Caskett 2.0
“My name is Johana Castle. Named after a lost mother. My father is famous author Richard Castle and my mother is Detective Kathrine Beckett-Castle. Both of my parents solve crimes, aka murders, for a living so I usually stay with my sister Alexis or my grandma. But I really like spending time with my godmother Lanie, in the lab. I also like spending time with Sarah Grace, Kevin's daughter. She's my best friend in the whole world. Without her I don't know what I'd be like.
“I went to sleep last night with sweet dreams and I woke up a 2:00 in the morning not being able to breathe. My parents ran into my room. My dad grabbed me in his arms and we went to the emergency room. While the doctors were trying to help me, I saw mom, dad, Alexis, and grandma on their phones talking to who I suspect are our friends from the precinct. I was very scared. I didn't know what was going on. Or why it hurt to breathe. It was like death was coming on me. Then I heard a voice that said, "My name is Johana. I'm your mom's mom. Now listen to me baby, you got to hold on. Your mom can't afford to loose you. She lost me and she shouldn't loose you too." I listened to her. I filled my lungs with air, and when I did you could hear a small squeak as though.... My lung collapsed! I knew it was true because the doctor came to the same conclusion. Then I felt a needle go through my side, and it was like there was a huge pressure lifted from my chest.
“"You have Cystic Fibrosis. Cystic Fibrosis is caused by a defective gene which causes the body to produce abnormally think and sticky fluid, called mucus. This mucus builds up in the breathing passages of the lungs and in the pancreas." "So what can we do?" my mom asked. "There are many things we could do, but we want to do the less harmful actions first. We would like to start her on antibiotics to prevent and treat her lung and sinus infections. They may be taken by mouth, or given in the veins or by breathing treatments. and if that doesn't work we would like to get her in a DNAse enzyme therapy to thin mucus and make it easier to cough up." "She'll cough up the stuff?" my dad said, I could hear the worry in his voice. "It would be the easiest way to get it out of her." "What if that doesn't work?" "We don't want to go that far into the treatment plans until we know that the first two trials don't work." "She'll be fine though, right?" "Yes, as long as she stay here for us to be able to keep an eye on her. Just in case." "She has school." "Castle, it's fine. If we tell them what's going on it will be fine." "Are you sure? I mean we don't want her to get behind." I couldn't take it anymore. It was to sad in the room. "Stop it, if I have any work to do Sarah could bring it to me. I don't want to be the girl stuck in the bed but I am and I don't need you both so upset because you are not the ones who have to stay in bed all day!" They listened to me after that. They listened real well because I was very firm with my voice.
“They tried to give me the antibiotics, and they didn't work. So they tried to give me the DNAse therapy that they said would work, it didn't. So the other day they tried to give me a hypertonic saline, which also didn't work. The disease is getting worse and this morning I started coughing up blood, so they took me into surgery to give me a lung transplant. It was an emergency type thing. They said they never would have done that if it wasn't necessary. When I was out of surgery, I woke up to not my mom and dad, but to Sarah and Jenny. They told me that the surgery went well and that my mom, dad, Kevin, and Havi had to go to a crime scene and that they would be back soon. I knew that it would be forever till they would be able to come. But then Alexis and Grandma Martha came into my hospital room, they had coffee in their hands and were handing them to Jenny and Sarah then sat one on the table in front of me. "For when the doctors come in, so we can all stay awake when they come." Alexis said. i had to laugh at that. Then we just talked and talked for hours. Mostly about what I saw when I was under anesthesia. It was pretty cool. I saw my Grandmother Johana. She keeps coming to me every time I might die and tells me that I have to survive for my mom. That I can't leave her like Johana left her when she was little. I am my mom's last hope.
“I have been through so much, that my mom came into my room and told me that if I didn't want to go through all of this anymore I could let go, but then I heard Johana stay with her. Don't leave her. She needs you. But then I realized it wasn't my dead grandmother it was just my subconscious telling me things to stay alive. But those words stuck in my head. "If you don't want to go through this anymore you can let go." I didn't want to leave my mom, but I didn't want to go through anymore of this. So I closed me eyes, and I just let my heart beat slow. I let myself feel all the bones in my body, all my muscles relax. I could feel everything in my body start to shut down. Then I saw my mom's face. It was full of tears, and I manages to tell her, "I love you, mom." And that was the last words she ever heard from me.
A E Bruce:
Can you create a narrative outline based on a historical *child* who died young?
ChatGPT: thought for 26s
Yes! Let’s build one around a real child: Clara Allegra Byron.
