“Do I write?” Violet said. “Yes, I do. And far better than Austen. At least until she wrote that.” She nodded at the manuscript in Jane’s hand. “That is a masterpiece.”
“Thank you,” Jane said, her manners trumping her fear and confusion.
Violet shook her head. “Only no one will believe you wrote it,” she said. “They’ll think I did.”
“You?” said Jane. “You said you believe that Charlotte Brontë wrote it.” She held up the title page and shook it.
Violet scowled. “Are you really so stupid?” she said. “Haven’t you figured out who I am?”
“I know who you think you are,” said Jane carefully. She thought about the figures seated around the kitchen table. “You think you’re Charlotte Brontë. Which is fine,” she added quickly. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“You idiot!” Violet snapped. “I don’t think I’m Charlotte. I am Charlotte!”
As Violet opened her mouth in a roar, Jane saw the two fangs that had descended from her upper jaw. No, she thought. It can’t be.
“Give me the manuscript and I might let you live,” said Violet. She took a step toward Jane.
Let me live? Jane thought. What is she talking about? Then it dawned on her—Violet didn’t know who she was. She thinks I’m ordinary Jane Fairfax, she realized.
“Wait!” Jane shouted, stalling for time. “I’ll give it to you. Just tell me where you found it. I … I thought I’d found the only copy.”
Violet laughed. “Of course you did,” she said. “How would you know that I got this one from Lord Byron? Well, I stole it from him, anyway.”
“Byron?” said Jane. She thought for a moment. “He turned you, didn’t he?”
It was Violet’s turn to look confused. “How do you know that?” she hissed.
Jane rolled her eyes. “For heaven’s sake, Charlotte, who do you think I am?” She bared her teeth and let her fangs slip into place. “That bastard seems to have slept his way through all of English literature.”
“No,” said Charlotte, stepping back. “It can’t be. You can’t be.”
“Yes, well, it seems we both are,” Jane informed her. “So what do we do now?”
“Jasper!” Charlotte yelled in response. “Sic her!”
The spaniel leapt to its feet, ready to obey its master. Jane, seeing it coming for her, knew that she couldn’t get out of the room, especially with Charlotte standing in the way.
“Jasper, sit!” she said sternly
To her surprise, it worked. The dog sat and looked up at her expectantly.
“Jasper!” Charlotte cried.
Before Charlotte could complete her command, Jane rushed to the fireplace and threw the manuscript into it. The aged paper caught fire immediately and began to crumble.
“No!” Charlotte screamed. She ran over and pushed Jane out of the way, reaching into the fireplace to retrieve the papers.
Jane scrambled to her feet and backed away, watching as Charlotte tried to salvage what was left of the manuscript. It really is her, she admitted.
Charlotte had removed some of the papers and was trying to beat out the flames with her hands. As she did, a tongue of flame leapt up and kissed the sleeve of her dress. Instantly it blossomed with fire, which quickly consumed the material. Charlotte screamed in pain.
“Help me!” she shouted, beating at herself with her hands. This succeeded only in helping the fire to spread, and in a moment her torso was engulfed in flame.
Jane, horrified, could only stand and watch as Charlotte spun around like a dervish, trying to put herself out. Then Jane realized that the fire was spreading to the room. Already the chair was aflame, and the edges of the carpet were smoldering. A moment later Jasper ran to the door and began scratching at it furiously.
His fear drove Jane to action. Turning her back on the shrieking Charlotte, she opened the door and followed Jasper into the hall. He ran toward the kitchen with Jane right behind him. The hallway was already filling with smoke. Jasper ran through the kitchen and hit the back door with his nose. It swung open, and he ran out into the night. Jane was about to follow him when she noticed the kitchen table and the three figures still seated around it.
She went up to the closest one and looked at its face. Skin, or what was left of it, was stretched across the skull. The eyes were gone. The mouth was a bit of shriveled flesh. She looked at the other two bodies. They were equally mummified.
She didn’t, Jane thought, looking into the faces of Charlotte’s famous siblings and shivering. Well, that’s just wrong. Then she heard a crash as part of the roof caved in. She ran to the door and pushed it open, following Jasper to safety.
Chapter 27
Jonathan’s appearance, although not completely unexpected, was nevertheless a shock. After so many months without a word, she had gradually allowed herself to believe that perhaps he had moved on to another amusement. Now she realized that she ought to have known better. He would never let her go. Never. Not until one or the other of them was dead.
“I just killed Charlotte Brontë.”
Jane was in her hotel room, her cell phone in one hand and a box of bandages in the other. She had practically run back to the hotel, and her blisters were killing her.
“You did what?” said Lucy.
“Charlotte Brontë,” Jane repeated. “I killed her. Well, I suppose you could say she killed herself. It’s not like I pushed her into the fireplace or anything. But I do feel slightly responsible.”
“You’re going to have to back up,” said Lucy.
Jane told her the whole story, beginning with the confrontation at the conference and ending with her escape from the kitchen.
“What happened to Jasper?” Lucy asked when Jane was finished.
“I don’t know,” Jane told her. “He ran off.”
“You have to find him!” Lucy insisted. “He’s probably scared to death.”
“He lived with Charlotte and her three mummified siblings,” Jane reminded her. “If that didn’t scare him, nothing will.”
“At least go back and look for him,” said Lucy. “Please?”
Jane sighed. “All right,” she agreed. “I’ll go back. But not right now. I can barely walk. Anyway, I didn’t call you to talk about the dog.”
“Why did you call?” asked Lucy.
“Did you hear the part about me killing Charlotte Brontë?” Jane said. “What am I going to do about it?”
“Why do you have to do anything?” Lucy replied. “If she’s dead, she’s dead. It’s not as if her family will be looking for her.”
Jane hadn’t considered that. “You’re right,” she said, feeling slightly better. “And technically, she was already dead anyway.”
“Would fire really kill her?” Lucy asked.
“It would,” said Jane. “Actually, pretty much anything that would kill you would kill her. I mean us.”
“Anything?” said Lucy.
“Well, not anything,” Jane clarified. “We’re immune to diseases. I don’t know why, but my guess is that this whole thing—what makes us what we are—is some kind of virus and that it attacks anything else it comes in contact with. I knew a scientist once who—”
Lucy made a snoring sound. “I didn’t ask for a biology lesson,” she said.
“Cheeky,” Jane said. “At any rate, disease is out. Also old age, as we stay at the age we were when we turned. But pretty much everything else can do us in.”
“Garlic?” Lucy suggested.
“You’ve seen me eat hummus,” Jane reminded her.
“Holy water?”
“Only if we drown in it,” said Jane. “I’m talking about the usual misadventures that kill people off. Plane crashes. Being impaled. Losing one’s head. That sort of thing.”