The Mist on Bronte Moor

Chapter 24


The night is darkening round me,

The wild winds coldly blow;

But a tyrant spell has bound me

And I cannot, cannot go.

—E.J. Brontë





Tabby sat at the kitchen table holding a sharp-pointed knife. Five or six pale yellow apples lay sprawled in front of her. She plucked one from the table and began to skin it expertly. “Took his drawin’ paper n’ wen’ out. Said nowt when I tow’d ’im abowt Emily.”

He already knew about Emily, then.

“And he didn’t say anything about where he was going?” I tried to keep my voice steady.

“He said nowt,” Tabby answered gruffly.

“Charlotte asked me to find him,” I said by way of explanation.

“Tell Charlotte he’ll be back in time fer dinner. Always is. An’ she can come downstairs n’ help me with t’ pudding.”

“I’ll tell her,” I said, now eager to get away, “and I’ll come help, too. I only need a minute.” I scurried out of the room.

“There’s plenty o’ chores t’ be done now Emily’s ill,” Tabby called behind me.

I sprinted back down the hallway, pulled open the front door, flew down the front steps, across the garden, and out the iron gate. Then I stopped abruptly. Where was I going? Branwell could be anywhere. It would be risky for me to go out onto the moors alone. I might get lost. And the mist. The mist might carry me back.

I gazed into the cemetery, willing it to provide me with an answer. I could check the graveyard first and then the village. I hoped he hadn’t gone into the village because that could only mean two things—the druggist’s or the Black Bull. It was unlikely that he’d risk either of those things with his father in town; still it was hard to predict what Branwell would do.

I tramped through the graveyard in the direction of the church, unable to shake the feeling of doom that had taken root inside me, when I suddenly spotted Branwell’s carroty hair sticking up behind a gravestone. His hair blazed like the sun itself amongst the gray slabs of concrete. For a second, I forgot why I was looking for him and I raced forward.

Branwell sat with his back resting against a gravestone, his sketchpad on his lap, and his quill pen moving furiously across his paper. He whirled around at the sound of my running footsteps. The quill slipped from his grip. A long, blotchy ink line appeared across his page. Branwell tore the paper from his pad, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it at my feet.

“Don’t you know better than to come up behind someone like that?” he snapped.

I blinked, stunned by his harsh tone.

He dropped his head and started to toss something back and forth in his hands.

“Sorry,” I said, and stooped to pick up the crumpled paper.

He didn’t answer or turn around.

I waited, unsure what to do. The thing he was tossing back and forth landed on the ground, and he reached out and snatched it up again. But it was too late. I’d already seen it. A bottle of laudanum.

Anger engulfed me. “Did you take that from Emily’s room?”

“What if I did?”

“Damn it, Branwell!”

He turned his head, but not enough to actually face me. “You curse like the men in the Black Bull. It’s unbecoming.”

I ignored his comment. “Emily needs that. And you know it. How can you take her medicine?”

“She’ll get more. There’s plenty in the druggist’s and the doctor’s bag.”

“That’s not the point,” I said. “She’s been bitten by a wolf. What’s your excuse?”

That was the wrong thing to say. Branwell jumped up, grabbed my arm, and pulled me toward the church.

“Let go of me!” I said, trying to yank my arm back.

He spun around, still holding onto my arm. “You ask the question, but you really don’t want to know the answer, do you?

“What?” I glared at him.

He let go of my arm and strode toward the church.

I watched him go and stared at the wooden church door as it banged shut behind him. The wind picked up and blasted me with its cold chill. Tears pooled in my eyes. I didn’t understand Branwell. He was the most charming, sensitive, and brilliant person I’d ever met, but he had another side to him. He was like a magnificent sculpture that had been smashed and pieced back together, only with some parts missing so that he could never be quite whole again.

The piece of paper I’d picked up earlier still lay crumpled in my hand. I stared at it for a long time. Branwell had once sketched a picture of himself with a noose around his own neck, and now he had blotted himself out of a painting. What would this sketch contain? Did I want to know?

You ask the question, but you don’t really want to know the answer. His voice echoed in my mind.

I opened the paper and smoothed it out as best as I could. It wasn’t a sketch. He’d been writing something. The paper quivered as the wind tried to rip it out of my hands. I held it close to my face with both hands and tried to make out the words. Most of them were smudged, but one part was still readable, and from that I could tell it was a poem. I squinted at the words scrawled across the page.

“Declining o’er my sister’s bed—

My father’s stern eye dropt a tear

Upon the coffin resting there.

My mother lifted me to see

What might within that coffin be;

And, to this moment, I can feel

The voiceless gasp—the sickening chill—

With which I hid my whitened face

In the dear folds of her embrace;

For hardly dared I turn my head

Lest its wet eyes should view that bed.”

I lowered the paper. The funeral today. That little girl. Had she reminded Branwell of his dead sister? I hadn’t even asked.

I ran to the church, pushed open the door, and scanned the dark pews for Branwell. He was nowhere. I stepped inside and walked a few paces, my footsteps echoing in the silence. Then I spotted him hunched over on the floor. He must have heard me coming. I watched him, not needing an explanation for why he was on the floor. I knew he was visiting the graves of his mother and his two sisters.

I walked over, dropped down next to him, and laid the crumpled paper on the floor. I wanted him to know that I’d read it. That I understood.

“Branwell, I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know.”

He blinked at the paper. For a while he said nothing. Then he spoke in an aching voice. “She lifted me up for one last look. But I couldn’t do it. I saw Maria lying in her coffin and turned my head.”

“Who lifted you?” I asked.

“Aunt. She meant well. She only wanted me to say goodbye. But I—I couldn’t stand it.” He raised his eyes and gazed at the stone engraving bearing the names of his mother and sisters. “At first, she looked peaceful as if she slept. Then I noticed her ashen face and rigid body.” He squeezed his eyes shut.“There was no life in that body. It haunts me still.”

He clasped his head between his hands as if he could force the image of his dead sister from his mind.

“How old were you?”

“Eight.”

“And Charlotte and Emily did they—”

He shook his head. “They were away at school. Papa had not yet brought them home. And Anne was so young—only five. She didn’t know Maria as I did.”

“So you had no one.” I put my hand over his, desperate to offer some comfort, but he jerked his hand out from under mine.

“You should go,” he said, turning away from me.

“Go?” I asked, trying to keep the hurt out of my voice. “You want to be alone?”

He jumped to his feet. “I mean leave—this church, the parsonage, Haworth. Go back to London or wherever it is you came from.”

“I don’t think you mean that,” I said, getting up.

“Don’t you see?” He gestured to the graves. “We’re cursed. All of us. The whole Brontë family. Cursed. If you don’t want to die before your time, you’ll leave now and never come back.”

“Branwell,” I said, my hurt quickly becoming concern. “You’re not yourself. The things you’re saying—” I paused. “Did you take the laudanum? Is that what’s making you act this way?”

He grabbed my hand and slapped the unopened bottle of laudanum in it. Then he turned his back to me.

My fist closed around the small brown bottle, its glass cold against my skin. He hadn’t taken any. But I wished he had. At least then there would have been an explanation—an excuse for his stinging words.

I walked slowly down the pews, my heart heavy—not because of Branwell’s tirade, I knew he’d be back to his old self in no time, charming me and teasing his sisters—but because I couldn’t help him. I didn’t know how to piece him back together and make him whole again.

I reached the church door and pushed it open. A stream of light filtered inside. Before stepping out, I glanced at Branwell once more. He was hunched over, his forehead pressed against a stone pillar.

I couldn’t fix him. I didn’t think anyone could. But I couldn’t leave him either.