WUTHERING NIGHTS: A Wuthering Heights Teen Fan Fiction

WUTHERING NIGHTS (chapter thirteen: Linus)

   ‘I brought my own toothbrush,’ Linus said reassuringly.

    Katarina laughed.

   ‘Oh, I’m going to write down my web page. We should stay in touch. Heath is sure to lose it at some point this morning, or he might already be out with the horses. In any case, you’re going to want to run away from this house and never return…just like all the women in this family do...’

    ‘Surely, they didn’t all run away. Not all of them.’

    ‘Yes, all of them,’ the boy said regretfully.

    ‘I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have…’

     Linus quickly changed the subject.

    ‘Get dressed. We’re meeting Hinton for breakfast; he likes to sketch in the cafe.  Sometimes I think he’s aiming to draw every nook and cranny in Hampstead. He and I don’t really get on. So, it’ll be quite funny to turn up at his favourite breakfast hangout with you in tow. He takes all his notes and paper to draw people there. He’s obsessed with capturing their images. I’m sure I can’t see any point in that…’ Linus said breezily.

    Linus talked on and it was hard not to like him, with his easy way and humorous take on the world. 

    Greta called upstairs, ‘and what would you both like for breakfast?’

   ‘Nothing darling,’ Linus said theatrically. ‘I’m taking my cousin out. You’re welcome to join us,’ he added.

    ‘No Linus, I only popped in to drop off the groceries,’ Greta said warily.

    ‘Bring you back one of those lovely frosted buns from the French bakery for morning tea, then, eh?’ Linus said, dragging Kat down the stairs with him.

     ‘Oh, have you said goodbye to your father?’

     ‘Goodbye? We haven’t said good morning. He’s out with the horses. Tell him I’ll see him tonight.’

     Greta rolled her eyes.

    ‘And with a bit of luck,’ Linus said under his breath, ‘he’ll be asleep by nine pm.’

     Katarina laughed.

    ‘He was…quite the gentleman around me.’

    ‘Oh, that’s just because you don’t know him… yet.’

    ‘I get the feeling our families never wanted us to meet,’ Kat said as they walked down the sunny driveway, slippery from last night’s hail storm.

    ‘Here, take these.’

    Linus handed Katarina a pair of gumboots. They both carried their shoes in their hands.

   ‘The calm after the storm… C’mon, I know a shortcut,’ Linus said enthusiastically.

    ‘Near my house?’

   ‘Something like that,’ the boy said as they walked through the sunken garden, across the heath, towards The Grange and past the private, hidden glass conservatory that was tucked behind the Summer House. 

   ‘My father used to come here… with your mother, when they were children.’

   ‘I know,’ Katarina said. ‘I’m reading her journal. I found it under the bed last night.’

    Linus looked shocked. ‘Oh, that must be another one,’ he said, reaching for the diary.

   ‘Not until I’ve read this one,’ Katarina replied. ‘I’m only on page eighteen…but sometimes I think this is the place she was happiest.’