“I’m so sorry to tell you this, but there’s been an accident.” Hannah took in a steadying breath, and Alice nodded, a look of realization crossing her face. Hannah continued, “Fae died in a car accident last night.”
Alice’s mouth parted, her eyes widening in shock. “What happened?”
“Valley Road happened. That, and she was likely speeding. We don’t know why, or where she was going. I’m sure the police might touch base with you, considering you saw her every day.”
Alice’s eyes teared up, and she glanced around the room. Hannah had no idea what the nature of their relationship had been—had they been friends? Had they operated as an employer and employee? Had Fae been cool or warm to her? Had she made Alice tea in the afternoons as she’d done for Hannah and Julia?
“I’m sorry,” Hannah repeated, and Alice dipped her chin, her ponytail falling over her cheek.
“What about Stuart?” Alice finally asked.
“He still needs you. In fact, I’m not sure what role Fae played in his care, but we may need more of you for a bit, if you can manage it, and then I’d like to find him placement.”
“Placement?” Alice repeated. “As in a home?”
“Yes. I can’t stay and care for him. I have a job in Virginia. I . . .” She let her voice trail off.
Alice was visibly shaken, her hands smoothing her hair in a nervous tic and her eye twitching. Hannah knew she seemed cold. She couldn’t seem to say the socially acceptable words and felt a strange temporary amnesia: What were the words she should be saying? Fae and Stuart were strangers to her now. After Julia had disappeared, they’d faded into the woodwork of Hannah’s life, relegated to a dusty, sepia-toned past. She found out brief updates from her mother: Stuart’s cancer was in remission, and then it was back. Her mother’s contact with them was sporadic and informational. Then again, her mother’s relationship with everyone but God became transactional.
In the rare moments that Hannah had let herself remember the castle, Julia, Fae, and Stuart, she wasn’t entirely sure it had happened. After all, it had been a total of five summers from the time she was eleven to fifteen. Cumulatively, it was fifteen months. A little more than a year of her life, peppered throughout her early teens, when so much of that time would have passed in an adolescent fever dream anyway.
But those summers had happened, and Julia was gone forever. The truth was laid bare in her mother. After Julia disappeared, Trina shrank her entire life down to the head of a pin, rarely leaving the house. She’d lived the rest of her life on state disability, depressed and anxious, mostly hermitic, except for Sundays, which were for church—a new development.
Wes, tired of Trina’s depression, lasted two years before he split. Trina bought out the house using an insurance policy she’d taken out on Julia when she was a baby. Trina died of congestive heart failure in the winter of early 2018 at only fifty-eight, likely exacerbated by anorexia over the course of a decade. The few times Hannah had visited, her mother’s refrigerator had been nearly empty. Hannah had grocery shopped, filling the shelves with fruits and vegetables, meats, potatoes. Trina, seemingly more frail with every visit, had merely shaken her head. “I’ll never eat all that,” she’d said, and Hannah had asked her, “What do you eat?”
“Mostly eggs. Sometimes yogurt or granola.”
“What about carrots or broccoli?”
“I can’t be bothered to cook.” Trina waved her hand at Hannah. “It’s all such a fuss.”
Hannah had heard that phrase her entire life, it’s all such a fuss, about everything from school activities to sports to Brackenhill. Even Julia’s disappearance had seemed too exhausting to fully focus on. Trina was predictable in her complacency, in her desire for routine.
When Julia left, it was like Hannah’s heart shut off. She couldn’t find the empathy or patience for her mother’s insularity. She came home when she had to, once because Huck seemed to disapprove of her nonchalance toward her mother’s health (he’d chided her—only twice, but it had stuck because he never, ever did that), and she worried that he’d think less of her, that he’d think her cold and unfeeling. But what was expected of her? When Julia left, Trina retreated into herself. Like she only had one daughter worth giving her full self to, and it wasn’t the one who had stayed.
What Hannah struggled to explain to Huck was that Trina had left her first. She was merely following her mother’s lead.