She was the illegitimate daughter of Lord Byron and Claire Clairmont (Mary Shelley’s teenage stepsister). Born in 1817, Allegra spent early childhood surrounded by the Shelleys, then was handed over to Byron, who moved her between foster families and eventually put her in a Catholic convent in Bagnacavallo, Italy, where she died at five, probably of typhus or malaria. (Wikipedia)
That gives you grief, abandonment, religion, and Romantic-era art all in one place.
Below is a novel-length narrative outline inspired by her life. You can file off serial numbers and rename everyone if you want it “inspired by” rather than biographical.
1. Story concept
Working title: Allegrina
Logline:
In 1820s Italy, a spirited five-year-old girl, abandoned to a convent by the famous father she barely knows, navigates loneliness, faith, and conflicting stories about love—and becomes the unseen fulcrum of guilt and grief for the adults who failed her.
POV approach (suggested):
Close third from the child’s perspective in present time (the convent years).
Interleaved letters/diary fragments from three adults:
Her mother (Claire analogue).
Her famous father (Byron analogue).
A visiting poet/friend (Shelley analogue).
The contrast between what she feels and what they justify on paper carries a lot of the emotional weight.
2. Historical grounding (what we’re loosely basing it on)
You don’t have to state all of this on-page, but it informs the outline:
Child of a brief affair between a charismatic, scandalous poet and a starstruck teenager in reduced circumstances. (Wikipedia)
Early life with her mother, Mary and Percy Shelley, then given to her father at about 15 months old; he renames her, moves her around, and eventually places her in a convent school in Bagnacavallo. (Wikipedia)
The mother deeply resents the convent decision and later blames him entirely for the child’s death. (Wikipedia)
The father feels remorse only after she dies, calling her “the sinless child of sin” and admitting her illegitimacy would have made adult life cruel. (The Atlantic)
The official cause of death is “fever” (likely typhus or malaria) at age five. (Wikipedia)
We’ll build a 3-act structure around this.
3. Act I – The Child of Scandal
1. Opening image – “Dawn in the nursery”
POV: Mother (diary entry) + quick shift to infant’s close third.
A tiny upstairs room in a cramped English house where a young woman writes by candlelight about:
Her love affair with the great poet.
The baby she names Alba (“dawn”), full of hope that he will claim and care for them.
Baby POV: sensory impressions—warmth of mother’s skin, scratch of quill, muted adult arguments.
Purpose: Establish the child as wanted and loved—by at least one parent.
2. Promise vs. reality
Letters arrive (or don’t) from the poet father.
He writes with wit and distance, promising “arrangements” but not affection.
The household (Mary & Percy stand-ins, plus a stern intellectual father figure) debates:
Respectability vs compassion.
Money vs scandal.
The mother is pressured:
Neighbors gossip.
Everyone assumes the baby is Percy’s, not the poet’s.
Baby/toddler POV:
She notices tension through tone, slammed doors, the way her name is spoken sharply or gently.
Inciting incident:
A letter from the poet: he will take the child, on condition the mother keeps her distance.
3. The journey to the father
On the road/sea voyage to the Continent:
The mother’s journal alternates between hope (“she’ll have a better life”) and dread (“I’m surrendering her”).
The toddler (now ~1–2):
Is excited by new sights—water, ships, foreign languages.
Clings to her mother without understanding this is a goodbye.
Climactic beat of Act I:
In a foreign city (your Venice/Ravenna analogue), the mother hands the child to the father.
The child notices:
Father’s extraordinary presence—everyone watches him.
Strange mixture of charm and irritability.
That she’s being held by someone else when she cries.
The father renames her (e.g., from Alba to Allegra), saying, “You’ll be my cheerful one.”
The child repeats the new name without understanding what the old one meant.
Act I turning point:
That night, the carriage with her mother leaves without her.
She wakes up calling for “Mamma” and gets “Mammina” (father’s lover) instead.
4. Act II – The Convent Years
Act II is mostly set in the Italian convent school. This is where you can really live in the child’s POV.
4. Life in transit (early Act II-A)
Months of being passed between different households:
Foster families, consul’s house, nursemaids who change too often.
The girl:
Develops a performative, impish streak—mimicking adults, singing songs, making people laugh to earn affection.
Learns Italian faster than English; language becomes a symbol of shifting identity.
Intercut adult letters:
Father complains she’s vain, obstinate, “very much like me.”
The poet friend objects to the instability and coldness of her arrangements.
Mother begs for more contact and information, increasingly frantic.
Mini-climax:
Father decides the girl’s “wildness” needs discipline and security → orders her sent to a convent boarding school.
5. Arrival at the convent (Act II midpoint setup)
POV: The child entering this new, walled world:
White stone, echoing corridors, smell of incense and soap.
Women in identical black-and-white habit uniforms: at first frightening, then comforting in their sameness.
She receives:
A tiny bed.
A workbasket.
A simple crucifix.
