Jane of Air

by Jessica Penot

  “I’m in for the night,” I said. “I’ll check in on her later.”

  “I think I saw Edward go out for the night, so it’s just you,” she added.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “I’m spending the night,” Helen said.

  “You don’t have to. I’m fine here. I’m not afraid of ghosts.”

  “Still, I can stay and we can work on more letters.”

  I smiled. “This one is dated December 1, 1692.”

  December 1, 1692

  My Darling,

  I wish you would write me and tell me you still love me. I long to hear from you and I need to know you are still there. I now know my parents moved us here deliberately to get me away from you. I always knew they opposed the match, but I didn’t know how much until recently. Over the last month, they have paraded every eligible maid of good fortune through the house. It has been made quite clear to me that the family’s future lies in my choice of wife. I have been true to you, my darling. I have told them, again and again, that we were promised to one another in front of God. What God has put together no man may tear apart.

  Their scorn and derision are unending and they have made me a virtual prisoner here. They assure me that you no longer love me. They say you have found another. I can’t believe them. I won’t let myself be undone by such blatant falsehoods, but without word from you, I find myself wondering if there isn’t some seed of truth in what they say. Do you still love me at all?

  Always Yours,

  Richard

  December 5, 1692

  My Beloved,

  Where are you? I call out your name in the night and there is no answer. As weeks have passed into months, my desperation has grown into panic. I know that you must have forgotten me and found some other blushing bride of good family and fortune to fill your bed. I conjure her image in my mind and it drives me wild with anger and rage. My emotions pass through me like a fog. Sometimes they fill me with such anger that I think of doing unspeakable things. Other times they fill me with such sorrow, I dream of ending my own life. I have forgotten what you look like. I can only remember your eyes, as blue as the ocean before a storm.

  My youngest sister, Martha, will be married within a fortnight. Her bridegroom is an older man with fortune enough to spare. Martha always was the pretty one. Everyone is full of mirth and gaiety, but I can hear them whisper of me. My family has given me up for a spinster. They say my mind has been addled by my love for you, but I can never touch another man. You are my end and my beginning. There will never be another.

  At night, I wander the old ruins alone. I can hear the witches of old speaking to me from their graves. Sometimes, when the moon is lost in shadow, darker things call out to me in the night. They make me promises. Oh, my darling, I will make you mine again. I promise you will be mine.

  Forever Yours,

  Liliana.

  Helen put the letter down. “Is it just me or is that kind of creepy?”

  “Definitely,” I answered. “We should go eat. It’s late and no one is in the kitchen. We could go grab some sandwiches.”

  Helen and I ate in the kitchen and then I gave her a tour of the parts of Thornfield she hadn’t seen yet, including the tower room and the attic. Helen always carried a flashlight with her, which helped a lot when we got to the attic. We wandered the house like we were ghosts ourselves. We tried to keep quiet and go unseen. I didn’t want Edward to know I had a friend over. I wasn’t even sure I was allowed to have friends over. We whispered as we walked and clung to the shadows. We didn’t turn on lights, we just wandered in the dark.

  Before we went to my room for the night, I peeked in on Miss Adele. She was sleeping soundly. When I came back to the room, Helen was sitting on my bed holding an old book in her hands. She’d put on the cotton gloves for me, but she had a sad look in her eyes.

  “What is it?” I asked as I plopped down on the bed next to her.

  “Liliana was burnt as a witch,” Helen said.

  Chapter 20

  “Sometimes on feels that it would be merciful to tear down these houses, for they must often dream”

  ~ H.P. Lovecraft

  “WHAT?”

  Helen held out the old book. “These are legal records. The Rochester family accused her of witchcraft and had her burnt at the stake.”

  I put on my gloves and took the book from Helen. I didn’t open it. I just looked at it.

  “I guess that’s one way to get rid of the poor girl your son is in love with,” Helen said. “I’m so glad I didn’t live back then. They would have burnt me for sure. Is there even any point in finishing the letters? We know what happens.”

