The Mist on Bronte Moor (6 page)

I
jumped at the sound of Aunt Branwell’s Bible snapping shut. Still stunned by the date on the newspaper, my eyes followed the black silk collar that crept all the way up Aunt Branwell’s neck and came to rest on its frilly lace trim that fanned around her face. My gaze dropped to her old-fashioned silk dress. I turned to Emily, Charlotte, and Anne and studied them with fresh eyes. They definitely looked like they belonged in the nineteenth century.

“Does your aunt collect old newspapers and magazines?” I asked Emily as we left Aunt Branwell’s room.

Emily shrugged. “She subscribes to
Fraser’s Magazine
and keeps copies for us to read.”

“Well, there’s a newspaper in her room dated 1832. Do you know about that? It’s lying on her floor. Don’t you think that’s a bit odd? I mean, it must be really rare.”

Emily narrowed her eyes. “1832?”

“Yes, its headlines said something about The Reform Bill.”

“Oh.” Emily nodded as if it all made sense. “The Reform Bill finally passed last year. It caused quite a stir in our house, what with Papa and Branwell supporting the Bill and Charlotte sticking by The Duke of Wellington as she always does. It’s no wonder Aunt kept the paper.”

“Last year?” I said, with a nervous laugh. “That’s impossible. If last year was 1832 then this year would be—” I paused, not wanting to say the date out loud; it was too ridiculous.

“1833?” Emily cocked her head.

“Very funny,” I said.

My stomach lurched, and I stumbled forward and leaned against the banister for support.

“Are you feeling ill?” She touched my arm.

I didn’t respond. My mind was too busy reeling. The Duke of Wellington? 1833? This had to be a trick. Maybe Bridget Beckman and her snotty crowd had found out I’d come to Yorkshire and had set me up. I jerked upright. That was it! They were probably filming me right now and having a good laugh. I bet they were going to post it on YouTube. That girl would do anything to make me look bad in front of Simon.

“Heather.” Emily shook my arm.

I spun around, my chest so tight I was barely able to breathe.

“Heather, what’s the matter. Are you ill?” she asked.

My mind whirled. There was no way I was going to hang about and let Bridget make a fool of me. I’d had enough. I rushed to the staircase in a fury and leapt down the stairs, two at a time.

“Heather, stop.” Emily’s voice sounded behind me.

It was too late. My stockinged feet glided on the stone, and I tumbled head-first down the stairs.

“Trouble.” The voice sounded distant. “That’s what you get when you invite strangers into your home.”

A searing pain pierced my forehead. My body stiffened, and my eyelids flew open. Tabby leaned over me; her hand pressed against my head. The pressure was so intense that I was sure my brain would burst. I clenched my teeth. Something tugged at my skin. I squirmed.

“Tha’ should do it.” Tabby moved away from me. “Three’s all she needs.”

I blinked several times to clear the blur from my eyes. Tabby held a bloody needle in one hand and small scissors in the other. Panic gripped my mind. I tried to lift my head. It exploded in pain, and I dropped back onto the pillow. The room spun.

Had Tabby stitched me with her sewing kit?

“A gypsy. Nothing more than a gypsy.” Aunt Branwell’s voice floated past me.

I struggled to get up again, but my heavy, exhausted body and throbbing head dragged me back down.

“Trouble.” Aunt Branwell’s voice warned. “That’s what gypsies bring. Trouble.”

Tabby shoved a glass bottle between my lips. “Drink. ’Twill mek ya betta.”

Thick drops of gooey liquid splashed onto my tongue. A bitter sensation spread across my mouth, down my throat, and into my nose. I gagged and struggled against Tabby’s grip.

“Swallow.” Tabby’s strong hand forced my jaw shut as the vile liquid trickled down my throat.

My body became limp.The bitterness and pain vanished, and I lay on the bed not caring to move. A swirl of colors and faces drifted past me. I giggled, feeling happier than I’d ever felt before.

