Sunday, May 19, 2013

(#Thirty-five) Wuthering Nights #Family: Inspired by Wuthering Heights


Chapter Thirty-five
Family
      Katarina and Hinton were seated in the Hidden Garden.
     ‘I’ve read the file, Hinton. Of course, I can’t pretend I’m not…surprised but it doesn’t change you. Not really. It really doesn’t matter to me.’
     Hinton looked surprised and hugely relieved.
    ‘I… I’ve drawn you something. When I’m not with you, I’m thinking about you. Do you…think of me?’
    ‘Do I think of you? Always.’
    ‘Meaning?’
    ‘Meaning I accept you for who you are,’ Katarina said, as she ate the lunch she’d brought. She and Hinton, both dressed in long, dark coats (Katarina wore a red beret and gloves covering the expensive bracelet her father had given her for her birthday).  They’d met here for lunch to celebrate Hinton’s win – with the help of a perfectly worded essay attached to his entry.
    ‘Finally I can spell, read and write almost perfectly, thanks to you Katarina. Although I have to admit, it still takes extra effort to translate some words.’
    ‘I am so proud of you, Hinton. What words are still difficult?’
   ‘I love you.’
    Katarina smiled.
    Hinton continued, ‘they are simple words but hard for me to say.’
    ‘I love you too,’ Katarina replied.
    Hinton could not contain his smile.
    ‘I have been thinking of the future. The truth is, Katarina, I was never very interested in school. I preferred the horses and my Art and was never very big on study, nor was Heath. We were both too wrapped up in our own little worlds; Heath and his ghost, me and my cravings. Well, we shared the cravings. Perhaps Linus is the one you should congratulate. He just got accepted into Cambridge.’
    ‘Wow. That’s amazing,’ Katarina said. ‘I have to say I’m kind of surprised. He’s so into his weekend dance parties. I didn’t realize he ever studied. I’m still waiting to hear about Art College.’
   ‘Well, I’ve been thinking, wondering. I’m planning to go travelling this summer. I was going to start in Italy, and then maybe Greece…The scholarship gives me enough money for two if I travel second class. I was hoping you might come with…’
   ‘Yes,’ Katarina said. She was barely eighteen but she knew perfect when she saw it (or perfect for her) and the love she felt for Hinton was real and present. She didn’t care what her father thought of the Spencers and she had little memory of her mother apart from the ghostly young girl on the roof that day. The thought saddened Katarina so much she put the image out of her mind and convinced herself the moment could never be replicated.
    She’d demanded an explanation from Heath the next time they spoke but he’d just dismissed her sighting and said, ‘I warned you not to go up there…’
   ‘Perhaps some things are….inexplicable,’ was all Kate could think. The girl had looked so… real, so inexplicably like her. Katarina had barely seen the pyjama-clad intruder’s face, but she remembered her clear blue eyes, flashing in the dark, a ghost, a vision, a pretty little vampire.
     Katarina understood that somewhere, way back in time, near the place she and Hinton now walked, towards the glass house on Hampstead Heath, her mother had once met Hinton’s father, a meeting that created this new moment for her now.
     In her mother’s antique locket, which she always wore (it had been passed down through generations of Spencer women), Kate had placed a photograph of her mother, and herself; together. The locket, she was sure, kept her safe. Katarina looked over at the handsome young man next to her. It was hard to believe, eight weeks ago, they had barely spoken. Now, she couldn’t imagine being without him as he took her hand and they walked across the frosty mist of the Heath.
     The truth was in the final pages of the journal. That was why Linus had given it to her to read; she knew that now. The words contained strange truths but necessary ones. Her father was not her biological father. This was something she had guessed from the early chapters of the journal. To discover her heritage was a shock, to discover she had a half-brother in Linus, was revelatory. Katarina also had a younger brother but they had been in different years at separate schools and had conflicting interests. Katarina hoped they would become closer when they were both adults. 
     She thought of the last time she had spoken to Heath. She was alone on the meadow, angry and tear-stained when she went to him. Heath had had the strangest feeling he was not alone riding his horse that day. He’d lately, in his thirties, begun to hear the thoughts of every human being he came into contact with, something he found disturbing. Once it had only happened when he listened closely. Recently his specialist had warned him about it, warned him that he’d be fully immortal if he lived past thirty, free to roam the heath forever if he wanted to, free to turn himself to ash in the sun if he did not. His image would not be betrayed in mirrors or print. After twenty-six, he’d ceased to exist in photographs entirely.
    Heath heard her angry thoughts before he saw his daughter again that day and was not surprised to see her standing before him when he turned. Katarina wore the same long coat as her mother had worn, twenty years ago. Edmund must have kept it with Kate’s things. He owed her an explanation. Before she could speak, he apologized.
     ‘Here,’ he said, handing her his waterproof jacket. ‘The rain is coming down and it will protect you from the storm.’
    They rode together to the glass house in silence. When she asked him a question, instead of replying in words, he vanished in mist.  Katarina wasn’t sure if she would ever see him again.
    Months passed. There were so many questions and so few answers that Katarina had stopped asking for them. Her own father had died before she had ever challenged him on the matters of her parentage. Edmund had been a good father to her and she had loved him and mourned his loss and that was all that mattered. Katarina had inherited The Grange.
    Heath had not once visited them but Linus came around often for dinner. The three young people had wild parties in the drawing room that were the talk of the borough and many friends from Italy and Europe came to visit. It was a world of lightness and socializing that none of them - Linus, Hinton or Katarina - ever experienced during their solitary childhoods. Heath had become more and more reclusive and barely spoke to his own son, let alone Hinton, when they moved out of Hareton Hall. By then, Heath had stopped going to work, repairing the now crumbling mansion, and never appeared at his own pub for dinner like he used to.



