(#Twenty-five: Scholarship) Wuthering Nights: Inspired by Wuthering Heights

Chapter Twenty-five

Scholarship - Present Day

    Slowly, Katarina and Hinton became friends.

    When Katarina arrived at Hareton Hall at nine in the morning to help Hinton revise his written applications for the Art prize, she felt a pool of excitement in the pit of her stomach. She could hardly wait to see him again. Hinton had confided in her that he thought his written skills were lacking and Katarina had offered to help him present, “the best possible version of himself”, as she put it. He had readily accepted and together they made a first draft.

   The Hall, once the grandest of houses, had creeping plants growing from its foundations now, as if it were slowly crumbling from the inside. Over the past few months, the wiring needed fixing, the swimming pool had grown thick with leaves, the tennis court was left untended and the stables were nearly empty. The owner had become more and more reclusive.

    Hinton didn’t want to tell her why he’d felt a desire stronger than any natural one to drink blood. It was a one in ten thousand possibility, according to Heath’s specialist, but somehow his condition matched that of his adopted parent.  A trace had been done and it seemed somehow Hinton and Heath shared the same affliction.

     Their lineage, a distant, improbable vampire link, was not all they had in common. Hinton and Heath shared a desire to feed, a fear of the sunlight and their own fading images in mirrors. Heath’s was now an outline and soon there would be nothing.  Today, Hinton’s image in the hallway mirror had dulled considerably. Instead of a medallion, Hinton wore a signet ring that Heath had given him when he was small, to protect him from the sun. Hinton resolved not to focus on the negatives of his condition.

    The winner of the scholarship was due to receive an apartment and a small stipend abroad. Prague would be darker and rainier than many places and Hinton quite liked the idea of that kind of weather, for obvious reasons. He wanted to get away. Still, only one person from the whole college would be chosen on the strength of their exhibit.

     Katarina had insisted on taking him in her new car for lunch in Hampstead High Street. Her father had bought the car for her as a bribe for choosing to study in London instead of travelling far from home. Previously, the thought of Katarina leaving him was something her loving father had found nearly impossible to bear. Katarina, having recently turned eighteen, was experiencing a freedom she had longed for after passing her driving test. The girl was yet to tell her father that she had become friendly with Heath, Linus and Hinton.  That was an “off limits” conversation.

    It was a beautiful day, rare and summery, like the ones her father had told her about when she was first born. In those days, when she was a child, she vaguely remembered her young mother taking her to Hampstead Heath for picnics. Her studious father would hold her hand, walk her across the road and teach her to ride. When she was old enough she rode park trails on her pony and later, her horse. By the time she was a teenager, she’d become an expert, riding properly in various events on Hero’s Daughter.

     When Katarina asked about her mother’s family, all her father told her was that he’d never been fond of Heath as a child. He grew up with nannies and in boarding schools as men of his class and in his generation did but repeatedly told Katarina he loved her - something his own family had never said to him. Katarina knew this was true and that he meant well. He had tried not to burden her with this now adult concept of his quiet, contained, isolated youth but one day he told his daughter something that surprised her.

    ‘I never saw my parents show any affection to one another,’ he told Katarina when they were out riding together.

    ‘Something of an overshare, Papa,’ she’d replied.

     Katarina realised how different her upbringing had been from her father’s.

      How strange and quiet the heath had become in winter, her father thought, when he first bundled this little girl up and took her for long walks to Kenwood House. As she grew older, and had her own nanny, the family would often go for picnics in the grounds of the heath. Though the gardens of their own house were magnificent, Hunt wanted Katarina to have the normal childhood that had eluded him, or as normal as it was possible for her to have, so he took her exploring. 

   Being in his daughter’s company pleased Edmund Hunt endlessly. He remembered so many dinners with his own father, separated by an expanse of dining room table.  He was never allowed to chatter during meals. He determined to raise Katarina differently. Together they played a game called… What if? From the time Katarina could talk she was encouraged to ask questions: ‘What if the world was coloured pink? What if the grass was blue? What if Mummy hadn’t left?’ This question ended the game. There were some questions Hunt wouldn’t answer.

    As she grew older he worried for her and for himself. His daughter was sweet-natured and generous. She had gifted him further understanding of the world beyond his front door. Katarina made Hunt see life for what it was, rather than in isolation and in relation to his needs and those of his family. He knew he loved her so much he would never be able to say “no” to her and dreaded the day she would ask him for something he could not or did not wish to give her.

    Like the truth.

    The morning Katarina and Hinton decided to drive over to Hampstead High Street, the place, busy with post-Christmas bargain hunters, was busy. Together they sat in the French patisserie and ordered coffee, sandwiches and sweet cakes. Hinton barely ate in her presence and when he did, he picked the chicken off his plate and chewed that first.    

    ‘Do you know why our families don’t speak?’ Katarina asked as she stirred sugar into her latte.

    ‘Age old feud,’ Hinton said. ‘I think Linus knows the whole story. I only know my version of it. I’m sure your father would have a different account of what happened.’

    ‘He wouldn’t be happy if he knew we were all in contact, that’s for sure. But I’m so glad you and Linus and I are friends.’

     ‘Is that what we are?’ Hinton looked at her quickly, wondering for a moment if she would say something more.

       In response, Katarina looked into his eyes as Hinton took her hand. His fingers were pleasantly cool.

