Leopold Bayard I

Historically, the Junteon Estate had always attracted its fair share of crazy, but to Leopold Bayard it was home. Then again, Bayard was a fair share of crazy. 200 years of living alone in his grand lonely home had made him this way. Nobody knew the secret to his long life because nobody knew that he still lived.

The man hadn’t been seen outside of his home since Beethoven’s last public performance. It was assumed that he had died long ago, leaving nothing but a chain and an old, tarnished padlock on the gate of his estate. Anyone who tried to get a closer look would be breaking and entering. So break and enter they did.

On a night when the moon wore a dress of clouds and the wind sang songs of woe, Gemma and Frances planned their adventure into the home of Leopold Bayard. The curious girls squeezed through the gates to be greeted with the smell of rust and unkempt wood.

Bayard had lived a quiet life. He’d stored enough food to last him the rest of it but even when he ran out, he just kept on living. The old man didn’t want to deal with anyone so he just waited, holed away in his estate. But Bayard lived a long life without food or getting hungry. It must have been punishment.

For over a century, he sat in his arm chair, an extension to it, waiting for nothing. He hadn’t bothered to count the days but he knew he’d aged beyond reason. And after all that time, the reason he moved once more was because he heard the scuffling of an intruder approaching his living room tomb.