(#Thirty-six: Birthday Party) Wuthering Nights by Summer Day: Inspired by Wuthering Heights


Chapter Thirty-six
Birthday Party
   Almost twenty years had passed since the night she was born, and Heath remembered it was Katarina’s birthday. He’d had the gift wrapped. A gold necklace with diamonds tastefully worked into swans on the pendant. A fine piece of jewellery, new, not from the family crypt, Heath mused. He also had another gift, the deeds to Hareton Hall, made out to Linus, Katarina and Hinton.  He placed inside the envelope the gift of a round the world plane ticket, and access to the shares he had set aside for her since she was born. It was the least he could do, with all his money. He knew it would never be enough to make up for the neglect she’d suffered from him. The gift was merely a gesture and he expected nothing in return. Her desire to be friendly surprised him, given that there were so many unanswered questions about their... family. 
     Katarina was surprised that Heath remembered her birthday since he had ignored every other one and had refused an invitation to the party that evening. Instead, he had driven over to The Grange to see her. He explained he didn’t “do” parties anymore, especially ones with a Great Gatsby theme. Instead, he asked her to go walking with him across Hampstead Heath. Katarina smiled and said, ‘I’ll get my coat.’
     They walked in tandem across the meadow in the mild winter light.
    “I need to get some more decorations for tonight in Hampstead High Street,’ Katarina said, making small talk. ‘Linus will be there, you know. And Hinton would love to see you again. You never replied to my invitation, so I just assumed you…forgot.’
     ‘Do you honestly think I could forget the day you were born?’
    ‘No,’ Katarina said, ‘I suppose not.’
    ‘What was she like, my mother? People say you were both… inseparable. They talk of a ghostly teenaged girl…like the girl I saw in the rafters that day. Tell me what she was like…’
    ‘Well, at first I thought she was nothing like you, but I have changed my mind. You share the same curiosity about things you should not… and there is a determination in your manner that is similar.’
    Heath looked down at his feet.
    Katarina could hardly believe that this stranger was actually her father. After discovering her mother’s old journals she had always suspected there was a story she was never allowed to know.  She did not understood her need to reach out to this strange, alone man, who hadn’t really shown her any love. Only her mother’s journals filled in the blanks, shocking though they were to her. Deep down, there had always been something missing from her family history, something that she’d always suspected. Now she knew there was a vampire in the bloodline. She wanted to go far away from here, at least for a while.
    ‘Your eyes are the same,’ Heath said, reaching out to Katarina. He touched her hair when she stood in front of him, overlooking the meadow. Katarina could not feel or sense the touch. The man’s fingers were like the air.  
    ‘And you look, almost identical - so similar that it was hard for me, at first.’
    Then she understood, even slightly, that her mother had been right to let Hunt raise her. Her real father knew nothing about selflessness and love, or did he? He seemed to feel he owed her an explanation, however, and she was interested to hear it.
    Heath admitted he’d always known she was his.
    ‘I used to check on you from time to time. It was the reason I never left The Hall. Your mother thought Hunt should raise you and I did not object. I thought raising you in a house full of memories of your mother would not be in your best interests. Your mother and I were meant to be together, always…and I have never truly loved another…’
   ‘I know,’ Kate said.
  ‘Then you know, everything?’ he asked.
   ‘I read her journals. I know what she wrote in them. It made me understand her…and you, more. But I don’t love you. I don’t think I even like you. I have forgiven you. That is all.’
    ‘I understand,’ Heath said. ‘I owed you an explanation…but you found it yourself. I thought I was not fit to be your father…with the boys, I barely had a choice. It was…perhaps wrong of me not to claim you. It was Kate’s wish that you be raised at The Grange. I think she thought it was less…haunted than Hareton Hall.’
    Heath touched his daughter’s cheek and walked on. He wandered further ahead of Katarina, ending the brief moment of rare and unexpected closeness between them.
    He added as an afterthought, ‘Your mother would be very proud to see you as you are.’
     Heath moved quickly and deliberately. Katarina was left standing alone in silence once again.