       ‘I want to…thank you for helping me so much.’

       Hinton slipped a tiny packet in the saucer of her tea cup. The envelope contained a delicate, gold bracelet with the initials KH carved on the inside. It must have cost Hinton at least a month of the wages he’d earned, working at the pub.

       Katarina smiled as Hinton helped her to fasten the clasp around her wrist. 

      ‘Thank you,’ she said, finishing her toast. Then she did something that surprised him. Katarina leant over and kissed him with her honey lips.

       Hinton’s face flushed red. He wasn’t really sure what to say next. He’d dated girls, lots of them, but he’d never felt for anyone the way he felt for Katarina. He shyly took her hand and kissed it. 

       They had been reading together every day. Heath still got the odd word the wrong way round, but had improved considerably. He was sure the extra study he did with the tutor he’d hired (encouraged by Katarina) had gone a long way to making words much easier for him to read. His world had opened up and he was less afraid of what the future held when she was near. He didn’t want to let go of her fingers.

     ‘Over these months …you helped me to have some confidence, not just in reading, but in…myself.’

     Katarina was speechless. She had looked forward to every moment she spent with Hinton walking through Hampstead and working together in the studio in Soho. He dreaded what he had to tell her so instead he passed her some documents.

     ‘You need to read something,’ Hinton said, ‘before you decide if you want to…be my girlfriend…’

    Katarina smiled, it was the first time he’d used that word. Then she frowned, what possible barrier stood in the way of this, her first real romance?

     Hinton passed her his medical records.

    ‘You need to be aware,’ he said, ‘that I’m not…normal.’

     Katarina looked at him quizzically, unsure of the correct response. Hinton got up and left the coffee shop as Katarina opened the cover of the first folder marked: Type A Requirements.

     Later that day, Hinton was in the college studio, quietly painting. He had a small supply of Magenta that he kept in the student common room kitchen in a flask. He quietly sucked on lunch through a straw. Since he’d turned twenty-one his desire for human blood had been overwhelming but this daily treat of Magenta kept it at bay. Vampiricism was another reason he and his uncle both liked and loathed each other.

     Heath had been the first to identify him as a fellow bloodsucker. Hinton had been so full of self-loathing he was almost glad Harrison and Franny had never lived to see him develop from hybrid to vampire. Harrison had drunk himself to death in his early thirties and his wife, Frances, had been killed in a nightclub in Paris at the age of twenty-six. That’s how Hinton wound up with Heath. It was discovered Heath and Frances (remarkably) shared a supernatural gene. Although Heath had not been biologically related to Harrison or Kate, he was a very distant cousin (two hundred years removed) to Frances and Hinton. 

    Hinton didn’t share Heath’s passion for chicken but he gnawed on a cooked chop that had been specially marinated, pan fried and wrapped in foil. He’d left Katarina with the open folder on her desk and didn’t want to think about what her reaction might be.

    Hinton painted freely. He was sure with brush strokes in a way that he had never been with words. He disliked any form of authority but was aware of his need to improve his basic reading skills. He was embarrassed to be this age, to be this bright (he had no trouble comprehending the world and had a photographic memory for numbers and people’s names…), yet to still be such a terrible reader was confronting. He’d long ago accepted his daily need for blood but he was ashamed of his lack of education. He’d stuttered as a child and somehow he’d overcome this affliction in his teens. If Katarina believed in him, he felt sure, with her help, he could overcome his wicked desires.

    He liked the solitude of the studio, deep in the quiet hub of the empty Art College.

    Nobody was here late in the afternoon and there was not a soul to suggest changes to what he was creating. He thought of Katarina and checked the messages on his mobile; nothing.  He wondered what she was thinking but didn’t want to press her until she had fully digested what the words in that folder meant.

     They’d been working on abstract expressionism in class, but for the first time in weeks Hinton’s brush seemed to have a mind of its own as he removed the drying artwork from his desk and set to work on a blank canvas attached to a wooden easel. 

     He sketched the outline from a photograph taken on his mobile but then he relied on the memory of her perfect face. As if writing a first draft, he sketched with abandon, adding the base with great ease and little emphasis on detail. But then, as the hours wore on, and afternoon became evening, he built the intricate shades of colour that became skin on his subject’s neck. The textures made him uneasy. Still, with no answer from the girl, his first layer of the image was becoming more complex, like a photograph of Katarina’s face. Hinton leaned in and painted two perfect red dots on the paper frail skin above her collar bone. Then he bowed his head in his hands and sighed.

    

    That afternoon, Katarina re-read Hinton’s file.

     It was less shocking than she’d suspected.

     The word ‘blood’ stood out in all its satin, red stained essence.

     The description of Hinton’s “type” was unusual but not conclusive. For years now, there had been talk in the press about a rogue species; human-vampires. Born with a weak strain of vampiricism, they developed fully over a period of time and into adulthood. It was different for males and females. The females could linger for up to twenty years in hibernation and it was impossible to tell the difference between hybrids and human beings. Katarina had not taken as much notice as she should have but she remembered these details from a recent article on the web.

     She wanted to discover as many facts as she could; she wanted to find out what this strain meant for them and how she could help. Regardless of words on paper, Hinton was still Hinton. Katarina realized this as she read the doctor’s dramatic introduction: he may not sleep at night, he may not wish to eat…it may be possible he lives far beyond the years of normal humans… The words “immortality”, “bloodsucker”, “vanished”, “feeding”, “type A”, “hunger”, “forever”, jumped out at her on the page. Katarina resolved to do some more research that evening.

