The Archive / Persons / Keepers
The Keepers
The Circle has never belonged to those who kept it.
They merely ensured there was something left to find.
1612 — 2026
Across four centuries, custody of The Pendle Circle has passed from one pair of hands to another. Their names seldom appear in the public record. Within the fictional Circle Archive, they appear under another title: Keeper.
The First Keeping / Circle mythology
Mychael Cire
Clerk. Witness. The Eleventh.
The surviving public record tells us much about Pendle in 1612. The fictional Circle Archive tells another story. Among its oldest correspondence appears a name written in several forms, most commonly Mychael Cire.
Circle tradition places him close enough to the proceedings to hear what others dismissed, record what others omitted and witness what should—according to the accepted account—have ended in August 1612.
Archive note / Fiction, not documented history
He did not write for 1612.
He wrote for those who would come after.
Circle mythology says Elizabeth Southerns—remembered to history as Demdike—entrusted something to Cire before her death. Whether knowledge, responsibility, belief or something less easily explained remains disputed even within the Archive.
Cire began to keep names, testimony, correspondence, symbols, accounts absent from the official record and instructions intended for people not yet born.
Letters to the future
History remembers ten.
The Circle remembers eleven.
Material attributed by Circle tradition to Mychael Cire includes correspondence addressed not to any known person of his time, but to future members. A small number of records have resurfaced. Their release forms the foundation of Case 001 — The Eleventh.
Enter Case 001
The succession
One Keeper
to the next.
Mychael Cire could preserve the records. He could not preserve himself. Before a Keeper's keeping ends, custody must pass.
- Mychael Cire1612
- Record withheld
- Record incomplete
- Name redacted
- Archive damaged
- …
- John Strong / Francesca Strong2026
Keeper / Current · Clitheroe · Lancashire
John Strong
Little concerning John Strong appears in the public-facing records of The Circle. What is known places him in Clitheroe, beneath the shadow of Pendle.
His association with the Archive appears to have begun with an old document case, blackened at its edges, acquired among the effects of a deceased Lancashire collector. Inside were no valuables. Only papers. Most appeared meaningless. One carried his name.
Not merely Strong. John Strong. Written in ink considerably older than he was.
His name was in the Archive before he entered it.
Within Circle mythology, John keeps the physical record: correspondence, objects, maps, seals and documents judged unsuitable for digitisation.
“Strong keeps what can be held.”
Keeper / Current · Clitheroe · Lancashire
Francesca Strong
Francesca Strong came to the Archive differently. She found no document bearing her name. She found a sentence.
It appeared in the margin of correspondence attributed within Circle mythology to the early eighteenth century. Years later, Francesca recognised the same words elsewhere—in the hand attributed to Mychael Cire. The documents were separated by almost a century. Neither should have known of the other.
Text withheld Archive authority: Keeper
Francesca catalogued relationships between documents believed unrelated—recurring phrases, names, marks and references separated by generations. Through this work, pieces attributed to Cire were identified as belonging to a single sequence: The Correspondence.
“Francesca keeps what can be read.”
Clitheroe / Lancashire / 2026
The Current Keeping
Today, the keeping rests in Clitheroe. John Strong keeps the physical Archive. Francesca Strong keeps its interpretation. Neither claims ownership of The Pendle Circle. Neither calls themselves its founder.
On 20 August 2026,
the Keepers opened the Archive.
Four hundred and fourteen years after the trials, the Circle reopened.
PC / K / 414 / 2026
Why now?
The Archive survived wars. Fire. Religious persecution. Industrialisation. The disappearance of buildings. The deaths of those entrusted with it. Yet the correspondence remained sealed. Until now.
When asked why the material should be released in 2026, the fictional Keeper's Register records only four words:
The time was given.
The Keeper's Rule
Keep what is given.
Record what is found.
Release what is required.
Pass what must remain.
Attribution uncertain
Keeper / Member
A Keeper preserves.
A member discovers.
The Keepers will not tell you what to believe. They will place the record before you. Correspondence will arrive. Documents will contradict one another. Names will recur.
Keep everything.
Case 001 / The Eleventh
The first correspondence leaves Pendle on 1 October 2026. No payment is taken today and joining the waitlist does not allocate a Founding Member number.
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