Girls of Brackenhill(89)

“How do you know?”

“I saw it. I saw her. She told me.” Had it been her mind or her sister’s spirit? At Brackenhill, you could never really tell. Huck ran a palm across his forehead, then through his hair. He didn’t believe her. Why would he? Why would anyone?

“We’ll find her, okay?” Wyatt put his arm across Hannah’s shoulders, and she let him. She looked over Wyatt’s head at Huck, who stood a few feet away, his hands in his pockets. He looked from Hannah to Wyatt and back.

He knew.

Hannah was an adulterer and a murderer. And Huck knew.

Maybe he’d leave her now. The thought was a relief. He could find someone with less baggage. He didn’t do baggage. She could stop pretending to be fine, to be whole. She could be one half again, the way it had felt for the last seventeen years, only this time openly.

She was so tired of pretending.





CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

Five Months Later

Hannah wiped the countertop down in the kitchen, washed her single plate and fork. She gazed out the small window above the sink, sipping her coffee.

The courtyard was no longer bursting with flowers, because February in the Catskills was brutal and killed all living things all the time.

Hannah found that she quite liked the deadening, as she’d come to think of it. Alone in the castle she could hear herself think. The snow was thick and blanketed the grounds such that she could stand outside for an hour and not hear one single sound.

She hadn’t visited Uncle Stuart during the last few days of his life. He’d died alone. With the woman who’d killed his wife. While Hannah chased some version of the truth, slept with her childhood boyfriend, and cheated on her fiancé, Stuart had died. Alice knew he had died and left him in the bedroom to follow Hannah. Had she at least been in the room when Stuart took his last breath? Hannah didn’t know and never would. Some questions haunted forever; that much Hannah had learned.

Huck went back to Virginia alone, with his vague disappointment that she wasn’t who he’d thought she was. She wasn’t stable, reliable, put together. Huck didn’t do anger or rage. Hannah got to keep Rink, who ran around in the snow in the woods around Brackenhill. At Brackenhill, Hannah didn’t have a real job. She was home all day, and Rink could run miles if he wanted. Better for him than to be cooped up in a condo all day while Huck worked. Sometimes Huck texted her, just to check in.

She said nothing to Huck about Julia. She didn’t revisit the topic. She just let him believe whatever he wanted about that night in Ruby’s room. Let him believe her confession was born of delusion. Trauma from the night with Alice. What harm would that do?

“Did you sleep with him?” Huck asked her once and only once. His voice had been subdued, not angry. He didn’t do fiery shows of emotion.

She’d spent much of her relationship with Huck pretending to be easy. Happy. Free. But the truth was she was tethered here, to a life she’d fled long ago, without any right to do so. And now, more than ever, she owed Julia—and Brackenhill—her time.

“No,” Hannah lied. Why tell him the truth to only hurt him? She didn’t expect or seek forgiveness. Why give him those images, those intrusive middle-of-the-night thoughts?

She needed something Huck could never give her: closure. She still hadn’t found it. No one had found it. Not dogs or metal detectors or sonar devices checking for soil disturbances or forensics teams or police. Wyatt said, simply, You didn’t do what you think you did.

But she knew, down to her marrow, who she was. Who she’d been for seventeen years. What she was capable of. She remembered closing the door on her sister. It hadn’t been a vision or a dream. It had come back to her, full force.

The days after, though. They remained blank. The castle growing smaller and smaller out the back window of the Buick, four days after Julia went missing. What had happened in those four days?

Some questions haunted forever; that much Hannah had learned.

Sometimes crimes weren’t mistakes at all.

I’ll pick you up around 5, the text from Wyatt pinged. Hannah glanced at her watch. It was just after noon. Good, she had plenty of time. He tried with her—really he did. When she had told him that she and Huck had split up, his eyes brightened. When he touched her, she still felt something, a reverberation up her spine. But it wasn’t enough. She had to stay focused. Only after she found what she was looking for would she be free of Brackenhill. She had to break the cycle somehow.

Another text: Do you mind if I bring Nina?

Wyatt’s daughter, Nina, loved Brackenhill. She loved the forest, the river, the courtyard bursting with color. Hannah tried to dissuade her, tried to tell Wyatt once, “It’s not safe for her here.” Hannah, better than anyone, understood the lure of it. The magic. Having Nina in the house was exhausting. Hannah watched her every move. Nina, with her glossy dark hair, her eyes bright with curiosity. It was like holding a mirror up to her eleven-year-old self, seeing Brackenhill for the first time.

Hannah still sleepwalked. She was getting used to it, that coherent dreaming. Knowing where she was and what she was doing while semiconscious. Floating around the castle in a nightgown, her very own ghost. She was growing into the role. The new eccentric who had taken up residence.

“Come on, Rink.” Hannah motioned Rink to the basement door. He followed eagerly, happy to have a cameo in Hannah’s newfound purpose.