“Have a care over what?” Anne retorted. “Treating another human being with decency? Honestly, Emily, I should have thought you would be the last to get notions about attachments where no such notions are to be had. Now, shall we get on with the task in hand?”

“Very well, sister,” Emily said, not wanting to distract Anne any further from their grim purpose, even though that rare flash of temper from her sister revealed exactly that which Anne denied.

14

Anne

The room was exactly as they had left it, and yet despite the bitter chill in the air and the pile of rubble in the fireplace, it felt markedly different, as if all the sorrowful shadows had left with the bones on that first day, leaving behind them simply an empty space. If that was true, then where had the anguish gone? Anne wondered. Had it taken up residence in another home? Was it now buried in the frozen earth forever, or did it roam as free as the howling wind?

It is all your imagination, Anne, she told herself sternly. Your own fears haunting you—that is all.

“I am glad that Liston didn’t join us in here,” she said to Emily as she went to the shattered window, soothing herself with a gust of freezing air and the rolling waves of icy white hills beyond. It was as if Top Withens were a ship that had sailed far north in search of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, unless, that is, the monster was already on board.

“Liston is a surprising young man,” Emily said. Anne turned back to her sister to discover that she was already on her knees, examining every surface of the stones that had made up the interior of the chimney, the candle set down on the floor. “One would hardly expect to find such a gentle soul raised up here, where only the hardy can survive. I wonder if the Liston we meet is all the Liston there is, or if he hides a little of himself away.”

“We all hide a little of our true natures away, Emily. Besides, what are you looking for?” Anne asked.

“I’m not sure,” Emily said, turning each surface of a sizeable cut stone towards what little light the candle afforded, “except that there must be a reason why the bones were interred here in a room that had to be broken into.”

“A good place to hide that which you do not wish to be discovered.”

“True, but there are miles of moor out there that would do the job just as well, so why here? I can think of only two reasons: first that the place has a particular meaning for the person who concealed them here—a meaning that is somehow tied in with the bones.”

“I see,” Anne said, though in truth she wasn’t entirely sure that she did. “And secondly?”

“That the culprit needed time, privacy and shelter to . . .”