Jane of Fire

by Jessica Penot

  ~ H.P. Lovecraft

  I didn’t have any place to go, so for a while, I just sat in the parking lot of a McDonalds and sobbed. I leaned against my steering wheel and cried until my eyes didn’t have any tears left. Part of me thought that, if I sat in that parking lot long enough, something would happen. Edward would come knock on the window and tell me the police had learned it was all a terrible mistake. Bertha had killed herself. I thought that some miracle would happen and everything would be all right. I thought, maybe I would wake up in Edward’s arms and everything that had happened would have been a terrible dream.

  As the sun began to set, I realized I would have to leave my Jeep. I would have to go the ATM and take out my hard-earned money. I would find someplace to spend the night. I couldn’t just sit in my car sobbing for the rest of my life. I wiped the tears from my cheeks and laughed at myself. How ridiculous to think that I could live happily ever after. I had never had anything given to me in my life. Everything I had, I’d worked for, far harder than I should have had to. Girls like me didn’t get to fall in love with passionate, brilliant, beautiful men, who were too good to be true. I was such a fool. There was no such thing as fairy tales and I had been deluding myself into thinking I had found one. There were no Prince Charmings. I’d grown up in a world with too many bad guys, who did bad things to girls and women. I should have known better.

  Just as I was blowing my nose, Mary knocked on the window of my Jeep. I rolled it down and looked up at her.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  I wanted to lie. I wanted to dry my tears and tell her I was fine, but I choked on the words before they even left my lips and I began to cry again.

  Mary ran around to the other side of the car and got in. She grabbed hold of me and hugged me. For a long time, I just cried on her shoulder. I cried until I didn’t have any tears left to cry.

  “What happened?”

  I shook my head. “He wasn’t who I thought he was,” I blubbered. “It was all a lie and now I don’t have any place to go. I don’t know what to do.”

  “That’s stupid,” Mary said, as she released me from her iron hug. She wiped the tears from my face with her sleeve and pushed my hair behind my ear. My curly hair had rebelled against the pony tail holder and was a mess again. Mary tried to fix it but it was like fighting the rain with your hands. “You do have someplace to go. You are coming to stay with us. You always have a place with us.”

  I wiped my nose on the back of my hand. “Really?”

  “Of course,” she said. “You are one of our best friends.” She giggled. “And I’m positive you’re going to be super successful and very important someday, so I want to start kissing up to you now.”

  I laughed in spite of everything

  “Let’s go home,” Mary said. “I walked here and if I hadn’t seen you bawling in your Jeep, I would have had to do the healthy thing and walk home, and that goes against everything my fast-food diet stands for. You don’t know it, but you’re the one who saved me.” Mary smiled and I turned the key in the ignition and drove us back to the apartment. I carried my heavy suitcase up the stairs and Mary cleaned up the guest bedroom for me. She even found clean sheets for me. It wasn’t a big room, but it was cozy and safe. There wouldn’t be any crazy cackling in the middle of the night, or ghosts appearing in front of me and telling me secrets, or any fires threatening my life. And most importantly, there would be no one to break my heart.

  “How much is rent?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry about rent,” Mary said.

  “Really,” I said. “I have money saved up. How much is it?”

  “How about $100 a month. Is that okay?”

  “Yeah, that’s great,” I said.

  Sara suddenly came bursting through the front door. She didn’t look around. She just tossed her books on the sofa. She was talking before the door even shut behind her.

  “Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “Did you hear the news? Edward Rochester really did kill his old girlfriend.”

  “Sara,” Mary said angrily.

  “Do you think Jane knows?”

  “Sara,” Mary said again.

  “They say he stabbed her, set her on fire, and pushed her out a window. What a psycho! I hope Jane’s okay. That poor girl. She was only sixteen when he killed her. He obviously gets them young and vulnerable…”

  “Sara!” Mary yelled.

