poor branwell

Scene Selection: [[🌱-> I went to the Greenhouse]]

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<img src="https://katykoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/branwell-768x767.png"> <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Eczar" rel="stylesheet"> [I walked past Agnes, though the hallway, up the stairs, and knocked. No answer. I pushed open the door and there he was. He groaned in his sleep, muttering something. There he was, just asleep. Like it didn't matter. Like everything he lost. Like everything he fucked up, Like everything he let slip away didn't matter. Asleep and groaning and reeking of liquor. It would be so easy. ]<33|</p> (click-replace: ?33)[[I looked around his room. Electricity was pulsing through my veins. Every moment that he existed here sleeping or drinking or fucking or ruining was too much. He had done too much. I had spent so much time doing too little. Wishing something would change. I had to. I needed to end it. For Agnes. For Maude. For father. For the mother I had never known. For the swirling pack of birds outside the window. Everything, even the house, even the moors seemed to pulse with it: (text-style: "blink")[DEAL WITH BRANWELL. DEAL WITH BRANWELL. DEAL WITH BRANWELL] ]<34|] (click-replace: ?34)[I often wondered how he lived in this dark room. There was just bottles everywhere and the only thing on his dresser was a small silver vase, filled with blackened flowers that died long ago. That's it. Only creaky wood and the bed and his constant breath. I... [[grabbed the silver vase]] [[grabbed an empty blue bottle]]]

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<img src= "https://katykoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/greenhouse-768x770.png"> <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Eczar" rel="stylesheet"> [As soon as I enter, the smell of green hits me, it is warm and friendly and I feel the sharp cracks of darkness fade away. The greenhouse has always been my favorite place. It seems like an impossibility. A state of being I could never achieve.]<10|</p> (click-replace: ?10)[[I can't help imagine what it would be like to live somewhere where I was set up to survive. To live somewhere where I didn't have to struggle, where I got everything I needed. To live somewhere warm and forgiving and where someone would always be there to help me if something went wrong.]<11|] (click-replace: ?11)[[Rain beats against the glass surrounding me. It is like a drum beat and it fills my soul. It is a new baseline. Projections of the green and blue and grey and brown of the moors dances through the greenhouse and on my skin like stained glass in a chapel. I walk through, touching the leaves and the petals, soft against my skin. ]<12|] (click-replace: ?12)[ I go to my workstation and grab my watering can and trimmers. Now, I don't have to talk to anyone. I don't need to think anything, I just need to tend: [[I check on the daisies]] [[I check on the lilies]] [[I check on that strange, beautiful new clipping]]]

white: #e8eefc

<img src= "https://katykoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/deardiary-768x774.png"> <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Eczar" rel="stylesheet"> Dear Diary, Today was the best day ever. We fixed him. We fixed poor Branwell. He will not be plagued by his illness any longer. After it, we cleaned him and put bandages and he sat, with his eyes open and smiling. He's perfect now. We took him up to the attic and there he will stay and wait until he can be of use. The family has to continue of course. I think everything will be wonderful now. We just needed a change. Even the moors look brighter now. The sky is white like a piece of paper. Who knows what the future will bring? [[I look forward to it.->start screen]]

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<img src= "https://katykoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/greenhouse-768x770.png"> <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Eczar" rel="stylesheet"> I look around, walking through the greenhouse, and the drum beat of it all stops. As swiftly as the rain had began, it had stopped, water is still running down the glass. Now, would be the perfect time to [[go out to the moors]], it is so beautiful just after it rains. Though, it is tempting not to move forward at this time, I can stop and tend: [[the daisies->I check on the daisies]] [[the lilies->I check on the lilies]] [[that beautiful new clipping->I check on that strange, beautiful new clipping]]