The nuns give her a pet name (“Allegrina”), delighted by her energy and mimicry.
She starts to internalize a narrative:
The world outside is dangerous; inside is safe and orderly.
God and “Bambino” (baby Jesus) become imaginary playmates.
Midpoint image:
She rings the convent bell as a prank and all the nuns laugh instead of scolding—she has, at last, a community that seems to adore her.
6. The visit from the poet friend (true midpoint)
This is based on Shelley’s real visit to Allegra in the convent. (Wikipedia)
A man arrives—a familiar stranger from babyhood.
He calls her by her original name; she doesn’t recognize it.
She shows him her bed, her chair, the garden path.
They play in the cloister; she:
Proudly recites prayers and lists of saints.
Shares sweets with the nuns before keeping any for herself.
His internal letter afterward:
Shock at how pale and serious she has become.
Disgust at the rote religious teaching, but grudging relief that she’s disciplined and cared for.
Frustration at the absent father and powerless mother.
Emotional midpoint for the child:
For a few hours, she feels “seen” by an adult who meets her at her level… and then he leaves, too.
7. Pressure from the outside (Act II-B)
Letters escalate:
Mother’s letters (which the child never sees):
Furious condemnations of the convent and the father.
A half-formed plan to kidnap her daughter back.
Father’s letters:
Self-justifying rationalization.
He insists the convent is safest, best for her future marriage prospects, best for her soul.
Church/Convent letters:
Political concern about revolution, disease, and the danger of moving children around.
Inside the convent:
The girl’s world is shrinking:
She learns routines, rules, hymns.
She starts to forget English words entirely.
She dreams of a “gold dress” and a mother she can no longer picture clearly.
End of Act II beat:
She dictates or writes a letter to her father asking him to visit the fair with her (echoing the real letter asking him to come because it was fair-time). He never replies or comes. (Wikipedia)
5. Act III – Fever and Aftermath
8. The fever (Act III-A)
Rumors of sickness in nearby towns; the nuns pray for protection. (The Atlantic)
Children cough; one by one, beds empty.
The girl develops a “little slow fever”:
At first she’s only tired, annoyed she has to miss lessons or play.
Her perception blurs time—naps that feel like entire nights, nights that feel like minutes.
Nuns and doctors bustle around her:
Cool cloths, bitter medicines, whispered prayers.
She hears her name and “Dio” spoken together.
Intercut:
Father’s POV/letters:
He is informed of her illness.
He authorizes any treatment but decides not to travel—rationalizes it as “no point in alarming her” or “work and politics demand my presence.”
Mother’s POV:
She hears of the sickness later, through secondhand gossip.
Rage and helplessness collide; she contemplates drastic action but has no legal power.
9. The last days (Act III-B)
The girl drifts in and out:
Convent sounds filter through—bells, chanting, distant laughter.
She imagines the fair her father never came to:
Gingerbread, bright ribbons, a gold dress just her size.
A symbolic scene:
She is carried into the convent garden on a mild day.
She sees other children playing at a distance; she’s too weak to join.
A nun tells her a story about a child-saint or the Christ child.
Climactic inner moment:
In fever-dream, she:
Walks under stalls of a fair that blend into cloister arches.
Sees a man whose face is a shifting composite of father/poet/friend.
Sees a woman who might be her mother; when she reaches out, the woman turns into a statue of the Virgin.
She chooses to follow the sound of music into light—your choice how explicitly spiritual or ambiguous you make this.
She dies attended by the nuns; they call her “our little Allegrina” as she goes.
10. Aftermath – Three griefs (Act III-C)
Structure this as a triptych of adult reactions:
The Father
Receives the letter: she’s dead.
Scene of him reading, then:
Flash of denial → “She’d have been miserable anyway.”
Then crushing remorse:
He dictates instructions for the funeral/gravestone.
He pens a letter or monologue admitting he never realized she was essential to his happiness until she was gone (drawn from Byron’s real regrets). (Wikipedia)
Optional: He imagines alternative futures—walking with her by the canals, teaching her to read his poems—then pushes the vision away.
The Mother
Hears the news.
Her grief expresses as volcanic, targeted rage:
She accuses the father, the convent, the entire social order.
She vows to keep the story alive: “I will not let them forget what they did.”
But when it’s time to see the coffin or arrange the funeral, she cannot bring herself to do it (also drawn from historical accounts). (Wikipedia)
The Poet Friend
Alone on a shoreline or in a storm, he remembers the girl’s pale face and how she shared sweets with the nuns.
He has a vision/dream of her rising from the sea, laughing and beckoning—prefiguring his own death (based on Shelley’s reported vision). (Wikipedia)
He begins to shape her into a poem—some “lovelier toy sweet Nature never made”—hinting that she’ll live on only as a literary figure.
