Worlds of Ink and Shadow

by Lena Coakley

  “I’m sorry,” he said, tears smarting his eyes. “I do wish I’d known you better.”

  Elizabeth was rifling through his paint box on the floor. Some of his mixed pigments had been preserved in glass cylinders for later use, and he saw her open a cylinder and cover a brush with dark paint.

  “What are you doing?”

  Without a word, Elizabeth went to the group portrait and began to paint with long vertical strokes.

  “Stop!” He ran to her, but it was too late.

  “It’s better this way,” Elizabeth said without turning around. She was covering him up, painting him out of the picture.

  “I suppose . . . it is.”

  He should have seen it before. Without his own figure, the painting of the three girls looked well balanced and well executed. Without him, the painting was complete. Elizabeth turned and handed him the brush.

  “If history remembers you for anything at all, it will be for being Charlotte Brontë’s brother.”

  He gasped, stung by the words, but it was odd that as soon as he heard them, he knew they were true. Like a prophecy. Like a curse. After a moment, they made him feel . . . relieved.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Branwell went back to his desk and took out a bottle of ink and a sheet of paper. He began to write.

  CHARLOTTE

  EMILY WAS AWAKE WHEN CHARLOTTE RETURNED. She was sitting up in bed, holding her knees, eyes shining in the candle’s light. “Listen to the wind,” she said. “Open the window, Charlotte.” At that moment, a gust shook the house, making the windowpanes rattle in their casings.

  “What! I’ll do no such thing, Emily Brontë.” Charlotte blew out the candle and climbed back into bed. “Open t’ window, the girl says, when the whole house is a’wuthering!” Charlotte and Emily both giggled at this imitation of Tabby’s Yorkshire dialect.

  In the dimness, Emily’s moon-white face seemed to have a faint light of its own. How pretty she was, Charlotte thought, even with her hair a mess and her nightdress slipping off her shoulder. At other times she might have felt envy, but not tonight. Tonight all she felt was a wave of love for her odd, wild younger sister. Whatever happened to Charlotte and Branwell, at least Anne and Emily had been spared their fate. That was something to be grateful for.

  “Go back to sleep, my dear,” she said, but as they lay back down, Charlotte knew that sleep was far away. Fear was pressing on her. Fear for herself and for her brother. Fear for what would come next. Branwell had said that Old Tom’s harassment would grow worse, but how much worse? Would she hear things and see things all her life? Would she end her days in a madhouse, or locked in an attic somewhere, unable to tell the difference between fantasy and reality?

  “Do you remember our bed plays?” Emily asked.

  “In the Happy Village? Of course.”

  When they were little, Charlotte would sometimes cross them over to a secret world that Branwell and Anne knew nothing about. At bedtime, she would whisper stories into Emily’s ear. One minute they would be lying sleepily in each other’s arms. Then Charlotte would make the smallest movement with her hand, just the suggestion of holding out her palm, and the next minute they would be falling through fluttering white sheets, down and down until they reached a funny little village populated only by fat babies.

  This was around the time that Charlotte and Branwell were founding Glasstown, so during the day there were wars raging and political intrigues brewing and love affairs smoldering, but at night, in the Happy Village, nothing very dramatic ever happened. There was a fat baby mayor and a fat baby dressmaker and a teashop where all the fat babies gathered to eat their bread and jam. They needed a lot of attention, these babies; Charlotte and Emily were often in demand to solve their disputes and dry their tears and change them in and out of their fine baby clothes. Now that she thought about it, it was a ridiculous place—Branwell would have teased her mercilessly had he known about it—but nothing bad could ever touch them there.

  “I wonder what happened to all our baby friends,” Emily said.

  “It’s not as if the worlds go on without us when we’re not there.”

  “Don’t they?”

  Charlotte thought of dozens of abandoned babies growing sullen and resentful in her absence, hoarse from crying, tracks of dried tears on their stony faces. “What a horrid thought.”

  “Oh, I expect they’ve simply gone to sleep,” Emily said. But that was too much like dying for Charlotte’s taste. The wind picked up, wailing mournfully. “Or perhaps that’s them now, crying on the wind.”