      Upon waking, after Katarina had had a few hours’ sleep and the enormity of Hinton’s condition had set in, Hinton would be greeted with the message - it’s okay. I love you and that doesn’t change. I want to help in any way possible. Meet you tomorrow afternoon @ Hareton Hall.

      Katarina was determined to finish her Art folio the next day (of a series of photographs of Hareton Hall) using different levels of light. The girl also intended to start reading the files and finish the journals. She knew there was a secret that went beyond Hinton. The hush ran through the family. There had been whispers of a human-hybrid species for years in the media, but no one she ever knew had met an actual vampire; whole or hybrid. They kept to themselves, or maybe they just hid in the shadows. 

     Hinton, in retrospect, had displayed all the symptoms she’d researched on the web upon waking. His specialist had scrawled in the files… ‘The young man has cravings for protein, then citrus, then…animal blood…which may develop upon adulthood as a craving for humans…’ Katarina looked away.  Further details were in the files that she forced herself to read.

   The boy displayed a nocturnal instinct as a child. He’d tried to bite his own mother (at birth) and she had declared him ‘impossible’ to raise.

    It was true. Hinton had gravitated towards Heath as a child. His sister, Frances, had stayed at the Hall briefly until she fled to Paris. Harrison had been discovered trying to beat Hinton with a stick, before he drank himself into oblivion. That part was true; it was like history repeating itself.

      Katarina was surprised as she read the social worker’s reports sitting in the car. Her desire to help and protect Hinton grew stronger with every sentence. 

(#Twenty-six: Secrets) Wuthering Nights by Summer Day: Inspired by Wuthering Heights

Chapter Twenty-six

Secrets

     When Katarina arrived at The Hall the next afternoon, Heath was out riding and no one answered the door. Since she’d never met her mother as an adult, she relied on the memories of others. In her bag, she kept her fine cashmere scarf, and longed for more information about the woman in the photographs. Katarina knew there were many images of the young Kate in the boxes hidden in the cupboard. The man who had loved her, perhaps as much as her father (if not more), kept these images tucked away, hidden, along with her mother’s memory.

    Katarina got out of her car. She wore a scarlet coat today and the fierce, biting air made her catch her breath as she walked up to the house. Her dark curls fell in ringlets down her back. The girl took out her mother’s old-fashioned film camera. The camera took amazing photographs and she wanted the particular effect film could create. Katarina snapped The Hall in the morning light, from a distance, then close up on the door handle as the gargoyles threatened her.

    There was an eerie creak, ever present, when Katarina tiptoed into the house.

    Heath suddenly stomped in through the kitchen, taking off his muddy boots in the larder.

    ‘Who’s there?’ he bawled.      

    ‘Just me,’ Katarina said softly.

    ‘Oh,’ he replied, ‘I’d forgotten you were coming. Don’t go to the top floor…renovations,’ he grumbled, hurrying upstairs to shower and change. 

     ‘I just wanted to take your picture…’    

     ‘No…’ he replied quickly.

      He’d always refused to have his photograph taken. It would be a pointless exercise but Katarina was not to know that. She had begun to get used to his mercurial personality and shrugged to herself as she wandered through The Hall. Tucked in a corner, she discovered the Blue Room, which was lit with soft lights, chandeliers hanging from the roof and a hall of mirrors. It was so amazing it had once been featured in architectural magazines.

     The girl wandered through the room catching sight of Heath ushering his dog out of the library. As Katarina glanced into the wall of reflections, hers was there but Heath’s was missing. Of course, Katarina thought. The strangeness filled her world. 

     Katarina was nervous, but as she created art by snapping photographs, her nerves disappeared. By mid-morning, it helped that she had not seen a vision of the woman who’d appeared the night of the storm, nor had she heard her. Silence was littered by the sound of paper being ripped and thrown in the rubbish bin once Heath returned from walking the dog. There was a ray of light under the door of Heath’s library and Katarina got the feeling he did not wish to be disturbed.

      Minutes later, the silence was marked by the loud noise Katarina made, as she unlocked her mother’s bedroom with Hinton’s key. Inside, the room was all but empty. It was like a danceless ballroom with billowing long curtains in place of skirts and open windows and a wet floor where the rain had swept in, for company. As she stood, breathless, sensing a visitor apart from herself, Katarina heard a chewing sound and a striped boiled sweet wrapper fell from the ceiling onto her hair, like a feather.

    Immediately, Katarina looked up; nothing. She noticed the floor around her feet was littered with discarded candy wrappers. They had dropped from the shadows in the roof. Katarina peered closer. In the corner of the large room there was a pile of messy, muddied, riding clothes. The jodhpurs and a jacket appeared to have been recently worn and discarded. As Katarina went to touch the fabric, a bird screeched outside the window. Katarina jumped.  She wanted to take a closer look inside the room when she heard a voice behind her and a man took her arm. 

    ‘I told you not to go in here,’ Heath said.

     He was standing to her right, fully dressed for the office.

    ‘Whose clothes?’

     Heath led her out of the room.

     ‘Please…just ignore what you see here. Most of it is…old washing. Greta must have left it. I’ve made us some tea.’