11. Final image
Return to the convent, some years later:
A new group of girls plays where she once did.
A young nun or visiting scholar opens a box of old letters and a single child’s relic: a lock of blonde hair, a tiny embroidered apron, a scrap of a gold ribbon.
She reads a fragment of the girl’s letter: “My dear Papa… Please come to your little [Name].”
The scene closes on the idea that:
The child’s life was short, but every adult orbiting her carries a different version of her story.
The narrative we’ve just read is one attempt to give the “sinless child of sin” her own voice back.
6. Thematic spine & craft notes
Core themes:
Belonging: What does family mean to a child passed between households, countries, and religions?
Responsibility vs. rationalization: Each adult has a reason, an excuse—but collectively they fail her.
Memory and narrative: The “real” girl vs. the girl seen in letters, poems, and reputations.
Craft levers you can play with:
Use limited, sensory language in the child sections; let the reader infer adult conflicts from half-overheard conversations.
Use contrapuntal structure:
A tender convent scene → followed by a cold, self-justifying letter.
A playful moment → followed by a diary entry about scandal.
You can choose how “on the nose” you want historical names to be:
Biographical: Use Allegra, Byron, Claire, Shelley.
Thinly veiled: Change names but keep settings/dates.
Fully fictionalized: New country, new religion, same emotional architecture.
If you tell me your preferred tone (gothic, lyrical, more commercial YA, etc.) or POV style, I can shrink this into a scene-by-scene chapter outline next.
A E Bruce:
↪️“* * God and “Bambino” (baby Jesus) become imaginary playmates.”
Is it possible that these figures could be entities trying to take over the girl? The fever her body rejecting the spiritual possession?
ChatGPT: thought for 11s
Yes 👀—that’s absolutely something you can do, and it actually fits eerily well with what we already laid down.
Let’s treat this as story logic, not “real life” stuff:
1. How it could work in the story’s metaphysics
You could decide that:
The “Bambino” and saints the girl talks to aren’t purely imaginary friends.
They’re actual entities (not necessarily evil; just… non-human) that:
Feed on adoration, obedience, devotion.
Prefer to inhabit someone young, impressionable, and emotionally isolated.
The convent, without realizing it, is basically training children into becoming open doors.
In that case:
The girl is a particularly bright, high-energy soul: imaginative, stubborn, “too much.”
The entities see her as:
A powerful vessel.
But also harder to fully override because she has a strong sense of self.
The “visions” everyone assumes are signs of piety could really be a tug-of-war for ownership of her body and mind.
2. The fever as rejection of possession
I really like your idea that the fever is her body rejecting the takeover. You can layer it three ways at once:
Literal / Physical layer
There is a real illness going around (typhus/malaria/etc.).
Her body genuinely fights infection: shivers, sweating, delirium.
Spiritual layer
In the fever, those “holy figures” become:
Too close.
Too demanding.
Less cute-baby-Jesus, more blank-eyed, uncanny presence at her bedside.
They try to push into her:
“Come, be one with us.”
“Give up your heavy little heart, we’ll bear it for you.”
Psychic/psychological layer
Her self fights back:
She clings to scraps of other identities—her old name, memories of her mother, the man who visited and played with her.
She refuses to merge, even though she’s a child who doesn’t have language for that resistance.
End result:
The fever is what it looks like from the outside, but internally it’s a burnout point—either she becomes a vessel, or she burns up pushing them out.
You get to choose whether:
She dies because she succeeds in expelling them (body can’t handle it).
Or she dies because she refuses and they take just enough to permanently damage her.
3. How you’d show this on the page (without over-explaining)
Here are some concrete ways to dramatize it:
Before the fever
She starts talking about “we” instead of “I” in a few moments:
“We don’t like it when Sister shouts.”
“We are good girls, aren’t we?”
Nuns think: Oh, she’s internalizing the community!
Reader thinks: Uh. That’s possession-speak.When she prays in the chapel, she sometimes:
Loses time.
Stares blankly at statues longer than feels normal.
Comes back with a sense of crushing fatigue, but doesn’t know why.
Early fever
She sees multiple versions of the same figure:
Baby Jesus in the painting.
Baby Jesus at the end of her bed.
Baby Jesus reflected in the basin water—but the reflections don’t match.
She hears whispers:
“Let us in. You’re so tired. We’ll finish being you for you.”
Her body flares with heat:
As if her blood is screaming “No.”
Peak delirium
You can stage a full-on inner battle:
The figures try to rewrite her memories:
Replace her mother’s face with the Virgin’s.
Replace her father’s voice with the priest’s.
She fights by:
Chanting things that don’t belong in the convent: lullaby lyrics, foreign-language words, her birth name.
From the outside:
Nuns think she’s raving.
