The Folding Frame – Prologue
The tavern shutters were drawn against the rain, the lamps turned low, and the crowd pressed in close about the long table. A dozen men and women sat in silence, their eyes lifted toward the stranger at the head of the board.
He was a lean man in a black coat, his voice hushed yet carrying, like a preacher’s murmur at the grave. Before him lay a small stack of plates, their polished silver faces catching what little light the room allowed.
“Brothers and sisters,” he began, “you were told these plates hold likenesses. But I tell you—they hold essences. The light you see on them is not sunlight, not lamplight, but the very soul impressed upon silver.”
A murmur of unease stirred, quickly silenced when he raised his hand.
“They call me a fraud. They call me dangerous. Yet you have seen with your own eyes what others deny—wives seated beside their long-dead husbands, children resting in the arms of mothers carried to the grave. I show not memory, but presence. Not art, but truth.”
He leaned forward, and his audience leaned with him.
“There are frames—frames of gold and porcelain—that do more than preserve. They bind. Two hearts joined in life may be clasped forever in death, held close on either side of the hinge. Not separated, not lost, but bound in eternity.”
The plates clinked softly as he gathered them into his case. Outside, thunder rolled down the river.
“One such frame lies within this city, awaiting its rightful owners. And when it finds them, their souls will shine forever, fixed in silver and flame. Watch the streets, my friends. The appointed hour is close.”
The thunder grew louder, and the wind rattled the shutters. None spoke when the man finished; each sat in silence, straining to hear the echo of his words in the storm.