WUTHERING BITES

Chapter Twenty-seven: The Girl In The Attic

Chapter Twenty-seven

The Girl in The Attic

Hinton had a bad feeling. He texted Katarina and they agreed to meet in the Glass House. They could go to dinner at The Grange after they'd had a chance to speak. At least outside was safer and, still needing more external shots of the heath in twilight, Kat lifted the latch of the iron gate. The entrance to the private garden was the exact place she had read about in her mother's journal.

The gate led to a maze that in turn spilt into an abandoned part of the heath. Katarina wore her walking boots as she rambled in her rolled up jeans, a long coat and scarf draped around her shoulders. As the winter evening closed in on her, Katarina buttoned up her coat and pulled the belt tight around her tiny waist. The young girl walked towards the now private arboretum, largely abandoned in winter and known only to those who lived close by. The directions had been detailed in her mother's journal. Her father had taken her there, only once, as a child.

The wind howled and Katarina's camera tossed and whipped around her wrist. She suddenly wished she'd modernized her instrument. If she'd had a passion for digital, the camera would not be so heavy or so much trouble.

Almost immediately and without warning, the air had turned to pre-snow iciness. Katarina could see her breath and soft flecks of powder fell around her feet. Autumn had been so unpredictable this year. As ice began to spit from the sky, Katarina stumbled inside the shelter.

The glass house, located behind a woodland meadow, had been restored in recent years. It was so beautiful that she resolved to take Hinton here. When Katarina thought of Hinton, she smiled. Their tutoring sessions had started playfully enough but then Hinton seemed to improve exponentially. She was certain his initial unfriendliness towards her had been related to his secrets and not his arrogance. It was a wonder Hinton was the person he was, when she considered how many challenges he had had - the loss of his parents, the discovery of his rare needs. She was proud of him. Hinton had the courage to seek acceptance however weird and bizarre his lineage.

Somehow, everything would work out. There was a quote from a Shakespearean sonnet she had read at school that came to mind: Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds... O no! It is an ever-fixed mark / That looks on tempests and is never shaken...

The deep thrill she felt inside at the merest thought of seeing him again was unlike anything she had experienced. She wondered if he felt the same and hoped that he did.

Katarina knew for certain that her father would not be happy about her connection to the Spencers, and would never have encouraged their meeting in the first place. In just a few weeks, the course of her life had altered completely. Katarina felt sure of her decision to support Hinton as she sat in the garden seat waiting for him.

Her breath was visible on the glass now. It was heating up as Katarina waited patiently for Hinton who had just texted her to say he was on his way. She unwound her scarf, took off her woollen snood and pulled off her gloves. As she did so, she dropped one of them on the ground and reached to pick it up.

Hadn't Linus, taking into account his stupid theatrical superstitions, once told her, that, "in the theatre a lady should never retrieve her own glove. Instead, she should wait for another to pick it up for her." Katarina, knowing how silly this seemed, reached down for the glove but couldn't find it in the shadows.

Finally, hunched under the chair and looking for the glove, she was confronted with the words of ancient lovers - or they seemed ancient to her.

At the base of the tree, behind the arboretum chair were the words HEATH & KATE 1988 carved into the growing wood. Like a child, Kate wound her fingers over the engraving, forgetting all about her missing glove in the process. An onlooker might have thought the glove had simply disappeared or been taken by a ghost. Outside, the wind drove a branch into the glass wall which frightened Katarina and made her turn around suddenly to see a grown man in a long coat, standing, illuminated by lightening in the darkness.