They cling tighter to relics and prayers, unintentionally reinforcing the entities’ access.
Death / resolution
Two especially creepy/poignant options:
She wins, then dies
Vision: those figures try to step into her completely; instead, the “heat” in her pushes them back.
Final moment: she’s briefly utterly clear and alone in her own head.
She thinks a single, clean thought (e.g., her mother’s name, or “I am [birth name]”), and then her body gives out.
The nuns say: “It’s a holy death; she smiled at the statue at the end,” never realizing the smile was for someone else.
She half-loses, half-wins
One entity reaches her but can’t fully overwrite her.
She dies, but somewhere in the spiritual architecture of your world, a small fragment of her remains inside that entity—a splinter of conscience.
Later in the larger story, that entity shows inexplicable mercy because of “a girl’s memory inside me.”
4. What this does for your themes
Adding this twist turns:
“Little girl in convent”
→ into
“Little girl resisting becoming property—of family, church, and unseen powers.”
It deepens:
The idea that everyone wants a piece of her:
Father wants her as solved responsibility.
Mother wants her as redemption and proof she wasn’t wrong to love.
Church wants her as a docile soul.
The entities want her as a vessel.
Her only true act of agency may be:
Not living long, but choosing who (if anyone) gets to live in her.
If you want, next I can:
Sketch a short, vivid fever scene where the “Bambino” shifts from sweet to predatory, and her body’s reaction reads as both medical and metaphysical at the same time.
A E Bruce:
can you find any of those letters you mentioned from her mother, father, etc.
ChatGPT: thought for 1m 38s
Yes, some of them absolutely do survive, and they’re brutal to read once you know Allegra’s fate. I’ll give you the main ones that mention her directly, with:
who wrote it / to whom
rough date & emotional tone
a tiny quoted line (under 25 words)
where you can read the full text or reliable transcription
You can mine these for epigraphs, emotional beats, or even verbatim fragments in your story.
1. Allegra’s own letter to Byron (from the convent)
Who / when
Writer: Allegra (about 4 years old, with help from the nuns)
To: Lord Byron
Date: 21 September 1821
Place: Capuchin convent of Bagnacavallo
Tone
Sweet, practical, and heartbreakingly normal—she’s basically asking Dad to come because the fair is in town.
Key line (short excerpt)
“My dear Papa. It being fair-time, I should like so much a visit from my Papa…” (Wikipedia)
Where to find it
Transcribed in the Allegra Byron article under Convent education. (Wikipedia)
Digitally, in the Bodleian Library’s Shelley’s Ghost exhibit (“Letter from Allegra to her father Lord Byron”). (Wikipedia)
Byron scribbled a sarcastic note on the back about her wanting “paternal gingerbread” and never answered or visited. (Wikipedia)
2. Claire Clairmont to Byron – surrendering the child
Who / when
Writer: Claire Clairmont (Allegra’s mother)
To: Byron
Date: c. 1818, when she gives Allegra into his custody in Italy
Tone
Young, desperate, trying to convince herself she’s doing the right thing.
Key line (short excerpt)
“I have sent you my child because I love her too well to keep her…” (Read Free From Internet)
Where to find it
Quoted in Edna O’Brien’s Byron in Love (it’s a direct citation of Claire’s letter). (Read Free From Internet)
The full text is in The Clairmont Correspondence, ed. Marion Kingston Stocking (vol. 1, 1808–1834). (Internet Archive)
For your narrative: this is a perfect line to use (or echo) in an early chapter or as an epigraph.
3. Claire’s furious “convent letter” to Byron (1821)
Who / when
Writer: Claire Clairmont
To: Byron
Date: 1821, shortly after he sends Allegra to the convent
Tone
White-hot rage and moral indictment.
Key line (short excerpt)
“…the state of ignorance & profligacy of Italian women, all pupils of Convents. They are bad wives & most unnatural mothers…” (petercochran.wordpress.com)
Where to find it
Substantial quotations in the Allegra Byron and Claire Clairmont pages. (Wikipedia)
A fuller diplomatic text is printed in Peter Cochran’s scholarly PDF “Byron and Hoppner 1817–1823” (section on Allegra; you can scroll around line 160+). (petercochran.wordpress.com)
Also edited in The Clairmont Correspondence (Stocking). (Internet Archive)
For your possession/fever idea, this letter is a great external counterpoint: Claire basically frames the convent as a machine that ruins women’s bodies and souls.
4. Byron describing Allegra as a baby / toddler
Who / when
Writer: Lord Byron
Recipients: Various friends and his half-sister Augusta Leigh
Dates: c. 1817–1819
Tone
Flippant, fond, a bit cruel. He likes that she resembles him; he also calls her obstinate and vain.