  I carefully moved all the letters to my desk. I stacked them in a neat pile away from the window. “We can finish them later. I still want to read all of them. I also want to get them properly mounted for storage. There is a lot of history in those letters. I’m sure someone wants them preserved.”

  Helen stood up and got undressed. She pulled an old t-shirt on. She always slept in the same oversized shirt. It had a pink care bear on it. I don’t know where she got it. She must have had it in her purse. I started to undress and put my nightgown on, but Helen grabbed me after I took my shirt off. I stood in front of her, topless, and I could tell something was wrong. She was staring at my back.

  “What?” I asked with trepidation. Part of me knew why she was staring and I didn’t want to hear it.

  “Your tattoo… It looks different. Bigger.”

  I ran to the bathroom mirror and craned my neck to see my back. “Holy shit,” I whispered as I stared at the reflection.

  The tattoo had spread. Behind the door, an entire landscape had grown. There was a burning castle surrounded by ashes and decay. Skulls littered the grass in front of the door and tiny horned beasts hid in the skulls. Dark clouds filled the sky and the moon hung heavily in the inky black heavens. A solitary black cat sat in front of the door. A keyhole had appeared in the door and a red light shone from behind it. For a while, both Helen and I just stared at the massive piece of art. The tattoo was spreading and I could see bits of it wrapping around my ribs.

  “What’re you going to do?” Helen asked.

  “I-I don’t know,” I answered, a thread of fear in my voice. “Keep hiding it. What else can I do?”

  “Go to a doctor for starters!” Helen exclaimed.

  “What can a doctor do? The doctor will just think I’m some crazy teen who isn’t well supervised and my case will be turned back over to Child Protective Services. And then what? They’ll pull me out of Huntington. I won’t be able to live here at Thornfield anymore. There is only one thing I can do and that is keep it hidden and not tell a soul.”

  “You can’t keep ignoring all the things that are messed up in your life, Jane! You can’t ignore that tattoo. You can’t ignore the dark things that are in this place. You can’t ignore your past. For some reason that ghost contacted you and showed you the letters. And now your tattoo has expanded? What the hell!? Dark things are coming for you, Jane, and if that tattoo doesn’t prove it, then I don’t know what does.”

  “The only dark thing coming for me is midterm exams.”

  “You have to leave now!”

  “Never going to happen.”

  I shook my head. “Go to sleep, Helen. I can’t leave this place. I love it here. In my entire life, I’ve never had a real home. Here, I feel like I belong.” I climbed into bed and closed my eyes. Helen climbed in beside me. “Please, can we just stop talking about this? I’m tired.” It was true. I was exhausted. The events of the day, and the tattoo, had wiped me out. I closed my eyes and fell asleep quickly.

  Chapter 21

  Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness.

  ~ H.P. Lovecraft

  THE NEXT THING I KNEW Helen was shaking me aw
ake. She was shaking me so hard I probably had a bruise on my arm. I sat up and she stopped shaking me, but I still felt like my teeth were rattling.

  “Do you hear that?” she asked.

  “Hear what?”

  “That!” she whispered.

  I stopped and listened. All the usual old house noises were present. The walls moaned a little. The plumbing seemed to be rattling even when no one was using it. The wind outside the windows hissed through the cracks in the glass, making a phantom noise. Tree branches scraped against the outside of the house. I didn’t hear anything disconcerting. I lay back down. I was exhausted and I just wanted to sleep. I closed my eyes and was just drifting back to sleep when I heard the laughter. I had almost become accustomed to the ghostly laughing. I was so tired I didn’t want to get out of bed, but Helen was pulling me from the mattress and I had no choice but to follow her into the hall.

  “It’s nothing,” I said. “That happens all the time.”

  “Creepy laughter happens all the time? And you are okay with that?”

