All The More Strange: A Retelling of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"

A Warning to You, Dear Reader

If I am to recount this strange tale, you must swear not to repeat it to another soul. I don't have to remind you that we live in an age where what others say of a person can mean their downfall or their ascension. Reputation means everything. Especially to a woman.

If you promise that upon reading my confession, that you forget what is said here and destroy this copy, I will continue. Most likely, if you are reading this, then I am deceased. Perhaps for some years. But it's no matter. For the sake of my own honor and the individuals mentioned in this account, I beg your mercy. Destroy this script. 

In all honesty, I should not even be doing this, committing to paper what I know, what I've seen. But I am not Catholic. I have no confessing priest that I may speak with in confidence. As I said, I am only a woman and one ill word could mean the end of me in all good society. 

But the facts of my youth still eat away at me to this day. It's been 25 years since the events that I am about to ascribe did occur. I am easing my way into a respectable middle age now. Though at the time, I felt myself so old at 30 years of age. Now I know that I was only a baby back then, just starting out in life.

Regardless of how many decades are put between myself and the events of autumn 1886 to the spring of '87, I can conjure it in my memory as though it were yesterday. Perhaps that is why I must write. I wish to enter the twilight of my life in peace by exorcising the demons of those dark days.

If you are ready to hear my tale, you may continue. If you are wise, you shall overcome your curiosity and lock away this manuscript. Though I warn you, that is the more difficult choice of the two. Human curiosity is the strongest force in our universe. Perhaps even stronger than love. Not even death can conquer it.