(#Thirty-seven) Wuthering Nights: Eternal by Summer Day: Inspired by Wuthering Heights


Chapter Thirty-seven
Eternal
    The Grange was decorated like something out of the 1920s. Light filled the room. It was surprising to Katarina that she felt so happy. Hinton had not expected her acceptance. Together they worked.
        Though she could only recall the length of her mother’s hair, her large, pretty eyes and the warmth of her touch – barely – Kate’s writing brought her back to Katarina. She could not, of course, detail her transformation into the girl in the attic that day and Katarina resolved that the more fantastical elements of her visit to The Hall might have been a terrible dream or vision.
      Katarina had each of the journals stored in a locked drawer of her desk. They represented a year of Kate’s life on this earth, and Katarina had read all of them. The words began in large, childish letters, written in an unsophisticated way. Kate had skipped forward to the good parts, and that was how she knew that Heath was her father, although she never thought of him as that. Not yet. Not ever. They were how she had learnt of the existence of hybrids and humans and vampires and bloodsucking and night terrors. It was where she began to believe in the secrets of the impossible.
     The day in the mist, the last time Katarina had seen him, had been the day he started to disappear. Heath had begun to move faster, some say at the speed of light. His powers were so diverse now. He thought they might have brought him happiness but eternity without the one he loved was…worthless. He waited for her.
      It was not meant to be that way. He’d been waiting for a long time. But a vampire turned by a hybrid is the longest hibernation of all. Twenty years, he’d been told. And even then, she’d need another eight to reach maturity (girl hybrids aged until twenty-eight when they sometimes attained immortality). It was a risk. There was a chance.  
     For twenty years the teenage girl had hidden and grown, showing herself only in the early dawn of first light. She could not speak to him or any other person, let alone touch them. Recently, she began to attain human form, as she had been the day she saw Katarina.
      For the past month, Kate had come to him in the night, older, not translucent anymore, still talkative, like a child. Her skin had transformed from see through to pale. She no longer took the form of a ghost.
     Heath was preparing their first moments together. Their first trip to Italy, where he intended to take her, was to coincide with Kate’s twenty-first birthday as a hybrid. He’d been told it was different for women. She’d take longer to emerge.
    Tomorrow would be the day. Tomorrow eternity began.
    Kate had writhed in pain for months in her attic space, hidden in corners, curled up in blankets. Heath had wandered the heath in the evening to spare himself the pain of her suffering. No one else could hear or see her and he couldn’t help her, could not even touch her. He was sure she must regret her choice but when her memory returned, from the wild dark spirit she had become, she reminded him constantly, how much she loved him. It was the pain of seeing Katarina for the first time that rendered her silent. Unable to speak to her grown child, or touch her, she’d disappeared for a long time into the dark. No one could ever find her when they went looking, not even Heath. Kate languished in a ghostly form, pined to hold her daughter, longed to take human shape. It was no use.
    Tomorrow, however, they would be free to roam together. Heath would give up his human form for now and they would no longer be seen by the rest of the world, at least until her transition was complete. One day hybrids and vampires would be accepted by the human race but that day had not yet arrived and it would not be safe for them to reveal themselves. Those were the rules. Being hybrid, Heath could only turn one human and that human, being part vampire, had had to wait two decades for restoration. Kate’s form would be human, her body hybrid, with all the term implied. Neither of them would ever look older than their mid-twenties. Heath would be there to help her final transition, to encourage her, to love her.
     He had been travelling, on a tour of his European offices as she had languished in hibernation in The Hall. Over the years she looked on in agony as the children grew. They were her greatest joy. On occasion she visited Katarina at night, resting her face on the child’s cheek, mindful she could never actually touch her. Eventually, she hoped they would discover an elixir; that instead of vanishing together, (the price Heath would pay for her complete transformation), they would be revealed simultaneously. 
     Heath had told no one he was winding up the companies in America and selling most of his property. It took many weeks. When he returned to London he only left the house to go riding on his favourite horse and sometimes he went for long walks across Hampstead, through the park, and back again. Kate was transforming. Her image appeared to him more than briefly, for moments, and in daylight, not just dreams. He’d become more and more silent to the point where even Greta, who had long ago realized that Heath was not like other men, had taken to worrying constantly about him.
