Alexander
The fire was growing. Alexander didn’t wait. He lifted Miss Brontë’s motionless body into his arms and ran.
This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t. But as Miss Eyre and the Rochesters led the way, and Miss Brontë continued not moving, he had to admit that it did seem to be happening. She’d been shot—hit by one of those stray bullets.
A wall collapsed, bringing oil lanterns crashing to the floor. More fires erupted, making him run faster as he carried Miss Brontë through the halls and up the stairs. He ran until his side ached, and then he kept running because Miss Brontë’s face was pale and blood soaked her jacket. Sweat poured down his face.
The others pushed their way outside. Even out of the building, the heat was intense. It billowed off the House in angry waves, making the lantern-lit air shimmer. Smoke obscured the night, hiding the nearly full moon.
The fire would only get worse. “Let’s go!” he shouted, but his voice was lost under the rush of flame and destruction. “Hurry!”
Miss Burns had joined the others ahead, all of them moving quickly, and not quickly enough.
People filled the streets, the fire reflecting in their wide eyes.
“What’s happened?” someone asked.
“I heard it was a ghost attack on the Society!”
Another person called, “It was the king! He realized he’d made a mistake by dismissing Parliament and set the House on fire!”
Alexander staggered through the growing crowd of onlookers, his heart beating wildly in his ears. In his arms, Miss Brontë was as light as a doll, and just as motionless. Was she breathing? He couldn’t tell. She was so still; her head lolled back and her eyes were shut.
He pushed through the crowd, caught in the wake made by Miss Eyre’s flying elbows. “Make way!” Miss Eyre cried. “My friend has been shot! Is there a doctor?” People shouted at them, telling them to stay still and watch the fire like everyone else, but Alexander ignored them all.
Finally, they reached a break in the crowd, and Miss Eyre cleared a pair of children off a bench they’d been standing on. Alexander settled Miss Brontë there and dropped to his knees at her side. Miss Eyre, Miss Burns, and the Rochesters clustered around him.
“What do you think?” Miss Eyre asked.
Alexander tore off his gloves and touched Miss Brontë’s throat, seeking her pulse. Nothing.
He let out a strangled cry. “Miss Brontë.” She couldn’t be dead. She just couldn’t.
But his bookish friend was completely still, her pale face streaked with soot and ash.
“Miss Brontë,” he whispered. “Please don’t die. Please don’t leave us.”
The fire warmth of her skin was fading. He leaned in close, listening for her breath, but there was no sound of it, no evidence of life. Her black lashes fanned across pale cheeks, unmoving.
“No, no, no.” His fingers searched her throat again, wanting more than anything to find a pulse. In the months he’d known Charlotte Brontë, had he really appreciated her as he should? In the back of his mind, without him truly realizing, he’d assumed Miss Brontë would always be in his life. Always influencing, planning, smiling, writing. Oh, Lord, could he imagine her always writing.
And the idea of losing her—it was a stab to the gut.
An eruption tore from the building, followed by terrified screams. Alexander looked up just in time to see an enormous fireball hurl into the sky, and the House—which might have been saved before—was now completely engulfed in flames.
Hot wind gusted off the building, making the crowd of onlookers scream and stagger back.
That was it. The Society—all its records and talismans and library—was gone now. But Alexander could hardly feel the pain of that loss, because when he turned back to Miss Brontë, she was still silent and unmoving.
He bent and rested his forehead on her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he breathed. “I should have—” The words clogged in his throat as tears spilled out of the corners of his eyes. Was he crying? Blast it all. “I care about you, Miss Brontë,” he rasped. “And now I’m too late in saying so.”
Furiously, he wiped at his eyes, but the tears kept coming and after a moment, he let the sobs heave out of him.
“Oh, stop watching,” Miss Eyre said from behind him, “and get back in there.”
Alexander sat up just in time to see Miss Brontë’s ghost sniffle. “Shh, Jane, I’m trying to listen.” But she disappeared back into her body.
Then the body gasped.
“Miss Brontë!” He cupped one hand over her cheek, feeling warmth bloom beneath her skin. Her color lifted and her pulse fluttered. “Miss Brontë, you’re—”
She opened her eyes and looked around, though she wasn’t wearing her glasses.
“Can you see anything? Shall I find your spectacles for you?” He didn’t particularly want to leave her side, but he would search ten thousand burning buildings if it meant pleasing her.
“I—” She coughed a little.
“What?” He smoothed hair off her face. “What is it?”
“I was dead, wasn’t I?”
“Yes,” he breathed. “But you’re going to be all right. I think. How do you feel?”
“You said . . .”
“Yes? I said a lot of things when you were dead.” And suddenly he was running through every word. Then he remembered: he’d admitted (out loud, yes) that he cared for her. Cared for her cared for her, if you know what we mean.
