by Lena Coakley
“I begin to see why I married that woman,” Rogue said. “Well, Zamorna, are you with me or against me? Shall we forge a truce?”
Zamorna considered this, his sword still lowered. After a moment, he seemed to come to some steely resolution. “A truce. Yes. But not with you.” He turned to the crowd. “Genii! Wherever you are! For many years I have lived a charmed life, but now it seems you desire my end. If that is your final say, stay silent, and I will lift my sword against Rogue. He and I shall kill each other as is your will. But if there is some other path we might take, show yourselves now, and we shall find it together.” His eyes searched the crowd.
Charlotte hesitated. She saw that she was standing at a forked road. She could stay silent, or she could step forward. It came to her with perfect certainty that if she did nothing, her story would roll on, no matter what Rogue did. The two heroes would kill each other. The plot would stay in her hands. It would be a tale of bloodshed and meaningless death, but it would be hers. But if she tried to change things now, take the fork she hadn’t planned on, there was no telling where her story would end.
“Emily,” Charlotte said softly, putting a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “It’s me. It’s me who’s not ruthless enough.” Emily turned, her eyes wide.
Before Emily could stop her, Charlotte stepped forward. “I am here,” she called. “I am the fourth Genius.”
BRANWELL
YOU, BROTHER? YOU ARE . . . ONE OF THE Genii?”
Zamorna’s face was white with shock. Branwell had never seen him react in a way that wasn’t wooden, but now there was something more vivid about him than before, more real.
Charlotte came forward to stand in front of the two men. She was still Charles Wellesley, and her slight boy’s frame was dwarfed by Rogue’s bulk and by Zamorna’s willowy height, but she held her chin high. Branwell could only hope she had some plan, now that she had scuppered the previous one.
“Let me say . . . ,” she began, looking up at them, but Zamorna held up his hand.
“No!” The word echoed through the cathedral. “I want no words from you.”
“Seize this boy!” Rogue called to some of his men. “Quickly, now!”
Charlotte looked back to Branwell in panic as two of Rogue’s cutthroats grabbed her by the arms. “Zamorna!” she said. “I took you at your word. You said you wished to find some compromise—a second path!” The duke only turned away in distaste.
“She’s got no plan at all,” Branwell hissed.
“We should run,” Emily said, but it was too late.
“Over there,” Rogue called, pointing. “Lord Thornton and the girl in red—white—the one in plaits. They’re Genii as well.”
Peers turned to stare at Emily and Branwell, looks of fear or hatred on their faces. Branwell stood and tried to bolt up the aisle, but many hands reached out to stop him. In moments he and Emily had been half dragged, half pushed to the front of the cathedral. He saw that Charlotte was trying to turn up her palm and return home, but to no avail.
“What do you think?” Rogue said to Zamorna, his arms crossed. “Will we blink out of existence the moment we slit their throats? Even so, I’d say it’s worth it.”
Zamorna’s face was sad and stony. “There is a better punishment,” he said.
•••
There was rioting on the streets of Verdopolis. All around, Branwell could hear shouting and breaking glass. The three Brontës were being taken in a mob down a wide avenue that ran alongside the public park and led to the Tower of All Nations. It was a strange group: Verdopolitans still dressed in their coronation finery and cutthroats brandishing knives—people who under normal circumstances would have nothing to do with one another.
“The end times are upon us!” a drunken man cried at them from a park bench. He threw a bottle that crashed at Branwell’s feet, making him jump.
“This is terrible,” Charlotte said beside him. “Are we doing this?”
“I don’t know.” Branwell glanced at Emily on her other side. There was something quite disturbing about her dress. It seemed to be going scarlet again in places, but it was the scarlet of fresh blood, not fresh roses. She had been nowhere near Mary Henrietta, and yet she seemed to be stained, and she left a trail of blood and dead flowers as she walked.
“I believe we’re all making these things happen,” Branwell said. “All of us and none of us. Our characters, too, for all I know.”
