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.