    He would miss Greta and the children, who were now grown but they would not miss him. He knew it.
   He’d stopped pestering the boys about study or work, stopped worrying about the future of his companies (they would cease to exist soon enough and the cash signed over to Katarina, Linus and Hinton). Heath had long ago stopped asking about any of his old rivals and acquaintances, stopped being interested in the world around him.
    That night, before the morning of change, when Hinton, Linus and Katarina came to see him, he was congratulatory but distant. Linus seemed more terse than usual and Katarina and Hinton were blissful in each other’s company. The general malaise which Heath had embraced now seemed to affect all areas of his life. He had long since ceased trying to control the younger generation around him. He even congratulated Linus on his new start at University, he told him he was ‘extremely proud of him, whatever he chose to do but that “enjoying life” was just as important as a formal education.’
      It was all very out of character, according to Greta, who left early after the party that night. Heath had relented and made a brief appearance after Katarina left another invitation at The Hall. Hinton insisted on kissing her goodbye on the cheek and hugged her. His body was cool, his breath light. He assured her he was feeling perfectly alright.
     The next morning, Greta noticed Heath’s bed had not been slept in and he’d lost weight, so much weight that suits hung off him, but he’d stopped wearing them, anyway. Greta had long since stopped suggesting he take anti-depressants. Heath just laughed and told her he didn’t need her help or anyone else’s.
     Something strange happened in the silence and emptiness of Hareton Hall when he returned. These days, it wasn’t just when he slept. The attic was inhabited by a young girl, there was no question. Greta invaded the attic one day and found packets of lollies, uneaten crisps, shoes, socks, dresses, ancient dolls and ribbons. Then there were the strange, empty vials of elixir which looked like…blood.
   The first time Kate came to him in human form, he’d been in the drawing room attending to the paperwork on his latest company acquisition. He looked up to see some birds flying beyond where Hareton Hall was situated. They looked so free, so wild.
    It was three in the afternoon and a clear day. No one was in the house, on the floor where the study was, yet all his pens and papers had been sorted into neat piles when he walked back to his desk.
    It had been eighteen human years since he’d seen her. He sat on his favourite chair and felt a reach on his shoulder, like a whisper, the touch of her hands was so light, so transient.
    ‘Kate.’
    ‘Heath.’
    ‘I knew you’d come back to me,’ he said.
    He held her hand for a moment and looked at her perfect face until she was gone.
    From that moment, he searched for her with some hope of finding her transitioned and whole. He was reminded of the night he begged her as she lay lifeless on her bed, ‘Come back to me, Kate. Haunt me, drive me mad…’
   ‘Only if you turn me, change me…make me yours forever.’ Somehow the timing was wrong. Somehow they’d met in the middle and once again, they’d been kept apart, made to wait. Both of them like ghosts, only one of them real.
    That day, she must have heard him.
    He tried to put the image of her from his mind, at first, because it interfered with work, with his day. For many years, she only visited at night in what he tried to believe were his dreams.
    When Hinton came to stay, permanently, after Harrison had drunk himself stupid and wished to stay in the cottage, I insisted Hinton should stay in the main house and Heath should hire more help (he did, without question or interest). Heath always seemed distracted and secretive, for a reason, Greta wrote in the journals I read that night, after my final visit to Hareton Hall. I had as soft a spot for Hareton as I had for Heath, she wrote. Although I know I helped to raise a wolfish man, you must understand how difficult life had been for him and how his ambition had been fuelled by his loss and his early life and his…condition. Both Heath and Kate, both young and headstrong, helped to create the adult paths their lives had taken, but they deserved better. They deserved to be together, it is just a shame they managed to hurt so many people in the process. Although Annabelle remarried and found happiness at last - becoming the manager of her own gallery…’ Greta added as an afterthought.
     Heath wandered up the stairs that final night, with a copy of Kate’s favourite novel, Jane Eyre, in his hands. He placed it by the bed next to her photograph. He’d removed the photograph when Annabelle had lived with him here, but it hadn’t helped him forget Kate. He’d read Jane Eyre when he was younger, at Kate’s insistence, unable to see the parallels to their own isolated existence and the seeking of great love.

