Girls of Brackenhill(2)
She imagined Uncle Stuart waking in the morning, no breakfast, no Fae, confused and hungry.
“We will send an officer to the house,” the woman said. “Is there a caretaker who has keys?”
“No. Fae is the caretaker. There’s a nurse who comes daily for meds. Or at least there used to be. I don’t know what time, though.” Hannah stuffed jeans and T-shirts into a bag. Huck was just standing up and flicked on a bedside lamp. She sat down, light headed. Too much, too fast.
“How long will it take you to get here?” The woman’s voice had softened, become kindly.
“I’m in Virginia.” She’d never driven to Rockwell from her new town. Their new town, as Huck gently reminded her every day. They were a “they” now. She stopped, took a few breaths. She wasn’t alone anymore. If you were lucky, fiancés were built-in assistants, therapists, and financial advisers all rolled into one. Hannah was lucky.
She did the math: three hours from Pennsylvania, plus three more.
“About six hours, I’d guess.” The woman on the other end beat her to it. A pause. “You should leave now, dear.”
Hannah realized she’d misjudged everything, hadn’t asked the right question, the only question: “Is Fae going to die?” She had assumed it wasn’t serious. She’d thought a broken leg, an arm, a concussion, maybe unconsciousness. “A car accident” could mean myriad things.
There was a beat where the woman didn’t speak, and Hannah felt the silence down to her bones, the chill instant, the phone still in her white-knuckled grip, and Huck, without speaking, placed a palm flat between her shoulder blades, rubbing gently. His hand moved up to her shoulder, and she gripped it there. In the dim light her engagement ring winked.
“You should leave soon.”
CHAPTER THREE
The Ghost Girls of Brackenhill are an urban legend.
Brackenhill was the name of a castle on top of a mountain deep in the woods in the Catskill Mountains. It was built in the 1800s by a wealthy Scottish immigrant named Douglass Taylor as a summer lodge. He built the castle originally for his wife, who was committed to a sanatorium shortly after the birth of her only child. Taylor himself then died young, and their daughter, Merril, inherited the land and the Taylor fortune. She married and lived in happy seclusion for years until she, too, was committed to a sanatorium shortly after the birth of her fourth son. Brackenhill was passed down from generation to generation in a family riddled with mental illness.
It has been said that over ten girls went missing on Brackenhill grounds over the course of 150 years. Some were children living in the castle; some were residents of the village below. Brackenhill stole the sanity of women and the bodies of children. The children, ranging in age from seven to eighteen, have never been found. Some people think they’re all buried on the expansive grounds. Sometimes, especially when it rains (and no one knows why), you can hear their laughter as they play.
CHAPTER FOUR
Now
Grover M. Hermann Hospital was a half hour south of Rockwell, New York. Huck steered Hannah’s car into the brightly lit parking lot just before dawn on Friday morning. Huck, the saint, had driven the full six hours, letting Hannah doze in the passenger seat, violating Road Trip Rule #7: absolutely no sleeping. But those rules had been made for beach trips and summer getaways, not middle-of-the-night emergency trips to visit long-lost—and gravely injured—relatives.
Hannah’s mother, Trina, had passed away a year and a half ago. Huck and Hannah had been new, and he’d met and charmed her only once. He tried to come with Hannah to the funeral, make the arrangements, see the house she grew up in. That sad little box house in Plymouth, Pennsylvania. She’d stopped him. She hadn’t needed him then. She wasn’t even sure that she’d cried. “You’re so strong,” he told her then. Proud of her, like strength was an accomplishment, something to strive for. It never occurred to him to question where it had come from.
But this felt different. Heavier. They were engaged. It hadn’t even been a question this time: Huck was here. The thought made her hands clench. There was so much he didn’t know. Would he think she was strong this time? Unlikely.
Hannah sat up, smacked her mouth. She dug around for a piece of gum and a dog treat. Rink slept soundly in the back, sighing softly, legs kicking at a dream. She turned around and tucked the treat between his nose and his front paws. He woke long enough to eat it and drifted back off.
Hannah’s eyes burned, reminding her that her car sleep had been spotty at best. She dialed work and left a voice mail for her director. “I should be back on Monday; there’s been a family emergency.” She thought of her boss, Patrice, a severe, private woman who would scoff at the excuse. It was a hot, sunny Friday. Surely Hannah had just taken off for a long weekend with that “hunky fiancé,” as Patrice called Huck.
Hannah was in charge of brochures: ad copy and placement of pictures of happy couples frolicking on beaches. She loved the idea of making life look wonderful and glossy. But still, she had the odd habit of trying to imagine her life like the pictures on a brochure: perfect boyfriend, pristine apartment, small yet loyal circle of friends laughing around a campfire.
“Hannah?” Huck’s hand on her knee. She jerked her leg away and regretted it. She was jumpy, too little sleep, too much energy charging through her veins.