Trina’s funeral had been short and sparsely attended. She’d become active in the church before she died, but it was a small congregation. Hannah performed the funeral tasks, picking out the casket, the burial plot. She paid for it with another life insurance policy, significantly smaller than the one Trina had for her children, and Hannah could never quite figure out what that said, if anything, about her mother.
“Are you okay?” Alice asked.
Hannah’s attention snapped back to the present. “Yes. I’m fine.” And then, “Are you?”
“I’ll be okay. It’s a shock, of course. Does Stuart know?”
“I’ve told him,” Hannah offered helplessly, her hands splayed.
“He likely doesn’t hear or understand you.” Alice sighed, wiping the tears from under her eyes with a tissue she’d fetched from her handbag. “He should have been admitted to hospice a long time ago. Fae was insistent that she care for him. And she did a wonderful job! Never missed an afternoon PT. Now I’m not sure what will happen. We may have to hire someone. There are occupational and physical therapists who will come in, of course.”
“Hospice, you think?” Hannah mulled this over. “How long does he have?”
“Could be days or weeks or months. It’s so hard to say. He stopped eating a few months ago and has a feeding tube. We thought that would be the thing.”
Hannah again tried to feel something—sadness, grief—and came up blank. She remembered the Stuart of her childhood, quiet and sometimes silly. Pulling quarters out of her ears or standing to her right and tapping her left shoulder just to watch her turn one way, then the other while she giggled and he feigned surprise. She remembered Stuart down the embankment behind the castle, by the Beaverkill, showing her how to fly-fish and, later, clean the fish they’d caught, but first he’d made her admire the beauty of an eighteen-inch rainbow trout, its mouth pulsing with the last gasps of life. She remembered how it had tasted, fresh and delicate, and Stuart, who rarely said anything, had swelled with pride, telling her, “Nothing tastes better than food you catch or grow yourself.” She remembered thinking then that this was how a father should be. How would she have known? Her own father was a ghost, her stepfather a drunk.
Hannah should be mourning the loss of the two most influential people in her life.
So why did she feel so empty?
CHAPTER TEN
Now
On the second day Alice stayed four hours, until noon. Hannah and Huck ate breakfast in the kitchen, out of Alice’s way, Rink curled at Hannah’s feet. He’d barely left Hannah’s side since they’d arrived, whining when he was let out, barking at dust motes in the air, pacing their bedroom at night. It had been a long few days for everyone.
They sat at the long stainless steel worktop obviously intended for food prep for stately dinners. Hannah could tell by the wear, the scratches in the steel, that Fae and Stuart had regularly eaten there. She tried to envision them actively living in the castle, alone, and failed to conjure an image. When she and Julia had visited, they had dined every night at an ornate fourteen-seat mahogany table. Her shoulders pushed against tall-backed chairs, and she moved her bare toes against the rough wool of their Persian rug. There weren’t many rules, and in fact, they’d been permitted to run wild, hiding behind the heavy brocade drapes, sending a folded square of paper—a football, they’d called it—down the length of the table, and cheering when the game piece traversed the distance. They were never hushed, never told to quiet down. Dinners were freewheeling. Aunt Fae always looking vaguely alarmed by the mayhem but Uncle
Stuart chuckling, if never laughing outright. Hannah had the sensation of being the entertainment, like working to make them laugh was payment for the summers they were gifted. Aunt Fae was never overly effusive, but Hannah could tell when they delighted her. A laugh would burble out, and then her eyes would go wide, surprised by an unexpected drop of happiness.
But now the castle stayed eerily silent.
Huck had gone into town the day before for some provisions: his yogurt and granola, apples, almonds. Huck, the creature of habit, both infuriating and endearing. He’d asked her what she wanted, and she’d snorted. “Whatever they have. It won’t be much.” Rockwell was not one to follow trends, particularly those of the organic, grass-fed, gluten-free variety.
“I could hardly sleep last night,” Huck said, spooning yogurt into a bowl.
