Catherine's Spirit
A "Wuthering Heights" Fanfiction
Prologue
I had awoken adrift, weightlessly pensile as a boundless, sombre abyss enveloped every part of my being. At first I was frightened, frightened by the immense sensation of solitude and deprivation of breath, soul and life itself. My eyes were scorched by an invisible and stifling heat. I believed that I had transcended Hell but as my pitless eyes began to purify, I recognized the harsh moors surrounding Wuthering Heights. Swiftly, my consciousness returned and I could at once remember my last days in that wild world. My dear husband Linton and my beloved Heathcliff bickered so intensely that night that they threw me into a loathsome fit. With the passing of each evening, madness overcame me, as I grew detached from my family and poor Nelly. She had raised me from my infancy but she turned cold and wicked during my ultimate demise. She watched eagerly as my soul and subconscious slowly departed my body setting me free from those destructive quarters. What a cruel punishment this is that I should stay attached to this vile place. I wonder upon whom would seduce and entrap me here, forever wandering the moors. I shall not rest before the identification of my offender, he who thinks it wise to torment Catherine Linton.
Chapter 1
20 years. 20 years I have been a stray. I feel as if I have adjoined the moors, my cries playing a duet to the wailing wind. I have tried to no avail discourse with another living soul – my abandoned Heathcliff. Often he would stir from his slumber at my soft whisperings aside his ear. Yet he would not fully awaken to see my sordid apparition leaning so closely to his unconscious form. His black charcoal eyes, his rigged form and lifeless motions made it seem that he had already passed over into my world. How misery seized and displaced his body leaving it pallid as blood drained from his veins and created a vision comparable to my bleak shadow. Oh how I wished that he would join me.
It was a frightfully violent and tempestuous storm that evening. The evening that I was at length able to bridge the interminable void between us. The storm seemed to carry my voice above every confronting noise, banishing it beneath its power. An unfathomable anger enraged my entire soul as I began to discern the depths of the gales creep into my subconscious and sow dark, foul reveries. Contradicting my antecedent resentment and resistance of the moors, I forthwith welcomed them and poured all my energy into beckoning Heathcliff. Anew, he stirred and wrestled against my temptations and still I advanced my rhythmic drone reciting "Catherine Heathcliff, Catherine Heathcliff, Catherine Heathcliff…". My intonation grew as the murmurs fell together synchronically with the rain's pulse against the windowpane. Another voice entwined slowly and methodically, accentuation only one word: Catherine. We began to produce an intimate duet, I shouting Heathcliff and he uttering Catherine.
Abruptly, Heathcliff shot up, his eyes wildly searching the room for the source of my voice. His vision hindered his ability to glimpse past the material world and so he called out to me. In return, I continued my beckoning which seemed to stimulate his senses and in turn reveal my true form. I barely saw the commotion that he had made before I was instantly in his arms. He seemed to grip my silhouette hard against him but I could not feel warmth, embracement, or any sensation granted to the living. Moments passed with the tempering of the storm and the rain subsided, as did my spirit. I could feel the moors command my soul back to the infernal abyss and so my figure fell from Heathcliff's enfolded arms.
As I departed I could hear Heathcliff cry out in agony for he had lost me for a second time. At this, an intensified hatred overcame my emotions, which desired to deprive my tormentor of his existence. I never again wanted to leave Heathcliff, for in that moment I relived each fault and wrongdoing that I had committed against my heart's desire. I needn't dwell on those sentiments however, but reflect on my prosperity in reaching Heathcliff. I could not fathom the union that passed between the moors and I that evening for I had never accepted those treacherous regions. It was the storm that appeared to induce an obscure quality within myself, which I could only imagine to be the link between my discourses with Heathcliff.
Once I had made this correlation, I spent every last moment with Heathcliff as Wuthering Heights never seized to storm during the autumnal equinox whence everything surrounding the moors withered and died away. With the passing of the deceased, I was rejuvenated and restored to my youth leaving me to at last roam the winding halls, large expansive corridors and secret refuges of my childhood abode. Heathcliff and I fell to our old customs and habits in which we taunted our loved ones and grew madly in love. After all, we were maddened by each other and compelled to lead one another to ultimate our demise. I could be without Heathcliff for no longer and so I distracted him invariably as to cause inattention to his mundane necessities. He would not eat, not sleep but solely reside in his room locked away with me. On one of these such occasions, he had mentioned that he wished I would haunt him in spirit for selfish reasons: so that I would be by his side even after death. At that moment, I knew my tormentor, my imprisoner, the one who had kept me trapped in the moors for years to come. How could he, my beloved, my heart, my soul commit such a vile act towards his Catherine? I would of let him live and left him to wither in agony and misery at losing me for eternity but he would have soon succumbed to death's keeper and pass into the great beyond. Now it is my turn to be selfish whence I shall guilt and urge him to join me in the black abyss of the harsh moors surrounding Wuthering Heights that we shall haunt for all of eternity.