Girls of Brackenhill(82)
Alice continued, “I was just defending myself. I plead self-defense, I get to walk away. That’s how it works. If you try to kill me and I accidentally kill you, I’m free to go. Start my life over, like I wanted to all those years ago. Without the drugs, knowing my baby girl will rest in peace.”
Hannah took a step back toward the door, adrenaline surging under her skin. “You should do that. Go and start over.”
“Well, I can’t now, see? You know everything.” Swipe, slice went the knife.
Hannah’s hand fumbled behind her back for the latch. In seconds she was outside, running down the path, away from the shed.
Behind her, she heard the thump, thump, thump of Alice’s nursing clogs.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Now
Hannah had one advantage over Alice. Alice may have been staying at Brackenhill for a year and a half, but Hannah knew the forest. She knew the trails and the paths, the rocks and trees. She took off down the path that led from the shed back to the driveway, crossed over the driveway, and veered left on the trail that paralleled Valley Road. This path was steep and in some places dark where the towering pines and ash trees formed a jungle canopy overhead, blocking out the bright full moon.
Hannah ducked under boughs and kept her eyes on the ground, trying as best she could to make out the roots and rocks. Breaking a leg or even rolling an ankle might cost her her life.
But still.
When the embankment came into view, she didn’t think it or plan it. She just zipped to the left and tucked herself into the hillside between Valley Road and the path in a small gully swollen with rotting leaves and stagnant rainwater. Something scurried over her left foot, either a large spider or a small vole, and Hannah bit the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming.
She could make herself small. She’d spent her whole life practicing.
Alice thundered by—grace wasn’t her strong suit. Her thick rubber soles slapped the ground, the wet leaves sliding.
Hannah knew that fifty feet or so past the embankment, the trail tapered into a narrow edge, thin as a blade and slicked with a mushroom bed. Especially treacherous in the summer, when the temperature dipped and a heavy rain pounded down, spreading spores.
To the left of the narrow trail was a steep incline up to Valley Road, not completely impassable but not easily traversed without hiking boots and equipment. To the right was a gully, deep and wide, the bottom of which contained a tributary.
An accidental slide into the gully could easily break a leg.
When she and Julia had ridden their bikes into town, they’d avoided that stretch of ground and instead cut to the left before the embankment entirely, walking their bikes on the shoulder of Valley Road until the path evened out, widened, and became safer than the road.
Hannah doubled back and felt her way along the embankment, making sure to keep herself flush with the foliage. If Alice looked back, she wouldn’t be able to make out the shape of Hannah against the shadows of the trees.
Hannah’s hand hit something hard. A metal knob. Her fingertips reached out, spread along the expanse of greenery, and found only splintered wood.
The storm shelter. Underneath her palm, the old wood seemed to buzz with life. If she’d had a light, she knew she would have seen the door was painted green, peeling and flaking.
Find the green door.
The key in Hannah’s sweatshirt pocket hummed. She’d forgotten about it. She’d taken to wearing the same hooded sweatshirt every day now, not wanting to venture to the basement to do laundry.
Her fingertips found the doorknob again and then the lock. She slid the fleur-de-lis key into the lock, and underneath her palm she felt the click of tumblers sliding into place, a sick swelling in her chest, her breath coming in gulps. Something about the storm shelter felt dangerous, hidden. The knob turned in her hand, and she was able to slide into the narrow stairwell and ease the door closed in front of her. She could only hope the vines fell back in front of the door, the way she’d found them. Or that Alice wouldn’t double back and look closely with her lantern. Or that she’d fall into the gully.
If Alice found Hannah here, she’d kill her.
Hannah ran her hands along the walls on either side. The stairwell was narrow, with dirt walls and only (she counted) four steps into what felt like a larger room. She could hear her breathing hollow in her ears, her pulse loud as a full drum line at a football game. She didn’t have Alice’s battery lantern or even a flashlight.
Too bad she wasn’t in the greenhouse. Uncle Stuart always kept small portable propane lanterns in the greenhouse. Mostly because he said the batteries didn’t make it through the weather changes, and he wanted to make sure he had them for emergencies if he had to get back.
The matches! From Pinker’s! She’d swiped them so she’d have easy access to the phone number, address, manager’s name. She lit the first match.
The room was tiny, maybe ten by ten. There were shelves on the walls. Flour sacks on the floor.
A pulse of familiarity. She’d never been here before; they’d never been able to find a key.
But wait. That wasn’t right. She’d been inside, hadn’t she?
On the first shelf to her left sat three of Uncle Stuart’s propane lanterns. She hadn’t even known he’d ever used this room. He must have stored them and not remembered? He was always prepared. Behind the lanterns were stacked cans of vegetables—corn and carrots—and a carton of preserved eggs coated in an oily sheen. Two decades old, rotting, inedible.