      Katarina was so stunned she followed meekly.  The interior of the room loomed behind like a secret as they walked downstairs.  

      Heath seemed oblivious to the anomalies of Hareton Hall. In the kitchen, he was more interested in demolishing the honey soy chicken drumsticks Greta had left sealed in a dish. He ate at least three of these while Katarina stood there, sipping tea, even though it was barely mid-morning.

      They observed the view from the parlour of a now famous statue of one of their ancestors (an author or poet, no doubt, Katty thought) that was all but obscured behind a fence. Occasionally, tourists stopped by in summer to take photographs. Sometimes the iron gates would open quicker than they realised and usher those same tourists out of the way. Who knows what these tourists had really seen through the windows. 

     ‘I never planned to open the house and grounds up to the public, but with the worldwide financial situation, my advisors convinced me it was the smart thing to do. I want this house to stay in the family…forever,’ he added quietly.

    Katarina changed the film in her camera as they sat at the table watching day turn to dusk.

    ‘May I?’ Katarina took Heath’s photograph as he turned to take his car keys from the fruit ball. The crystal bowl was full of peaches and Italian oranges. 

     ‘Hinton told me you know our secret. You must have worked it out by now. You can take as many photographs of me as you like. The images won’t come out. I have to go to my office, there’s something going on at work. Greta is coming around soon. Don’t return to the rooms upstairs. They’re locked now. Just shut the door when you leave,’ Heath said, offering no further explanation. Not fond of idle chit chat, he stood up and walked away. 

      Katarina was left to ponder her predicament. Then she remembered that Hinton told her he used to scale the wall to his room when he was a child.

       Katarina wandered outside. The gardens grew wild. According to her mother’s journals, they were once perfectly manicured. Although now unkempt, they appeared lusher than any of her mother’s recollections. The wind began to howl as Katarina followed the path from the surrounding grounds of the estate, towards the lap pool (covered in a blanket of leaves) and past the stables. Katarina noticed a few security cameras which unnerved her, but there were no lights on, so she assumed like everything else, they were in a state of disrepair. It was remarkable how useless the cameras would be in tracking the real inhabitants of the estate, Katarina thought, but then she supposed that was not the reason they were installed. At the gates, beyond the stables, Katarina saw her first sign of human life.

     There was an elderly groom working with a horse - the other horse remained under cover. Both animals were black and sleek with sweat. It was obvious Heath had not been out riding alone.

     ‘Good Afternoon, Miss. Katarina isn’t it?’ he mumbled, looking at her quizzically, as if he’d seen a ghost.

     ‘Good Afternoon,’ Katarina replied.

      ‘I’m George. I’ve been working for the Spencers… forever. Greta said you’d be coming. She got held up at her meeting. She collects her grandson from his pre-school on Fridays…’

      ‘Oh,’ Katarina said. ‘That’s okay. The…owner has given me permission to take photographs...over there.’

       George shook his head as she walked towards the garden. Seconds later, rain started to spit from the sky and Katarina found herself standing near the outside wall that led to the upper floors of the house, contemplating how to climb it. 

        She’d forgotten it was Friday; she’d promised Linus and Hinton that she’d meet them for dinner tonight. Katarina would have to be quick. She would also try to act as normally as possible with Hinton. They hadn’t had a moment alone to talk and Katarina wasn’t sure what to say, but she knew she had less and less recollection of her real life outside the family she was beginning to understand.  She glanced over her shoulder. George was nowhere to be seen. Quickly, she climbed the wall, using the strength and muscles she’d developed from years of riding. When Kat reached the window, she lifted the glass easily and crawled through the dusty ledge, landing on her feet inside her mother’s old room.

      She looked above her, to the roof of the room. It was empty. There was nothing except chandeliers. Then she walked to the hallway and up the stairs. They creaked with every step she took. The girl was compelled to walk higher, to the forbidden floor. Linus had told her where Heath had stashed the keys and she retrieved them from his desk. 

    When Katarina reached the attic, the door was slightly ajar. The curtains were open and blowing in the wind. Rain splayed the sill. The door did not creak when she pushed it further. The rain stopped; birds sang. Outside, a rainbow appeared. She stood silent as the door quietly closed behind her, untouched.

     It was quieter and lighter up here than she imagined. There were no cobwebs. In the corner lay another pile of girls’ clothes, used and unused, thrown into a washing basket. At the top of the pile lay the same bunch of riding clothes, recently worn. There were boots with fresh mud on them discarded in the corner of the room. 

    Kate looked at the carpet; no footprints. Then she looked at the window sill. Mud dripped upon it. An exaltation of larks outside the window announced her intrusion.

    The fine hairs on Katarina’s arms stood up. When she tried to take a photograph through the closed window, the black covering in her camera froze. The birds hushed and through the silence, Katarina heard only the softness of her breathing and her beating heart. She sighed and leaned into the bar nailed on to the attic wall. It occurred to her then that the whole room had been converted into some kind of ballet studio. There were floor length mirrors along one entire wall.  The roof of Hareton Hall loomed above her like one of the great baroque ceilings she’d seen in Italy on a school trip. Only the outside scenery, the wrought iron gate, fragile in the mist, placed her at Hareton Hall as opposed to some kind of Netherworld.

