Author's Note: In case you missed the posts explaining what this is all about, a few years ago, some friends and I decided to create a list of writing prompts where our original characters "visited" other books. Seeing as the resulting stories were too much fun to let languish on my hard drive, I've dusted them off to share on my blog :)
Enjoy!
Much love,
Saffron Amatti xx
A coach appeared on the road, its destination clearly the grand house of Wuthering Heights.
'Ah, that's my cue,' said Tommy, stepping into the road and flagging the coach down.
'What's he doing?' Lucas asked Clara in a whisper.
'No idea,' she said, creeping into earshot of the coach.
'... and the fire gutted the building,' they heard Tommy say, in his most official-sounding voice.
'Impossible!' cried Hindley. 'My father would have said -'
Tommy shook his head sadly. 'Only days after your father's death,' he said mournfully. 'A terrible tragedy. A spark from the kitchen stove, we think. Your sister and Heathcliff both perished, along with the servants. You'd already left to start your journey here, and clearly none of our letters reached you in time.'
'This is terrible,' cried Hindley, sinking back into his wife's comforting arms. 'I, I must go and see -'
'That won't be possible, sir,' said Tommy primly. 'The building is all but destroyed. It's too dangerous even to retrieve the bodies.'
Hindley let out a distraught wail, and Tommy reached into his jacket to pull out a large envelope of cash.
'However,' he said, 'the insurance company has paid handsomely and this should more than compensate for the losses.'
'Excellent,' said Hindley, snatching it from him.
'So you need never return, if you don't want to,' added Tommy with a cold smile.
'I really think that would be best,' said Hindley, his eyes gleaming as he counted the notes. 'Yes, far too distressing to visit the scene of the tragedy. I assume your firm can handle the sale of the land and all that?'
'Naturally,' said Tommy, instructing the coachman to turn around and head back down the London road.
As the coach became a dot on the horizon, Clara asked Tommy what all that was about.
'Well,' he said, 'After reading the book, I realised that if Hindley had never returned, Heathcliff and Catherine would have been happy. Edgar and Isabella would have gone on to live perfectly happy if rather bland lives, and the three children in the families wouldn't have suffered for the sins of their parents.'
'So you made sure he didn't go back and ruin everyone's lives,' said Lucas, looking rather impressed. 'Very clever.'
'I thought so,' said Tommy cheerfully. 'Come along, let's go and break the news to Catherine that her brother tragically died in a coach accident on the way home, and that the Heights now belong to her and Heathcliff. Maybe we can actually let them have a romantic story.'
Thank you so much for reading! If you'd like to see Lucas, Clara, and Tommy in their own books (rather than meddling with classics), you can find them all here :)