(#Thirty-eight: Happiness) Wuthering Nights by Summer Day: Inspired by Wuthering Heights


Chapter Thirty-eight

Happiness
Katarina had been meeting Hinton for months by the time Heath had made plans to sign the freehold title of his estate over to them. It was a regular pattern. They met at a studio space, rented out by the Art College, in Soho.
     Kat loved getting out of North London. She was used to being in central London but she particularly loved the winding cobbled streets of Soho and the West End lights.  She’d dressed up for the occasion, knowing that she and Hinton had a special dinner planned to celebrate the one year anniversary of their first meeting.
     Instead of going to Hampstead, they decided on a tiny restaurant here, beside the studio space. Hinton had something he wanted to show her that did not include a pen and paper.
     In return, Katarina had a gift she had made to give him.
     They kissed as lovers do, warm and close. It was as if they had always been like this. Although it had taken them many months to feel comfortable in each other’s company, they now trusted each other completely. Hinton took Katarina’s hand as they went to the studio together, tripping through crowds and Christmas lights of a frosty London winter.
    ‘Quick, Katarina, I want to show you something.’
    ‘Yes Hinton, I have something important to tell you also, something I’ve been saving for today.’
    Hinton looked at her in the street, as they stood still together as the crowds bustled around them. Her face shone with beauty, hope and expectation.
    Hinton had dreaded this moment - the moment he knew in his heart would eventually arrive. Everyone he had been close to, even momentarily, had abandoned him. First his own parents, whom he’d never met, then his adopted parents; even his adopted uncle had shown little interest in him beyond teaching him to fight back and be sullen and not trust another living soul. But he trusted this girl and she sensed his desperation when she said she had something important to tell him. Hinton’s face was downcast, he knew it was irrational. They’d never had an argument since the day they’d met but still the thought remained that she might be breaking up with him. After all, he needed plasma every nine hours to exist.
    ‘I…I knew you would…tire of me…you are such an amazing person but…’
    ‘Oh no, Hinton, you misunderstand…Hinton …I …love you. I think I’ve loved you since we both sounded out the word “incandescent” …you are…the most original, amazing…’
    He put his finger on her mouth, happy that the night had not been ruined, and the surprise was still before them.
   ‘Before you say anything else, you need to see this…’
    They had reached the studio, a small building, one floor up on a tiny side street in Soho.
    Hinton opened the door slowly.
    He wrapped his tie across her eyes.
    ‘Wait,’ he said.
    ‘Hinton, what are you up to?’
     ‘I’m showing you something I’ve been working on over the autumn. It’s something special…it’s my future.’
   Kate stood still in the centre of the room, an empty room with tall ceilings apart from the   painting on the easel in the middle.
   ‘Open your eyes.’
   Katarina stood in her coat, flicks of snow upon her shoulders and glanced at the tall, handsome boy with the kind eyes, then glanced back at the painting of her.
    ‘What do you think Katarina?’
    ‘It’s…amazing. I’m speechless…’
    ‘It won first prize. You won me first prize.’
    The picture that stared back at them was of a young woman’s face, an identical artist’s interpretation of the beautiful girl in the room. The haunted look in her eyes was replaced with something verging on both satisfaction and calm. If there was a word to describe the expression on Katarina’s face in the portrait, it would be love.
    ‘You are the reason I won this scholarship. I’m going abroad for the summer…’
    Kate’s face dropped…
    ‘Well, that’s wonderful… I had something for you but now…’
     Kate realized Hinton had meant more to her than she to him, for he was the one contemplating leaving.  
   Hinton took her hands in the shadow of the exquisite painting. Light beamed in from Soho streetlamps. Wind whipped up leaves on the cobbled stone. He could hear her heart and tried to stop himself from hearing her thoughts. He’d consulted a specialist who’d said by twenty-one, his needs would be fully formed. But for tonight, he was okay. Together, they were warm and safe.
    ‘It’s just that… I made something for you, but I don’t know if I should give it to you now. I mean, now that you are going…’
   Katarina sat on the forgotten lounge which had been covered in an old painter’s canvas sheet. There were splotches of blue and pink oil paint around the frayed edges of the material.
   Hinton moved towards her slowly, blood tightening in his veins. He hesitated.
   ‘That’s just it, Katarina. I don’t want to go alone. I know you shouldn’t accept me, as I am and I know it’s early to ask you this - we are young…I am…different, to say the least but…’
    Katarina looked more intently at him, not wanting to anticipate his meaning without having it spelt out before her. He wanted her to go with him… or did he?
   It was easier for him. All his life he had felt unloved until now. Hinton did not want any misunderstandings or any lack of clarity to mess things up the way love had messed up the people around him - his adopted Uncle, for example.
    ‘I… I love you. And I was wondering if you could overlook…’
    Hinton got down on one knee on the bare floors, his mouth watering with nerves, his blood tight in his veins…
    ‘I…am wondering…would you do me the honour…’
     Katarina was surprised. She had thought he’d meant her to travel with him but…this.
    ‘Yes,’ Katarina said…
    ‘I haven’t asked…’ he began.
    ‘Ask the question,’ Katarina smiled.
    ‘Katarina Spencer…I know we are young, I know we should be fearful of my…condition, but I’ve never been surer of anyone. Would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’
   ‘Yes,’ Katarina said.
   In the shadow formed by street lamps, the young lovers kissed.