  Charlotte shivered in her bed. “Don’t. It’s too morbid.” The howling grew louder, human but inhuman. Something wild calling for its lost mate. “Besides, it sounds more like a wolf to me.”

  Emily said nothing to this at first. After a while, Charlotte began to wonder if she’d drifted off, though it seemed impossible, with the wind so fierce. “That’s not a wolf,” Emily finally said. “It’s a gytrash.”

  Charlotte froze, remembering the stories Tabby used to tell about the black dog with glowing eyes that roamed the moors.

  “Open the window, Charlotte.” Emily’s voice had a pleading tone, like the pleading of the wind. “I want to hear him better, but I don’t want him to see me. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.”

  Charlotte’s mouth went dry. She knew it was nonsense, but she had the most illogical feeling that if she did go to the window, all her worry, all her dread, would coalesce into some black and threatening thing, howling up at them from the ground below. Another great gust battered the house, and Emily threw off the covers.

  “Don’t!” Charlotte grabbed her sister’s wrist, but Emily pulled away and got out of bed. For a moment, Charlotte was afraid to follow, afraid of what she would see. Emily stood at the window, looking down. Charlotte rose from the bed and joined her.

  And then she saw it, just beyond the stone wall, eyes red as coals. The black dog. Charlotte felt the horror of it through her body. It shouldn’t be real. It shouldn’t be in their world.

  “I knew he’d come,” Emily said.

  Charlotte couldn’t take her eyes from the dark thing below. It opened its jaws impossibly wide, letting loose a bloodcurdling howl. She gasped. So much seemed to be contained in that sound—anger, longing, sorrow—that she took a step back, but Emily pressed herself even closer against the window glass.

  A chill traveled the length of Charlotte’s spine. There is something a little pagan about Emily, she found herself thinking. If Emily had lived a thousand years ago, she might have poured out blood onto an ancient altar and been buried in a grave of heather and thistle, and her ear never would have missed hearing the word of God.

  But then her sister turned to her with wide eyes, looking very young and lost, and Charlotte chastised herself for thinking Emily Brontë was anything but a good parson’s daughter.

  “It’s Rogue. He’s crossed over to find me.”

  “No.” Charlotte’s heart twisted as the realization dawned on her. “No, you foolish girl. That is one of Old Tom’s minions, if I ever saw one. Have you made a bargain? Have you made a world and left it without my even knowing?”

  Emily turned back to the window. “I’ll tame you yet, old dog,” she said. “I’ll put a collar around your neck. Go and bite someone else.” The eyes of the gytrash seemed to glow brighter for a moment, then it turned silently and leapt away.

  “Please, Emily,” Charlotte begged. “This is a mistake, isn’t it? I’ve worked so hard to keep you safe. It’s . . . It’s . . .”

  Emily didn’t look at her. “I should have listened. I’m afraid I have been very wicked.”

  “Wicked?” Charlotte hissed, taking Emily by the arm and pulling her around. “Stealing currants from the kitchen is wicked! Letting one’s mind wander in church is wicked! This is evil, Emily. It is unconscionable. It’s . . .”

  Charlotte fell to her knees, and a strangled cry rose from her throat, as full of sorrow as any
wolf’s howling.

  EMILY

  CHARLOTTE, GET UP!” EMILY CRIED. HER SISTER was on her knees with her hands pressed over her face. “Are you ill?”

  Charlotte lifted her head. “I’m trying to prevent myself from slapping you! From throwing you out this window!”

  Emily backed away. She had never seen her sister so distraught. Not Charlotte. Not the girl who made such tiny perfect stitches, who never slept late in the morning, who never had a hair out of place.

  “Wake Branwell,” Charlotte ordered. “Now. We must discuss this.”

  Emily nodded and dashed out into the hall. There was no answer at her brother’s door. She opened it and saw a candle burning on the desk, but no Branwell.

  “He’s not in his room,” she said upon her return.

  Charlotte had lit a candle of her own and was standing at the washbasin, wiping her face with a cloth. She swore, and Emily gave a little start. Branwell swore often—mostly to shock them, Emily believed—but Charlotte never did.