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remembered was opening my eyes to a bright light shining in my face. I blinked and sat up. A stark room, filled with hundreds of bottles bubbling over with colorful potions, stretched before me. A few feet away, a man in a white coat hunched over a long, steel table. Next to him lay an array of sharp knives, syringes, and reels of cotton. I narrowed my eyes, more curious than afraid.

“Who are you?” I asked.

The man spun around. Blood streaked the front of his coat. “My beauty,” he said, stretching out his arms.

I shrank back. “What do you want?”

The man grinned. “I am your creator,” he said. “Dr. Frankenstein.”

A mirror appeared in my hand. Slowly, I brought it up to my face. My beanie had been removed, and my bald head and face were covered in a mass of giant X-shaped stitches and ragged scars. I opened my stitched mouth and screamed.

“Heather.”

Someone shook me.

“Heather, wake up.”

I opened my eyes and gasped.

“It’s all right.”

I blinked, and Emily’s face came into focus.

“I think you were having a nightmare,” she said.

I breathed deeply and licked my dry lips. A fierce gnawing in my stomach had replaced the pain in my forehead.

“Are you able to get out of bed?” Emily asked. “We’re about to have tea.”

“What?” My forehead felt tight.

“I heard your stomach cry out.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Since yesterday. You fell down the stairs and cut your head. You gave us an awful fright; there was blood everywhere. But not to worry; Tabby fixed it for you. You’ll be fine now.”

“Since yesterday?” I struggled to sit up. My head screamed in protest, and I lowered my body again. “I need to get home.”

“You shan’t go anywhere today,” Emily said.

I stared at her. Everything came flooding back.

“The newspaper,” I murmured. “From 1832.”

“You remember, well.” Emily’s face brightened. “That’s a good sign after a blow to the head.”

My body jerked.
This really is 1833. If it had all been a trick or a bad joke, it would have ended by now. Emily’s right. I’m not going home—not today—not ever.

“Tabby fixed you up quite nicely.” Emily held out a small mirror. “Do you want to see?”

I stared at the ceiling in silence. My mind raced.
I should be happy. I’d wanted to disappear. Now I’ll never have to face Simon, Bridget, Deena, or anyone else again
. I tensed.
Mum and Dad. I’ll never see them again either.

“Heather.” Emily pushed the mirror toward me.

My head spun. I was stuck in the nineteenth century without my family, and I still had alopecia.

“Heather.” Emily nudged me. “Are you all right?”

I took the mirror from Emily and steeled myself before holding it up to my face. I could only imagine the damage Tabby had done with her sewing needle.

I almost laughed aloud with relief when I saw a crude but short row of black stitches zigzagged across the very top of my forehead. It was ugly and would definitely leave a scar, but it was small and could easily be covered by my beanie.

“I look like Harry Potter,” I said.

“Who?” Emily asked.

“No one,” I said.

As in my nightmare, my beanie had been removed. Gingerly, I reached up and stroked my wispy hair. I still couldn’t get used to the disappearance of my thick curls, but for the first time, I was grateful to see there was still hair on my head.

“Are you able to get up?” Emily asked.

“I think so.” I pushed myself up and swung my legs out of the bed. A wave of dizziness almost sent me crashing back down, but I managed to steady myself with my hands.

“Have you seen my beanie?” I asked, half fearful she would say it had been burned like the rest of my clothing.

Emily frowned.

“My hat,” I said, realizing the word beanie didn’t exist in the nineteenth century.

“Oh.” Her face relaxed. “It’s on the dresser.” She pointed to where it lay. “It came off as you tumbled down the stairs before you hit the floor, which was quite lucky, or it would be covered in blood.” She shrugged. “Not so for the dress.”

“I’m really sorry.” I grabbed my beanie and pulled it over my head, wincing as it touched my still fresh stitches.

We drank tea and ate bread, butter, and apple pudding next to the kitchen fire. Outside, the wind howled like an injured wolf—a sharp reminder of my dependency on Mr. Brontë’s generosity. I shuddered at the sound of it.