Charlotte turned away with a deep frown. “Stop,” he heard her say as they walked. “Stop, stop, stop.” There was no effect.
Ahead of them the great tower loomed, and beyond it, small fires had broken out over the hillside. My city is coming to an end, Branwell thought, but above the hills the sky was strangely beautiful. The stars were bright as polished diamonds, and the twilight was a shade of indigo he’d only ever seen in Verdopolis.
I made that blue, he thought. I made this place. I will never write or paint anything to rival it. But even as the words came to him, he saw: This was a child’s world. He and Charlotte hadn’t even tried to make it like Africa. The flora was pure Yorkshire, with the exception of a few palm trees. And the buildings—cobbled together from maps of London and a few John Martin engravings. Still, he loved it. He loved it.
Ahead of them at the end of the avenue, a man with a bucket of paint began to deface the Tower of All Nations with graffiti. A riderless horse galloped by. Somewhere a child cried.
“Charlotte,” Branwell hissed. “This was your plan. Remember what you said about being strong willed and taking control of the plot?”
“You always said I kept too tight a rein on my stories,” she said. “Perhaps that’s why they didn’t breathe.”
“A little more rein might be required at this point.”
“We deserve whatever our characters do to us,” Emily said darkly, staring straight ahead. “For what we tried to do to them. For Castlereagh. For Mary Henrietta. For trying to kill our heroes.”
“Don’t say that!” Branwell said. “If you believe that, who knows what will happen!”
“Even if we don’t say it, I think we all feel it,” Charlotte said. She took him by the arm, looking up at him. Her eyes were ridiculously large and blue at the moment—Charles Wellesley’s eyes. The boy had always looked to Branwell as though he’d been painted by the worst kind of sentimentalist.
“Will you change into yourself, for the sake of reason?” he implored. “I’m tired of talking to a ten-year-old boy.”
“Yes, brother. Do turn back into your true self,” said a voice behind them.
Charlotte dropped Branwell’s arm and they separated immediately. He hadn’t thought Zamorna could hear.
“He always was a little too articulate for a ten-year-old,” Rogue said. “You should have realized.”
“Yes,” Zamorna said, “he was always present at the seminal events of my life—my great joys, my wretched lows. Strange I never wondered why.”
“What will you do to us?” Charlotte asked, not turning around. Branwell could hear the fear in her voice.
“What can you do to us?” Branwell said, trying to sound defiant. “We are the Genii.” He tried not to think of Anne’s burned fingers.
“The worst punishments are the ones we devise for ourselves,” Zamorna said.
Branwell didn’t know what this meant, but it gave him a sinking feeling all the same. The fires were bigger now. He saw that they would soon envelop the whole hillside. From the indigo sky a star fell. Then another. And then all the stars began to rain down—dazzling streaks of white light. Branwell remembered the time with Emily when he’d thought Armageddon was upon them. Then, he’d been terrified, but in reality, the end of the world was only terribly, terribly sad.
“Stop,” he pleaded to no one. “Stop.” They all trudged on.
The man who’d been painting graffiti on the Tower of All Nations was gone, but he’d left behind some words in red, dripping paint. They said: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. T
hese were the words that were written on the wall by the hand of God at Belshazzar’s feast. They meant: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting. Branwell was sure they were meant for him.
ANNE
ANNE SAT ON THE FLOOR OF THE CHILDREN’S study. She had taken up the secret floorboard, and all her brother’s and sister’s writings were laid out in orderly rows.
There is something I am missing, she thought.
She had tried ordering the papers by author, and then by date. Now they were ordered by character—a line of Rogue stories, a line of Zamorna stories, each going back in time to its beginning. Newer characters like Castlereagh had shorter rows. She had spent a good deal of time considering where a story with multiple characters should be placed. There was something here. She knew it. There was something in all this paper that would help her siblings and herself, but she didn’t know what it could be.
