Worlds of Ink and Shadow

by Lena Coakley

  “I know,” Emily replied.

  “Of someone . . . someone who I think we both love.”

  “Yes.”

  They were in the sitting room of a rough-stone house, standing in front of a huge fireplace. Branwell had made reference in some of his stories to a “hideout” in the countryside outside Verdopolis, where Rogue and S’Death sometimes retreated, but he had never set a scene here before. In faded sofas or high-backed chairs, half a dozen examples of the criminal class sat sharpening swords and long knives, giving off a clear impression that they were getting ready for some great mischief. These men ignored Emily and Branwell for the most part, though some occasionally looked up from their work to give them a sly glance or a knowing leer.

  “He says I’m to wring your pretty necks if you don’t talk,” said S’Death, entering the room from what appeared to be the kitchen.

  “We’ll tell him what he wants to know,” Branwell answered, shielding Emily with his body and forcing a boldness into his voice that he didn’t feel. “But it’s for his ears alone.”

  S’Death gave a sullen grunt and told them to wait.

  When he was gone, Emily ran her finger along the mantel of the fireplace, seeming unsurprised by the thick layer of dust she found there. Above the mantel was an impressive gun collection, with fowling pieces and horse pistols hanging on pegs all the way up to the ceiling. At the far end of the room, shelves of pewter plates and tankards sat row upon row. Two liver-colored hounds lay in the corner, licking themselves. Branwell wondered if she recognized Alexander Rogue’s hideout for what it was, or if she’d forgotten that day in the rain. Then it occurred to him that this might be as much her creation as it was his.

  “Look,” she said. “It’s Gondal.” To the right of the fireplace was the only painting in the room, a dark landscape in a small, rectangular frame.

  “Oh,” Branwell said, stepping up to it. He had only just learned his little sister had made a world, and he was curious to see it. At first he was rather disappointed. “It’s . . . a moor.”

  And a more desolate moor one could hardly imagine. He would never have chosen such a subject for a painting—or for a world. There was nothing to be seen but gray hills and gray sky. A rock. A leafless tree. The more he looked, though, the more he began to admire the mood of the place. There was a bleak beauty about the painting. He decided that he’d be very proud to show such work to Mr. Robinson someday—but a moment later he saw that this painting could not exist in life. The clumps of wild grass swayed in the rough wind, and the clouds moved across the sky. He felt that he might reach his hand through the frame and travel to this stark place.

  “I wish I were there now,” Emily said, and Branwell was struck by the longing in her voice.

  “Why?”

  She needed no time to think of an answer. “I’m more myself there. He is, too, I think.”

  Branwell was a little annoyed by this, knowing she meant Rogue. He and Charlotte often borrowed each other’s characters, but Rogue was different. He was just beginning to realize that Emily was responsible for all the recent changes in him. The terrible truth was that she’d made him better.

  He looked away from her, crossing his arms and frowning at the painting. “Reminds me of Rob Roy. You’ve been reading Sir Walter Scott.”

  “I have. He is my second-favorite author.”

  “Who is your favorite? Let me guess. Byron?”

  “No.” Emily laughed. “It’s you, of course.”

  He saw that she was quite serious and felt touched.

  “You made Alexander Rogue,” she said.

  “Almost,” he said quietly.

  The words of Elizabeth’s ghost came back to him: If history remembers you for anything at all, it will be for being Charlotte Brontë’s brother. Not only Charlotte, perhaps. He and Charlotte had been fighting all their lives over which of them was the most brilliant Brontë. It would serve them both right if it was neither of them.

  “Banny?” Emily said with hesitation. “Would it be all right if I played the next scene just Rogue and me? I . . . I want to say good-bye to him.”

  “Yes,” he said, after a while. “I don’t mind.” Though he did, a little.

  EMILY

  EMILY AND ROGUE STOOD ON A RISE ABOVE the hideout. The sky was gray. A damp wind blew through the yellowing grass. All around them were green hills as far as the eye could see.

  “Reminds me of your Gondal,” Rogue said. It reminded Emily of home. “I thought you said you hadn’t made this world.”