“Really?” Hannah had fallen asleep quickly, overtaken by exhaustion, and woken in the same position as she’d fallen asleep. Huck generally did too. They’d slept in Hannah’s old room; it looked the same, smelled the same. Deep-red carpeting. Heavy red drapes. Grand European furniture. Hannah had yet to open the door between bedrooms, to take in Julia’s old room: the bright blue against Hannah’s dark red. She couldn’t bring herself to turn the knob, knowing her eyes would cast downward at the narrow transition between the doors for a note, a pretty, heart-shaped rock ground smooth by the river, or another gift Julia would sometimes leave her. Hannah had never returned the kindness—a regret.
“Didn’t you hear all those noises? We’re used to neighborhoods, I guess, not the forest and . . . well, this crazy place.” He shrugged and ate a spoonful of granola. “But seriously, you didn’t hear it?”
Hannah shook her head. “It’s the doors,” she said finally. She’d heard it for five summers, particularly in the black of night: creak, click. Aunt Fae had always told her it was the wind. She’d believed her, and after a while she’d stopped hearing it.
Huck stared at her. “You’re not serious.”
“Castles are drafty, uninsulated, you know.” Hannah felt stupid, hearing her own words.
“You think there’s a wind strong enough coming through a stone wall to close and open oak doors from the 1800s? Some of them have iron hardware,” Huck said. “This place is freaky, Han. I don’t know how you stayed here as a kid. I would have been on the first bus home.”
“Not when home was worse than here,” Hannah snipped, then adjusted her tone. Huck could be judgmental, quick to chastise others’ decisions and bad choices, although she’d never felt it directed at her until now. He had a happy, boisterous family, loud and loving. Brackenhill was all she had. “It’s fine. There’s nothing to worry about, I promise you.”
He stood up, rinsed his bowl, carefully dried it, and returned it to the cabinet. “I’m not worried, necessarily. It’s a beautiful place. But you don’t feel that?” He waved his hand around, implying something was in the air.
“Do you believe in that stuff? Everyone always told us, Julia and me, this place was haunted. Julia believed it. She had experiences. But she was a hormonal teenager.” She swirled her cereal and sighed. “I didn’t. Not really.”
It wasn’t entirely true. She’d felt something: a pressure, a draft, the feeling of someone watching her, a quick huff of air on the back of her neck, making the hair on her arms stand up. Even the idea of the basement—the shifting rooms, the pervasive smell of death, the echo of her own panicked breathing—felt like a distant childhood delusion. The pool, turned glittery red, had been a copper reaction to the chlorine, of course. Everything that had happened had an explanation, firmly planted in reality, offered up by Aunt Fae or Uncle Stuart and happily gobbled down by Hannah.
Until, of course, Julia had left.
Huck sat, attentive, and she realized it might have been the first time she’d talked freely about Julia. Being here, in this place, in the summer, was disorienting. She tried to remember being in this room with her sister. She tried to remember Julia’s laugh and couldn’t grab hold of it.
Huck stood and kissed her forehead, and she leaned against him, for a moment absorbing his calm, his heft. Sometimes she felt like they were diametrically opposed, and she didn’t know if that balanced them or set them off kilter. He, so measured and governed by routine, careful and sure, offset by Hannah, her insides in a perpetual swirl.
Huck left to walk the woods, take Rink outside to run. The dog had been cooped up first in the car, then in the castle because he’d refused to leave Hannah’s side once they’d let him in. Huck had adopted Rink before Hannah, from a friend—one of the financial men from the bar the night they’d met—who’d married a man with an allergy. Rink was an Irish setter but mixed with something—golden, maybe? His snout was shorter, his coat a shimmery gold instead of deep copper, but long. Rink had the energy of a puppy, even now at eight years old.
Hannah watched them walk away, Huck’s long-legged lope across the flat expanse of green, past the pool, still covered in August, the black plastic collecting debris and leaves. Rink broke into a run, and Huck jogged after him; Hannah could hear his laugh echoing back to her, and she felt swollen with something, puffed up and weepy. His goodness permeated everything around her and always left Hannah feeling guilty, bereft, as though she were undeserving.
