Page 43 of John Eyre

Stephen still held his brush in his hand and was even now continuing to apply a wash of grayish white to his summer landscape.

“You’ve painted the mist as well.” John frowned in spite of himself. He quickly schooled his features. He didn’t wish the boys to think he was disappointed in them. “Is that the way you remember it? Your arrival here?”

Unsurprisingly, Stephen and Peter gave no answer. They merely looked at him in silent expectation, as if they were waiting for something. Praise, John thought. He gave it freely.

But he wondered, all the same.

Why was the mist present in their paintings? It must mean something. An indication, perhaps, of the boys’ state of mind when they’d first come to Thornfield.

He mentioned this possibility to Mr. Fairfax that evening at dinner. The elderly butler only laughed.

“My word, sir, you do like to overcomplicate things.”

John smiled. “Do I?”

“In this instance, yes. You see, the answer is quite simple. This past summer—July or thereabouts—when the boys arrived here, we did have the mists. Come to think of it, that may have been when they first began to appear.”

John’s fork froze halfway to his mouth. “In July?”

Mr. Fairfax nodded as he chewed a bite of mutton. “Faint-like, it was. The barest vapor in the beginning. But it did get stronger. We thought we were in for a rare summer storm, but it never did rain.”

John slowly lowered his fork back to his plate. Mrs. Rochester had said the Millcote mists were something new. He hadn’t realized just how new she’d meant. “Strange, that.”

“It is, sir. But one gets used to it. Thornfield always was prone to fog and mist and the like. I’ve told Mrs. Rochester’s guests to take care as they journey home. It’s stronger after dark, and bound to cause a collision on the road one of these days if people don’t take care.”

Later, as John climbed into his box bed for the night, the mist was still very much on his mind. He knew little about weather patterns, and what he did know he had a devil of a time recalling.

Not that it made much difference.

Whatever knowledge he possessed was based on conditions in other parts of the country. Hertfordshire, London, and Surrey. Each place he’d lived had been different, just as Yorkshire must be.

Across the room the fire crackled low in the hearth. Lying on his side, a pillow bunched under his head, John stared at the dancing flames as he drifted into sleep. Since the night he’d become trapped in his box bed, he’d taken to sleeping with the panel open. He never again wanted to experience that level of panic.

Odd to think of it now—the fear he’d felt, then. Thornfield wasn’t a frightening place. Not really. Only an old one. And yet…

That day on the grounds, Mrs. Rochester had looked at the house with such an expression on her face. It spoke of loathing—of hatred and regret. And something else. Something that was very like the look of someone staring down an impossible adversary. As if she was terrified down to her marrow, but resolved to not only face that terror but to prevail over it. To conquer and destroy.

A foolish thought.

He turned his head into his pillow. The fire slowly flickered and died. He hardly knew whether he slept, but he must have done, for some time later, he started wide awake at a peculiar murmuring coming from somewhere above him.

His pulse gave an anxious jump.

By this time it was pitch dark. He sat up in his bed, listening.

And there it was again—a vague rustling.

Rats, probably. Or the sounds of the wind.

More irritated with himself than afraid, he lay back down in his bed and tried to sleep. But his peace of mind was too disturbed. The clock down the hall chimed the hour. Two o’clock.

In that very instant a queer sort of noise sounded outside his bedroom. As if someone had brushed their fingers along his door as they passed down the hall. The exact sound he’d heard when he’d been trapped inside of his box bed.

He sat up again, heart racing. “Who is it? Who’s there?”

There was no answer. Only silence. And then…

An inhuman laugh—muffled, low, and deep. Almost demonic.