     Just then, a bird flew in through the window, startling Katarina who crouched onto the floor. A scream rang out before she realized it was hers. When Katarina stopped screaming, the sound of another breath took over.

      Slowly, slowly, Katarina raised her head until she looked directly above her. Hovering in the roof beams was a young woman. Sleeping, eyes closed, hair matted across her eyes, her face was obscured. She was curled up in pink cotton pyjamas and seemed no older than twenty-one although it was difficult to tell in the dark. The tiny hint of a corner cobweb touched the edge of her hair. Her arms were folded across her chest. She was cocooned in a pink, mohair blanket.

     Katarina’s scream woke her and the hybrid girl somersaulted down from the rafters. In a split second she back flipped off the high beam and landed on her feet. The young woman, a mirror image of Katarina, opened her eyes where she landed. Then she stood and drank in Katarina’s face as if she could hardly believe the vision was real. With the threat of tears in her eyes, the beautiful hybrid uncrossed her arms and reached out her hand. She walked towards Katarina with an open palm. In the same moment, her image disappeared into shadows, leaving nothing but air.

    The objects in the attic - an antique hairbrush, some ballet shoes in a basket, a used pink towel with cream lace edging, more wrappers of lollipops and sweets - also disappeared in that moment. The only thing Katarina had left was a memory. She stood frozen. Katarina felt sure no one would believe her if she told them what she saw. The girl’s face had been identical to her own.

    The teenage girl backed out of the room then turned and ran down the stairs, two at a time. Her camera strap was still wrapped around her wrist and she heard the snap in sunlight as the film started automatically, winding again.

    George, the groundsman, hovered at the front door.

   ‘The master won’t be happy about you wandering through the house alone.’

    ‘He gave me permission to take photographs,’ Katarina sniffed. ‘Besides, he’s not my master!’ Katarina added. ‘Nor yours. Do you… Do you know what… who is in this house?

    George raised his eyes and pulled some leaves out of the rake he held.

    ‘Yes.’ He spoke in a thick, Northern accent. Katarina could still hear the high, sweet voice of a Lark, singing in the rafters.

   ‘Did you hear that?’ Katarina asked aloud.

    He nodded. ‘There’s been talk of… bloodsuckers here for years. Some like to refer to them as ghosts…makes people feel better I suppose. It’s because they’re up all night,’ he added.  The pretty tune stopped and all that remained was the noise of George’s rake, as if he’d already forgotten what he said.

     Reality seemed to elude all who visited The Hall, except her. Katarina felt sure the secrets held the key to the mystery of her family. The vampire girl in the roof was similar to her and to…her mother. Katarina needed answers. 

    George simply stared into the distance.

    Katarina waited on the front steps. Greta had texted to apologise and re-schedule. It was all that kept Katarina from running away forever. It was late in the day by then and already the sun was setting.

     ‘They say memory is something that exists in a person’s mind forever; we just have to know how to unlock it when we forget something.’ George said out of the blue.

     ‘You must have a lot of memories of this place,’ Katarina replied.

      ‘Oh yes, Miss. What I have seen… ’ he sighed as he walked towards the shed.

(#Twenty-seven: The Girl in The Attic) Wuthering Nights: Inspired by Wuthering Heights

Chapter Twenty-seven

 The Girl in The Attic

      Hinton had a bad feeling. He texted Katarina and they agreed to meet in the Glass House. They could go to dinner at The Grange after they’d had a chance to speak.  At least outside was safer and, still needing more external shots of the heath in twilight, Kat lifted the latch of the iron gate. The entrance to the private garden was the exact place she had read about in her mother’s journal.

     The gate led to a maze that in turn spilt into an abandoned part of the heath. Katarina wore her walking boots as she rambled in her rolled up jeans, a long coat and scarf draped around her shoulders. As the winter evening closed in on her, Katarina buttoned up her coat and pulled the belt tight around her tiny waist. The young girl walked towards the now private arboretum, largely abandoned in winter and known only to those who lived close by. The directions had been detailed in her mother’s journal. Her father had taken her there, only once, as a child.

    The wind howled and Katarina’s camera tossed and whipped around her wrist. She suddenly wished she’d modernized her instrument. If she’d had a passion for digital, the camera would not be so heavy or so much trouble.

    Almost immediately and without warning, the air had turned to pre-snow iciness. Katarina could see her breath and soft flecks of powder fell around her feet.  Autumn had been so unpredictable this year. As ice began to spit from the sky, Katarina stumbled inside the shelter.

    The glass house, located behind a woodland meadow, had been restored in recent years. It was so beautiful that she resolved to take Hinton here. When Katarina thought of Hinton, she smiled. Their tutoring sessions had started playfully enough but then Hinton seemed to improve exponentially. She was certain his initial unfriendliness towards her had been related to his secrets and not his arrogance. It was a wonder Hinton was the person he was, when she considered how many challenges he had had - the loss of his parents, the discovery of his rare needs.  She was proud of him. Hinton had the courage to seek acceptance however weird and bizarre his lineage.

      Somehow, everything would work out. There was a quote from a Shakespearean sonnet she had read at school that came to mind: Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds… O no! It is an ever-fixed mark / That looks on tempests and is never shaken…

     The deep thrill she felt inside at the merest thought of seeing him again was unlike anything she had experienced. She wondered if he felt the same and hoped that he did.