She straightened up the kitchen and thought about what to do next. She had to wait for Aunt Fae’s body to be released to the funeral home, and then she could schedule services. Autopsy might take a few days, she’d been told. She’d have to call Fae and Stuart’s lawyer, see about getting access to money to pay for everything. Fae and Stuart weren’t religious, so Hannah assumed she’d want to be cremated, but she wanted to be sure. The business of death was consuming, but it kept her from questioning her mourning. She couldn’t focus on her emotions, or lack thereof, because she had so much to do. It was convenient.
The front bell chimed—a deep, tonal echo throughout the house. Hannah stood to answer the door right as Alice appeared in the kitchen doorway, hesitant and on the verge of tears.
“Alice! What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing!” She wiped her eyes. “I just . . . it’s so strange now. I miss her. Stuart knows something’s amiss. He’s out of sorts.”
“Why? What is he doing?” Hannah couldn’t imagine what “out of sorts” meant for a semiconscious man.
“He’s moaning. I upped his morphine drip, but I don’t think it’s pain. I . . . I know what pain looks like on him. He’s trying to talk. He’s upset.”
Hannah was at a loss. The door chimed again. She held her finger up to Alice. “Please don’t leave. Let me just see who this is, okay?”
Alice nodded, and Hannah walked quickly across the living room, through the sitting room, down the hall, and into the foyer. The foyer was grand, stretching all the way to the peak of the roof. Sconces dotted the walls, and an imposing crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. The room was all deep-colored woods, forest greens, and blues, and it looked as regal as anything Hannah had ever seen. She’d forgotten about the foyer; it was so rarely used.
She opened heavy double doors that moaned under their own weight.
She felt, in an instant, light headed and breathless. Standing on the stone steps was a man she hadn’t seen since he was a boy. Since the night, seventeen years ago, that had altered both their lives. She knew her face registered the same shock she saw in his. He wore jeans and a blazer, his reddish-brown hair curling into his eyes, which widened at the unexpected sight of her.
“Hannah.” His voice was the same as it had been when he was eighteen: throaty but kind. Hannah closed her eyes and, for a moment, could hear him all over again: Please, don’t leave. When she opened them, he hadn’t moved. In his hand, he held a badge.
Wyatt McCarran.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Then
June 2001
When Julia first suggested they ride their new bikes down Valley Road, Hannah had to admit she was skeptical. The road down was treacherous
, and what could be so great about the small, dumpy street that was Rockwell? They’d been there with Aunt Fae, food shopping or running errands (or once visiting Aunt Fae’s kooky friend Jinny Fekete, who smelled like smoke and oil). But they’d never gone alone. They hadn’t needed to! They had each other, the forest, the river, the gardens, the castle. Why did they need to now?
Julia packed a backpack with sunscreen and towels, a book and sunglasses, and declared she was going with or without her sister.
“There’s a pool here.” Hannah wanted her sister all to herself. She wanted last summer all over again. She wanted to find the little door in the side of the hill. There had been a small winding creek that had a mouth at the Beaverkill a half mile through the woods. They were going to look at maps and figure it out.
A trip to the public pool wasn’t in the plans.
Julia laughed. “When it’s not turning blood red?” She hadn’t gone swimming since that day, despite Hannah’s pestering.
“It was a rust reaction, Jules. It’s not gross. Stuart had it cleaned up in a day.” Hannah tried to remember what Uncle Stuart had told them. “It was from copper, I think? He treated the pool that morning. Vacuumed out the sediment. It was an easy fix.”
“I don’t care. It looked like a crime scene. He has an excuse for everything that happens around here. They both do, and it’s not right. I’m going a little nuts at the thought of another summer. Okay?” Julia stopped throwing stuff into her bag and faced Hannah. “This place is just freaking me out.”
“Why, though?” Hannah felt the weirdness, too, but it never scared her exactly. Nothing truly bad had ever happened. She just knew she never felt alone, even in her room at night. “It’s not new. It’s just . . . Brackenhill.”
“Everything feels different this year. Something’s happened.” Julia sighed and shook her head. She started to speak and thought better of it. “I just . . . it doesn’t give you the creeps? We could be murdered, and no one would ever know. We’re so isolated.”
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