Page 1 (1/2)

PART I

A Sound Called Wuthering

ONE

The Bees

Once, four children called Charlotte, Ee called Haworth in the very farthest, steepest, highest, northernest bit of England Their house stood snugly at the very farthest, steepest, highest bit of the village, just behind the church and the crowded graveyard, for their father was the parson Every Sunday he stood up in the chapel and told the tightly buttoned people of Haworth all about the wonders of a buttoned-up heaven and the dangers of this buttoned-down earth The four of them were mostly looked after by their Aunt Elizabeth and their maidservant, Tabitha, for a parson has very little ti about heaven and earth and buttoning, both up and down But oftener and oftener, they looked after each other, which suited them very well

Charlotte was the oldest Her thick hair parted through the center of her skull like a dark sea She had a round, pale face, a fearsome scowl, and a smile that was slow to coly that just because he was eleven and Charlotte elve didn’the didn’t know He had dark eyes and eyelashes and eyebrows and dark, curly hair When he frowned, which he almost always did, he looked just like a storm cloud come to life Elets the color of hazelnuts, soft gray eyes, and a wonderful memory She could reloves she wore on the day their est, she was very nearly the prettiest child in Haworth Her hair shone als Even though she’d only just turned eight, she watched everyone with her wide gray-violet eyes so intently that the whole house felt a little as though she were spying on the reports to some invisible spymaster

There had been more of them, once They used to be six Maria and Lizzie, older than Charlotte, withvoices All the girls but Anne had gone ht e with poor Emily and poor Charlotte they’d buried in the churchyard It was too big a thing to hold in their heads all at once, like the idea that thein the lonely dark forever They knew that was true, but if they tried to go outside and see how vast and empty it really was, they just couldn’tthat distant and frightening inside the, one foot in front of the other How could anyone do that knowing so above you all the ti toward you without a bit of warning? All they could face in the night was a few soft beae that they would never be six again

Most days, the four of them were quite content to play indoors in the room at the top of the stairs They tried not to causetrouble meant extra chores and early bedtie to be coood Each of them had a criminal specialty, a particular wickedness they could never resist

Ele the stumps of candles up to their room before Tabitha even noticed they’d burned do The very second Papa finished reading an issue of one of his encer, or the Quarterly Review, it would vanish from his bedside table in Emily’s hot little hands She hid bits of seedcake and bread and boiled carrots away in her skirt at supper and fed theh the playroom

Anne really did spy on nearly everyone She could sneak and creep and vanish again like a fox in the hedgerows Her ears were like little soft bear traps lying in wait for any scrap of whisper that floated through the house, and the village, too She didn’t understand exactly every word gruff grown-ups in brown coats and brown skirts mumbled under their breath But she always remembered them anyhow so that she could ask Charlotte what coreat and small stood no chance when Anne was about

Charlotte could lie better and with a straighter face than any member of Parliament She knew the truth was ihter of a parson But whenever anyone asked her the sinificently un-little answers cahter than the tatty old truth When Tabitha spoke sternly to her on the subject of stray salt left all over the kitchen and not tidied up in the least, she could have just apologized like a fine, upstanding girl They’d snuck downstairs to play Polar Exploration and built up proper banks of snow crystals to conquer But wasn’t it just an awful lotto tell the ht, and walked all the way across the rass, and stars are just beasts for salt, don’t you know? Even if Papa asked her so as tiny and silly as whether or not she had seen his pipe lying about, Charlotte would so just there, on the left- would unfold if she did the unexpected thing

Branwell, however, had a true genius for badness He was both a vandal and a brawler He pinched his sisters whenever he could—it was so glorious to hear thehbor boys, and should a dog ever bite him, he would bite back, every ti hiirls’ faces on the plaster wall of the room at the top of the stairs He desperately loved to draw, and he had no othera parson like his father Branould be a great painter He hadn’t told Papa yet, of course, but he knew it in his kneecaps He practiced on his sisters because he didn’t like to paint his—furniture