(#Thirty-nine: Wuthering Nights) Wuthering Nights by Summer Day: Inspired by Wuthering Heights


Chapter Thirty-nine
Wuthering Nights
    It was an icy winter evening in Hampstead as he spread out all of the documents that ridiculous lawyer had required of him for the transferral of property and funds. He was sure he hadn’t neglected anything. He left no notes but he knew Greta would do as he wished. She had not been forgotten either. There was an envelope for her which would be sure to allow her to live in luxury for the rest of her life. Apart from Kate, she had been the most loyal person he’d known.
    Heath dressed in his warmest black turtle neck jumper and found his boots and the coat he liked best and wore most often. He heard a tap at the window, rain mixed with the branches of the tree outside, hail trickling onto the roof, reminding him of her beautiful face and pale fingers reaching for him. 
     It was not unusual any more. The waiting, the anticipation, the brief visits that had prolonged his years. He had taken to staying out late then driving home at two in the morning.  But tonight was different, tonight she hadn’t come to him and he knew it was because it was his turn to find her. Kate was waiting for him in the dark, on the heath, in human form.
     She called to him when no one could hear, no one but him.
    ‘I’ve missed you…’ She said, ‘I told you I’d come back to you.’
    ‘Kate,’ he whispered, ‘it’s been forever…’ he said under his breath, glad she was so restless, like him, a twin soul.



(#Epilogue) From the notes of Mr Tom Bennett (lawyer) etc. Wuthering Nights by Summer Day



