Page 6 of Fragile Wicked Things

Lowood did not destroy me in the end, but often I wished for death. I would imagine my tombstone, chipped by time, stained by moss and inscribed, "Here lies Jane E., unlovable, unconscionable, dishonorable. A liar in life. Doomed in death." The Dark Angel did come to Lowood but did not come for me.

Over the six years I spent at Lowood, my struggles lessened as I grew to understand that silence was my savior.

Helen had taught me to quell my feelings to survive the brutality in our lives.

Sometimes, the repression numbed me, and I became apprehensive about how it had transformed me.

Nonetheless, I accepted the life lesson to deaden myself.

Helen was about to turn eighteen and would have to leave Lowood.

Mrs. Temple contacted the family of a woman from her church who was willing to take Helen in, and, in return, she would help with their twins.

They lived far away in Sitka, Alaska, a place I had never heard of but had been in the papers that summer since being granted statehood.

I dreaded the thought of Lowood without her.

As her departure date grew nearer, Helen became quieter.

Her face was pale, her blond hair had lost its luster and her lips cracked and bled.

Helen took to her bed one afternoon, complaining of a headache and stiff neck, and so I sat in the living room, escaping in a book about a young girl living on a horse ranch.

Near me, two older girls each held one side of a book while a third peered over their shoulders.

Giggling ensued, and I turned to them. I stared hard to show how perturbed I was and didn't understand the fuss over that Russian's Lolita .

I returned to my book and read until my stomach growled, reminding me that the little food I had earlier wouldn't carry me through to dinner.

My small frame grew taller over the years, and Miss Smith referred to me as "all skin and bones.

" All the girls were. Mr. Brocklehurst took to calling us "frail" and "naturally small," as if we were all related, genetically predetermined to be tiny in stature, when the truth was that we were half-starved.

Starvation led to many illnesses; some days, it felt like our bodies would crumble into tiny fragments.

The following morning, I gathered a small bunch of black-eyed Susans.

I hated the flower. It had been placed on my mother's coffin, but Helen favored it.

When I went to find her in our ward, I discovered her still in bed, complaining of a headache and chills, and she covered herself under three weathered blankets.

She shivered, and I retrieved my blanket from my bed, which was moth-eaten and rough to the touch.

I placed this on top of the others and asked Helen if she wanted me to get Mrs. Temple.

Helen turned to me. Her hair was wet and matted to her sweaty forehead; her breathing became labored and she whispered something inaudible.

I leaned closer and asked her to repeat it, but she became silent.

Heat flushed my face when I rested my cheek on her forehead.

She struggled to speak; her eyes stared at me, her mouth opened, but no words came out.

Helen let out a low mournful sound, then retched, and soon the bile erupted, throwing the sickness all over herself.

I rolled her over to her side, just as I had done years earlier with my mother, so she didn't choke on her vomit.

She moaned when I rolled her, and I grabbed a pillow from the next bed, placing it behind her to keep her in that position.

"Helen? Helen?"

She sobbed. I stood there, stared at her helplessly, and then ran for Mrs. Temple.

* * *

The hospital smelled of the disinfectant that Mrs. Reed had used to clean out my mother's room.

It choked me. Helen had been wheeled into an emergency room, and we waited outside in the corridor, distraught and watched the doctors and nurses hurry as they worked on her.

She was still alive. A nurse closed the door on us.

We stood in the corridor together. Mrs. Temple clasped her hands around mine, stared straight ahead, and whispered a prayer. I determined to do the same—to pray a powerful prayer so full of emotion, honesty, and purity that it would be answered.

"Dear God," I began, "please don't take her from me."

A moment later, the smell of disinfectant violated my nostrils again, scattering my thoughts of Helen. The sounds were endless—the click-clack of a woman's heels echoed somewhere down the corridor, a tray dropped to the floor, and a telephone rang.

"How is she?" I heard Mrs. Temple ask Dr. Bates when he had come to us.

