After a while, without words, Mr Lister leads Aunt and Marian and the others back up to the Hall. I remain with Anne. I never wish to leave her side. I hold her hand as she stands, motionless, watching the flames. I do not know what she is thinking but I fear its outcome.

It takes some hours to burn and my back aches and my feet freeze but I will not leave her. I too want to see it end, every last piece of it destroyed, the full extent of someone’s cruelty towards her, us, all of us.

In these hours, my mind races with questions. What if it had been Shibden itself? What if we’d been inside? Do they know what went on here, is that what this is about? What do they want from us? To withdraw entirely from life? To leave here? To die? Or is this the end of it? The final attack? Will we give them what they want? Close our doors to outsiders? Live out our days here and care not what happens outside our walls? Forgo our places in church, our familiar streets and haunts, our trips to York, give up the carriage, put high walls around our house?

But in time, as I stand and watch our Moss House burn, my mind quietens, and the flames become beautiful and I am lost instead to the idea of the two of us, standing here, our faces hot from the fire and our backs cold against the winter night, paying our respects to our own little chapel of sorts. I fall calm and wonder what our lives will bring next.

In the days that follow I worry that I may lose her; that some part of her may close to us. She defends herself from these attacks by not reacting, but in doing so removes herself from us too. She buries her pain deep inside and never speaks another word of the Moss House. I wonder if she is defeated and this is her acceptance, or whether she is biding her time, coming up with a plan. Is she plotting her revenge? It she planning a war?

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

Spring, 1836: The ruin of the Moss House and departures from Shibden

Miss Lister

Snow fell on the remains of the Moss House and for a for a short while made the ugly pile disappear; but after the snow thawed, I had not the strength to rebuild it and now simply avoid going near it altogether.

Winter has passed, and we have been left alone for some time now. Life ticks on at Shibden with our daily routine that protects us and keeps us together like the cogs in a clock, keeping time and order with an occasional chime.