Sample lines (each from different letters, very short)
“My bastard came three days ago—very like—healthy—noisy & capricious.” (Wikipedia)
“She is very pretty—remarkably intelligent… blue eyes—fair curly hair—and a devil of a spirit.” (Wikipedia)
Where to find them
Collated and quoted (with references to the original letter volumes) in the Allegra Byron article under Resemblances to Byron. (Wikipedia)
Full letters appear in standard editions: Letters of George Gordon, Lord Byron (Murray), and in the various collected letter volumes cited in that article.
In your story, these snippets can show how he sees her as an extension of himself rather than a full person.
5. Byron to Hoppner – justifying the convent
Who / when
Writer: Byron
To: Richard Belgrave Hoppner (British consul in Venice)
Date: Sept 1820 & March 1821
Tone
Self-justifying, controlling, a bit pious.
Key lines (tiny excerpts)
“If Claire thinks that she shall ever interfere with the child’s morals or education, she mistakes; she never shall.” (Academic Dictionaries and Encyclopedias)
“The girl shall be a Christian and a married woman, if possible.” (Academic Dictionaries and Encyclopedias)
Where to find them
Summarized and partly quoted in the Allegra entries (English & en-academic versions). (Wikipedia)
Full texts in Byron’s letter collections; Cochran’s PDFs and other scholarly editions often quote bigger chunks alongside Claire’s replies. (petercochran.wordpress.com)
These are excellent raw material if you want to frame the convent as deliberately chosen as a kind of respectable cage.
6. Percy Bysshe Shelley describing his visit to Allegra at the convent
Who / when
Writer: Percy Bysshe Shelley
To: Mary Shelley and/or other correspondents
Date: August 1821, after his three-hour visit to Allegra
Tone
Gentle, horrified, torn between affection for the child and disgust for the religious setting.
Key detail (brief quotation)
“I had brought her a basket of sweetmeats, and before eating any of them she gave her friends and all the nuns a portion…” (Wikipedia)
He complains she’s memorising “a prodigious list of saints” and “is always talking of the Bambino.” (Wikipedia)
Where to find it
Nicely summarized with direct quotes in the Allegra article under Convent education. (Wikipedia)
Full letter in The Correspondence of Percy Bysshe Shelley and reproduced in some modern essays about Byron and Shelley. (Peter Cochran)
For your supernatural frame, this is GOLD: “Bambino,” saints lists, and Shelley's sense that her world has narrowed are all ready-made story motifs.
7. Byron after Allegra’s death
Who / when
Writer: Byron
To: Shelley and others, plus inscription for her memorial tablet
Date: April 1822 and shortly after
Tone
Regretful, self-pitying, occasionally tender.
Memorial inscription / grief
On her memorial tablet he wrote:
“In memory of Allegra, daughter of G.G., Lord Byron… ‘I shall go to her, but she shall not return to me.’” (2 Samuel 12:23) (Darkest London)
Later he called her the “sinless child of sin” and admitted that death might be kinder than the life she’d have had as an illegitimate child. (The Atlantic)
Where to find it
The Allegra article’s Death section, and Agnes Repplier’s 1902 Atlantic essay “Allegra.” (Wikipedia)
Byron’s full letters around April 23, 1822 are in standard letter editions and discussed in Cochran’s “Byron and the Shelleys” PDF. (Peter Cochran)
This is prime material if, in your version, he senses something spiritually bigger happened in that convent but can’t name it.
How you might use these in your narrative
Epigraphs: Start each act or POV with one short real line (e.g., Claire’s “I have sent you my child…” or Allegra’s “It being fair-time…”) then fracture it in the fiction.
Possession / fever imagery:
Shelley’s “Bambino” and saints → literal entities in her fever-dream.
Claire’s convent rant → your world’s lore about places where “they” get in.
Parallel letters in your story-world:
Write in-universe letters mirroring these, then distort them: what if the father’s defense of the convent is secretly about containing a spiritual threat?
If you want, I can take one of these real letters (say, Claire’s convent letter or Allegra’s fair-time note) and rewrite it in your story’s supernatural cosmology—same emotional content, but with the possession subtext baked in.
A E Bruce:
Anything that references the spiritual playmates?
ChatGPT: thought for 1m 7s
Yep — there is one really clear historical place where her “spiritual playmates” show up on the page.
