Girls of Brackenhill(47)

Hannah pulled the desk chair up to the bed and covered Uncle Stuart’s hand with her own, angling it back slightly to rest on the mattress for support. “Uncle Stuart, it’s Hannah.” His eyes fluttered above the breathing mask but did not open.

“I found an opening for you. I don’t want to send you away. You understand, don’t you? Are you mad, I wonder?” Her voice was quiet, and she rubbed the papery skin on the back of his hand. She felt her eyes tear, her throat sting. “You can’t want to live like this. This isn’t a life. This is . . . torture.”

She looked around the room. The curtains were drawn, but through the slit in the middle, she could see the rosy glow of twilight.

“You understand, right? I can’t take care of you, Uncle Stuart. I don’t know how. I have to go back to work, or I’ll be fired, eventually. Alice can’t be here twenty-four hours.” She took a deep breath. “I have regrets; do you? Why did we stop talking? Why did I think I had so much more time?” It was selfish, unforgivable.

Hiss-hum. Hiss-hum. Hiss-hum. The steady beeping of his electronically displayed heartbeat.

“Why didn’t we ever know anything about Ruby? How did she really die? Did Fae spend her whole life feeling guilty about what happened?” Hannah felt emboldened by the silence; the darkness of the room felt like a tomb. She had so many questions. “Was Aunt Fae Ellie’s mother?” The question had come so late—Hannah couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought about it before. She blamed lack of sleep; her thinking felt underwater. “Aunt Fae was at least Ellie’s stepmother, but neither of you ever talked about her. Or to her. She came to this house! So many times. Nothing about this makes sense.” She laughed shrilly, the sound echoing in the oversize room. “I feel like I’m going crazy.”

And she did. Her real life, in Virginia, felt incredibly far away, like it had happened to a wholly different person. She could barely remember Huck and their lazy weeknights, dinner at the pub down the street, walking home hand in hand, woozy from wine and stomachs full of greasy french fries and burgers. Falling into bed, the feel of Huck against her skin. Waking up with Rink’s nose wet against her cheek. The texts from friends, the constant swirl of activity that filled her days. Her job: matching stock photos and fonts to elicit the exact response she wanted. All while Uncle Stuart had lain up here dying, the seeds of truth of her sister’s disappearance slowly dying with him. Even if he didn’t know everything, he must have known something.

She’d always assumed that if she wanted the time, she had it. It all seemed so vapid now. Stupid. Worthless.

“How did you and Fae even meet? How did you get this castle? Where did it come from?” And then the things she couldn’t ask: What do I do now? She felt like she’d opened a Pandora’s box and let all the questions out, the ones she’d held tight for so long and those she hadn’t known to ask, and she’d never be able to leave until she answered them. Until she knew what had happened that summer and everything that had led up to it.

“I can’t leave,” Hannah said, breaking the silence across the dark bedroom. Huck had finally returned from his walk in the woods. A late night this time. He’d been grumpy, short with her. She’d made them pasta and pesto using basil from the garden. The herb garden was bursting and fragrant, the smells reminding her of Aunt Fae.

“What happened to you?” Hannah had barked when Huck had come through the kitchen door at almost nine o’clock. She’d called his cell phone, but it had gone straight to voice mail. There was never great service on the mountain.

“Rink ran away. Took me forever to find him.” Huck was in a foul mood, his jeans and boots muddy.

“At least he didn’t dig up any bodies this time,” Hannah had quipped, and Huck had simply grunted a reply. She’d eaten the pasta alone while Huck had showered.

Brackenhill was getting to him, Hannah thought. It was isolating up here, the woods, the drafty castle. No one had been sleeping well. Rink had had everyone up the night before barking like crazy, running back and forth in the hall, and because of either lack of sleep or circumstance, Hannah had burst into tears at the whole ordeal, and Huck had snapped, “Get it together, Hannah.” It was the first time he’d ever talked to her like that. But Hannah got it: Brackenhill made everyone edgy. Nervous. Hannah had taken to guzzling wine in the evening before bed to knock her out. She’d hoped to sleep deeply enough to ward off sleepwalking episodes.

“I know,” Huck now replied softly. He found her hand under the covers and squeezed her fingertips. “I don’t want to leave you up here alone, though.”

“I won’t be alone; I’ll have Rink.” Hannah knew it wasn’t enough for Huck, but he had clients to appease. He’d been fielding relentless phone calls from his crew: he was the customer Zamboni, the one who solved the problems, smoothed everyone out. Everyone wanted to know where he was—one of his largest clients was an industrial complex on the outskirts of DC, and it was time to strip the beds and install fall plants. It was a job that took almost a week alone, and they had asked for an upgrade to the front entrance and were willing to pay, but Huck had been unavailable. His fiancée’s dying uncle held precious little water.

“Rink found a shed. Do you remember a shed?” Huck asked her.

“Maybe? There were a lot of outbuildings in the woods. It’s over a thousand acres. It was used as a camp of some kind in the fifties, I think.” Uncle Stuart had told her that one day. She’d forgotten all about it.