WUTHERING NIGHTS: A Wuthering Heights Teen Fan Fiction

WUTHERING NIGHTS (chapter twenty-five: Scholarship)

Chapter Twenty-five

Scholarship - Present Day

    Slowly, Katarina and Hinton became friends.

    WhenKatarina arrived at Hareton Hall at nine in the morning to help Hinton revise his written applications for the Art prize, she felt a pool of excitement in the pit of her stomach. She could hardly wait to see him again. Hinton had confided in her that he thought his written skills were lacking and Katarina had offered to help him present, “the best possible version of himself”, as she put it. He had readily accepted and together they made a first draft.

   The Hall, once the grandest of houses, had creeping plants growing from its foundations now, as if it were slowly crumbling from the inside. Over the past few months, the wiring needed fixing, the swimming pool had grown thick with leaves, the tennis court was left untended and the stables were nearly empty. The owner had become more and more reclusive.

    Hinton didn’t want to tell her why he’d felt a desire stronger than any natural one to drink blood. It was a one in ten thousand possibility, according to Heath’s specialist, but somehow his condition matched that of his adopted parent.  A trace had been done and it seemed somehow Hinton and Heath shared the same affliction.

     Their lineage, a distant, improbable vampire link, was not all they had in common. Hinton and Heath shared a desire to feed, a fear of the sunlight and their own fading images in mirrors. Heath’s was now an outline and soon there would be nothing.  Today, Hinton’s image in the hallway mirror had dulled considerably. Instead of a medallion, Hinton wore a signet ring that Heath had given him when he was small, to protect him from the sun. Hinton resolved not to focus on the negatives of his condition.

    The winner of the scholarship was due to receive an apartment and a small stipend abroad. Prague would be darker and rainier than many places and Hinton quite liked the idea of that kind of weather, for obvious reasons. He wanted to get away. Still, only one person from the whole college would be chosen on the strength of their exhibit.

     Katarina had insisted on taking him in her new car for lunch in Hampstead High Street. Her father had bought the car for her as a bribe for choosing to study in London instead of travelling far from home. Previously, the thought of Katarina leaving him was something her loving father had found nearly impossible to bear. Katarina, having recently turned eighteen, was experiencing a freedom she had longed for after passing her driving test. The girl was yet to tell her father that she had become friendly with Heath, Linus and Hinton.  That was an “off limits” conversation.

    It was a beautiful day, rare and summery, like the ones her father had told her about when she was first born. In those days, when she was a child, she vaguely remembered her young mother taking her to Hampstead Heath for picnics. Her studious father would hold her hand, walk her across the road and teach her to ride. When she was old enough she rode park trails on her pony and later, her horse. By the time she was a teenager, she’d become an expert, riding properly in various events on Hero’s Daughter.

     When Katarina asked about her mother’s family, all her father told her was that he’d never been fond of Heath as a child. He grew up with nannies and in boarding schools as men of his class and in his generation did but repeatedly told Katarina he loved her - something his own family had never said to him. Katarina knew this was true and that he meant well. He had tried not to burden her with this now adult concept of his quiet, contained, isolated youth but one day he told his daughter something that surprised her.

    ‘I never saw my parents show any affection to one another,’ he told Katarina when they were out riding together.

    ‘Something of an overshare, Papa,’ she’d replied.