  I didn’t know what to say. Helen was as white as a sheet and she was trembling. Her eyes were wide with terror. I was afraid, too. I wasn’t okay with anything, but the laughter had become part of my life, a bad recurring dream that I’d gotten used to in some weird way. I regarded it in the same manner Freud would regard a dream. It was a terror that had to be confronted in order to experience catharsis and move on. Unfortunately, every time I had tried to figure out the source of the laughter, it would fade away or become impossible to locate. I grabbed hold of Helen’s hand and she leaned into me.

  “What do we do now?” she asked. She was shaking so hard she made me shake, too. I had always imagined Helen would be brave in the face of this type of thing, but her courage was lost to the haunting laugh of a dead woman.

  “We could investigate?” I offered.

  Helen’s laughter was hard and bitter. “Are you friggin’ kidding me?”

  I pulled Helen toward the door and opened it. The laughter was louder in the hall. The lights had flickered out, again, and the shadows had taken on strange shapes. Helen wouldn’t budge, so I yanked on her hand and dragged her in the direction of the laughter. This time the laughter led us down the hall, past Edward’s room. I followed it to the end of the hall where the back staircase led both up and down to the servants’ quarters. The laughter came from below us. In the old days, I imagined every room would have been filled with a chambermaid or a butler, but now all those rooms were empty. Only dust and shadows filled the spaces that had once housed life. We pressed on, out the back door and into the gardens. The laughter filled the cool night air. It danced off the branches of trees and scared little birds into flight. Even bugs seemed to scurry away from the sound, but we pressed on. We followed it to a grassy place beneath the old tower room where I had found the sketch books. Our mouths dropped open when we saw her.

  A girl’s body lay in the grass like it had fallen from a great height. Helen froze beside me. She placed her hand on my arm. Her hand was so cold it was like ice. I shivered at her touch. The body lay in the grass and then it rose. It rose from the mud and greenery to stand up. The girl wore a long, red strapless gown and her long red hair was a tangled mess wrapped in red ribbons. I recognized her immediately. It was Edward’s girlfriend from the picture. She smiled at us with a wicked grin, filled with a kind of twisted delight. Helen pulled me backward. She tugged me away from the grinning specter of the red-haired girl. We ran back to the house, as fast as our feet could carry us. If I had been trying out for track and field, I probably would have made the team, we were running that fast.

  “You should leave this place,” Helen whispered as we rushed into my room and locked the door behind us.

  I shook my head. I was breathless from the running. My heart was pounding in my ears from the exertion. It was amazing how Helen was never breathless. There was never a hair out of place. She was always perfect.

  “A haunted house is one thing,” Helen said. “But you can’t stay in this house, filled with hostile spirits. That ghost was angry.”

  “It might have just been sad. She looked like she died badly.”

  “Trust me on this,” Helen said. “That is not a ‘she.’ That is an ‘it.’”

  “It just needs help,” I said softly.

  “I can’t stay here,” Helen said.

  “You’re afraid?” I was incredulous. Helen always seemed like the brave one before Thornfield.

  “Come with me. We’ll leave together,” Helen implored.

  “I have to stay,” I said.

  Helen shook her head. She tried to get me to leave with her, but I couldn’t go. Helen tugged at my arm and pulled my shirt. She cried and begged. She promised me safety and friends and a normal college life, but I couldn’t leave Thornfield. It was the closest thing to a home I’d ever had.

  “I’m so sorry,” Helen said. “I can’t be here. This place doesn’t like me. It won’t let me stay. He won’t let me stay.” Helen looked up and I looked up. Helen’s eyes were fixed on something above her, but there was nothing there. When I turned to face her again, she was gone. She’d left. She always did that. Would just pop in and out of my life. Granted, she did beg me to go with her. But I couldn’t, I just couldn’t leave. And I couldn’t completely explain why. I just knew that I had to stay.