At the back of the cavity under the floor, Anne had found two flat boxes. She opened one now. Inside were twelve battered toy soldiers. She took one out, marveling that she remembered his name, could still distinguish him so easily from the rest, though to other eyes he might seem identical. It was Napoleon, Branwell’s favorite.
She pulled out the others, laying them with reverence on the floor. They had given the Brontës something precious, these little men. They had inspired some of Charlotte’s and Branwell’s earliest stories.
Here was Gravey, Anne’s favorite, so called because his face held a grave look. This one was Sneaky, because of his shifty eyes. This one was Butter Crashie, named for an unfortunate kitchen accident. And here was Charlotte’s favorite, the Duke of Wellington.
After a while Charlotte and Branwell hadn’t needed the little men for inspiration. In fact it became an embarrassment that many of their best characters could trace their lineage back to toy soldiers. Even Alexander Rogue, Anne now realized, had his beginnings in an English child’s notion of Napoleon, the wicked and fascinating villain.
Anne stood and set Napoleon at the top of the row of Rogue stories, the Duke of Wellington at the top of the Zamorna stories. Then she opened the second box, which held a set of ninepins. These had been the ladies, but the ribbons and carefully fashioned paper hats that had distinguished one from the other were all gone now, so Anne didn’t bother setting them out.
Still, she could see how the characters of Verdopolis had developed and changed from these humble beginnings. Some characters were really the same person, she realized. Mary Henrietta and Marion Hume were the same, she decided, and after some thought she put Zamorna’s wives and lovers together in one row.
“What am I missing?” she said aloud. “What am I . . . ?” She stopped.
“No. Who?”
There was a character who didn’t have a row. He was never the main character. He had no beginning as any soldier or nine-pin. He hadn’t grown and developed, but he had always been the same man with the same name. Since before Glasstown. Since the beginning. He was outside. Separate. It was as if . . .
It was as if the Brontës hadn’t made him.
“He was always there, watching us,” Anne said aloud. “The old fox.”
Two papers sat on the desk, writing themselves, Charlotte’s and Branwell’s, but they had long since become unreadable. The tiny handwriting had covered the margins and was now crossing the page lengthwise, words weaving through other words, tangling into knots. Still, Anne understood what her siblings were trying to do, and she knew it was a mistake.
“You are fighting the wrong enemy,” she murmured.
Anne sat down. Without any hesitation or ceremony, she held out her hand, palm up.
“Old Tom, Old Tom,” she said. “I wish to make a bargain.”
CHARLOTTE
CHARLOTTE HAD THOUGHT THEY WERE heading to the Tower of All Nations, but Zamorna stopped at a nondescript door along the avenue. The crowd behind them had grown. Many held lanterns, since night had fallen and even the stars were leaving the sky.
The building in front of Charlotte was identical to many others they had passed. She was sure she’d never set a story here. These places were simply pieces of stage setting for people to go by on their way to the tower. She was reminded of the white room she used to make for Emily and Anne. A blank. Something she’d never bothered to invest with any detail.
“I demand to know what you intend!” Branwell shouted. “You will not treat your gods in this manner!” Charlotte couldn’t help but love his puffed-up bravado at that moment.
Emily, in a dress that seemed to be drenched in gore, was staring at Rogue like a vengeful goddess, and she was having some effect. He tugged nervously at his hair and wouldn’t meet her gaze.
Zamorna moved to face the crowd, leaving the three Brontës to be held by Rogue’s cutthroats.
“None of us can truly understand the Genii,” he shouted. “None of us can imagine what they fear.”
“Drown ’em!” someone yelled.
“Burning oil!” shouted someone else. “They’ll fear that!”
Charlotte took hold of Branwell’s shoulder to steady herself. She searched the faces around her for kindness or sympathy, but found none, which seemed terribly unfair. I’ve loved you all, she wanted to tell them, but she was afraid this might be met with violence.