All of it comes from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s letter after he visited Allegra at the convent in August 1821:
He says she:
“knows certain orazioni by heart, and talks and dreams of Paradise and angels…” (Peter Cochran)
and that she:
“…has a prodigious list of saints, and is always talking of the Bambino.” (Peter Cochran)
That’s the big primary-source reference to her inner spiritual world:
“Paradise and angels”
a long “list of saints”
constant talk of the Bambino (baby Jesus)
Everything else people say about her religiosity in later articles or biographies basically riffs on this letter. The Atlantic essay on Allegra just paraphrases the same passage almost word-for-word. (The Atlantic)
Claire’s letters are more about how much she hates convent education in general (ignorant, profligate women, bad wives/mothers, etc.), not so much about Allegra’s personal visions. (Wikipedia)
So, for your “spiritual playmates” idea:
Historically: we have a child who talks and dreams of angels, paradise, saints, and the Bambino all the time.
In your story: those can be the entities—the “friends” she’s always chattering about, who show up more and more intensely as the fever/possession arc kicks in.
If you’d like, I can take that specific Shelley line and rewrite it as an in-world report from a nun or doctor who’s starting to get unsettled by how much she talks to these “friends.”
A E Bruce:
I don’t see anything about her fever
ChatGPT: thought for 33s
Yeah, that’s a really fair catch — you’re not missing anything obvious.
Where the “fever” info actually comes from
You’re right that in the letters I pointed to (Byron, Claire, Shelley) you don’t see a long, hand-wringing description of Allegra’s symptoms. They mostly say “she’s ill” or talk about her death in general terms.
The specific stuff like:
“Allegra developed a high fever on 13 April 1822.”
The doctor saying she had “little slow fevers.”
She was “considered out of danger on the 15th, but died on the 20th.”
comes from convent records and later biographical summaries, not from Claire/Byron/Shelley’s own surviving letters. Those are collated in modern sources like the Allegra Byron article’s Death section, which explicitly says:
“Allegra developed a high fever on 13 April 1822… The nuns called a doctor… who determined that Allegra was suffering ‘little slow fevers’… on 15 April she was considered out of danger, but died on 20 April…” (Wikipedia)
Biographers then infer what kind of fever it likely was:
The same article notes she died of typhus or malaria, based on location and the epidemic context. (Wikipedia)
A 1902 Atlantic essay says “fever was even then sweeping the towns of the Romagna” and she fell “an early victim,” again summarizing, not quoting a specific letter. (The Atlantic)
So:
Primary letters: grief, blame, big feelings; not much medical detail.
Convent records + later historians: the timeline and phrases like “little slow fevers,” “high fever,” and the typhus/malaria guess.
For your story, that actually helps you: the historical record leaves a lot of interior space around that final illness. You can:
Treat the “high fever from April 13–20” as a known skeleton;
Fill in the emotional / spiritual / possession battle however you want, knowing the letters don’t contradict you—they just don’t zoom in on that week at all.
A E Bruce:
↪️“* **Primary letters**: grief, blame, big feelings; not much medical detail.”
Can I have some quotes of these big feelings during the time of Allegra's sickness, not after
ChatGPT: thought for 2m 45s
You’re right that most of the really huge emotions on paper are after her death — but there are a few moments where the feelings spill out while she’s still ill (or in a dangerous fever spell).
Here are some short, usable quotes from that during-illness window:
1. Byron during Allegra’s malaria attack (Venice / La Mira period)
This is Byron writing while Allegra has a vicious bout of malaria (“doppia terzana”):
“The poor child has the fever daily… all my plans are lulled upon the feverish pillow of a sick infant.” (Internet Archive)
You can feel him pinned in place by her sick body: plans, travel, politics, all shrunk down to that “feverish pillow.”
He also writes to his half-sister Augusta, using Allegra’s health as the main reason he can’t face the journey:
“The health of my daughter Allegra, the cold season, and the length of the journey, induce me to postpone… to revisit Great Britain.” (Internet Archive)
Not as poetic, but it’s a very clear “her body is the reason everything else has to stop.”
2. The last illness: “little slow fevers” at the convent (April 1822)
These come from the banker Pellegrino Ghigi’s letters and Teresa’s account — people reporting in real time as she’s sick:
The doctor at the convent diagnoses her with slow fevers, and Ghigi writes:
“She had already had several attacks of ‘little slow fevers’… I assure you that she has been very ill, of a dangerous illness.” (Internet Archive)
He visits her and describes her lying in bed, surrounded by nuns and doctors, asking for “some tender cheese,” and defends the convent’s care:
“If there is any fault, it is of too much care.” (Internet Archive)
Teresa then remembers Byron’s reaction when this report reached him in Pisa:
Byron… was “very much agitated” at this account and at once sent off a courier. (Internet Archive)
That’s one of the only explicit emotional descriptors we get about him during the final fever: “very much agitated” + immediate action.
If you want, I can next:
Turn these into direct interior monologue lines (for your possessed/feverish child), or
Build a paragraph where the fever + “spiritual playmates” are framed with this kind of historical language (“little slow fevers,” “feverish pillow of a sick infant,” “very much agitated,” etc.).