      Katarina knew for certain that her father would not be happy about her connection to the Spencers, and would never have encouraged their meeting in the first place. In just a few weeks, the course of her life had altered completely. Katarina felt sure of her decision to support Hinton as she sat in the garden seat waiting for him.

     Her breath was visible on the glass now. It was heating up as Katarina waited patiently for Hinton who had just texted her to say he was on his way. She unwound her scarf, took off her woollen snood and pulled off her gloves. As she did so, she dropped one of them on the ground and reached to pick it up.

     Hadn’t Linus, taking into account his stupid theatrical superstitions, once told her, that, “in the theatre a lady should never retrieve her own glove. Instead, she should wait for another to pick it up for her.” Katarina, knowing how silly this seemed, reached down for the glove but couldn’t find it in the shadows.

     Finally, hunched under the chair and looking for the glove, she was confronted with the words of ancient lovers - or they seemed ancient to her.

      At the base of the tree, behind the arboretum chair were the words HEATH & KATE 1988 carved into the growing wood. Like a child, Kate wound her fingers over the engraving, forgetting all about her missing glove in the process. An onlooker might have thought the glove had simply disappeared or been taken by a ghost. Outside, the wind drove  a branch into the glass wall which frightened Katarina and made her turn around suddenly to see a grown man in a long coat, standing, illuminated by lightening in the darkness.

    ‘Hinton can't come,’ Heath said.

     Katarina looked up so quickly she slipped and Heath moved and caught her by the arm.

    ‘I came home from the city to collect a file I left. George said you’d be here.’

    ‘I…I was just…’

    ‘Tutoring Hinton? Yes, he told me. He’s certainly improving. Well, anything would be an improvement. That boy’s spelling is atrocious and no tutor I’ve paid has ever done anything for him.’ Heath seemed annoyed. ‘George told me you’ve been…inside the attic, taking photographs. Good luck, the images won’t develop.’

    It was time for a little bit of honesty, Katarina thought, as they both walked outside to her Uncle’s sleek, waiting car.

    ‘Never mind, there is honour in the attempt,’ Katarina said. Heath walked quickly and Katarina asked directly, ‘Who is the girl in the attic?’

    Heath paused for a moment and then responded. ‘She is a hybrid, a human transitioning into a vampire who has lived at Hareton Hall longer than me. There were complications with her transition. It has taken longer than expected. You must know there is strangeness in this… family’   

     ‘Yes. So I’ve gathered. I’ve been told some things... about Hinton. But, I’m not just his tutor…I…I’m his friend. And it’s pretty obvious Hareton Hall… is haunted.’

    Heath smiled at the use of her old fashioned word.

   ‘The house has always attracted comment,’ was all he added. 

    The sleek Jaguar was waiting on the other side of the park and they seemed to reach the car in double quick time as Heath hurried Katarina along. 

    ‘Get in,’ Heath said as he reversed the car. ‘Listen to me. Hinton is a player. He doesn’t have friends who are girls.’

    Katarina looked at him sharply. ‘Well, he does now.’

    There was silence for a moment as Heath digested this.

    Katarina changed the subject. ‘Is that why I can’t see your breath?’

    Heath was lost for words for the first time as they drove through the winding road towards her house. He did not answer her question directly. ‘Now, there’s a bit more of your mother in you,’ he responded. ‘You can’t see my breath… because it’s not cold enough.’

    ‘You could see mine. Why is there a… girl in the attic?’

     Katarina looked down, jealous that he knew so much more about the cocooned hybrid than she did.

    ‘What do you mean?’

     ‘She looked like me, sleeping on the ledge, and I look like my mother.’

    ‘Katarina… you’re imagining things. I can take you there now and the attic will be empty. Yes, it has been said the girl haunts the house but you have to forget this. It will bring you no comfort. You can never touch her or speak to her… or even see her properly. I know Linus took you to one of his wild parties. I can only imagine what they get up to there. You’re not…on anything are you? I mean anything that might make you hallucinate.’

     ‘No,’ Katarina said quickly.

     ‘Ah… there’s the fire.’

     ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘…The fire that your mother had in her personality.’

     Kat cringed. ‘…Is that why you…liked her?’

     ‘I… I suppose so,’ Heath said.

     ‘Are you going to tell me the truth?’

      ‘I’m going to try…but not now.’ he responded.

      ‘When?’

      ‘Soon. In the meantime, read your mother’s journal. I know you have it.’

       Katarina glanced at Heath incredulously.

       The man didn’t want to talk any more tonight. This girl was half his age, far too young to understand the depth of his feelings for her mother. He was in no mood for explaining the supernatural. Not now. He was tired; a long day trading stocks and shares will do that to a man.

     He was also concerned that the cousins were getting close. It wasn’t meant to happen like this, so far out of his control. His son had been given instructions to befriend then dump her, and it wasn’t really going to plan now that Hinton had taken it further and just left it at “befriend her”. Didn’t he realise how much Heath hated her father? How little they owed the Hunts? It was time to end this stupid game.

    Heath pulled up suddenly.

   ‘Where are we going?’ Katarina asked.

    ‘To The Grange, your father is expecting you. I called him. The dinner date has been cancelled. Hinton and Linus sent me to tell you. Neither of them could get away from having to work late.’

    They drove in silence, the short way, before arriving at the gravel driveway of The Grange.