  Sara finally stopped talking and turned to face Mary and me. Her face went white as a sheet when she saw me standing there. For a minute, she was so shocked and embarrassed, she was obviously unable to speak, and then she blurted out her apologies.

  “I am so sorry,” she stammered. “Jane, I am so sorry.” She ran to me and hugged me. “I didn’t know you were here. Are you okay?”

  “I invited Jane to stay with us,” Mary said. “She can’t stay at Thornfield anymore, and she obviously can’t be anyplace with her name on the lease or anything. She can’t risk that psycho finding her if he gets out on parole.”

  I hadn’t thought about that. I hadn’t thought that Edward could be dangerous. I couldn’t imagine having to hide from him or being afraid of him. He was one of the only people I had ever felt safe with. He was the only person I had ever really been myself with.

  “Of course, you’ll stay with us,” Sara said, as she gave me one more squeeze before pulling away. “You’ll stay with us as long as you like.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “He didn’t hurt you…did he?” Sara asked tentatively.

  “No.” My voice sounded strangled and I struggled not to cry again. “He was perfect. He was everything I ever…I can’t imagine him hurting anyone. He was never anything but kind to me.”

  “I volunteered at the domestic violence shelter last summer,” Mary said. “There’s a cycle of violence, you know? It’s always the guys who seem the most passionate who become the most violent. First, they romance you and sweep you off your feet, then they flip out when they think they might lose you or you “piss them off” by leaving a dirty dish on the table or something stupid like that. And then it starts again, and they’re all lovey-dovey until they flip out again. The flipping out gets worse and worse over time. Thank God you never saw Edward flip out on you, Jane. Who knows what he would have done?”

  I nodded. I didn’t know how else to respond. What else could I do? I didn’t believe Edward would ever hurt me, but all the evidence indicated he could have. I sat down on the sofa beside Sara’s books.

  “You know what we need to do?” Mary offered. “We need to go see a movie. Let’s go see a movie.”

  Mary and Sara both grabbed me and took me out. They bought me popcorn and candy and we watched three movies. The local theater was playing a Lord of the Rings marathon, and we all sat quietly and lost ourselves in the fantasy. I was even able to forget about Edward for a while. It was just what I needed. I smiled and stuffed my face with popcorn. The world outside the theater melted away and all that existed was Middle Earth.

  The movies ended, and reality came flooding back to me as I exited the theater. When we got back to the apartment, Sinjun was watching the news, and it wasn’t good. Edward had made CNN. The anchor was talking about the Rochester family’s long history of domestic abuse, wealth, and corruption. Murder, money, and cruelty had followed the family down through the centuries, culminating in this particularly heinous murder. Pictures of Bertha, and stories of her beauty and kindness, were part of the news story. I watched silently from the door. Mary and Sara were mesmerized by the coverage. The only thing I had to be grateful for was the fact that, somehow, my name was not part of the news. There was no information regarding the ordinary girl Edward Rochester had been dating. I took a deep breath in relief.

  After far longer than necessary, Mary stepped forward and turned the television off.

  “I was watching tha
t,” Sinjun protested.

  “I don’t think now is the time,” Mary hissed.

  Sinjun turned around and saw me. He stood up uncomfortably. He looked stiff. He shuffled his feet a bit. I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were here.”

  “It’s okay,” I said as I sat down. “I can’t avoid the news forever.”

  Sinjun sat down next to me and gave me an awkward hug that was meant to be comforting. He smiled and put his arm around me. I leaned into him and felt the simple comfort from a nice guy.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “I knew that guy was bad news, but I had no idea. I tried to warn you, but I should have tried harder.” Sinjun looked like he felt guilty. “I’m not good with things like that, but that guy must be a monster. I should have tried harder to help you.”

  “It isn’t your fault,” I whispered. I bit my lip trying not to cry. I couldn’t stand it when people called Edward a monster. I could never believe he was a monster. It was like someone was pushing a knife into my gut. “I was the one who fell in love with him. I’m not naïve. I knew Edward had a difficult past.”