A E Bruce:
“I should so like a visit from my Papa.”
But he’d never come to see the drama.
A daughter looking for splendor,
Lost in the hurricane of affairs.
“I have sent you my child because I love her too well to keep her…”
A mother afraid of jeers
Unable to see the future clear.
Soon, she’ll mourn her daughter, dear.
“She is very pretty—remarkably intelligent… blue eyes—fair curly hair—and a devil of a spirit.”
You don’t know what she sees at the end of her blanket.
Bambino, she calls him, but she’s too innocent
To understand what he represents.
“And is always talking of the Bambino.”
Little does the father know,
The war inside the minnow,
For the control of her soul.
“I assure you that she has been very ill, of a dangerous illness.”
One can never understand the thinness
Of a child in the throes of sickness.
None could know they were all to witness.
“The sinless child of sin…”
Sits in Heaven
At the age of five
After winning against the devil inside.
ChatGPT:
This is doing exactly what you wanted: braiding the real quotes with your possession/fever lens so the subtext quietly mutates underneath the historical surface. Let me give you a mix of reaction + a light polish pass, keeping your voice.
Quick craft notes
The quote → commentary structure works well, especially because each prose stanza reframes the line spiritually.
You’re already setting up a chorus of adults vs the child:
Mother: fear + sacrifice.
Father: vanity + blindness.
Shelley/nuns: “Bambino.”
The child herself: mostly implied, which makes her feel ghostly.
The final couplet about “winning against the devil inside” is a great theological twist: she “loses” her life to keep her soul.
A couple of small tweak ideas:
You lean on “little / child / daughter” / “illness / sickness / thinness”: that repetition is thematically strong, but a touch of variation could make individual stanzas hit harder.
Where you say “devil of a spirit” → “you don’t know what she sees” is chef’s kiss as a pivot; I’d lean even harder into the uncanny there.
Lightly polished version (same structure, mostly your words)
Here’s a revision that keeps your content and rhythm but tightens a few spots and leans into the supernatural tension:
“I should so like a visit from my Papa.”
But he’d never come to see the drama—
A daughter reaching up for splendor,
Lost in the hurricane of his affairs.“I have sent you my child because I love her too well to keep her…”
A mother, terrified of jeers,
barters hope against her fears,
Too close to see the future clear.
Soon she’ll mourn her daughter, dear.“She is very pretty—remarkably intelligent… blue eyes—fair curly hair—and a devil of a spirit.”
You don’t know what watches from the end of her blanket.
Bambino, she calls him, innocent,
Too young to learn what his smile represents.“And is always talking of the Bambino.”
Little does her father know
The war that rages in the minnow,
Tiny body, tidal undertow—
A quiet battle for her soul.“I assure you that she has been very ill, of a dangerous illness.”
No one reads the hidden script in her thinness,
A child in the teeth of twin sickness—
Flesh burning, spirit in resistance.
All think they merely witnessed.“The sinless child of sin…”
Sits in Heaven
At the age of five,
Thin and bright and still alive—
Having driven the devil out, not in.
Use as much or as little of that as you like—consider it a “what if” version.
If you tell me what you want this to do in the larger project (opening poem, epigraph sequence, spoken-word interlude, in-world document, etc.), I can help you:
extend it into a full cycle (one stanza per letter), or
break it into shorter epigraphs that stack through a chapter/episode.
A E Bruce:
Free standing poem?
ChatGPT:
Yeah, it absolutely works as a free-standing poem. Here’s a version shaped to stand on its own, with a title and the quotes woven in as part of the piece:
Bambino
“I should so like a visit from my Papa.”
But he’d never come to see the drama.
A daughter reaching up for splendor,
lost in the hurricane of his affairs.
“I have sent you my child because I love her too well to keep her…”
A mother, terrified of jeers,
barters hope against her fears,
too close to see the future clear.
Soon, she’ll mourn her daughter, dear.
“She is very pretty—remarkably intelligent… blue eyes—fair curly hair—and a devil of a spirit.”
You don’t know what waits
at the end of her blanket.
Bambino, she calls him, innocent,
too young to know what he represents.
“And is always talking of the Bambino.”
Little does her father know
the war that rages in the minnow,
a tiny body, tidal undertow—
quiet combat for her soul.
“I assure you that she has been very ill, of a dangerous illness.”
No one reads the second script
written in her thinness,
a child in the teeth of twin sickness—
flesh burning, spirit in resistance.
All think they merely witnessed.
“The sinless child of sin…”
Sits in Heaven
at the age of five,
thin and bright and still alive—
having driven the devil out, not in.
If you want, next step could be either:
formatting it as if it appears in-world (like a found poem in your story’s universe), or
doing a second poem from her point of view to mirror this one.
