What Souls Are Made Of--A Wuthering Heights Remix Read online

  Begin Reading

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Thank you for buying this

  Feiwel and Friends ebook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content,

  and info on new releases and other great reads,

  sign up for our newsletters.

  Or visit us online at

  us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

  For email updates on the author, click here.

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  For the librarian who let me read the classics in the adult section when I was eight.

  This is all your fault.

  Chapter One

  Heathcliff

  Yorkshire, North of England

  1786

  FIRST COMES A BOY FROM nowhere. That’s how it goes wrong.

  Before he comes, there’s a house on the moors and a family inside it: mother and father, son and daughter. All of them new to the village, or so people say. The family’s only been around since the boy was toddling, the girl even smaller. The family’s not generations old, settled here long ago, like the rest. But they fit so well that people most often forget it.

  The Earnshaws? They’re a strange lot, and new in these parts, but they’re ours.

  Nice, people call them. People don’t know what nice is.

  But the boy from nowhere doesn’t fit. He looks like he doesn’t fit: brown, thin, speaking a language no one knows. He brings nowhere along with him into the house. Memories of nowhere. Skin from nowhere, and language from nowhere. Reminders that nowhere is actually somewhere. Turns out, big unknown’s got people in it.

  Ghosts, too.

  Turns out, you can run to the end of the world and it’ll still find you. The thing you’re running from.

  Now the family’s a mother and father, son and daughter, and a boy. Longer he’s there, the more the nice peels right off the family. The mother dies. Then the father dies. And there’s just a son, a daughter, and a boy. The son’s angry about it. The son’s vicious. He beats the boy, tries to thrash the nowhere out of him.

  And the daughter …

  Well. I thought she loved the boy. That’s my own fool fault.

  I walk. Creaking floorboards. Thud of boots on flagstones. Kitchen’s never silent, never empty. The hearth’s crackling. Cheery noise. Cooking knives are out, fresh-sharpened. My fingers twitch.

  Maybe you don’t know what tale we’re in. But I do.

  There’s a boy from nowhere. Best he goes back to nowhere. Back where he belongs.

  I pick up one knife and walk out the door. Walk down to the gate. Sky’s turning gray for a storm. Someone’s calling my name.

  I don’t look back.

  * * *

  It’s good I forgot to thieve a gun when I ran. A gun’s a temptation to killing.

  No. The knife’s enough.

  The road here’s narrow. Just a dirt track, cutting through gorse. No trees for cover. Still, I crouch low. Hope the gorse swallows the shape of me.

  Light’s fading. I walked a night, rain-drenched. Snatched seconds of sleep under tree cover, coat over my head. Walked a day. My feet ache. It feels good to be on the ground, finally not moving. Can’t do it for long though, or I’ll stiffen up. I think I’ve done about thirty miles. I haven’t kept track. Haven’t looked at milestones, though I’ve passed some. Haven’t read fingerposts. I left home before I knew where I wanted to go. Away was enough.

  A horse and cart pass by. There’s a farmhand riding, bundled up in a smock. Broad hat tugged low over his eyes. He’s whistling. He doesn’t see me.

  I let him go.

  I’m good at being patient. Ground’s wet under me, the way peat is always wet. I can feel the cold seeping through my breeches. But I don’t move. I know how to hunt. I’m good at it.

  Normally I hunt animals. But people aren’t so different.

  The sky is bleeding purple when a man walks up the dirt road. His hobnailed shoes thud heavily. He looks tired. Must be a day laborer from one of the farms nearby, heading on home.

  I tense up. Waiting.

  I don’t have to do what I’m going to do.

  I won’t suffer for it, if I let the man go and keep on walking. I won’t die out here. My coat is shabby, but it’s decent enough. A castoff but a good one, strong wool, the kind that stays sturdy even when the wind goes knife-cold. My boots are decent. You need quality boots when you work hard, work outdoors. And me, I’m not allowed indoors anymore. Not often, anyway.

  But I’ve got no food.

  I know hunger. We’re old enemies. That ancient dog’s been biting at my heels for years. He’s got sharp teeth, cold eyes. Once he’s set on you, you can’t shake him. So my belly’s full of spite right now, and anger’ll keep it going for a few days, but it won’t be enough. Eventually, a man’s got to eat. And if a man doesn’t have food, he needs coin to get it.

  So I wait. When the stranger’s walked by me, I rear up. Get behind him, fast. He’s got a sickle. I snatch it from him. Wrap my arm round his throat and show him the knife. He goes still. Easy as that, I’ve got my prey.

  “Boy, I don’t want any trouble,” he says. He’s breathing fast.

  “Don’t call me boy,” I tell him. “Don’t call me anything. Keep your mouth shut and give me all the coin you’ve got.”

  It takes him a moment to realize I’m not pinning his hands and won’t gut him if he moves. Then he fumbles in his pockets. Hands me a knotted-up kerchief. I get it open. Inside there’s just some pennies. Dull copper.

  It’s pitiful little. But I take it.

  “The rest,” I say.

  “There’s no more,” he replies.

  “I know there’s more.”