"We've given her some penicillin. Her symptoms appear to be related to meningitis, but we're unsure if it's bacterial or viral. Time will tell if the medication is working."

"May we see her?" I blurted.

"One at a time."

Mrs. Temple went in first, sat by Helen's bedside, and held her hand, her lips moving to a rhythmic prayer.

I settled into a chair, and a warmth overtook me, calming me and reassuring me that my friend would be fine.

I closed my eyes for a moment and awoke when Mrs. Temple placed a blanket around me.

"Her fever is breaking. You're tired. I shouldn't have brought you here."

"I'd rather be with Helen. Can I see her now?"

Mrs. Temple shook her head and smiled. "Be quick."

Helen was propped up on pillows. Color had returned to her face, and her breathing sounded better, although not quite normal.

The floor creaked when I approached her, but the sound didn't wake her.

My powerful prayer worked, overcoming me with joy.

I caressed her hand before placing mine into hers, the warmth of it waking her from her sleep.

Her eyes flickered and stared at me, and I could tell by her smile that she recognized me.

"I didn't mean to wake you."

"What time is it?"

"Past midnight. Oh, Helen, you scared me." I threw my arms around her, pressed my cheek against her face, and kissed her forehead countless times. Then I pulled back and knelt in the chair by her bed. "I thought I had lost you."

"I heard the angels call my name, and I was close to the gate of happiness and peace, but now I'm back."

"Mrs. Temple called you. I’m sure it was her voice you heard."

"I'm tired, Jane. Stay with me while I sleep?"

Without hesitation, I sprang from the chair and slid onto the bed near her, placing an arm around my dear, sweet Helen. "As long as you promise to be with me. I can't lose you, too," I said before exhaustion overtook us both, and we slumbered.

I awoke in a jolt and found myself back in the chair out in the corridor.

It was the middle of the night with no one about, not even behind the nurse's station.

All appeared quiet. The wall clock's second hand ticked loudly; the overhead lights flickered; the sound of an electrical wire somewhere far off whirred.

Again, the smell of disinfectant hit my senses, and finally, down some ways, I saw the backside of a cleaner as he strained a mop in a bucket and wiped the floor, leaving behind bloody streaks.

I turned to Helen's room and saw Mrs. Temple leaning over her, making some horrible sound.

Was she crying? Could Helen be dead? I stood up and darted inside.

A slurping sound, strangely familiar, echoed in the room.

The silhouette hunched over Helen was not tall and slim like Mrs. Temple but relatively short and wore darker clothing, with a putrid smell emanating from him.

"Hello?" I whispered.

His back tensed, and he lifted his head at the sound of my voice.

"Is she all right?"

Stepping closer, I still couldn't see much in the dimmed room.

He didn't answer, his body motionless. He turned—the creature from my nightmares at Lowood had followed me here.

I had never seen his face before—his sharp, protruding teeth, blackened eyes, pale skin and blood dripping down his chin.

He lashed out and grabbed me. Blood splattered on my shirt—Helen's blood.

I screamed. I awoke to find Mrs. Temple holding my arm, tears welling in her eyes as she pulled me from Helen's bed. The people in white coats had come back, moving about Helen, speaking in rapid sentences.

"It's 105, doctor," a nurse said.

Mrs. Temple held me tight. I didn't understand what had happened.

I had been speaking to Helen only moments earlier.

Her fever had come down. Now, doctors worked on her in a frenzied state until their movements slowed, the intensity lost. Helen must be safe again and responding to the medicine.

Convinced that my friend was well, I smiled at Mrs. Temple, but her crumpled look made me question my assessment.

A nurse placed a blanket over Helen's face; the image would remain indelibly in my mind.

I shouldn't have given her that cursed black-eyed Susan.

* * *

The remaining two years at Lowood were spent alone—a time filled with chores, schoolwork and volunteering at the hospital.

Dr. Bates recommended me, and not once did he reprimand me, call me a liar or punish me in front of others.

