It was a miraculous medallion exactly like the one that had been found with the bones, with the same image of the Virgin Mary on one side. Reaching out, Emily turned over the medallion and drew in a sharp breath, for on the other side of the locket was a date etched into the back just as there had been on the other medallion, but with one crucial difference.

The year inscribed was the present year, eighteen forty-five.

The meaning was clear to Anne and her sisters: Joseph Earnshaw’s life was in grave danger, for whoever had killed the child at Top Withens thirteen years earlier meant to kill him too, at the next dark moon. Lizzy Goode was proved right after all. They had awoken a monster.

36

Emily

There had been a grim urgency to their journey that morning, every stage of it seeming to take too long. The freezing rain soaked them through as they waited for the omnibus, none of them able to bring themselves to set foot in the Bull, not when the search parties that had been out all night looking for Joseph were returning home desperately cold and empty-handed.

As soon as he had heard the terrible news the Earnshaws brought to his door, Papa had sent for the constable, who immediately proceeded to Top Withens Hall with some local men, making a thorough search of the house and the Bradshaw properties. Nothing was discovered, to the disgruntlement of the villagers. Emily and Keeper had been amongst their number as most of them had set out across the moor, despite the late hour and the snow, searching every barn, every outhouse, ditch and cave for any sign of Joseph. Emily had heard them muttering to one another in the dark, catching snatches of names and suspects carried on the wind, all of which belonged to outsiders: folks who were a little strange or simply strange to Haworth. It seemed to make no difference that most of those mentioned had been nowhere near Haworth thirteen years earlier, when the Top Withens child had died. All those cold and frightened people wanted as they searched in the dark was someone to blame, someone real, made of flesh and blood, who could chase away the nightmare vision that each of them held in their minds. Someone they could hang.

From without, the Crossed Keys Orphanage looked a well-appointed establishment.

It was an elegant building, situated on the outskirts of town, that had been built as a home for a wealthy gentleman. Upon his death some thirty years earlier, and having no living descendants, he had bequeathed it to be used in perpetuity for the benefit of the impoverished and unfortunate children of Halifax and its environs. His financial legacy had expired some years earlier, and the orphanage now survived on the patronage of local wealthy families.