S’Death stood at the front of the mob, smiling fiendishly, clearly delighted by this turn of events. She amended her previous thought: She had never loved him. His grin widened as she caught his eye, and he seemed about to say something, but then he cocked his head. Had someone called his name? The complete shift in his attention reminded her of Snowflake when he heard a mouse in the grass. A moment later he was speeding off down the street, and Charlotte found herself glad he wouldn’t be there to witness her end—whatever that end might be.
“Beyond this door is the worst place that the Genii can imagine,” Zamorna said.
“And where’s that, exactly?” asked Rogue, who was standing a bit to the side, arms crossed, out of the path of Emily’s dagger stare.
Zamorna smiled grimly. “No idea.”
Charlotte began to understand.
“Why, Duke, that is clever,” Rogue said.
“Don’t think, Charlotte,” Branwell hissed beside her. “Don’t think about anything.”
But the worst place Charlotte could imagine was already taking shape in her mind.
“Don’t,” she pleaded. “Don’t make me go in there.”
“Were you laughing at me all these years, brother?” Zamorna asked, his face lined with sorrow. “Was I your clown, my trials and tribulations nothing but entertainment?” His famous basilisk eyes seemed to sear into her. She noticed he still had a white rose petal caught in his hair from the coronation, and she longed to reach out and brush it away.
“It was my favorite thing,” she said, “my very favorite thing, to forget myself with you, to be completely lost in the scene.”
“May you be lost again,” he said. He turned the knob of the door and pushed it open. Rogue stepped up and took her roughly by the arm.
“She went through the door and found nothing unusual inside,” Charlotte said, her voice high and tight as she was pushed toward the door. “Only an empty room. Only an empty room.”
“It’s too late,” she heard Emily say behind her, voice bleak. “We all know what’s in there.”
“Charlotte!” someone said in her ear. “Charlotte, can you hear me?”
She turned, but no one was there. It was cold, so cold that she could see her breath in front of her, and she shivered in her thin frock and pinafore. She was eight years old, standing in a long room with a low ceiling, and she was very hungry. In front of her, rows of neatly made beds lined the walls—neatly made except for one.
“Maria,” she cried, running over. “Maria, get up!”
With difficulty, Charlotte’s eleven-year-old sister raised herself to a sitting position. “Hello, dear one. Is it morning?”
“You know it is, Maria
. All three bells have gone. You must get dressed.” Charlotte pulled the sheet away from her sister’s body.
“Please, dear. I’m too ill,” Maria said, drawing it up again.
Charlotte glanced over her shoulder. “For heaven’s sake, Maria. Don’t do this again. You can’t be sick—your cheeks are too rosy.”
But Maria lay back down, and Charlotte let out a little moan of frustration. At home Maria had been considered very capable; she could read at four, recite poetry at six, and speak French at eight. It wasn’t until they came to school that Charlotte began to see her many flaws. She was always being scolded for her untidiness and her poor spelling and her unladylike handwriting. All the accomplishments Papa had praised her for seemed unimportant to the teachers at Clergy Daughters’. In fact, Maria was by far the most unsatisfactory student here.
“Please,” Charlotte said. “We shall all be punished for your laziness if you do not get up, and I’m so hungry.”
“Tell Miss Evans that I am ill,” Maria said. “She is kind. She will understand.”
Charlotte began to tear up now. Miss Evans might be kind, but she had little authority over the other teachers. “I can’t believe how selfish you are! You know I couldn’t eat the beef last night because it was spoiled, and if we are punished this morning, it will mean no breakfast!”
Maria sighed. “Hush,” she said. She sat up again and slowly, very slowly, swung her legs over the edge of the bed. “I’m getting up. See?” She sat for a moment breathing heavily. “And you will have my porridge this morning. If you share it with Emily.”
“Emily doesn’t need it,” Charlotte said with disgust. Emily was the youngest at the school and so pretty with her curls and turned-up nose—the school pet. If she asked Cook for more porridge, she would probably get it. If Charlotte asked, she’d get her hand smacked for greediness.