  Emily was still warm from the walk. She had tried to steel herself as she climbed the hill—Rogue was dangerous, a mad dog that needed putting down—but now, seeing his face . . . Why did his rough face claw so at her heart? She smiled at him. She couldn’t help it.

  “I didn’t make this world, but there are some things I can do.” She closed her eyes. “All around them, foxglove swayed in the breeze.” When she opened her eyes again, Rogue had drawn very close and was staring down at her. His eyes made her breath catch. “My favorite flower,” she explained, wanting to step away but not wanting to seem afraid.

  Rogue raised an eyebrow. “Deadman’s bells,” he said, using the country name. “Poisonous, I believe.”

  Emily broke free of his gaze and looked around her. Taller than the tall grass, the stalks of foxglove teetered in the wind, each flower as white as bone. She frowned. “I’d meant to make them purple.” Tabby always said the white ones meant a death.

  All at once, the enormity of what she was doing fell over her. She was setting the stage for Rogue’s death—for the death of Verdopolis—and she felt crushed by the weight of it. A raw wind whistled through the grass, making her shiver.

  “Fitting,” said Rogue. He looked out over the green landscape and took in a deep breath. “Everything becomes a bad omen at a time like this.”

  Emily swallowed. Did he know what was coming? “What do you mean?”

  “After all these years, do you think I can’t feel it? You Genii have something terrible in store.”

  She didn’t ask him to explain further, fearing what he knew. She rubbed her arms against the chill. Almost out of earshot was a high tinkling sound, like very distant music. Emily couldn’t identify it, but for some reason it seemed terribly mournful against the low keening of the wind.

  “Once, years ago, I stood in front of a firing squad and knew I was going to die,” Rogue said, his gaze still fixed on the distant hills. “I knew it. There would be no last-minute reprieve for me, no rescue by my men.”

  “But you were wrong,” Emily said. “I know the story.”

  “I was wrong because the gods changed their minds.” He turned to face her. “You won’t change them this time, will you?”

  Emily was taken aback by the directness of the question and by his gaze. He knew. He knew exactly what she and her siblings planned. “Would you be truly . . . distressed not to exist anymore?” As soon as the words were out she knew it was a stupid question—but then, Rogue wasn’t a real person, after all. At least, that’s what she tried to tell herself.

  “Distressed?” he spat. “I’m not being snubbed by the duchess at the ball, my dear. I’m being murdered by my makers! Wouldn’t that distress you?”

  “It’s not murder!” she insisted.

  “What would you call it?”

  “You’re not alive. You are a story. We made you up.”

  Rogue pounded his chest with his fist. “I feel alive. I don’t feel like a story any more than you do!”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, tears stinging her eyes.

  “It’s true, then?” he asked. “They’re killing me off?”

  Emily nodded, and he turned abruptly, rubbing a hand through his hair. She braced herself for a volcanic burst of fury, but his voice, when he turned back to her, was soft and full of pain. “Can’t you stop it? Can’t you save me?”

  Anger she could bear, but the look of suffering on his face sent guilt stabbing through
her body.

  “You think we are all-powerful, but we are at the mercy of something else,” she said. “All this . . .” She lifted her arms to the scene around them. “All this comes at a price. If I were the only one to pay it, I would do so gladly, but I am not the only one.”

  Now his anger came. “What the devil are you talking about?” he shouted. “I don’t understand a word—but it doesn’t sound like a justification for my death!”

  “You must die, or you shall continue to torment me. Don’t you remember coming to my world? You howled up at my window!”

  He started, and she thought perhaps he did remember, but then he pointed a finger at her face, making her take a step back. “It is you who torments me, girl!” He fumbled for something in his jacket pocket, took it out. “Look at this!” He thrust something under her nose. “Why do I carry this? Why can’t I get rid of it?” In his hand was a plait of hair tied with a scarlet ribbon. It was hers. He had cut it with the stiletto during the party at Wellesley House. “You’ll have me writing poems next.”

  “Oh,” she said. “You kept it.”