  I plopped down on my bed. I couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t afraid anymore. The ghosts didn’t scare me. I was upset because Helen and I had parted badly. I wished I could have gone with her, but my heart was bound to Thornfield Hall, for better or for worse. I opened the next letter and read it. I read on and on through the night. I read letter after letter. They went on for over two years. She implored him and he implored her. They wrote to each other in utter futility for all that time. They were like two lovers lost in the fog. Neither one of them could see each other, but their hearts ached for each other and my heart ached with each new letter I read. It seemed cruel that two people who loved each other so completely should be separated by their families. Their letters must have been intercepted and hidden from them. How sad. How tragic. Finally, Richard stopped writing and only Liliana’s letters continued. I was careful with the next letter. It was tattered and so soiled I could barely make out the words on the page. My hands shook as I mounted the letter. I had to turn on an extra light to read it.

  My Beloved,

  I know now that you have abandoned me. Word has come home to me that you have wed another. My heart breaks and I wonder if you ever loved me at all. All my sisters are long since gone. They are wed with children of their own and more on the way. There is only me left. I am left alone here, a lonely spinster waiting for a prince that will never come. I still wait for you. In the fog, I stand on the hill that looks out on your old home and dream of you. I find my heart turning dark. Where love once grew like a mighty oak there is now only shadow and fog and a seed of hatred so strong that even love couldn’t dispel it. Oh, my beloved, if you had only answered one of my letters. If you had only whispered one kind word, I may have been able to stop the rage that has grown in my heart like a garden weed. It can’t be stopped. You took my innocence and left me with nothing but a promise turned to dust. I am untouchable, now. No man will have me. I am too old and rumors of our affair have made me into something wicked and wanton.

  I will never be a bride. There will be no white days for me. There will only be sorrow and sadness and death. Oh, my beloved, I have made a terrible mistake. The darkness came for me, my love. You were gone and the old god offered me his hand. I took it and now I am pregnant. My family has cast me out as a harlot and I am now alone in the ruins on Witching Hill. It is quiet here and I think the voices in my head may not be real. I can no longer tell. I like to imagine that the baby that grows in my belly is yours and that you will be home soon, but I know you will never come and even if you did, I gave myself to him. He waits fo
r me even now. He promises me revenge and I shall have it, my love. Forgive me for what I am about to do.

  Forever Yours,

  Liliana

  I set the letter down. Tears were streaming down my face. I wasn’t sure if it was Liliana or Helen who had made me weep, but the tears wouldn’t stop flowing. It was clear Liliana had gone mad and they must have burned her for a witch. It was a terrible story. I closed the book I had made of the love letters and curled up beside it in the bed. I was so tired, my eyelids pulled me down to sleep. I had three letters left to read as I drifted off to sleep.

  For the rest of the night, the ghosts at Thornfield Hall were quiet and I dreamt. In my dream, I found myself wandering alone through the ruins on Witching Hill. It was dark and there was a soft, steady rain that quickly soaked through my clothing and left me shivering. I wandered until I found a small room that still had the remnants of a roof and I built a fire. I was so cold that even the fire did nothing to warm me. Liliana was gone, but her old god emerged to greet me.

  Fear gripped me like it only can in dreams. In reality, I can measure my emotion, choose my response. In the dream I felt like death himself had my heart in his fist. The god wasn’t as I imagined. He wasn’t hideous. He was handsome. He was young and his face was kind. He had wild black hair and skin that was dark with the texture of wood. His flesh was covered in runes and his yellow eyes were luminous in the shadows. He smiled. The most shocking thing about him was the large ram’s horns that grew from his black hair. He didn’t wear a shirt and I could see he had the hooves of a goat. I don’t know why I knew he was Liliana’s old god. I just knew. I cowered in the corner, trying to hide myself in the shadows, but he saw me and there was no escape. I felt like I had felt when my foster mother locked me in that horrible room. I felt like the devil himself was smiling down on me and, somehow, I knew that the devil from my childhood and Liliana’s god were the same man.