<img src= "https://katykoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/moors-768x776.png"> <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Eczar" rel="stylesheet"> [I exit the greenhouse and go out to the moors. The grass is still damp beneath my feet. It's hard to be trapped out here, every corner of it seems to stretch out for infinity. But even that is torture. It is so empty and vast and yet so full. It is harsh and unforgiving, yet so much prospers. I look behind me, our home is so large and dark— it rises up like a tall tombstone.]<23|</p> (click-replace: ?23)[[I walk further and further, the cool breeze carrying me further. The grey clouds swirl above me as I walk through the moistness, past dashing moorhens and the swirling black birds. I hum to myself, weaving through the tall grass.]<24|] (click-replace: ?24)[[In a clearing, I see our mastiff, sitting and staring despondently at a valley of moor hens below. They run and fight eachother with their legs. It's like gladiatorial combat down there. "Hello Thomas", I say to him and he looks up at me despondently. He always looks so sad. "I hope you can find a friend one day", I say to him, looking into his eyes. He huffs at me and walks away, disappearing into tall purple grass.]<25|] (click-replace: ?25)[ There is mist collecting ahead. It dances in front of me, tempting me in. I walk into it, though maybe I shouldn't. Ahead, I see a dark figure standing out in a field. I walk swiftly towards it and [[there is Maude, just standing with a basket]]]

<img src= "https://katykoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/maude-768x771.png"> <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Eczar" rel="stylesheet"> [There she is, her basket full of potatoes and other root vegetables, with a strangled moor hen at the top of it, its eyes staring blankly. She stares out over the moors, something brewing in her eyes. They always seem to brew with something. Her skirt looks as if it's dipped in mud. She always looks like she came from the moors itself. She turns and casts her eyes over me, "Good morning Miss Helen", she says robotically, waiting to be prompted.]<26|</p> (click-replace: ?26)[["Did you know he was back?", I found myself sputtering out before I could even think. She looks at me. She, like Agnes, is not afraid of silence. "Yes, ma'am. He found me last night. Just like always" Maude's brow furrows a little. Her brows are dark and thick, just like her hair and frame her thick lashed eyes that are even darker than Agnes'. She seems like she was made of the thorny flowers that fill the moors. Sharp and beautiful. "What do you think about that?", I find myself asking. I really want to know what someone, anyone would do. Can do. His presence is eating at me again.]<27|] (click-replace: ?27)[[ "What do **I** think? I'm afraid that's not my place ma'am. It's work. There's not a lot of that around here", she looks away, and starts picking at a bush. Thorns pierce her skin, but she doesn't seem to care. All she cares about is getting at something. She's not listening, not really, I implore, "But, what if I wanted it to be your place, what if we could forget, and you could just tell me-" "Is that what you want, Miss Helen? Someone to justify how you feel?"]<28|] (click-replace: ?28)[[ I pause, measuring my words. "I think that he is bad", I search her face to see if she agrees, but I get nothing from her "I think that he needs to be stopped" "Well, I agree with that ma'am" I take her hands in mine, "What do you think we should do?"]<29|] (click-replace: ?29)[["What **we** should do?", she tilts her head a me, pulling me closer, "You have more power than you think, Helen." She is closer than she has ever been to me. Her hands are coarse and warm, and even the warm smear of her blood on my skin feels intoxicating. I feel more steady than I've felt all day. "You have the power to do a lot. So does Agatha. Branwell is capable of many things. He has the power to take what he wants when he wants. He has the power to press hard and make people bruise and bleed. He has the power to make his own future, to make his own decisions. He has explored all of that. Isn't it time you thought about what you were capable of?"]<30|] (click-replace: ?30)[[Maude takes a moment, it feels like she's searching my soul, "Some of us don't have that freedom. If you have it, I say **use it**". I had never had this conversation with Maude before. It was new, it was beautiful, and soon all I could feel was my own heart beating, blood pulsing and electricity was pulsing through me. I pulled her close to me and kissed her. She tasted like earth and the moors and green and when we parted, I still felt the power of it coursing through me. It was like a crack in everything that had been happening and I was in a place completely new.]<31|] (click-replace: ?31)[ She looked at me again. She smirks, the first thing resembling a smile I'd ever seen on her face. "See, you're capable of more than you think. You know what you want" Before I could say anything, she strode off with her basket and I was left alone. I touched my lips. I could still feel her on me. They still tingled. * I am more capable than I thought*. How many hours and nights have I thought of doing that very thing before doing it just now? Then, all of a sudden, I knew what I had to do. I took a deep breath, turned around, and [[I went to see Branwell ]]]