Mr. Brocklehurst spent less time at Lowood, proof that sometimes God does answer the prayers of "insufferable young girls.

" There were days when I would sit in the garden and pretend to have a conversation with Helen, but after a while, Miss Smith became worried, so I stopped.

The nightmares ended after Helen passed away. The creature had tortured me those many years until it got what it wanted: to annihilate me by taking what mattered most. It won. The beast now controlled me, and I swore never to hope for happiness again.

Annihilate—from the Latin word "annihilatus" meaning to be "reduced to nothing." A forceful word, full of strength and destruction. I was nothing.

Oh, what power you hold over me, dark creature. But why did you take my Helen away and not me? Even then, I knew the answer—I feared death more than I feared my terrible life at Lowood, while Helen welcomed it.

"Jane, is all your grief cried away?" said Mrs. Temple.

"It's long gone," I assured her.

After Helen's death, Mrs. Temple worried about me for a long time and kept me busy tidying up her classroom, running errands and helping to organize the next day's lesson.

She had me carry science books to Miss Miller's class, who was learning subatomic particles in physics.

I half-listened as I piled the books on a shelf, wondering if Helen was made up of tiny dust particles and if she had disintegrated like that dog on Sputnik.

I became one particle, barely visible to the human eye.

My invisibility didn't spare me at the hospital, where the nurses were rude, shouting orders and having me do the chores they would rather not do.

Many times, I found myself on my hands and knees, wiping vomit or laundering the soiled bed sheets.

When a death occurred, the nurses sent me to clean the room.

They said I didn't fear death, but that wasn't true. I knew death wouldn't come for me.

I carried clean bed sheets to prepare a room and passed a janitor who squeezed soapy water from a mop into a bucket.

He looked up, eyes dark and bored, staring past me.

Around his neck, a gold cross swung back and forth as he mopped.

I wasn't Catholic, but I wondered if it worked.

Did the crucifix keep evil away? Maybe it protected him against the Dark Angel that roamed the corridors.

"Jane, please come see me after your shift." Dr. Bates startled me.

I nodded in his direction and began to worry.

Was I not doing a good job? Did one of the nurses complain?

Did a patient? Since my time at Lowood neared its end, I had hoped that my volunteer job would turn into a real one.

My thoughts raced while my hands worked, automatically tucking the corners over the mattress and folding a blanket, leaving it at the foot of the bed.

I looked over my handiwork—everything in its place, tidy. I feared it would be my last day.

Dr. Bates' office was tiny and stark, with a metal desk and disorderly piles of paper. He removed a stack of folders from a chair and motioned for me to sit down. Once I settled in, he said, "Mrs. Temple tells me you're nearing eighteen, and soon you'll be leaving Lowood."

"Yes, doctor. I planned to speak to you about getting a job."

"Excellent. A colleague from back home has a patient, an elderly woman who needs a caregiver beginning next week. It pays $175 a month plus room and board. Does this interest you?"

"I'll be living with her?"

"Yes, but I'm assured that Thornfield Hall is a grand mansion with plenty of space."

"Is it that big house outside of town?"

"No," he said. "Thornfield Hall is in New Orleans, on the outskirts. I'm told it's quiet there. The home belongs to Mr. Edward Rochester; you will care for his grandmother. What should I tell them?"

I had never been to New Orleans or outside Kansas.

Reading about exotic lands like India and China and funny-sounding places like Bora Bora, it had never occurred to me that I could one day see the world.

The unknown frightened me, but how could I not move forward and welcome the new life being offered?

Mrs. Temple had been my lone solace at Lowood, but she, too, moved on.

She met a man who sold insurance for a living and they planned a fall wedding.

Happiness had found her again years after the war that made her a widow and left her childless.

With her gone, any hope of Lowood being a home would go with her. This left me with an emptiness.

Courage. All I knew existed within the walls of Lowood. But my soul cried out for liberty.

"Tell them I would be happy to accept."