wuthering heights, after the fact

          October 1939 — I have been in Yorkshire for nearly a month now—a month! My father a general of the 2nd London Division, my dear elder brother in France with the 3rd Infantry, and I exiled to this abysmal place in the North of England. The house at which I am essentially a prisoner is a dreadfully dark building with scarcely a stunted tree to keep it company—I should barely like to keep it company, if I’m being quite honest about the whole ordeal. It stands facing the harsh Northern winds that blow in across the moors, its ancient stone shoulders hunched against the elements. It is far too drafty for my tastes, and besides, Robert Tillerson—my mother’s cousin and my temporary jailer—prefers to keep the curtains drawn and the shutters latched; this does nothing to alleviate the drafts, and furthermore, it banishes even the idea of sunlight from the dusty chambers of the Heights. No, I misspoke—nothing in the manor is dusty in the least, for the servants are paid well to keep the place spotless, though for whom I cannot imagine—Mr. Tillerson rather keeps to himself am I am convinced he has done no more entertaining than I have. That’s all to say that the chambers aren’t dusty, but rather that they are so drab and underlit that one almost feels like they must be dusty or filthy in some other way that can only be properly hidden by perpetually drawn curtains and a shortage of candles. Electricity being introduced to Wuthering Heights is such a ludicrous thought that I haven’t even suggested it to my reclusive host; I am sure that he would see it as a disrespect to his home.
          But no matter—I spend most of my time out on the moors; I have grown used to the lavender fog and endless sloping turf. The moors have become my antidote to the war; their wild temperaments have spun me into a more accepting soul. How can I worry about the war when all that exists is heaven and sky and the swirling In-between? The heavy mist that greeted me at the door this morning has made up its mind to rain, and I wrap my coat more firmly around me, casting my eyes heavenward to the hissing and spitting clouds—their colour is such that I cannot tell if dusk is upon me or if the sun’s light is simply masked in grey. I certainly hope it is the latter, as a few more minutes of wandering has the churchyard clearly in view—if it is too late in the day, I shall surely have to beg the vicar lend me refuge with his family for the night, as I will have no time to make it back to the Heights. This has been the case several times before, and Mr. Tillerson was only cross the first occasion I was not home by suppertime—he is perhaps the most inhospitable person I have ever had the chance to know.
          The harsh winds plaster my newly soaked curls across my face, and I turn my collar up—a useless action, seeing as I am already soaked through. Just as I reach the edge of the churchyard, my eyes alight on a series of crumbling shadows beneath a weathered tree—three headstones lean into each other, stone darkened from the rain and spread with thick moss. These graves are new to me; I venture closer for a better look and kneel beside the leftmost marker to brush its surface clean and to perhaps read what is carved there—it is too dark and too worn to make out more than a few etched letters, but upon resting my hand against the headstone, I feel a prickling up the nape of my neck. I cast off a shiver and look about, but there is no living being in sight aside from myself. Someone’s been awalkin' on your grave, my dear, my mother would say, but it’s just that I’ve been walking on somebody else’s. It feels as though a hand has caught ahold of my chest, and I hear footsteps and laughter brushed up in the howling wind; I sink to the earth with my back to the headstone, feeling as though the moors are reaching for me with twisting arms—I cannot shake the feeling that I have company in the pounding rain and wind.
          Two figures dash across the moors in a sort of chaotic dance, high up on a knoll—I assume that I must be dreaming, or else caught up in some sort of feverish hallucination, for what else could explain what I see before me?—the shadows come closer, but never close enough that I can discern any facial features.
          “Wraiths,” I whisper, but my voice is swallowed up by the wind. I hear the laughter again, wild and haunting—it sounds as though the moors themselves are laughing. But there is something else as well; there is that heavier presence that has a hold on my heart—it is cloying and musky, like damp earth and nesting larks. The figures come unbearably close to the churchyard, and I am overcome by a sudden terror that they will harm me, or that they will seize me and drag me off into the dark of the moors where they before shared in their dancing. I shriek and tear myself from the headstone to dash along beside the low garden wall; I scramble over it and turn back to see what has become of my mysterious potential attackers. They are gone. I can see nothing but the graves and the tree and the rain-soaked moors. My lungs refuse to draw breath until I am pounding at the vicar’s door, begging him to allow me shelter for the night. I’ll be dead in my grave before attempting to cross the moors again tonight.

spiral

I have lost my hold on reality; essentially, I have analysed my life into oblivion and can no longer properly tell what matters and what is true and what is right. I ache through and through.

Such dramatics, my goodness. I apologise, but I will not back down. I feel like a statue crumbling from the inside. There's this great tugging emptiness inside me and I confess I don't know what to do besides wait it out and hope it subsides. My best friend is going through something and she won't tell me what it is, but she's also mostly ignoring me as well, which hurts more than I'd like it to. I want to help, and I want to not be alone. This situation does not satisfy either of those wants. Part of me wonders if she even considers us to be good friends, even though I know those are my trust issues talking and not necessarily anything based in rational thinking. Still, I worry.

That guy who played me last semester, and whom I know for a fact to be manipulative and unempathetic, has returned with apparently his original agenda of making me obsessed with him or something. Knowing what I know about him now, it is easier to remain unattached, but I wonder how dishonest it is to play along because I need validation and attention. His attention isn't consistent or genuine enough to make me feel less lonely most of the time, so I suppose it's helping neither of us for me to continue the charade. I don't know. I've never made any notably bad decisions in my life up to this point, and part of me is desperately interested in attempting to enter into a less-than-genuinely-based relationship that I know for a fact would end poorly just to see what it would be like. Just to have more emotions and experiences to write about. And then there's this back and forth between knowing logically that something is a bad idea and that refraining from doing it would be a testament to my moral backbone and emotional strength, etc, and then there's the anti-logic that shows up and renders all that null and void anyway.

And besides any logic or anything, I'm lonely, and I'm interested very much in anything that could, even temporarily, alleviate that. I don't know. I'm slipping and I don't know what to do.