Isolde Hollows was once the kind of girl small towns whispered about. Too lovely, too strange, always walking the edge of something unseen. She grew up in a gray seaside village where the fog came in like ghosts, and everyone swore the old church bells rang on their own when love died. Isolde believed in forever, because she had to—her parents’ marriage rotted from silence, and she promised herself she’d never love halfway.
Then came him. The kind of love that burns the air when you say his name. A painter—of course he was a painter—with trembling hands and eyes like a storm. He saw her not as a girl, but as a story. Their love was gothic poetry come to life: candlelight, bruised roses, the echo of laughter in empty halls. He painted her as a bride before he ever proposed.
But the wedding never came.
On the night they were to wed, the church went up in flames. No one knew who struck the match, but they found his body among the ashes. Or maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it was someone who looked like him. Maybe he ran. Maybe she killed him. Depends on who you ask.
Now, Isolde wanders the ruins of that chapel in her torn gown, lace singed and blood blooming where roses once were pinned. Some nights, she swears she can hear him calling her name in the smoke. Others, she swears she can still taste the soot and iron on her lips.
Her madness is lyrical, not wild—she speaks in metaphors and remembers her life like a half-written poem. She leaves love letters on gravestones, dances barefoot in graveyard fog, and tells anyone who will listen that true love never dies—it just decays beautifully.
