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“I’hed Anne Her head popped up from beneath the covers “I can’t help it I always talk to Victoria before bed Can’t sleep if I don’t”

“Victoria is lying on the floor in the room at the top of the stairs with a crack in one eye Maybe they’re right about us You’re mad anyhow”

Anne’s eyes blazed in the dark “Don’t you talk about her She’s mine Go to sleep Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll dreaood mood”

But Branwell did not wake up in a goodbefore Anne and sat at the lonely little wooden table, watching her breathe, her blond hair sticky and sweaty against her forehead, the space between her fine eyebrorinkled with drea worry Branas filled with such a desire to paint her that he felt he could very possibly die of it He hadn’t drawn anything since they caers ache like winter cold He hadn’t any pen or any paper and the whole thing was hopeless But there little Anne lay, with her left arle

Branwell picked up one of the bowls of cold gruel leftover fro they’d been there, really None at all But after the tray of brown bread and brown soup and brown tea, they could never face that gluey gray stuff So he dumped it out on the table and smeared it all round till the as covered in a fine, thin, even silvery filernails to outline Anne’s arm, the tendrils of her hair, the way her brow bone joined the top of her nose, her pointed chin He warmed up as he worked, until he felt like he had a hearth inside hi, he would never be cold again, not ever

Branwell looked down at the Anne he’d ernails had ile, like patterns in ice The best work he’d ever done, and he could never hang it on a wall, unless he nailed up the whole table

“Bran?” Anne said groggily, co?”

Branwell s Beautiful? It was nothing, just like everything else he ever tried to do He did try He tried to ood as Charlotte’s and Emily’s, but his only ever shone when he killed somebody or blew up a castle or bled a spy for secrets He did it as often as he could, chasing that shine But even his best murder never sparkled quite like one of Charlotte’s scenes of strolling through the gardens with Zenobia Elrington, or E Mary Percy run across the ept moors to meet her lover Branwell supposed that even Anne’s stupid, secret Victoria galowed in the dark under her blankets Put his slop-painting next to anything they did and it looked just like what it was: gruel

“And I’ll be grueling ru to say

Anne rubbed her eyes and yawned “Are you ready?” she said

“All right, Anne Let’s bust ourselves out of jail What do you say?”

Anne nodded eagerly, sniffling Down below in the courtyard, a bullfrog shouted at a tree frog forslower than the rest of them

Branwell bolstered his sister up on his shoulders so she could peek through the littleat the top of the door Bonaparte and his rosy lady-friend see like strict parents Not angry, just disappointed

“There’s nobody there!” Anne whispered It was a very loud whisper

Bran grunted under her weight “What do you mean there’s nobody there? That’s not possible!” It bruised his newfound sense of iuarded by at least two enors