  “You have done this to me, and yet I know you will betray me. I can feel it. You gave me a heart only to break it!”

  Emily stared dumbly at the plait. She touched the place where it had been. “You . . . feel something for me?”

  Carefully he put the braid back in his jacket pocket. “I believe you know that I do,” he said, with a fiery glare in her direction.

  It wasn’t true. She hadn’t known, and she hadn’t made him care for her, though she couldn’t deny that she’d wanted it to happen.

  “I suppose you will enjoy weeping for me,” he said, “the way women enjoy weeping over a sad book. Will my death be touching, goddess?” She hated the bitterness in his voice. “Will there be a moral lesson?”

  “Don’t. Please don’t,” she said, as a sob escaped her. “Do you think I want you to die?”

  “Don’t cry, for heaven’s sake,” Rogue said. “I have a heart of stone, remember. I am unaffected.”

  Emily tried to stop, but a tear was running down her cheek now. It would be so much easier if he hated her. And if she hated him.

  “I only laugh when women cry,” Rogue insisted. “Ha!”

  Emily’s breath stuttered and hitched as she tried to steady it.

  “Oh, gods help me,” Rogue said in frustration. “I am slain already.” The next thing Emily knew, she was in his arms.

  Emily didn’t come from a family that embraced very often, but being held by Rogue was like something she had been waiting a long time for without knowing it. Something in her body that had been held tense relaxed. She cried harder. The wind all around them was like a song, a melancholy song, and the faint tinkling sound made it all the more sad. She pressed her cheek against Rogue’s black waistcoat.

  “I’m sorry I shot that cully,” Rogue said softly. “In Gondal, I mean. And I’ve never been sorry for anything before. It’s a strange feeling.” Emily laughed a little through her tears. “You’re not reforming me, are you? Making me see the error of my ways? I’d rather die than be that kind of story.”

  “Never,” she said. “You are irredeemable.”

  “That’s a relief,” he said, gently smudging away one of her tears with his thumb. “It will be all right. You’ll see. We’ll run away to Gondal, just you and I.”

  “Yes.”

  “I know it’s those others who are to blame. Not you.” He took her by the shoulders. “That’s why I needed to know who they were. That’s why . . . You’ll tell me, won’t you? You’ll tell me the name of the eldest Genius, the one who’s truly behind what happens in Verdopolis. Lord Thornton promised me a name.”

  Emily hesitated, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “Perhaps we could go to Gondal. Perhaps we could go now.” She meant it. She didn’t care how many days she lost. At that moment she was willing to go and never come back.

  “Not yet,” said Rogue. His grip on her shoulder tightened. “The name first.”

  There was something in his eyes she didn’t like, and there was the hint of a threat in the tightness of his grip. Emily remembered how he’d tricked her before, in Gondal. Was he really sorry he shot that cully?

  “Can’t you guess?” she asked.

  “No tricks,” he said. His voice had a hard edge.

  Emily couldn’t believe she’d been willing to run away to Gondal with him only moments before. She had to remember—she’d said it herself—Rogue was irredeemable.

  “If you had the power to make a world,” Emily said, “wouldn’t you make yourself the hero of every story? Wouldn’t you make yourself the richest, the handsomest, the most dashing—the most fascinating man in Verdopolis?”

  Rogue’s eyes hardened to obsidian. “Zamorna,” he breathed.

  “Of course.”

  He let go of her shoulders and turned away. “It’s so obvious. I should have known. And they say he’s to be king of some new country.”

  “Yes,” Emily said softly. “If he lives through the coronation day.”

  “He won’t,” Rogue said. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

  The wind gusted, bending the white flowers all around them, and the dissonant tinkling sound she’d heard before grew louder. The foxglove. That was where the sound was coming from. The deadman’s bells were all ringing, ringing, ringing—a death knell for her beloved Alexander Rogue.

  ANNE

  IHOPE THEY DO NOT MISS THEIR TEA,” PAPA SAID.