    ‘Would you like to come inside?’ Katarina offered. ‘It’s very warm and cosy compared to The Hall.’

      Heath contemplated her offer for a moment. ‘I suppose you would think that. But I went to dinner at The Grange once and the atmosphere just about froze ice.’

       Katarina looked startled.

      ‘The snow seems to have settled, go on then. You’re safe to walk up the path. I’ll stay here until you’ve gone inside.’

    Katarina slammed the door loudly as she got out of Heath’s car.

    Heath was quite annoyed at himself. This young girl was making him less brash, kinder. It didn’t suit him at all, and she’d discovered Kate’s hiding place and the glass house, which was irritating. How long before she discovered even more secrets?

     Once again, Heath didn’t like the thought of her becoming too close, though it was his desire that she and Hinton… well, ultimately he wanted The Grange and it hadn’t been on the market, ever. Katarina was heir. It was important his plan proceed. Heath was glad she hadn’t acknowledged the tree markings he and Kate had carved on that bitterly cold afternoon. It was so long ago now. The girl must have seen them. He longed for a return to those days, for Kate to come back to him. He had waited so long to unlock the past.

    In the distance, The Grange reminded him of Annabelle.

(#Twenty-eight: Glass House) Wuthering Nights by Summer Day: Inspired by Wuthering Heights

Chapter Twenty-eight

 Annabelle

    The day after the infamous Grange dinner party, Heath decided to ring Annabelle. He asked her to come to dinner with him. Bored with the usual pattern: work, money, a feeding frenzy sated by the local blood bank - he needed a distraction. He’d been denying his true nature for too long, but there was very little alternative in polite society. Besides, Kate had moved on.

     He would do the same. 

     That evening, Annabel arrived at his office in her work clothes. She’d been promoted at the gallery to Publicity Officer and her expensive blue suit shimmered under the lights as Heath gave her a tour of the new company premises. Afterwards, they went to dinner. Every night the following week, they did the same.  

      Sometimes they met up in Soho near the gallery where Annabelle was working with a more experienced Art Historian. She hoped to manage the gallery one day and Heath was surprised at her entrepreneurial vision. Annabelle was delighted by Heath’s availability and newly amenable nature. He was like a new person, genuinely complementary of her work in the gallery, the place Kate one day planned to display some of her pictures.

    They’d been going out for about six weeks when they met for lunch in a popular restaurant with long glass windows overlooking the Thames. Annabelle had a frown as she scanned the lunch menu. Heath once preferred pubs but his new job came with an expense account that he felt obligated to use. Annabelle was very impressed with this, but barely ordered anything.

    ‘I’ll have the soup please,’ Annabelle said to the waiter who seemed unsure, as if it was his first day.

    ‘Typical,’ Heath thought, as he noticed Annabelle eating like a bird.

     After they’d eaten, Annabelle told him about her day and Heath pretended to be interested. He knew he’d have to try a little harder if he wanted to pass the six-week boyfriend stage with Annabelle.

     ‘Heath…did you hear me?’

     Miles away, Heath had tuned out and was staring through the window at the panoramic London views. This was not a good sign. He was wondering how he’d dis-entangle himself from the possibility of an actual relationship with this woman whom he’d thought of as a friend - at worst, a plan. Sensing this, Annabelle did something unusual. She shocked him.

     ‘Did you hear me Heath?’

     Annabelle burst into tears as she talked.

     Heath, sensing her need, couldn’t believe his good fortune. Though never very interested in problems of a female nature, he’d have to make an exception in this instance. The words “unexpected pregnancy” gave him a chance to play the hero, no questions asked and also to get back at the woman he loved. The circumstances were too good to resist. He could take the plan further than he’d initially intended.

     ‘I…I don’t know what to do,’ she gulped as she talked, irritating Heath who was nothing less than riveted by her out of character tale. It shouldn’t have surprised him; Annabelle was needy and unpredictable. She’d barely waited for him to pay for dinner the third time they’d dated before she’d arranged his seduction in a hotel room. He knew he’d become a person Kate disliked and he didn’t care. Perhaps his recently acquired egotism needed to be kept in check. The truth was he’d planned for days to spend the night with Annabelle. Still, he hadn’t encountered anything but enthusiasm from her. Annabelle was almost entirely predictable and her neediness for his love was no less than riveting to a man who, since Kate’s betrayal, was almost entirely devoid of emotion.

     He knew Kate would think less of him for having almost no feelings for Annabelle yet taking things further with her. Since Kate had abandoned him and married someone else, he felt she had no right to an opinion. He’d been out clubbing and fanging and going home with whomever, since he’d read Kate’s marriage notice in the paper years ago.

      Now Heath wanted to use and discard anything and everyone he encountered. Most of all, he wanted to make Kate and her family pay for their transgressions, for leaving him alone as a small child, for beating him and, in Kate’s case, for choosing someone else. Annabelle had needed little inducement from Heath to re-form a romantic attachment towards him that had never existed on his part. They had spent the night together after just one bottle of wine. Admittedly, she’d done most of the drinking. He had to give her some credit as she stared at him with her big, tearful eyes. The look of love on her face was implacable.

    That night was a distant memory to Heath and he’d purposely not phoned her the next day.