Her eyes widened. “That means—”
“I know,” he said. “I know it was forward of me to just say so, but in my defense, you were mostly dead.”
“No, no, that’s not it.”
He was confused. “Then what?”
“I can see dead people!”
Alexander laughed and pulled out his mask, then placed it across her face. “Welcome, Seer Charlotte Brontë.”
Or, rather, that was what he’d intended to say, but before he could finish speaking her name, she pushed herself up a little and pressed her lips against his.
His eyes widened in surprise, and immediately she backed away from him, giving an embarrassed cry.
“I’m very sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t see! I don’t know what came over me. That was unforgivably rude. I shouldn’t have—”
“You shouldn’t have?” His heart was pounding.
“No!”
“Oh.” Unfortunately, now he couldn’t help but see the gentle curve of her lips, the tremble in her jaw, and the way she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. When had she become so delicate and strong at the same time?
“It was too forward,” she went on. “Please forgive me. I was just so happy and I shouldn’t have assumed anything about your feelings and we’ve never discussed—”
He kissed her.
It was the same as her kiss to him—just a touch of his lips to hers. A question. A hope. A promise.
“Are we even now?” He felt the blood rising to his cheeks, too, praying he hadn’t misread her. “Or should I prepare a heartfelt apology as well?”
“Don’t you dare.”
This time, they kissed each other. For kind of a long time. Only when Miss Eyre loudly cleared her throat did they pull away.
“We’re still here,” Miss Eyre said. “In case you forgot.”
“That was terrible to watch.” Miss Burns shuddered. “Please never do it again. At least, not in public.”
Miss Brontë’s cheeks were a lovely shade of pink as she sat up straight on the bench.
“How are you still alive?” Miss Eyre asked.
Miss Brontë pulled her notebook from her pocket. The leather sported a large hole right through the center. “I think this slowed the bullet just enough. I always knew my life was for books.”
When Alexander’s heart slowed to a normal pace, he climbed to his feet and offered Miss Eyre and Miss Burns space to sit on the bench, while he stood beside the Rochesters. The three young ladies—two living and one dead—all held hands as they watched the House of Lords and Commons burn against the night.
Two days later, they met in the flat on Baker Street. You know, the one that had been Alexander’s, but was currently Miss Eyre’s (for the rest of the month, at any rate, since Wellington hadn’t covered the rent beyond that). Miss Eyre had generously offered the flat back to Alexander, as it had been his first, but Alexander had declined. Instead, he and Branwell had rented rooms nearby.
“Tea?” Miss Eyre asked.
Everyone accepted.
Miss Eyre and Miss Burns disappeared into the kitchen, while Miss Brontë and Branwell took the sofa and bent their heads together. “We need to decide what to do next,” Miss Brontë murmured.
“I should go back to Haworth.” Branwell sighed. “I do rather miss it there. Of course, not much happens in Haworth, but that’s the point, isn’t it? I think we’ve had enough adventure.”
Miss Brontë nodded.
Alexander’s heart twisted a little when he thought about Miss Brontë going all the way to Haworth. He’d spent the last two days waiting for a meeting with the king, trying to figure out the Society’s future now that the building and Move-On Room and talismans were all gone (not to mention Wellington), but the king was still recovering from what Mr. Mitten and Wellington had done in the days before the Great Fire. The Society’s future was on his list, but it certainly wasn’t a priority. Not right now, anyway.
Which left Alexander sort of the Society’s leader by default, but not really, and because all that was so messy, he couldn’t take actions like inducting new members, even if they were seers.
Anyway, Charlotte had just agreed about the excess of adventure in London. Maybe she wanted to go back to Haworth.
He moved toward the kitchen to help Miss Eyre with the tea. Even though she currently lived here and was technically the hostess, this had been his kitchen until recently. So no harm in helping.
“It’s not that I want you to go.” Miss Eyre’s voice came from behind the door, barely above a whisper. “I’ll miss you. Of course I will.”
Alexander paused in the doorway.
“But you think I should.” Miss Burns’s ghostly voice was tight. “That’s it, isn’t it? You think it’s better if I go?”
He should return to the front parlor, he knew, but Alexander moved forward just enough so that he could see Miss Eyre and Miss Burns. They faced each other, their hands in each other’s—almost.
There was something luminous about Miss Eyre ever since the Great Fire. It was the same sort of glow Mrs. Rochester had, the light of being a Beacon that even the living could see.
Tears shimmered down Miss Eyre’s cheeks. “I think you’ve been staying here because I’ve needed you all these years.”
“And now you don’t?” Miss Burns wiped her cheek on her shoulder.
“Oh, my dearest friend, I’ll always need you. But I have to think about what you need, too. I’ve been selfish in keeping you here. Selfish in wanting you by my side always.”