  I say it low and steady. I say it like I’m certain. And sure enough, he shudders, and swallows, and says, “My shoe. In my left shoe. Have pity on me and leave me at least that.”

  I’ve got no pity, but reaching for his shoe will get me a kick to the skull. So I grunt agreement and let him go.

  Some thanks I get for my kindness: he wheels round to punch me in the head. Grabs for my knife. It flies off. I duck and slam my fist into his belly. He gives a groan and stumbles back. I kick him hard in the leg. Kick him again until he tumbles and goes down. I hold the sickle to his throat.

  His eyes are fearful.

  “Take them both off,” I say to him. “Both shoes. Now.”

  He doesn’t move. I press the sickle down harder.

  It draws blood, I can smell it. His breathing changes.

  “Go on,” I say, and lift the sickle away.

  He scrambles up. Shoes off. I gesture at him to get back. He does.

  I reach in. Snatch up the coin in the left shoe. Might be more in his stockings, but I don’t ask him to take those off. I pocket the coppers, then pick up the shoes too.

  “I’m keeping these,” I say, and step back.

  It’ll take him time to get help, barefoot. The ground’s cold. Sinks here, and goes stone-sharp there. I’ll be long gone before he finds help.

  “They’re my only shoes.”

  “A pity,” I say. “If you hadn’t tried to fight, you’d still have them.”

  “Fiend,” he spits out.

  “I am,” I confirm. “A fiend from hell itself, and if you speak of me to anyone when dawn
comes, you tell them so. Go to the church and ask God to protect you from me, or I’ll come for you in your nightmares.”

  I watch his face. He’s bleeding from his neck—the cut’s not deep, but it bleeds hard. Must hurt. He stares at me, trembling.

  Maybe he sees me properly now. Maybe he knows he should be thanking me for letting him live. It’s good I don’t have a gun. Good I don’t have the temptation. Because I’m angry, vicious angry. Not at this man. But I’d kill him anyway. I’d do it.

  I wait him out. One breath. Two.

  He stays quiet.

  I nod.

  “Good,” I say.

  A knife’s better than a sickle. So I lean down and grab it where it fell. My hands are too full. Weapons, shoes. I’m not letting any of it go. I tuck the knife away and turn.

  I start walking again. I don’t go fast. I don’t turn back either. But I’d hear if he followed. He doesn’t.

  Moon’s rising. I slip off the dirt road. The grass is high here. Good enough to sleep in. But I won’t sleep. Can’t. And I don’t try.

  What do you think of it? What I did to him? I never know when you’ll be moral. Maybe you’re angry. Maybe you want to scold me for being cruel.

  I wasn’t cruel, Cathy. But you were.

  It was all you. It’s always you.

  Cathy. The only reason I hurt the man is because of you. Because you said what you said, and did what you did. Because I left and had nothing to take with me. So if it’s anyone’s fault, Cathy, then it’s yours. I’ve always been a villain, but you leashed me for a while.

  Now you’ve set me free.

  Chapter Two

  Catherine

  SICK AND FEVERISH, I DREAMED. The grass rustled around me. The heather sang like church bells. The moon was large, so large above me I was afraid it would fall from the sky and crush me.

  I had run and run, shouting for him. I’d been trying to explain, to say, Heathcliff, I didn’t mean it! You don’t understand! Oh, you fool, you fool, come back!—but I couldn’t find him, and I had gone too far in the pouring rain to go back home. My skirts were so heavy I stumbled and fell. My heart felt like a stone, too cold to beat even as my body burned.

  There was a ghost following me. Her feet were backward and didn’t touch the earth, because ghosts cannot walk on soil. I was lying on my side where I’d fallen, so I could see only her feet, gliding on nothing. Her feet were a brown like dusk, the soles painted red as blood or sunsets.

  It wasn’t the first time I had seen a ghost, so I was not as shocked as I might have been. Of course, worldly gentlemen will say ghosts are not real, and usually I would lie and say I believe them. But when one is gliding toward you on feet turned backward, you can’t lie even to yourself.

  She said something to me. Later, perhaps, I’ll forget this.

  Cathy, she said. My Cathy. My baby.

  I could not cry, because the fever was too hot in me already.

  Ma, I said. Why? I don’t know. The fever was speaking for me. Ma, please.

  She leaned down.

  I saw cloth, pouring like milk or moonlight. And through it, I saw my own face looking back at me.

  I squeezed my eyes tight shut, terrified.

  Maybe the dream ended.

  Someone found me and lifted me up. And after that—oh, I forget. I don’t know. I don’t.

  Cathy. Catherine.

  Miss Cathy.

  Wake up. Wake up.

  Please, Catherine.

  Wake up.

  * * *

  Do all people dream old memories when they’re deathly ill? I have never been so sick before, so I don’t know. When I was carried into the warmth of the house, the candles flickering and the dogs barking, and the servant breathing heavily as someone shouted that the doctor must be called immediately, I thought I might die. I had been overnight in the storm and hadn’t sheltered anywhere, only let the rain drench me. I was hot and cold all at once, teeth chattering. My skirts were so sodden I thought they might drown me.

