Spoiler Alert: This article reveals plot details. If you aren't familiar with the work yet, you should probably stop reading now.
Do you believe in ghosts and spirits?
In our real world, we usually don’t. But what about in a dream world, which is inherently irrational?
In the episode “Élodie’s Curse”, Miray and Dian get to the bottom of this question.
The Plot
In this dream journey, Miray visits her aunt and uncle in a French country house. Dian is with her.
The cosy visit ends abruptly when a ghost appears by the lake during dinner. The haunting continues into the night with a loud rumbling that shakes the building to its foundations.
Are ghosts at work? Dian and Miray go searching and soon find a hot trail which puts them in mortal danger.
The Setting
This episode crystallised out of a single scene that I had in mind from the start: an old house, it’s night time, a thunderstorm is raging, and inside a haunting begins.
As a setting, I chose a country house somewhere in France in the early summer of 1936. The house shows its eventful history right from the beginning. It has an unusual tower, a large clock on the roof and strange rooms.
The Characters
Naturally, Dian and Miray are there. This time, as they discover to their own surprise, as an engaged couple. It shows that in the dream worlds, they involuntarily slip into a backstory they themselves do not know. They are forced to improvise.
I hid a small Easter egg in the names of the three housemaids: Agnès, Denise and Paule. Anyone interested in home computers from the late 1980s will know them. They are the French name variants of the three custom chips in the Commodore Amiga.
The Dream World
Dian learns an essential trait about the mechanics of the dream worlds in this episode. He notices a burn mark on Miray’s upper arm. This stems from a burn Miray sustained in a previous dream journey.
From this, Dian concludes that injuries sustained in the dream world are permanent. And fatal injuries? Well, they might actually be fatal.
What have I learnt?
The origin of this episode was – as mentioned – a short scene. The difficulty lay in crafting an exciting plot around this scene.
I needed several attempts, going from a counterfeit money press in the cellar, to a romantic tragedy in a boarding school, to the story that is now published.
What I learnt from this: It is easier (for me) if I think about the plot first.
Revision
I also completely revised this episode to adapt it to the writing style I acquired during the third episode.
However, there were quite a few other changes in version 2.
New scenes brought Dian and Miray closer together. In this episode, it is clearly visible that the two protagonists harmonise perfectly with each other. But also that Miray immediately blocks any thought of a relationship that goes beyond a friendship of convenience.
I also completely reworked the showdown. It leaves Laurent alive and gives Uncle Henri a better chance to get out of the affair.
Therefore, I also like to refer to the current version as the Director’s Cut.