“I’m all right with that.” Miss Burns let out a small hiccup. “I want to stay with you. I don’t know what happens in the afterlife.”
“It’s something good,” Miss Eyre whispered hoarsely. “It has to be.”
Alexander held his breath, watching the two. Wishing he could go back to the parlor like he’d never walked in on this exchange. Knowing that he could not, because pieces of this conversation echoed in his heart. For most of his life, he’d carried his father’s ghost with him. Not a literal ghost, of course, but the figurative ghost.
“What happens when I’m eighty years old,” Miss Eyre went on, “and you’re still fourteen?”
“We’ll be best friends.” Miss Burns bit her lip. “Won’t we?”
“Of course!” Miss Eyre threw her arms around Miss Burns, but the embrace passed right through. She backed away, tears shimmering on her cheeks. “We will always be best friends. Forever. But our friendship isn’t limited by life and death.”
“Obviously.” Miss Burns forced a brave smile.
“And it’s not defined by whether you’re here or there. If you stay here, I will still love you. If you move on, I will still love you.”
Alexander’s heart ached for the two of them. His throat and chest felt tight with the tension of his own ghost. What Miss Eyre said was true, wasn’t it? Death could not stop true love, whether that love was paternal or platonic or romantic. Love extended across worlds.
“You think I should move on, though.” Miss Burns’s voice was so small.
Miss Eyre nodded. “I think you deserve to find peace.”
Miss Burns wrapped her arms around her waist. “I’m scared of being without you.”
“I’m scared of being without you, too.” Miss Eyre’s smile wavered. “But we both have things to do. I must live my life, and I can’t drag you through it with me. That’s not fair to either one of us. So I have to be brave.”
“Me too, then.” Miss Burns straightened her spine. “I’m going to do it.”
“When?” Now it was Miss Eyre’s voice that cracked.
Warm light spread throughout the kitchen, coming from Miss Burns. “Now,” she said. “I think I’m going now.” She seemed less substantial than before. More there than here.
“Helen!” Miss Eyre’s cry brought Miss Brontë and Branwell to the kitchen door, next to Alexander, but no one dared enter when they saw what was happening.
“I better not see you for eighty years.” Tears sparkled on Miss Burns’s cheeks as she looked up and up, and suddenly a wide smile formed—
And she was gone.
The room dimmed to a normal brightness.
“Good-bye,” Miss Eyre whispered.
Then, Miss Brontë rushed forward toward her, and the pair embraced.
“We should . . .” Branwell wiped his face dry. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Take them to sit,” Alexander said. “I’ll make the tea.”
When he was alone in the kitchen, preparing a tray of cups and sugar and cream, Alexander glanced at the place Miss Burns’s ghost had occupied. It was amazing how quickly she’d gone, once she’d decided to go. And she did deserve peace.
Maybe Alexander deserved peace, too. From revenge. From the figurative ghost he’d been dragging through his life. From his single-minded devotion to the Society.
He decided to let it go. All of it. Oh, he’d stay with the RWS Society, in whatever form it took. He was good at relocating ghosts, and he enjoyed traveling. But it didn’t have to be his whole life. Not anymore.
When the water boiled, he placed the teapot on the tray and returned to the parlor. To his friends.
“Mr. Blackwood?” inquired Miss Brontë in that curious voice he was coming to know so well. “I have a question of the utmost importance.”
“Of course you do.” He gave her a cup of tea.
“It’s regarding the letter that your father wrote to Mr. Rochester. The one you found when you were rakishly breaking into the study at Thornfield.”
“I recall the letter quite well.”
“The man who wrote the letter signed his name as a Mr. Bell.”
He had thought this detail had slipped her notice. But nothing ever slipped Charlotte Brontë’s notice. “Yes. My father was Nicholas Bell. After he died, Wellington thought it would be prudent if I chose a new name for myself.”
“So your name is Alexander Bell.”
“Outside of Wellington and the Rochesters, you’re the only one who knows the truth.”
She smiled. “What’s your middle name? I bet I can guess.”
He bent his head. “You’d never guess.”
“No, but I think I might. Alexander . . . Bell. It feels there’s an obvious middle to that.”
He tried not to grin. “My middle name is Currer.”
“Oh.” She laughed. “You’re right. I never would have guessed.” She held out her hand to him. “Then I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Alexander Currer Bell.”
He took her hand. “And I yours, Miss Charlotte . . .”
“I have no middle name, I’m afraid. The only one of us who received a middle name was Emily. Emily Jane.”
“Miss Brontë, then.”
“Mr. Bell. Although I suppose I must go on calling you Mr. Blackwood.”
“You could call me Alexander, if you wished.”
Her eyes widened behind her spectacles. “And you could call me Charlotte.”
Indeed.