WUTHERING BITES

Chapter Two: Wild Child

Chapter Two

Wild Child

I read Greta's words as I rested on the hotel bed. They were written in a firm, definite hand:

February 1978 (second entry) - we were not sure what country the child originated from. When Mr Spencer brought him back from his trip, I thought he'd finally gone mad, like his ancestors. I said, 'You were searching for fossils, not people!' But he just shrugged and said, 'Well, I saw him on the street and no one claimed him so I filled in the paperwork, paid a requisite sum and now here he is. All this had happened many months before the actual collection. Perhaps the child was originally from Europe or maybe as close as Liverpool? The foundling had papers to say he was ours, signed by a solicitor, no less. He didn't speak a word that first night. His bell bottom jeans and shoes were filthy and caked with mud from the walk along the driveway. Dirt splattered on my kitchen floor. I thought it was very inconsiderate of Mr Spencer not to have put clean clothes on him but grown men rarely think of small comforts. The dark haired, six-year-old person stared at me blankly and flinched when I tried to go anywhere near him. He kicked and scratched me so hard when I went to take his jacket (where I read the "instructions") that I honestly wondered how I'd cope looking after a child in such a...state. Harrison, almost eight years the child's senior, shoved the boy when he thought no one was looking and whispered to him before leaving the house, 'Who do you think you are? Invading my home like this... I'll make you pay, charity case!'

Kate, who had always been naughty (a fact belied by her pretty and innocent face), and never close to her much older brother or absent socialite mother, became attached to the new boy who we named Heath and resolved to raise as part of our family...

It was all rather formal yet strangely personal.

I'd learnt, as a child, Heath Spencer had no language and apparently very little memory of his origins. He'd certainly made up for it judging by the detailed and sophisticated legal correspondence he'd addressed to me personally and which I had spread out on the desk in my room. Heath's letters addressed the various ownership and personal scandals involving both himself and his adopted relatives in almost forensic detail. Events happened a long time ago, but the origins and complex story of the properties in question, both Hareton Hall and The Grange, involved both the Spencer and Hunt families whose paperwork I now studied. Their generational feuds had been the talk of the firm, behind closed doors, of course.

According to family tradition, the Spencer children were sent away to school the year they turned twelve. However, the friendship between the two youngest children began much earlier, with a whisper. It was as if Kate was the first to know, although his adopted father must have suspected. There was something different about Heath.

The first night the child arrived, Kate wandered up to him when he was left alone in the kitchen and the little boy hissed at her, baring his tiny, white incisor fangs. Kate scowled then smiled and moved towards the small boy, rather than rejecting him. As if he were some exotic pet, she tried to pat his head. The boy, suddenly ashamed of his behaviour, covered his mouth. Heath had only recently learned how to recede his little fangs but sometimes they came out when he was frightened or stressed. Kate took his hand and led him upstairs.

When they were in the play room, she asked him to explain more. It was their secret, she told him. Kate loved to have secrets. The little boy didn't know what to tell her.

'I was born this way,' he whispered.

His biological father had kept notes but Mr Spencer wanted proof. After many secretive tests with a Vampire specialist on Harley Street it was explained to Mr Spencer that the child had a rare condition. There was a line of Spanish vampires from thousands of years ago that he possibly descended from through his mother. His blood type was unknown. What they did ascertain was that the child might grow out of his ways and never fully mature into a "blood sucker" as the specialist called his "breed". He also warned Mr Spencer, "Tell no one." Fearing society would reject his new son, Mr Spencer agreed.