Read The World Within for Free Online Page B

next one. Her legs are getting tired.
    When she reaches the landing halfway up, the pale face of the grandfather clock Papa winds every night looms out of the shadows.
    She’s passed it hundreds of times, but she’s never noticed how tall it is, how loudly it ticks.
    Emily shivers. She wants to curl up again with Charlotte under the warm blankets, but when she looks in their room, Charlotte isn’t there.
    She tries Papa’s and Aunt’s rooms. No one in there either.
    That only leaves the nursery.
    She opens the door, her heart beating fast. The room is empty.
    Where are they? Maria and Elizabeth? And everyone else?
    Where are they?
    Something raps on the window. A small white hand.
    A child’s voice cries, “Let me in. Emily! Let me in.”
    Gladly, Emily runs to the window and throws it wide. “Elizabeth?”
    But there’s no one there. Just the wailing wind, driving icy rain into her face.
    Emily leans out into the blast. No one down in the churchyard moving among the gravestones. No light in the church, with its tall black tower.
    For a moment she can’t breathe. And then a feeling of horrible desolation sweeps over her and she howls into the night, into the darkness, the emptiness …
    “Emily! Wake up!”
    She comes to, sobbing, with Charlotte’s arms round her.
    “Shh. It’s all right.” Charlotte strokes her back. “You were dreaming, that’s all.”
    Emily gulps. “It was that one, Charlotte. You know, about Maria and Elizabeth …”
    Charlotte nods. “Don’t think about it. It’s over now.”
    When she’s calmer, they settle down again. Charlotte is still holding her tight. “Go to sleep, now. I’m here. You’re all right.”
    She is, but as the nightmare fades, the question pushes itself into her mind. What will she do if Charlotte isn’t here?
    She tells herself not to worry. She will not let Charlotte go away to school.
    There’s still time to talk her sister out of this.

The morning Charlotte leaves they all go out into the lane to wave her off. The sky is pressing down on them today, its dark clouds threatening snow.
    Emily, shivering in the keen east wind, blows on her fingers and stamps her feet to try and warm them up. She can’t believe this is happening.
    Yesterday when her sister carried a traveling box down from the storeroom and asked her to help with the packing, of course she refused. And she wouldn’t speak to Charlotte for the rest of the day, not even when they went to bed.
    But it hasn’t made any difference. Despite all her efforts to dissuade Charlotte — marshaling reasoned arguments, nagging, pleading with her to change her mind — her sister is leaving today. It will be five long months until they see her again. In that time anything could happen.
    The rest of the family, including Aunt, give Charlotte a parting hug, but Emily refuses even to look at her. Instead she murmurs to Old Joey, the carter’s horse, who snuffles her hand, hoping for something to eat, his breath leaving white clouds in the air. But out of the corner of her eye she can’t help seeing Mr. Dowson helping Charlotte climb up onto the front seat of the cart. The box is already safely stowed in the back, where pigs and sacks of oats usually ride to market.
    Aunt sniffs. “A pity the gig is hired out elsewhere today. She’ll not create a very good impression arriving at Roe Head in a farm cart.”
    “Charlotte needs no outward show to sustain her,” says Papa brusquely. “They’ll see her true qualities soon enough.”
    Emily exchanges a glance with Branwell. It’s not like Papa to be short with Aunt. Aunt is probably right about the impression Charlotte will make, but it’s partly her fault. She’s sending poor Charlotte off in that hideous cut-down dress and she even made her sleep in curl papers, so that now her hair is screwed up in a frizz of tight curls.
    Emily hopes her sister hasn’t heard what Aunt said. Charlotte’s face is pinched, as if the cold has already entered her