  While the fever held me, I dreamed of the same memories over and over again: Heathcliff standing in a circle of feathers under a crescent moon. Heathcliff pressing soil behind my ears. For nazar, he said. Because the ghosts must be as jealous of you as I am. The wind, wailing over the moors like song. Water, rolling and gray, lifting me up and down and up and down, until I grew sick from the sight and the feel of it. That is my oldest memory, my first memory. Gray water raising me up, then folding over me like a shroud.

  The water is Heathcliff’s oldest memory too. Isn’t that strange? Sometimes I think it must have been Heathcliff’s memory first and I stole it and convinced myself it was my own. But it feels like mine. I have never been more than ten miles from home, but I know the water all the same.

  I stop dreaming eventually. The ocean swallows me and throws me right out.

  I have never slept well. Big, colorful dreams always catch me when I begin to fall deep asleep and fling me back up to the surface. When I was very young I used to tell anyone who would listen to me about my dreams. Angels with six arms, and the sun like a great discus above them. Voices speaking in a language I did not know. I thought maybe it was the language of heaven, though our servant Joseph would scoff and say it was surely the language of hell, because I was such a wicked child, with no morals to speak of.

  My brother was fascinated, at first. What did the voices say? How did they say it? Later he would pinch my mouth shut and tell me to stop talking about things I didn’t understand.

  The ocean throws me out, and the dream flings me out too. Flings me awake. I lie still with my eyes closed for a long moment and think about how warm I am now, and how hungry. I don’t think I’m sick any longer. I’ll live after all.

  I force my eyes to open.

  I am glad to be alive, of course, but I am also disappointed. If I had died trying to find Heathcliff, he would have been very sorry indeed when he found out.

  Well, those ifs and maybes don’t matter since I’m alive and well.

  But now that I am awake, I realize that I am not in my home. This is certainly not my bed. My bed is an oak closet pressed up against a window. It is small and enclosed and safe. This bed is a grand, canopied thing. The curtains are a buttery yellow, and patterned with foreign birds, long-necked cranes and brightly feathered peacocks. On the wallpaper are little white pagodas, and ladies standing with parasols inside them. They wear foreign clothes and have foreign faces.

  I slept in this room for more than a month when I was a girl of twelve. I was sick then too, but from a dog bite on my calf, and the very wealthy family who owned the dog took me in. The Lintons. All of them blond and genial and wealthy. One of their servants carried me up to this room and arranged the bedding for me as the two Linton children, Edgar and Isabella, watched anxiously. I stared at the curtains and the wallpaper and Mrs. Linton flitted into the room and around me like a little robin, all quick and trilling.

  Chinoiserie, Mrs. Linton told me, very proudly, when she saw me peering at the walls. She said the style was from the Orient, and that was why the ladies holding their parasols did not look like us. She thought I had never seen anything like it before.

  I did not tell Mrs. Linton that we had similar things in our own home. What was strange to me was that she did not lock them away, as we did.

  I stare at those ladies now. My vision swims. It tosses the women about in a tumble, as if they are the ones on a harsh sea. What an adventure they appear to be having.

  A figure appears at the door, and I am instantly glad to see a familiar face.

  “Miss Cathy,” Nelly says, pausing at the door. She looks relieved. “You’re awake at last.”

  “Ah, Nelly!” I say, dragging myself up until I am seated. “What am I doing here?”

  “You must not make so much noise, Miss Cathy,” Nelly says severely. Nelly is only as old as my brother, but she always has a tight and worried expression on her face that makes her look like a grandmother. Today her
face looks especially pinched, and I think somehow I’ve annoyed her already, even though I’ve only been awake mere seconds. But she sits down beside me, and says, “Your brother asked me to come and watch over you, and help care for you until you are well enough to return home.”

  “Why am I here?” I ask. “Why am I not at home?”

  “It was thought,” Nelly says carefully, “that you would be better cared for here.”

  I don’t ask who thought it would be better, and of course I don’t ask why. I know exactly why. People know what my brother is like. They wouldn’t have left me under his care, sickly as I’ve been. And people who don’t know my brother very well still pity me for being the only woman in a household of men.

  I am not actually the only woman, of course. I have Nelly. I am sixteen now, and nearly a grown woman, but Nelly has known me since we were both children, and she has bossed me about and looked after me from the very start. When I was sick as a little girl it was often Nelly—not my mother—who brought me my gruel or tucked me under the blankets to ward off a chill. She would take care of me.

  But Nelly is a servant, so nobody thinks she is any kind of proper company for me, as I am meant to be a lady. I don’t know who carried me here, sick and senseless as I was, but I can imagine what Mrs. Linton said when she saw me. The girl needs a mother to care for her, she would have said, wringing her hands. And who better but me?

  But Mrs. Linton is not here.

  “Has Heathcliff been found?” I ask. “Has he returned?”

  “You chased after him,” Nelly says. “You ran through rain and storm. The doctor was afraid you would die for your foolishness. What were you thinking?”

  “Has my brother sent anyone to seek him out?” I ask, insistent.

  Nelly shakes her head.

  “Has anyone tried to find him?”

  Nelly sighs, and shakes her head once more.

  My brother—Hindley—has not sent anyone to find Heathcliff. And Heathcliff has not come home.