Palimpsest · Palimpsest Productions

Episode 508: Party

February 6, 2024·27 min·2 clips

Lenore finds a locked room containing three boxes that reveal her husband's murdered wives.

The episode opens with the narrator entering a locked room in near total darkness, lighting candles to reveal walls draped in red silk and a table bearing three wooden chests with iron clasps. She opens the first box and finds a blood-stained white dress along with wedding photographs showing her husband Radcliffe possessively holding a woman named Helene Coutard, whose wedding announcements indicate she married Radcliffe five years earlier in London. The second box contains a Nile Green dress and more photographs—this time of Bella, the narrator's close friend and lover who she believed was dead. Bella's ghost then appears in the doorway wearing the Nile Green dress, blood flowing from a wound in her throat. Bella confirms that Radcliffe killed her because she discovered his secret—that he is a werewolf, a wolf king—and that he killed Helene for the same reason. The third box is empty and waits for the narrator. Bella urges the narrator to replace everything, lock the door, and return to bed without letting Radcliffe know what she has learned. The narrator is overcome with grief, not primarily from Radcliffe's betrayal but from the discovery that Bella, something she hadn't known she wanted, was lost to her before she could claim it. After Bella disappears, the narrator carefully restores the room and resolves to act. Over the following week, the narrator plays the role of dutiful wife, enduring Radcliffe's company while planning a confrontation. She confides in the housekeeper Mrs. Perrault, who positions silver knives around the kitchen and parlor. The narrator identifies the upcoming garden party as her moment, noting that its timing near the full moon means Radcliffe may plan to slip away—she must act before moonrise. At the party, guests arrive in fashionable dress, the garden is elaborately prepared with food and a jazz combo, and the narrator mingles and plays the gracious hostess. At five o'clock she calls for attention and, after flattering Radcliffe into standing beside her, unveils a portrait she painted of Bella. Several guests recognize the woman, and a long silence follows before chaos erupts. The episode ends on the aftermath of this revelation, with the narrator's next steps left unresolved.

As heard by us

A locked room turns domestic detail into evidence of a marriage turned dangerous.

A locked room, a bloodied dress, and a marriage turned dangerous give this episode its grim charge. It keeps returning to domestic objects that ought to stay harmless, then lets each one open into another layer of harm: red silk on the walls, tiny treasure chests, photographs,…

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Why you'd press play

You want a hushed, gothic-leaning mystery that turns one locked room into a trap.

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