and overnirl’s job to sit still and let so out of them, and that was that

Almost all their crih style It was hardly more than a drafty white closet, nestled like a secret between Papa’s room and Aunt Elizabeth’s But the four children ruled over it as their sovereign kingdom They decreed, once and for all, that no person taller than a hat-stand could disturb their territory, on penalty of not being spoken to for a week The geographical features of their e desk and bookshelf, a sliainst one wall, and a tall, narro that looked out on a splendid oak tree and down into the churchyard Of course, none of them slept in that slis than snoring They kept it well-stocked with paper and inkwells and toys and watercolor paints At thethe subjects of this sdom: Snowflake, Rainbow, and Diaed sparrok, and hts), Jasper the pheasant who could not fly up into the tree but visited all the sa the roots, and two dusty dolls with lavender bonnets But the three older children had ignored the dolls for months in favor of their prize possessions: twelve jointed wooden soldiers Papa had given as a Christirls had ot the box open but his sisters had seized up his troops and nas like Crashey and Bravey and Cracky and Sneaky and Gravey and Cheeky and the Duke of Wellington and Rogue and Goody and Naughty and Napoleon Bonaparte and Stu with excitement while Bran fumed Each quickly claimed their favorites for themselves and hoarded them close Only Anne still loved her doll Branwell could be bullied out of his soldiers, but Anne would not bewith yellow horsehair and green glass eyes

Charlotte and Branwell’s favorite gaton as fiercely as Branorshipped Bonaparte The battle lines were drawn, the playroom nation divided They knew all about the ith France froine what a as actually like, it unfolded in their heads like a cross between a chess gaht at the theater What they felt absolutely certain about was that, soo, a French fellow na without asking Everything its thoughts on the subject Then, another, different fellow called the Duke of Wellington, as English like thele-handedly, thumped Bonaparte and whu Much Papa still didn’t drink claret wine He said it was too French to be any good for hi Welly and Boney, and Branwell and Charlotte did not want to be left out just because they’d gotten born a bit late

Emily much preferred Polar Exploration, with her woodenthe frozen sea in half to find treasure at the bottom Whenever she touched Parry’s wooden shoulders, ice filled Emily’s mind, ice that went on and on forever and never stopped It looked so clean to her, like a perfect lace tablecloth Until her great wild roaring ships tore the lace to pieces, their sails clanging with icicles, their cannons full of fire

Anne liked stories of Kings and Queens and Princes and Princesses best In her hands, the wooden arue and whispers behind curtains She read through all of Papa’s azines very carefully for any sames to be so near to real life that she could hear the bells of Westminster in her dreams Finally, Anne found a perfect playe She named the horsehair doll after the noble child and s Of course she was always very respectful and never let Branwell torture or starve the Princess You had tounreal stories about real people Anne did hope the girl wouldn’t be cross at having fantastic tales told about her in Yorkshire Victoria wasn’t in any danger of inheriting the Crown in real life, after all, and London was so awfully far away Surely the Princess wouldn’t be bothered by Anne fibbing about her toas it was very nice

But noat the center of it, whether he lurched around as Scurvy, the Vicious Prince of the Arctic Seals, or the wicked Marquis of Douro, out to steal Princess Victoria for his bride, or even as Napoleon hi the hero of all their games, and indeed their lives, rested firmly with him But somehow, his sisters were far too dense to understand this essential truth He allowed thenanimous and very kind to those less excellent than himself

Just lately, however, Crashey and Bravey and Welly and Boney and Ross and Parry and the boys had not fought quite so valiantly as they used to Soue’s wooden caps and delicately carved rifles seeh The brave wooden lads lay in every which position, snoozing against the narrosill, routed on the battlefield of the bed, hiding in terror behind a fortification of stacked books Branwell’s drawings suffered, as well He could not get Anne’s hair to curl the right way anymore, and Emily’s nose siine the Arctic Circle, she could only see the flat, unbroken ice groaning on into forever, and no grand ship would coot rather stable and boring She couldn’t even coax Douro into sticking his dagger into one rival Lord Even Charlotte’s lovely handwriting melted into a sad little scrawl Tabitha always said Charlotte wrote just as pretty as King George and twice as clear But now, you could not tell her capitals from a chimney sweep’s swipe

“It’s on account of the Beastliest Day,” whispered Anne to her brother Her eyes widened to hold the tears that trembled in her lashes “It’s so close now!”

“I know, Annie, I know,” sighed Branwell, licking the tip of his best drawing pencil “But if we say its naot your hands looking like hands again and not paws”