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hat no School or winter or fever would ever touch them or anyone they loved. Charlotte and Emily and Anne could never be angry if he made them Duchesses. If he made them immortal. They would be grateful. They would be overjoyed. No more School for them at all, no more cold and sickness and fear and grim futures as stone governesses. And all thanks to him.
“When we play Wellington and Bonaparte, I am always Bonaparte,” Branwell said at last.
He reached into the pocket of his pajamas and pulled out the ghost’s letter. “They attack at dawn.”
TWENTY-FOUR
The Storming of the Bastille
Emily took off her shoes and squelched her toes in the cool sand of the beach. It was early morning. The sunrise tinged the cakey sand and tiny shells pink. Back home in Haworth, Ascension Island was the bed in the playroom at the top of the stairs. They’d invented it and filled it with people and destroyed it and salted the sheets and built it all over again a hundred times.
She’d never imagined the wind there would smell like warm, milky tea. Or that the palm trees dotting the strand would be the lumpy, misshapen, lopsided ones Branwell always drew on his maps, with coconuts that were really far too large for the poor things dragging on the ground. Or that the ruins of the several dozen civilizations the four of them had played at on their clean white sheets would cover the island like too much pepper sprinkled on a pie. There were exploded pyramids in the distance, and the shadows of the Mountains of the Moon towering above her, the crumbled pillars of the great cannibal city of Acroofcroomb, a word so silly Anne loved to say it, over and over, until she was sick from laughing. And Verdopolis, her spires already visible far up on the high plain of the island.
But they would not be touring the ruins today. Emily wondered if they ever would. If they could ever just wander in the world of their dreams without being chased or chasing.
Charlotte ran her hands through the sea grass. She was afraid. She had never imagined herself in a real battle. She had never imagined herself a soldier. And she wasn’t really, she supposed. But Branwell and Anne needed her. Someone always needed her. She looked back toward the ships as the last of the cargo was being carried off Bestminster. Muskets and limeskin men and their dear wooden soldiers and battlefield rations and Josephine’s huge cage. Why? She thought again. Why is she here?
And then she knew. Her mind leapt over itself and landed on the truth. Her stomach turned. She squeezed Em’s hand and ran up the beach, searching for Crashey’s bandaged head in the crowd. He was sitting on a crate of boots.
“You lied,” Charlotte said, out of breath.
“I didn’t!” Crashey protested. “Wait, what are we talkscussing about, exactly?”
“It’s her.”
“Captain Charlie, you need to retreat, regroup, and come at my position again.”
“Grog. It’s Josephine.”
“Oh,” Crashey sighed. “That.”
“Yes, that. That’s why you had to bring her with us on a secret mission even though it’s idiotic to bring a prize hostage to a sneak attack. That’s why you’re unloading her onto the field of battle. You must have been low on supplies. You lied. You said it was berries and flowers and fluids from Gondal.”
“Well, strictxactly speaking, it is flowers from Gondal. And there are berries and fluids and suchat in there! Mostly for color and smell, though . . . but you’re rightorrect, it’s mainly her. Her hair. We don’t hurt her for it or nothing! We send raiding parties into Gondal so they’ll think there’s all these recipegridents, like porridge. So they won’t guess. They’d throw everything they have at us if they knew it was just a lock of Josephine’s curls. When we captured her, a lot of boys got themselves shot on and Leftenant Gravey departed his mortal woes for the first time sort of . . . on topflop of her. He fell off a rampart onto her head. Not a very graceful way to go. But he got right back up again. Her hair got all in his wounds when she was trying to shove him off. Our Josey’s all roses, you see. Leftenant Gravey, he . . . rose.” Crashey cleared his throat. Charlotte’s silence sat sorely on him. “We had to send all the stock we had with the main army to Calabar. Else it wouldn’t look real. So we had to bring the source.”
“You have to give her back! Or at least stop cutting her hair off.”
“That’s above my pay-grade, my love. I’d say talk to Wellington, but he won’t listen. She’s our last defense against Gondal.”
“She’s a person. She’s not a hen to lay eggs for us. She’s not a bird! She doesn’t deserve to live in a cage.”
Crashey stood up. He kissed Charlotte’s forehead. “Who does? But not for all the girls in Gondal would I risk you falling off a rampart with no roses to catch you.” The Sergeant sniffed deeply and straightened his back. “If there are other worlds like we were saying in the night, I hope we’re friends in all of them.”
They rode to the gates of Verdopolis as dawn came full and golden into the world. It was quiet. All the houses lay dark. The river coursed silently by beneath the Great Wall of China. The Colosseum cast deep shadows over the empty streets.
Charlotte rode behind Wellington on Copenhagen, Emily with Lord Byron on a horse all of war shields, small and great. They both wore new armor, gorgeous and elaborate as any medieval knight.
“We will be your armor, now that we’re done being a ship,” Bestminster had said. “A good suitcase guards its traveler against any misfortune. Please do not get shot too much.”
The army flowed around them, a soundless sea of green.
The portcullis of the Bastille was raised when they arrived. The courtyard within stood empty, unguarded, unmanned.
“It worked,” breathed Wellington. “They’re on their way to Bravey’s Inn. The city is ours. We can take back our home without a drop of blood spilt!”
“But it’s not your home,” Charlotte whispered.
“It’s our home!” Emily gasped. “That’s our house! That’s the Parsonage! Well, if the Parsonage had grown up terribly fancy and tall. It’s not a Bastille in the least! It’s just . . . it’s just home.”