  “He must still be downstairs,” she said, taking up the candle. “Follow me.” Her brusque tone was somewhat reassuring. Emily had often wished her older sister would be more passionate, but now she only wanted her to be herself again. She fetched the other candle from Branwell’s room and followed her down the stairs.

  “He’s been at the beer,” Charlotte warned, opening the door of the dining room. “Pray he’s not drunk.”

  The room was dark, but as they entered, the yellow glow of the candles illuminated a body curled up on the sofa, covered by a red blanket.

  “Branwell Brontë,” Charlotte said sharply. “Wake up.” She turned to Emily. “Pick up the bottles, please. There are at least two.”

  Emily got down on her hands and knees to peer under the furniture. She saw Branwell’s blanket and a pair of bare feet hit the floor. Charlotte screeched.

  “Oh!” cried Emily, scrambling away on her knees.

  The person who had arisen from the sofa was not their brother. It was a woman. In the dimness, Emily couldn’t make out the details of her face, but her dress was torn and dirty, and a mass of matted hair fell down her back. Emily’s first thought was that some lunatic had taken refuge from the storm in their dining room, but then the woman opened her mouth and began to laugh. There was something preternatural in the sound, something not of this world. It seemed to mix with the wild wind that screamed and sang outside.

  Charlotte shrank away, candle shaking in her hand. Emily wanted to go to her, but fear froze her to the spot.

  “Get back,” Charlotte said. “Begone!”

  “Sister,” the woman replied, her voice laced with false sweetness, “do not cast me out into the cold.” She raised her arms to Charlotte as if for an embrace.

  “You are no sister of mine.”

  “Don’t you know me?” She stepped forward as Charlotte backed away across the floor. “I am Maria. This is what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it? I lived. I am grown to womanhood.”

  “No!” Charlotte’s voice was high with fear. Emily’s eyes darted back and forth between the two. “My sister is in heaven.”

  The woman laughed again. Emily tried to think why the sound filled her with such dread. It made her want to run to the safest place she knew—but the safest place Emily knew was her own bed, with Charlotte beside her.

  “What did you think it was like to be haunted?” The woman dropped her too-sweet tone, her voice thick with anger now. “Did you think I would wear white and float by your window?” She was much taller than Charlotte, and she seemed to loom over her, over the whole room.

  Charlotte was visibly shaking, but she took a step forward. Emily was impressed with her bravery. “You are not a ghost. You are not my Maria. You are some creature of Old Tom’s. He has created you to plague me.”

  “You created me,” the woman insisted, and her tone was so firm it seemed to brook no argument.

  “Go up to your room, Emily,” Charlotte snapped, but Emily stayed where she was, staring at the strange apparition.

  Then her curiosity overtook her fear, and she stood, leaving her candle on the floor. The woman had called herself Maria, but was this their sister’s face? It was so gaunt and misshapen, so sallow in the flickering light—and yet it was familiar. Her unkempt hair was the same chestnut shade as Anne’s, and her eyes, though lit with madness, were gray like Charlotte’s.

  Charlotte edged protectively in front of Emily. “I know what you want, creature. You want to hound me back to Verdopolis—but I shan’t cross over.”

  “Insipid place, Verdopolis,” the woman said. “I prefer to be with you.” She grinned widely, showing yellowed teeth. “In the bosom of my family.”

  “I tell you, you are not my family! Maria was a shining girl, a sweet and mild and brilliant girl.” Charlotte’s voice quavered, but she pressed on. “If she had lived, she would be nothing like you. She would be happy. She would be married.”

  “But, Charlotte, my dear, I am married. To Zamorna.”

  Charlotte frowned and raised her candle to peer at the woman more closely. “Ridiculous. Make up your mind. Are you my sister or my heroine?”

  “You made me live again in Verdopolis, but only half of me.”

  Emily saw it now. The resemblance to Mary Henrietta Wellesley. This woman had looked familiar not because she reminded Emily of her eldest sister—whom she could barely picture—but because she was like some horrible, twisted version of Charlotte’s duchess.