    After he’d impressed her with the cheap thrill of an exclusive hotel and his undivided attention, that one night with Annabelle had ended in the usual disappointment as he woke up beside her the next day. He did not need reminding that she was not Kate. Annabelle’s arm across his chest represented her neediness, not his. Heath had sat on the lounge chair opposite her after he’d dressed, resisting the urge to run off early and leave her lying there alone.

     That morning, a plan had begun to form. He’d left a respectable length of time between the first meeting and trying to impress her at Claridges. This was nothing less than Annabelle was used to, given her spoilt upbringing. He smiled inwardly as he realized she and Kate had at least one thing in common.

    She was connected to the only woman he’d ever loved and that connection would serve a higher purpose; revenge.

    Heath tried not to dislike her as she sat opposite him in the restaurant. She was attractive enough, nothing like her sister-in-law which really should have been a point in Annabelle’s favour. Kate, beautiful and goddess-like, was also disloyal - Heath would never forgive her. He found Annabelle emotionally needy and thus high-maintenance and even a little bit boring, but she also held the keys to The Grange, a property he wished to purchase.

    Heath was surprised when Annabelle spluttered out in sobs her baby news. He had been careful and made sure he looked empathetic as he sipped his blood orange juice mixed with Magenta.

    He’d learnt to control his desires to drain his lovers, especially the ones he liked and his specialist had warned him that there was a chance he could pro-create. If he did, his offspring would only have a small chance of inheriting his hybrid gene. A boy child would have a sixty percent chance of being a fully-fledged bloodsucker. A girl child would carry the gene but likely be human. Heath hoped for a girl. He’d never want a child to suffer the way he had. He had no idea how he would explain himself to Annabelle. He’d tried to tell her about his freakiness, but she refused to listen. When he was tempted to fang, her meek compliance repelled him, and he held back. She still held little appeal. To Heath, Annabelle was bloodless.

    All she said was, ‘I know you are different. Kate has warned me but I don’t care.’

    He knew it was his call - either way Annabelle would raise his child.

    ‘Annabelle, stop crying, there is no need for that,’ he said softly, feigning sympathy which Annabelle misinterpreted as empathy. (They should have been more careful. They’d been careful, or so he thought). He’d lately started to read the thoughts of people close to him. It was a habit he’d tried to control but as he tuned in to Annabelle all he could hear in her mind was, ‘please offer…please do the right thing…’

    Heath stared out the window, bored with the woes of human life. This news should have excited him, he was sure of it. Once, the prospect of creating a family would have been grounding, essential. But now, he just stared into the abyss of eternity, the cruelty of outliving those he raised and dared to love in return.

    Heath viewed the river and its many bridges, the skyline along the houses of parliament and thought what a wonderful city to behold. The bloodsuckers who’d come before him had told many stories about Edwardian England. Evenings were filled with tales of beautiful women, dark cobbled lanes, ruby carpeted theatre halls and eager street vendors. His ancestors drank brandy seated around log fires during their cold, mansion nights. And here was the chance to add his lineage.

     He realized he was in control and wasn’t proud of the fact that he’d made Annabelle feel beholden, when all along he’d wanted something beyond what was obvious to her. Marrying Annabelle would make Kate feel what he felt. The situation was meant to be. He looked towards the boats and the line of the shore that carried cargo and supported both ancient buildings and high rises. He wondered how far one of those boats could carry him if he kidnapped Kate and forced her to stay away from her poisonous family and all that was familiar until she was his, and only his, forever more. He thought about the time he’d gone to meet her in the glass house and wished they’d never parted.

     He paused before he spoke. In his fantasies, the only source of comfort to him was a reversal of betrayal.

    ‘Here, dry your tears,’ he said, handing Annabelle an unused handkerchief.

     Annabelle pressed it under her eyes.

    ‘I have a solution. Your child shall have a father, Annabelle. We’ll get married. I brought you here today to tell you…well, to ask you to marry me anyway. I’m not suggesting for a minute that this hasn’t surprised me, but we needn’t let it derail our lives…’

     Annabelle looked at him with a surprised expression on her face. She used an old-fashioned phrase, “You could have knocked me over with a feather,” when she announced her intentions to Kate later that evening, just as Heath imagined she would. He only wished he could have seen Kate’s face when Annabelle told Kate that Heath had asked her to marry him and that she’d said “yes”. Kate had guessed Heath was up to something but she also knew there was nothing she could do. She was married to Edmund now, she was having his child.

     Over breakfast a week later, Edmund raised the subject of Annabelle with his wife.

    ‘I feel as if I have lost a sister,’ Hunt said, as he read the finance news. ‘But never mind, she will come to her senses, eventually - and when she does I shall not be so forgiving. I think I shall re-structure the family trusts, make it harder for him to get his hands on her property… ’

     ‘Annabelle is pregnant,’ Kate said, her hand on her own expanding stomach.

     Hunt put down his newspaper, but delivered the calm, rational words Kate had come to expect from him.

     ‘Then I suppose it will be a while before we see her again.’

     The wedding was a lavish affair. The impending nuptials were announced in the most conservative broadsheet newspapers and covered in all the glossy magazines. Kate attended, of course, in a pink silk dress, fashionable and ruched at the shoulder. It was a close family affair and Hunt had told Kate she must attend. 

    Kate couldn’t describe how she felt, sitting in the reception as the young couple danced their first dance.  They looked amazing together - Annabelle so blonde and pretty like the sun, Heath so dark and handsome, like night.