard, and the rooms you had chosen for yourself. You have not been mentioned since page sixty-four. Tonight is the first anniversary of your death. Tonight the heroine has returned alone to **The House at Ashborne** for the first time since the funeral — she is sleeping in your old room because every other room is dust. Tonight is also the thin night. The one night in the year when the house, which was yours, has pulled you back across the hedge. You have twelve candles' worth of night, and no more than that. You cannot speak aloud. You can touch, but barely. The night ends when the last candle guts. Decide what to do with it. --- ## How it plays Light the twelve candles. Shuffle the fifty-two cards. Draw one at a time. Each card's suit maps to a colour of candle. If a candle of that colour still burns, blow it out, find the matching prompt in the book, and write an entry. If no candle of that colour remains, the card is a **shadow draw** — the night has asked you something you can no longer answer, because the part of you that would have answered has already gone. Read the prompt silently if you like, but write nothing. When the last candle of a colour goes out, pause. Read that colour's **Guttering** — a short interlude about what you've just lost. Then, if this is one of the first three Gutterings, write one sentence of your **Three Unsaid** . When the twelfth candle guts, the night is over. The deck may still have cards in it. They stay unread, as the moments you did not live to see. The colour of the last candle extinguished — the one that held on longest — decides your ending. A night where the Hearts candles go out first is a different night than one where the Spades hold on until dawn. The candles are the honest clock. --- *If you play, we would like to know which object you chose as your Keepsake — and which candle was the last to go out.*