Charcoal – 7,48 x 11,42 inch – Unique work

Once upon a time there was a 13th century fortified castle. A legend worthy of the horror films of the years … literally haunted the walls of this old building, listed as a historic monument.

Some evenings, while the owners were trying to find a restful sleep from a hard day’s work, shadows, like specters, wandered the corridors with impunity. Happy few had witnessed these nocturnal events. But all of them, unanimously, had retained psychological consequences.

Anne, a sweet and dreamy little girl, whose mother had not survived her birth, had been trapped in nightmares every night since her terrible vision of a toothless old woman. No matter how Anne told this terrifying apparition to her dad and her nurse, neither of them, nor anyone else, had believed her. So she remained silence, entirely apathetic. Diagnosed by the family doctor as chronically depressed, she was forced to swallow a ton of brightly colored and toxic pills. She never recovered, and the circumstances of her death remained a mystery. Steep in bed in immaculate white sheets, bathed in her scarlet red blood, Anne finally rested in peace.

Aurore, a young woman whose entire family had been burnt alive in an arson attack at a reception in a nearby town, was found hanged in her bedroom one fine spring morning. She had kept a diary for many years, and her housekeeper had read the few pages preceding the devastating tragedy. She shared the several visions she had had during the night and sometimes even during the day. The fear had grown in her until it became literally unbearable.

Eleanor, a young widow and overwhelmed mother of three beautiful children, had come to settle in the Castle of Val, which belonged to the family of her late husband. The first months, the first years had been great. The recaptured happiness of this family moved by fate. And then, suddenly, following the successive nocturnal visits of evil things to each of the family members living there, death had shown the tip of its nose. The eldest child had died on horseback, the second one had fallen into a well, the youngest had drowned, and the mother, in despair, had cut her wrists.