After tea, I followed the others into the dining room where Mr. Brontë waited beside the fire. He sat upright in his chair and scanned the pages of an open book in his hands. Unlike the other rooms in the house, a carpet covered the floor. Charlotte and Anne made themselves comfortable on chairs surrounding a square table and stretched out their stockinged feet toward the fire.

Emily plunked herself on a black sofa. The second she sat down, Grasper scampered into the room and jumped up next to her. I settled beside Emily and was surprised when Branwell squeezed in next to me.

“Will you oblige us by reading Sir Walter Scott tonight?” Charlotte eyed the worn, leather-bound book in her father’s hands.

“Milton.” Mr. Brontë held up the book, his eyes shining behind his round glasses.

“You are already familiar with
Paradise Lost,
but I wanted—”

“Familiar?” Branwell interrupted. “I can recite the beginning by heart.”

“So can I,” Charlotte said quickly.

Mr. Brontë beamed at his son. “One can never read Milton too many times.” He cleared his throat and began:

“Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe
With loss of Eden . . .”

I slumped into the sofa. Not more Adam and Eve! Was I doomed to spend the rest of my life listening to Bible stories?

“Th’ infernal serpent; he it was, whose guile,
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind, what time his pride
Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host
Of rebel angels . . .”

I stifled a yawn. My mind wandered.

“. . . now the thought
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain
Torments him . . .”

I sat up and listened. The story had taken an interesting turn.

“At once, as far as angels ken, he views
The dismal situation waste and wild:
A dungeon horrible, on all sides round
As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe . . .”

There was Satan with his army of fallen angels banished forever—trapped without hope in a place of eternal darkness and pain. It didn’t seem right. What had he done that was so bad anyway? It was Eve who’d eaten the apple.

“O how unlike the place from whence they fell!” Mr. Brontë read.

I blinked, the words resonating in my mind. I saw myself on the dark moors, surrounded by a thick fog, cast out and rejected—first by Simon and then by my world. The same way my body had rejected its own hair.

E
arly the next morning, a single gunshot fractured the silence, jolting me out of my sleep. My eyelids flew open. Darkness filled my vision, and then a flame lightened the room. I jerked my head in its direction. Emily, already washed and dressed for the day, walked toward me holding a candle.

I sat up.

“You look as though the grim reaper himself has paid you a visit,” Emily said.

“What?”

“The grim reaper,” she repeated. “Death.”

“Is someone dead?” I gaped at her. “I thought I heard a gunshot.”

“Oh that,” Emily said. “That’s only Papa firing his pistol out the window. He does it every morning.”

“Why?” I asked.

She yawned. “He loads it before bed every night for protection and must empty its chamber when he wakes.”

I narrowed my eyes.
Protection from what, exactly?

“Where’s Charlotte?” I glanced at Charlotte’s empty bed. “And why are you already dressed when it’s still dark out?”

Emily put the glass candle holder on top of her dresser and pulled open one of the drawers. “Charlotte’s downstairs helping Tabby prepare for Papa’s departure. He’s leaving directly for Leeds. That’s why we’re up extra early this morning.”

I glanced out the window at the black sky, grateful to know that they didn’t wake up before sunrise every morning.

Emily picked out a navy blue dress, smoothed it with her hands, and passed it to me along with a stiff petticoat.

I shivered as I stepped out of bed onto the bare floor. I hated winter. My teeth chattered like a wind-up toy as I slipped off my nightgown and squeezed into the petticoat, silk dress, and a pair of black stockings that Emily had selected from another drawer.

We went downstairs, barely able to see with only a flicker of light from the candle. To my surprise, instead of going to breakfast, we went straight to Mr. Brontë’s study.

“Why are we here?” I whispered to Emily.

She appeared shocked for a second and then said, “For prayers. We say them every morning.”

“Of course,” I said, pretending that prayers had simply slipped my mind.

I shuffled behind Emily into Mr. Brontë’s study. As it happened, morning prayers were relatively short. When they were finished, Mr. Brontë said his goodbyes and left for Leeds.

“Do not fret,” he reassured me before leaving the house, “I shall find your aunt on my return.”