The Thirteenth Tale

by Diane Setterfield

La la la la la.

shawn mendes is that you???

In a flash she knew it all, felt it all. Severance.

ohhhh I see what’s happening here

By listening outside doors (which is not bad manners incidentally when it is done in the name of science)

convenient

The crash was loud enough to bring the Missus running, and she found Emmeline weeping beside the mirror, crying not for her own pain, but for her poor sister who had broken into several pieces and was bleeding.

don’t this is so sad

And as before, it was usually Emmeline who gave in. In her new, secret self, she minded this.

new emmeline is not a fan

Emmeline won every time; the game was designed so that she couldn’t fail. And every time she was delighted.

loner kid me was the same

was impossible that there was a single adult in the village who did not know for a fact that the plain-faced governess had been carrying on an adulterous affair with the doctor.

I’m not sure THATS what happened

If he felt hungry and it was there, he might eat a mouthful of yesterday’s chop, or a dry end of bread, but if it wasn’t there he wouldn’t, and his hunger didn’t bother him.

I once again present to you: autism

‘Don’t worry, he’ll come out,’

alzheimers?

was what they had already suffered not a calamity?

no what you’ve already suffered should be studied by psychiatrists

He kept food coming from the kitchen garden. He cooked; he cut up meat on the Missus’s plate and put tiny forkfuls in her mouth. He poured her cold cups of tea away and made fresh ones. He was no carpenter, but he nailed fresh boards over rotten ones here and there, kept the saucepans emptied in the main rooms, and stood in the attic, looking at the holes in the roof and scratching his head. ‘We’ll have to get that sorted,’ he would say, with an air of decision – but it wasn’t raining much, and it wasn’t snowing, and it was a job that could wait.

John got the shortest end of the stick with the arrangement honestly

In the end, the only part of the garden that he kept up was the kitchen garden and the rest he let go.

oh the things you have listed John The Dig

Slumped in a corner, gun by his side, face half blown away. I recognized the other half, despite the maggots. It was Charlie all right.

well shit there goes my theory

‘Can’t see you.’

blind

Were you really born here?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘When?’ He gave a strange, sad smile. ‘On my birthday.’

maybe I laughed

A sudden movement in the corner of my eye, there and gone in the same instant.

ghosties in the forest

elevenses.

AH! good old elevenses

Her story, and Aurelius’s, and also, perhaps, Emmeline’s.

nervous laughter ensues

slice of plum cake

er

I won’t tell you his name;

aw but the tea

Daniel, the brother,

so you’ll tell us his brothers name but not his??? shady boots

‘My sanctuary,’ he said, as he showed me in.

not going to lie, read it as shoved at first and alarm bells started ringing

at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw him lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm—’

omg Jane eyre

‘Jane Eyre,’

see I know my classics

‘She falls in love with her employer. His wife – she’s mad, lives in the house but secretly – tries to burn the house down, and Jane goes away. When she comes back, the wife has died, and Mr Rochester is blind, and Jane marries him.’

this description feels importantly placed

I wish someone could tell me what it means. I wish there was someone who could just tell me the truth.’

is Aurelius the journalist she couldn’t find???

Alphonse,

Or Augustus. Or Amos. Or Adonis. Or Atticus. Or Angus. Or Amadeus.

his invaluable, indecipherable inheritance

why you gotta be so..mEAN

sou’wester

dictionary count: ?

Villette.

my favourite of CB’s works if I do say so myself

‘Margaret!’ Miss Winter’s face twisted in vexation as she spoke, she beat her left hand against the arm of her chair. Even the right hand, injured though it was, twitched in her lap.

I think they’re becoming rather amused with each other

‘My hand. Do excuse me,’ she murmured, as I bent down to retrieve the pictures, but I wasn’t deceived.

petty. I love it.

ajangle.

???

Her soul had departed through the hole in the roof, and she was gone.

I mean, we knew it was coming. Still rest well, missus. Sorry you got given an unfortunate nickname.

measured out the tea leaves,

ugh this was before the marvellous invention of tea bags. a shame, for them of course. great for me.

Emmeline! Miss Winter’s twin! Alive, and living in this house!

AY?????

La la la la la.

shawns back

For ten years my parents had buried her name in silence, trying to forget. Now I would protect it in a silence of my own. And remember.

keeping your sisters memory alive ≠ swallowing paper

Ambrose.

AS IN AURELIUS’ ALMOST NAME ????

He did not move when I touched his shoulder,

JOHN

‘Just as well,’ he said with a casual touch to the brim of his cap, ‘since I haven’t got a grandmother.’

hahahahah let’s go Ambrose

The topiary she had damaged.

hang on they BOTH damaged it. BOTH. As in Adeline AND Emmeline

Air. Water.

Mist

He wasn’t a reporter at all. It was Aurelius all along.

screaming crying throwing up I kNEW IT

Love from Dad and Mother.

even the sign off. the softness of dad opposed to the harshness of mother.

From the day I was born grief was always present.

so did her sister die the same day then or??? unclear

Perhaps she was right to.

therapy❤️

I said yes.

I feel like this is a mistake

‘You are suffering from an ailment that afflicts ladies of romantic imagination.

the way I cackled

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-book of Sherlock Holmes. Take ten pages, twice a day, till end of course.

now there’s a quack I can get behind