  Anne didn’t know what to say to this, but he didn’t seem to expect an answer. She pulled a skein of red yarn from her workbasket and began to wind it into a ball. This was awkward with her bandages, but she needed something to do. She was on the sofa, and her father sat opposite her on the wooden chair. Everything was strangely ordinary. Snowflake and Grasper sat in their respective baskets, eyeing each other with suspicion. In the kitchen Tabby and Aunt Branwell were arguing over how many walnuts to put in an apple pudding.

  “Let me,” Papa said, taking the yarn from her lap. “Don’t look so surprised, my dear. Your mother taught me the skill.” He held the yarn between his two upright hands, letting it out gradually as Anne began to wind. “It doesn’t hurt your burns?”

  “Oh, no.” Anne’s fingers were still a little stiff, but she wasn’t in any pain. “I’m sure it will do me good.” It was so unusual to have Papa to herself. He was almost always shut up in his study at this time of day.

  “I expected to look in on Branwell’s painting or look over Charlotte’s lesson plans . . . They left no word as to their return?”

  “No,” she murmured.

  “Nor Emily?”

  She shook her head.

  “Strange that they should go for such a long walk today, of all days.” He nodded to the windows spattered with rain, but Anne knew he meant something more. He meant, Where have my children truly gone? He waited as if expecting her to say something, then sighed. “You look tired, my dear.”

  “I am, a little.”

  Anne had been counting the minutes since Charlotte and Emily crossed over, and her nerves were frayed. She dreaded being asked a direct question about their whereabouts; she’d even hidden their boots so Aunt Branwell wouldn’t ask why they’d gone without them in the rain. What an excellent criminal I am becoming, she thought with dismay. For a while they wound yarn in silence.

  “Do you remember the painted mask I once had?” Papa asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Years ago, when Maria and Elizabeth were still alive, it occurred to me that my children were growing shy, that they did not speak their cares to me, and so I contrived a method for hearing their thoughts. I sat them in a circle and had each wear the mask in turn, and I asked them questions. You were too little, I’m afraid, and didn’t wear it, but with the others, it worked wonders. They lost their fear of speaking when they had that mask on, and I learned many instructive things about my children’s character and intelligen
ce.

  “A parent shouldn’t have to resort to such means, but my children had no mother, and men are never taught the art of raising children. I have had to make it up out of my own head, and I suppose I have done it very badly.”

  “Not at all, Papa!” Anne insisted.

  “I wonder. If I had you wear that mask today, Anne, would you find the courage to tell me what is troubling you?”

  Anne would very much have liked to confide in her father, but where in the world would she begin?

  He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “I will tell you a secret, my dear. All my children are shy. They have simply learned the art of wearing masks.”

  Anne looked up at him. “All except Branwell.”

  Papa laughed. “Especially Branwell. What do you think his arrogance is? Just a mask he wears to help him be the person he wants to be—though now I think he finds he cannot take it off as easily as he put it on.”

  It was an interesting idea. Anne had often wondered if Charlotte pretended to be Charles Wellesley sometimes, even when she was not in Verdopolis. Perhaps that’s how she found the courage to go to school again—by wearing the mask of someone else until she became that someone else. A clever trick.

  “Charlotte does it, I think,” she said.

  “Yes. She wears the mask of the dutiful daughter.” It wasn’t what Anne had meant, but she didn’t interrupt. “It hardly ever slips, but when it does”—he leaned back in his chair—“Charlotte will never forgive me.”

  “No,” Anne said quietly. “I suppose not.”

  He fixed her with a piercing gaze. “Now, any other of my children would have denied that, denied they even knew what I was speaking of. But not you.”

  Anne felt herself blush. She had strong memories of the ugly black wreath that had covered the parsonage door when Maria and Elizabeth died, of crying bitterly not because she missed them, but because everyone else’s tears made her feel so bereft. Her memories of Maria and Elizabeth themselves were much more vague—but she’d always known that their ghosts persisted.

  “Honesty is one of your great strengths, my dear. Never forget that.” Anne wasn’t sure she deserved such praise. Perhaps she only lied less because she said less. “If you could choose any mask to wear right now, what would it be?”