Girls of Brackenhill(23)
Thirteen was a quarter the size of the other rooms, barely enough space for both girls, and Hannah could feel Julia’s hot breath on her neck. The door shut behind them, and Hannah screamed. She could reach out, past her sister, with both hands and touch cool concrete in all directions. The flashlight dimmed and flickered, and Julia caught her breath, which was starting to come in funny starts and stops anyway.
“Back out, Hannah,” Julia ordered, her voice pitched and wobbly with panic. The room felt like a coffin, and Hannah thought of a documentary about being buried alive she had seen on television once—how they used to attach bells to the outside of coffins. People could pull a string, and a gravedigger would come dig them out if the bell rang. She shuddered, and suddenly it was hard for her to breathe too. Hannah’s breath came in panicked gasps, and she started to cry.
Julia grabbed her arm. “You can be scared, but don’t you ever show it. You’re a rock, you hear me?”
Hannah turned, the doorknob right at her back. She tried to push, then pull; the doorknob wouldn’t give.
The door was locked.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Now
She woke at three.
Huck snored gently next to her, facedown, his arms under his pillow. The room was hot; the castle was not air-conditioned, and by August it could get insufferable. A breeze lifted the curtains, and Hannah had the sense of being watched. She sat up, eyes scanning the room. Everything looked as she remembered it: white chenille coverlet with long ivory fringe, deep-walnut four-poster bed with oversize armoires on either side of the room. The floor was heart pine—variable-width planks with square nails. The doorway was vaulted, and the heavy wooden door swung open, soundless.
In the doorway stood Uncle Stuart. Alert, awake, dressed in the way Hannah remembered him: khaki pants and a deep-green bush shirt, with Velcro pockets and sleeves rolled up to his forearms. He motioned to Hannah, Come here, his smile reaching his eyes. His hair gray, salt and pepper, not white. His face lined but not gaunt.
She stood and followed him down the hall, down the stone steps, and into the foyer. He moved with the grace of a healthy fifty-year-old man. He didn’t speak. She followed him through the kitchen and out the side door, into the courtyard. She double stepped to keep up, through the garden, down the stone path. Hannah walked quickly, her feet bare, her nightgown snagging on branches and sticks clinging to her hair. Stuart led her past the pool and to the edge of the forest to the path that led to the embankment and then the Beaverkill. He navigated the embankment deftly in his well-worn hiking boots, descending the way he’d shown her when they were small—sideways, long step, short step. She followed him barefoot and yet felt no pain.
The forest was dark, but she could see Uncle Stuart’s hair, bright in the moonlight.
“Uncle Stuart,” Hannah said, not sure what was real. Was this a dream? She tried to wake up.
He turned and smiled again, his eyes crinkling and the laugh lines deepening around his mouth. She felt a sting in the back of her throat and wondered if she’d finally, finally cry.
Slowly, he lifted his index finger to his lips, hushing her. With his other hand he pointed to the riverbank. The river was low; it hadn’t rained in three weeks.
On the sandy hill stood a girl. Her hair long and shining, blonde curls in ringlets, wild around her pale face. Even from this distance Hannah knew her eyes would be blue, her mouth shaped like a heart, her nose rod straight, without Hannah’s characteristic ridge. When Hannah stood in front of her, she could barely breathe.
“Julia,” Hannah said, her voice husky. She looked seventeen. She wanted to fling her arms around her sister but knew now it must be a dream. “You’re dead,” Hannah said, trying to wake herself up. She’d read that you couldn’t dream and feel pain. She pressed her toe into a pointed rock, felt the sharp sting.
Julia reached out, touched her hand, and tugged her gently into the river. The water in this stretch was pooling, slow and lazy. Rapids were upstream and down, but here, behind the castle, had always been meant for swimming.
Hannah felt the lump in her throat, larger now: What she wouldn’t give for the dream to be real. For Julia to be here with her. She squeezed her hand; Julia squeezed back. Touched her cheek. Her fingertips felt warm, substantive, alive.
Hannah turned Julia’s hands over and saw the dried blood, her fingertips raw, her palms shredded.
“Julia!” she exclaimed, but Julia gently pulled her hands away, a finger to her lips.
“Hannah, please,” she said, and Hannah felt the tingle of memory. Her sister’s dirt-streaked face, her hand on the white doorway, her mouth open, pleading.
Julia waded into the water, her dress, a pale-yellow bathing suit cover-up, billowing up around her. A laugh burbled out, and Hannah finally remembered her laugh, the thing she’d been trying to remember for what seemed like a year. Julia was her old self again, not the tightly coiled version of herself from that last summer. Not the secretive, angry, bitter sister. She kicked off the bottom of the shallow riverbed, the water spraying Hannah, and Hannah touched her cheek.
“It’s time for you to go now.” Julia stood in front of Hannah, somber, her hands on Hannah’s shoulders. She pointed into the distance, and Hannah turned to see Uncle Stuart lingering on the embankment, waving her in. Julia leaned in, kissed her sister’s forehead, and whispered, “Find the green door.”