  Maria—if Maria it was—held out her arms and made a parody of a fine lady’s curtsy. “When I return to Verdopolis, this self will be nothing but a fading nightmare. I shall wear my pretty clothes. I shall sigh.” Maria put the back of her hand on her forehead. “I shall face my troubles with insufferable forbearance.” She stepped toward Charlotte again. “But I will know in my bones that a part of me is missing.” She jabbed Charlotte in the shoulder with a dirty finger. “There is no room for imperfection in Verdopolis—but where do you think we go, all the imperfections that you squirrel away? Down to the basement?” She jabbed Charlotte again. “Up to the attic? We are knocking, sister. Let us out!”

  Charlotte had backed up into Emily, and Maria began to circle around them both, the candle on the floor casting strange shadows on her face.

  “Emily, go to your room,” Charlotte said again.

  “You have made a prison for me in Verdopolis, but I have no blood there.” Maria’s voice was choked with resentment. “There is nothing under my skirt! That’s not truth. That’s not life. No wonder I can never coax a spark out of Zamorna.”

  “Stop it!” Charlotte cried. She was hanging onto Emily’s shoulder as if she needed it to keep her standing.

  “Why are none of Zamorna’s wives angry at his infidelities?” Maria said, close enough for Emily to smell her sour breath. “Wouldn’t you be angry, sisters? Wouldn’t you want to stab him in the throat with a pair of scissors?”

  “Emily!” Charlotte said into her ear. “I am telling you for the last time. Please go to your room.”

  “I won’t leave you with her!” Emily hissed.

  Maria turned abruptly and sat on one of the dining chairs, her knees pulled up and her calves showing. Now Emily could see how thin she was—a frail creature lit with rage. Her feet were black with dirt.

  “Let me tell you the worst part,” Maria said, lowering her voice. “The unforgivable part. Come closer.” She beckoned to Emily with a crooked finger, and Emily did take a step, though she was aware of Charlotte behind her, trying to hold her back.

  “When Charlotte is done with her heroines,” Maria said, picking idly at a scab on the top of her foot, “when she is done with us, she lets us waste away on velvet sofas, dabbing at our brows with silken handkerchiefs”—she looked up—“and yet she knows better. I wasted away, and it was not so pretty.”

  “Emily, look away from it, please,” Charlotte said behind her. Her voice sounded weak and breathy. “Be careful.”

  �
�She’s not an ‘it.’” Emily couldn’t help but give the person before her the same pity she would give an injured animal.

  “How dare she?” Maria’s voice was piteous now, though full of madness still, and her eyes were full of pain. “How dare she make my death ethereal and touching? Death is an ugly thing. How could she make it . . . presentable?”

  Emily stepped forward again. “She knows better now, my dear.” She tried to make her voice calm and soothing. “You must forgive her. You must leave us.”

  Maria smiled, and Emily suddenly knew how foolish she had been to get so close. A hand flew out and caught her by the wrist. “Where shall I go?” Maria said, her fingernails digging deep into Emily’s wrist. “Charlotte has made no other place for me.”

  Emily pulled away, creating an angry scratch across her forearm. Maria threw back her head again. “Ha . . . ha . . . ha . . .” A slow, mirthless sound, hardly a laugh at all.

  “Help me,” Charlotte whispered.

  Emily wheeled around to see her sister teeter and sway, then collapse onto the floor.

  “Charlotte!”

  Emily knelt and took her sister by the hand, but Charlotte’s face was slack. She had fainted. When Emily glanced up, Maria’s chair was empty. Without Charlotte’s mind to create her, she was gone.

  BRANWELL

  AGROUP OF MEN—FLASHMEN, THIEVES, AND other unwholesome sorts—lounged by the entrance of the Elysium Club, playing games of dice on upturned barrels. Their presence wasn’t unusual—wealthy members of the club often had need of such men when there were dark errands to be run—but the way they all looked up when he passed and followed him with their eyes made Branwell uneasy.

  Inside, the secret meeting rooms looked seedier somehow. Tarnished. The velvet curtains were dingy with tobacco smoke. The mirrored bar no longer gleamed. Branwell assumed this was his mood coloring the story. At the back of the room, Rogue sat at his usual table with S’Death and Zamorna’s young friend, the Viscount Castlereagh. The three had obviously been playing cards, but the game was over now. As Branwell drew closer, he saw that S’Death was tallying numbers in his little black book. The viscount looked on nervously, cheeks flushed with too much wine.