  I closed my eyes. I had known Edward wasn’t all that he’d seemed. The signs had been everywhere. That night when Bertha’s brother had gotten hurt., Edward had said the guy had fallen, but Edward must have stabbed him. The way Mrs. Fairfax had tried to warn me about him. Any idiot would have seen his extreme mood swings. It was odd that even then, none of that mattered to me. I still loved him. He was a part of my heart, now, and I couldn’t escape him. Even knowing that he’d killed Bertha, I couldn’t help but want to run to him. Maybe I was a monster, too? Or crazy like those desperate women who fall in love with prison inmates and end up on Dr. Phil.

  Sinjun suggested we turn the TV back on and watch the news coverage so we could understand more about what had happened. I nodded and he flicked on the TV. He moved to the other chair and Sara and Mary sat on either side of me, burrowing close as though they would protect me from Edward, even through the TV set. The reporter was talking about The Rochester family. The men had always married young, and their brides usually ended up disappearing, dying, or going insane. Clearly, there was a long and sordid history of violence in the Rochester clan. Then they talked about Blanche Ingram, his most recent girlfriend, and how she’d been treated by Edward and was lucky to be alive. The girls grabbed my hands thinking they were going to mention me, and then a picture of Blanche flashed on the screen and they cut to an interview with her looking as beautiful as ever. She was crying. Her eyes were heavy with tears.

  “We were going to be married this summer,” she sobbed. “I am so grateful that they caught him when they did or I could have been next. I loved him so much.” She buried her face in her hands and cried, but the tears seemed fake to me.

  “What a bitch!” I spat involuntarily.

  Everyone turned to face me in surprise, but I couldn’t help myself. I continued on. “He dumped her before Christmas. He didn’t even like her. He was mine!”

  I stood up, trembling with rage. It was Mary who put her arms around me and sat me back down. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “It is normal for abused women to continue loving their abusers. It will take time for you to forget him. In the shelter, where I volunteered, women would go back to their abusers two or three times before they finally realized what monsters they were with. You are lucky he’s in jail and you can’t go back to him. Just remind yourself of how much he hurt you and how dangerous he is.”

  I took Mary’s hand and said thank you, but I couldn’t remember Edward ever being cruel or dangerous. I remembered him walking into the fire to save me. I remembered him carrying his grandmother, lovingly, to bed. I remembered him brushing his horse and whispering sweetly to it. These things were emblazoned in my mind like a seal upon my heart. I closed my eyes and realized those memories would have to stay locked in my heart because no one else would ever understand.

  Chapter 20

  And the sun that warmed our stooping backs and withered the weed uprooted. We shall not see it again. We shall all die in darkness and be buried in the rain.

  ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

  I tried to avoid the news from then on. I focused on school and preparations for our summer trip. I focused on my finals. I got another part-time job working in the university library. Mary and Sinjun and Sara became my family. We did everything together. They even threw a party for me when I turned seventeen. I was more grateful for them than I had ever been for anyone. I would have gone crazy without them.

  The semester ended and Sinjun graduated. I sat and watched him walk across the stage. He didn’t like big parties, so we had a small dinner for him. His parents came. They were lovely people, who spent far too much time talking to me. They asked me about my past and my future goals. Sinjun put his hand on mine during the dinner and smiled at me. I smiled back. He was a good friend.

  That week, strange news greeted me. The library had kept me on for the summer, and I had just finished a shift and was relaxing on the couch watching a movie. It was nice sometimes just to veg out. I was learning from Sara and Mary that I didn’t need to spend every waking hour studying. That I could relax, once in a while. And besides, the year was over and I had gotten straight As. It was summer and since we only had A/C window units in the bedrooms, the rest of the apartment was hot, so I was wearing shorts and a tank top and had two fans going.

  The doorbell rang and I answered it, expecting it to be one of Mary or Sara’s boyfriends, but instead, it was a short, bald man in a neatly pressed suit, and a tall woman with white hair in a severe blunt cut, large glasses, and a bright orange dress.