Epilogue
From the notes of Mr Tom Bennett (lawyer) and visitor to Hampstead Heath, London.
    In the morning, I was called to investigate the business transactions of a certain Heath Spencer and the links amongst his family which allowed him to divide his assets between three heirs. I was alarmed by news of his passing, but not surprised. The Spencers hadn’t made it public and there was no note so it had taken some years for the law to rule that he’d  died “of exposure” in the night. It was all rather strange, since his body was never found.
     Rather than try to navigate the heath on a frosty winter morning, I stopped and parked near the local pub again and decided to enjoy the ten minute walk along the winding, private road that led to the imposing exterior of Hareton Hall. I was due to visit the new owner, Hinton Spencer, a young man who was married to Katarina Hunt. They had a three year old child and were in a hurry to get the documents signed because they were due to leave for America to spend a summer painting abroad. They were taking an extended vacation and assured me they did not care to live at The Hall but did not wish to sell the place, either. It was a simple matter of the transfer of documents that I’d waited some years to finalize. Hareton Hall would then be returned to its rightful owners. 
      It was a grinding walk, starting flat and easy and heading ever so slightly up hill, and then, when the sleet and wet started, down again. I was glad I could see the imposing house in the distance.
     When I finally arrived there was not a hint of movement, save wind across ground, whipping the heather into a lavender mix in the distance. Up close, there was no sign of the housekeeper either whom I’d been led to believe still lived at Hareton Hall. There was no sign of anything. The fact that the owner had gone “missing” had led to many years of legal uncertainty.
     An elderly man, wearing gloves, who looked like he worked with animals, wandered out from the stables, as if from nowhere. He must have been close to ninety years old.
   ‘Is anyone at home?’ I asked.
   ‘Not likely,’ he replied. ‘I’ve just come from exercising the horses…’
    ‘Is the owner here?’
    ‘You could say that, many do…’ he replied enigmatically. He looked at me strangely as he walked into air.
     I wandered around to the side of the house, where the cobwebs grew and the foliage had been left wild, giving the lower floor of Hareton Hall the appearance of being covered in unruly brownish lace. There were windows and doors shut tight and locked. The garages were closed and the stables remained empty apart from one where a door had been left swinging open. The grounds themselves, once manicured, had grown wild and lush with secrets.
   The owner, I thought, the young man I sought, a Mr Hinton Spencer, must have risen early to go riding across the heath with his wife.
    Then I remembered the tales of ghouls and ghosts, the objects seen moving in windows, the people long gone that neighbours reported having seen only days ago. Someone in particular, a young woman with long dark hair who wandered the corridors and played loud music, turning on all the lights during wild, evening parties and lighting hundreds of fire -hazardous candles. I’d assumed the reports were simply jealous neighbours complaining about the noise created by the beautiful young wife, the new Mrs Spencer who’d also had the keys and the run of Hareton Hall. Since the noise always stopped at midnight, there was little anyone could do. 
    I was about to give up, admit defeat and return the copies of the papers declaring transfer of original ownership to the rightful heirs of Hareton Hall, when I saw the curtains in the upstairs window move. A young girl with long dark hair glanced down at me and smiled. I knocked loudly and waited for a long time, but still, no one answered.   
   ‘Katarina Spencer,’ I announced, calling out distinctly, although I knew Katarina would be older now and the woman at the window was barely out of her teens. The downstairs curtains waved and I thought perhaps the housekeeper might be there. I looked up again. The girl who stood at the window was beautiful, otherworldly. The image disappeared before my eyes in a mirage of dark curls, cream lace and ruby cheeks.
     I was convinced the cold, like the heat, could make you see a mirage in the mist yet I waited on the doorstep for a long time. No one answered. I was tempted to look back as I walked towards my car. For the first time in my life I didn’t need proof. I was sure the rumours I’d heard were true, though my notes had many pages missing. As I drove towards The Grange, I was certain the lovers who had once inhabited Hareton Hall, lived there still. The girl had not aged a day since she was last seen alive, more than twenty years ago.





Summer Day is the author of Pride & Princesses, a novel for young adults inspired by Pride and Prejudice and Anne Eyre, a YA novel inspired by Jane Eyre. Follow Summer Day on:





Saturday, May 11, 2013

HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: THE END (sort of) #Step Twelve and Beyond



HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN TWELVE STEPS: THE END (sort of) #Step Twelve and Beyond
·         You have a draft.
·         You’ve “fixed up that mess.”
·         Think of a working title.
·         Now go back and make the manuscript as perfect as possible.
·         Leave no room for spelling, punctuation or grammar mistakes (it’s hard, but try to omit those mistakes).
·         Refine that draft.
·         Leave it after you’ve refined it.
·         Read it again and again until you can’t bear to read it anymore.
·         Now hand it over to a trusted friend, advisor or copy editor.
CONGRATUALTIONS!!!!!!!!!
YOU DID IT!
I’m almost as proud of you as I would be if your draft were my own!
But it’s not.
It’s yours.
GO TO IT!
·         Think about publication…
·         Start your research. Google is there for a reason. Use it.
·         It might be a month (unlikely) or a year after you started… and you deserve a pat on the back…
·         You might want to think about showing the first chapters to that publishing contact (preferably a family member or if you have really good friends you could try that…) or you might try an agent or editor.
·         But that’s a whole other “How-To” Series.
·         It just is.