The World Within Read Online Free Page B

money to leave us. We’d have nothing at all. But let’s not think about it. Because it won’t happen. It won’t .” Charlotte shuffles rapidly down under the bedclothes.
    Suddenly it dawns on Emily that it’s not Anne whom Charlotte wants to protect from the truth — it’s herself. But she can’t blame her. She can feel it too — the box lid beginning to tremble as the monsters try to climb out. The Terrible Events pushing themselves back into her mind, insisting that she remember.
    “Let’s go to sleep now,” Charlotte says firmly.
    Emily turns on her side and Charlotte cuddles up to her back. This is how they like to sleep, facing the same way, curled up like spoons.

    Soon Charlotte’s breathing deepens, but Emily goes on staring out of the window as she does every night, watching the light in the sky fade to darkness. When the stars begin to appear she shuts her eyes, but not to sleep.
    There is something she must do, something she must face, because if she doesn’t, her fear will grow and grow and swallow her up.
    To give herself courage she thinks of the heroic Parry, bold, courageous, confronting the great unknown of the northern regions. Then in the darkness of the bedroom she says the word silently to herself, feeling the shape of it in her mouth.
    Death.
    She knows it. She has seen it everywhere. Out there on the moors where she has found stiff lambs with their empty eye sockets; heard the screams of a vole snatched by a kestrel. Out there in the churchyard where week after week, glancing from the windows, she has seen Papa standing by the dark grave holes, into which the coffins go, many of them tiny, but a good many adult-sized too.
    But it’s not just out there, keeping a safe distance. It can come inside too, in here, into the parsonage, their home. And though in their games and stories the four of them can make characters come alive again, she knows that really they are powerless against it. This is what she makes herself face now, with Charlotte sleeping next to her, concentrating on the shadowy memory buried inside her.
    It comes with a sense of solemnity and hushed voices. She can remember a bed, too high for her to see the person lying there. Someone says, “Say good-bye to your mama.”
    Mama. Emily can’t remember her face or her voice, but she occasionally has recollections of a sensation — of being safe, of arms tight around her.
    Tonight, in this memory, there’s no such comfort. What she sees is Papa, his head bent close to the pillow, with a look on his face so strange and terrible that Emily feels as if something is squeezing her heart.
    She feels it now, as she makes herself remember. She’s trembling, but she keeps hold of the feeling as long as she can, until she can’t bear it a second longer.
    That’s enough.
    She opens her eyes.
    The rectangle of sky is there. She stares at it until her breath steadies, her heartbeat slows. She looks for the Great Bear and when she finds it she fixes her eyes on it, as if she wants to absorb its cold glitter.

“Emily, you’re woolgathering again.”
    Emily comes to with a start. The forest where she’s striding through the trees vanishes and she’s back at the breakfast table in the parsonage with the others. Aunt’s beady eyes are on her.
    “Eat up your porridge, now, before it goes cold.”
    Obediently she ferries a laden spoonful to her mouth. She wonders how Papa is today.
    It’s been ages since he took to his bed. They know what his illness is now — pleurisy. After they heard Dr. Andrew say the word, Emily rushed to look it up in Papa’s well-thumbed copy of Modern Domestic Medicine . When she read that it could be fatal, she shut the book fast.
    Anne and Charlotte have been praying for Papa, but although she never discusses it, Emily hasn’t been able to do that.
    She’s always accepted what Papa has taught her about God, but lately she’s found herself questioning things. For example, the idea that God is watching