  “Are you Miss Jane Marsh? Formerly of Gateshead, Massachusetts?”

  “Y-yes, what can I do for you?” I asked, my mind already spinning into worry mode.

  “My name is Richard Crumbly and I am an attorney representing your uncle, Cerrus Blackbriar, and this is Ms. Tara Brocklehurst, from Child Protective Services.”

  “Oh,” I said. I was slightly stunned.

  I invited them in and made some tea. Ms. Brocklehurst looked around at our messy apartment with a shriveled nose. Mary had had a party the night before and beer bottles lined the tiny coffee table. Old pizza boxes were on the floor, too.

  “We have some very important matters to discuss with you, Jane,” Mr. Crumbly stated, taking a seat on the couch.

  “Well,” Ms. Brocklehurst announced, “your foster mother passed away and your custody was returned to the state.”

  I knew Mrs. Blankenship had been close to the end the last time I saw her, but it was a shock to hear the words that she had died. “I’m sorry to hear that.” That was all I could muster. “What does it mean that my custody has been returned to the state?”

  “Look around you. You are a seventeen-year-old girl living with college students who have parties on a regular basis, judging from all these beer bottles. I discovered from speaking to Mrs. Blankenship’s former hospice care nurse, that you had been living and working at the Thornfield estate since last summer when you were only sixteen. Further investigation at Thornfield revealed that, since Christmas, you had been dating the Rochester family heir, Edward Rochester, and sleeping with him in his quarters, without any proper chaperone or supervision. And that you were set to fly off to Florida with him before he was arrested for murdering a previous girlfriend. Your arms are covered in tattoos and God only knows how many you have elsewhere on your body. What do you think the state should do with a girl like you?”

  I looked down. The tattoo had spread to my lower arms. I hadn’t even noticed. I grabbed a cardigan that was hanging on the hook by the door and put it on. “It isn’t like that,” I answered.

  “Isn’t it? If it weren’t for your attorney, I would be sending you to a home for troubled teens. You should know that is what I recommended. You are out of control.”

  “My attorney?” I a
sked stupidly.

  “I am your attorney,” Crumbly said. “Your uncle put me in charge of finding you and making sure you were safe and taken care of. After Mrs. Blankenship’s death, we decided to intervene.”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. I had only found out about my uncle when I went to see Mrs. Blankenship but, with everything that had happened, I hadn’t even bothered trying to contact him.

  “You did receive the money he sent, didn’t you? Why didn’t you contact him?” the attorney asked in a stern voice. “He sent a detailed letter with his contact information to Mrs. Blankenship.”

  “I never got the money. My foster mother told me about it. She spent it. But she didn’t tell me my uncle wanted to meet me.”

  The attorney shook his head. “Mr. Blackbriar was so sorry about how you were treated in foster care. You see, Mr. Blackbriar’s younger sister, your mother, was a run-away. She had been missing from the age of fourteen and it took a long time for your uncle to find you. It was his greatest regret, knowing he had let his sister’s daughter get lost in a system of abuse and neglect.”

  Ms. Brocklehurst bristled at this. “Mr. Crumbly, there are thousands of good people who are foster parents and give nothing but love and support to the children they take in.”

  Mr. Crumbly glanced at Ms. Brocklehurst with a condescending smile. “There are also many people who take advantage of the money they get from the government and abuse the children they are supposed to be loving and supporting.” Mr. Crumbly turned back to me, his expression softening. “Your uncle wanted me to tell you how sorry he was that you had to go through so much in your young life.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Well, that’s good to hear, at least.” I was having trouble processing everything.

  “There is more. Your uncle wants to make amends for what you have gone through.”

  “Amends? What happened to me wasn’t his fault. . .” I began.

  “It is already done, my dear. It is already done. He is in the process of adopting you and making you his heir. Everything he has will be yours when he dies.”