Girls of Brackenhill(77)

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Now

“I need your help,” Hannah blurted to Jinny, who sat opposite her, the crystal ball between them. Hannah was distracted by it, the silliness, the Hollywood of it. Jinny huffed impatiently and stood up, placed the ball into a cabinet, and shut the door.

“Hannah, you need medical attention.” Jinny pointed at Hannah’s bandaged hand, fallout from the greenhouse fire: shards of glass lodged in her palm.

“I had medical attention. I just left the hospital. Checked myself out. I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

Everything would be fine if she could just figure out what had happened to her aunt, her sister, Ellie, maybe Ruby; whether Warren wanted to kill her; and why Alice hated her so much. It was a lot to figure out, but she had to get back to Virginia. To Huck. She had to get away from Wyatt before she ruined her life. Before Brackenhill ruined her life.

Hannah took a breath. “I need your help.”

“You don’t. Anyway, I can’t help you. I don’t know who burned the greenhouse down. I don’t know what happened to Julia, or even Ellie, for that matter.” Jinny’s voice was impatient, almost petulant. “You don’t understand how this works. I don’t know everything. I can’t see everything. I can see some things, but even then I can’t control what I see. And I can’t command certain facts. Do you understand?”

Hannah didn’t, and she didn’t care. “Talk to me about Fae.”

Jinny paused, her nails clicking on the tabletop. “To be honest, my dear, we drifted apart the past few years. There isn’t much I can tell you that you don’t already know.”

“Why?”

“Some of it was her life. Caretaking is so stressful. Hard on everyone. Some of it was me. Before Stuart got sick—again—I’d wanted her to be more social. Come down from the hill, visit with friends. I know they see me as a kook, but I’m harmless. They might even think I’m the village idiot.” Jinny fluffed her black hair with her fingertips; a ringlet caught on a bracelet, and she wiggled it free. “I’m not. I know that. But I know how they all see me. Everyone likes me, though. Your aunt, however . . .” Jinny cocked her head, twisted her bright-coral lips. “Not so much. I knew better; I tried to tell people—especially those bingo biddies down at the Rockwell firehouse—Fae was a good person who had a tough life. Friendship is good for the soul. You can’t make a life out of plants and one man.”

“What about Alice?”

“Oh. Well, Alice.” Jinny rolled her eyes. “Yes, well, there was Alice.”

“You don’t like Alice?”

“I don’t know her!” Jinny threw her hands up, her rings and bracelets clattering. “I invited them both to the firehouse. They had poker, bingo, spaghetti dinners, what have you. Poker was my thing. Anyway, they always said no. Alice practically lived there. She loved your aunt; I’ll give her that. They were strange birds of a feather, together. And the three of them up there, secluded on that hill? People in town thought it was straight-up weird. And that’s coming from me!”

“How did Aunt Fae meet Alice?”

“No one knows. She showed up one day—‘from the agency,’ she said. Before you knew it, they’re inseparable, and I’m nothing to Fae. She hardly came to see me anymore, never called. She had Alice; that’s it.”

“Why do you think she became so reclusive?”

“She never stopped flogging herself for Ruby. And then Julia.” Jinny sighed, her eyes teary. And likely Ellie? thought Hannah. Jinny continued, “Even if people in town could understand—and I do think they could, at least the Ruby part. Accidents happen!—Fae would never let herself be forgiven. But people see it differently. If she didn’t kill anyone, then why hide? Why seclude yourself if you’re not guilty?”

“So when she needed you the most, you abandoned her?” Hannah asked, and it came out sharper than she intended. It was a barbed question, and Jinny flinched.

“No. No. You can’t make people need you. Your aunt sequestered herself. That life sentence was her own making. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped, Hannah.”

This Hannah knew to be true. She thought of Wes, Trina, even Julia toward the end of that summer. Scattered, lashing out, impatient, mean. All the things she’d never been before. Even to Aunt Fae; especially to Aunt Fae. Oh, like you don’t know what I’m talking about.

Hannah had only heard that part of the fight, Aunt Fae’s voice too quiet, too circumspect, to be heard from the library, where she spent so much of her time. Julia’s had been clear as a bell, loud and angry. What had it been about? She’d forgotten it entirely in the years since. It had seemed fleeting, inconsequential.

“Did you blame her for Julia?” Hannah asked.

Jinny’s eyes slid sideways, and she adjusted her earring. A tell. “No. Of course not.”

A lie.

“I don’t believe you.” Hannah felt her face flush. Why would Jinny lie to her? Who was there to protect? Everyone was dead.

“Well, I don’t know why. I’ve no reason to lie to you. I don’t believe your aunt had anything to do with Julia’s disappearance. And the only thing I think she had to do with Ruby’s death was folding laundry while her child played in a room with an unsecured window.”