Girls of Brackenhill(85)

“Why would I know anything? You don’t talk to me. You haven’t talked to me in months.”

Julia panted, trying to catch her breath. She descended the concrete stairs, stepping carefully into the beam from Hannah’s lantern. Finally, she said, calmer, “Hannah, listen to me. She killed Ellie. Aunt Fae killed someone. Maybe more than one. We are not safe here. We are not safe with her.”

“That’s bullshit. Aunt Fae couldn’t kill anyone!”

Did Julia’s selfishness know no bounds? She’d accuse Aunt Fae of murder?

“You take everything from me.” Hannah covered her face, willed the tears to come, but her eyes stayed dry. She felt nothing: not fear, not sadness, just a blank emptiness deep inside where feelings should have been. Like she’d been flayed open, all her insides out for the world to see, and now she had nothing left.

Hannah didn’t recognize the girl in front of her: the tangled blonde hair, the flush of her cheeks, the sour smell of her. “I can’t go back to Plymouth. Do you understand? Do you know what he does to me?” Her voice cracked, the tip of an unpleasant feeling surfacing. Despair. Hannah tamped it down, stamped it out. “Did he do it to you?”

It was a big gun, Hannah knew. Her sister wilted, her face transformed, and Hannah had her answer. Not anymore. Julia didn’t have to say it.

Julia’s old silence was Hannah’s new burden.

Fuck that.

Julia took two steps forward and folded her sister in her arms. Hannah didn’t return the embrace, just waited. Counted to five. Breathed in and out. Bubbles of anger rising up, her throat on fire with it, her skin burning where Julia touched her. Julia, who had always sworn she’d protect her.

Hannah slipped out of the hug and bounded up the concrete steps two at a time.

“Hannah!” Julia yelped.

Outside, the air felt cooler. A breeze was blowing a storm in. The air hummed with energy.

Hannah slammed the door shut.

Clicked the padlock closed. Click, click.

Julia’s footfalls hit the concrete steps on the other side. Then: thump, thump.

“What are you doing, Hannah? Let me out!”

Then, “Hannah, please.” And softer, again.

Thump, thump. The weight of her sister’s fists on the other side of the door.

Hannah on the outside. Combing the vines—just so—with her fingertips over the wood. Until the hillside looked like a hillside, nothing more or less.

The muffled sound of her voice. “Hannah, please.”

If she took three steps back, onto the path, Hannah couldn’t hear it anymore. Tamped down by earth and dirt and the quiet sound of rain and the rumble of thunder.

Like no one had ever been there.





CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Now

How long had she been there?

What time was it?

Thump, thump. Hannah, please.

Thump, thump. Hannah, please.

Thump, thump. Hannah, please.

And then, “Hannah, get up.” A woman’s voice.

Hannah lifted her head off the dirt floor. Expected to see Julia, face pinched with anger at what she’d done. But no, Julia was dead. She was gone. That was Hannah’s fault. She felt the beginnings of the truth of that: the dull body ache, something sharp in her chest, making it hard to breathe.

Instead Alice stood above her, the hunting knife glinting in her hand. Hannah sucked in air. Julia was gone.

“How did you . . . get in here?”

“You were moaning. I could hear it from the path. Screaming, really.” Alice shook her head, her eyebrows knitted sympathetically. “I have to say I wasn’t expecting this. I thought you were long gone.” She smiled, all lips, no teeth. “You killed your sister?”

“Where is Julia?” Hannah asked. “What have you done to her?”

“Julia? Hannah, dear. You aren’t well, are you?” Alice tipped her head to the side, scrutinized Hannah’s face. “Have you been sleeping poorly?” Her voice took on a sympathetic tone. “Did you take the Klonopin like I told you?”

“Detective McCarran will be looking for me.” Hannah’s voice shook when she said it. An empty threat, and they both knew it.

“Oh dear, I’m afraid he won’t. Wyatt, as you affectionately call him, has no idea you’re here. See, there’s no service underground. There’s no cell service in this forest.”

Hannah struggled to stand but felt weighted—heavy and broken—and her mind slogged through the possibilities. The door behind Hannah, where did it lead? She had no idea. Underground, she assumed. Alice blocked her exit to the forest.

“Where’s my sister?”

“Your sister is dead because you killed her,” Alice snapped.

She had no idea what to trust—what tricks her mind was playing on her. She’d spent the past two weeks walking through Brackenhill in a dream state: half-asleep, half-awake. She had no idea if this was any different. Had Julia been here? No. Because that was not possible. What Alice had said made sense.

Hannah had killed Julia. She’d left her in the storm shelter to die.

Her mind handed her images then, things she’d long forgotten. The day after, she and Uncle Stuart had combed the forest, calling for Julia. Circling past the storm shelter, down to the shed, through the courtyard, and down the river. Over and over again. Each pass of the storm shelter, Hannah would call her sister, wait a beat and listen, but hear nothing back. She remembered the feeling of relief then, a sagging, heart-pounding, thrumming relief.