outside stone. Through the telescope of age, everything else seemed like the conjuring of an imaginative child.
Stuart and Fae’s room was the last door on the first hallway from the parlor staircase. There were three staircases, four hallways, and ten bedrooms, two in each of the north and south halls, three in each of the east and west hallways. Each room that extended to a corner held a turret. Most were closed up, locked even. Fae and Stuart’s was the largest, with the only attached bathroom, a later addition, Hannah assumed.
The door to Stuart’s room was ajar, and Hannah pushed the door fully open. Huck hovered in the doorway.
The room was unchanged. Hannah, for a moment, felt a vertiginous déjà vu: Fae ambling out of the en suite bathroom and, upon seeing Hannah, pressing her hands together, rings clicking, and giving her a big smile. Her long, colorful caftan flowing around her. The sound of her voice echoing in Hannah’s ears.
A large four-poster bed took up the center of the room, pushed against the far wall. The canopy Hannah remembered from childhood had been removed, leaving only the wooden posts. Flanking the bed were intricately carved armoires with large ball feet, reaching almost to the ceiling. The amber wood glowed in the beam of a night-light. The red brocade curtains were drawn, so although the early-morning light had begun to illuminate other parts of the castle, Stuart’s room remained dark.
Stuart lay in bed, his eyes closed, just as she’d imagined him: thin and frail, the sound of a pump drowning out his labored breathing. An IV pole next to him held a bag of fluid, plastic tubing connecting to his left arm. An oxygen tank sat on the opposite side, emanating a quiet hiss.
She spoke quietly. “Uncle Stuart, it’s me, Hannah.”
He didn’t move or flutter his eyes. His face was gaunt, his hair wispy. He was only sixty-two, but he looked ninety. His mouth hung open inside the oxygen mask, and she could see the scrim of white stubble beneath the green elastic. Hannah reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder. She was shocked by the bumps and knobs of bone protruding under the skin. A small blue plastic box on the IV pole displayed numbers: 70, 90, 65. Pulse and blood pressure. Both abnormally low.
Hannah wondered what she would do if the machines started beeping right then. Would she attempt CPR? Did she even remember CPR? It had been years since she’d been trained—the summer after Julia had disappeared, she’d lifeguarded at the community pool. She could vaguely recall the steps: chest compressions, followed by two breaths. Or was it four?
Hannah tried to feel something: remorse, revulsion, fear. She pressed her hand farther into her uncle’s shoulder, willing him to wake up, open one eye, but he did not.
A folding chair sat in the corner, and she pulled it up to the bed. Bent her head close to his ear. He smelled sharp, medicinal.
“Uncle Stuart,” she whispered again. “It’s Hannah. Aunt Fae was in a car accident.” Hannah slid her fingertips underneath his palm. His hand was cold but dry. “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.” Nothing.
She looked at Huck and lifted her shoulders. What do I do?
He shook his head, held his palm up. After crossing the room, he touched Hannah’s back, his hand warm. She leaned into it for the first time since they’d arrived in Rockwell. His touch felt welcoming. Comforting. Hannah felt her throat constrict. There was so much he didn’t know, couldn’t know, about her life here. So much she couldn’t tell him, even if she’d wanted to.
She had to get them both out of here as soon as possible. Their relationship had felt so perfect. Pristine in its bubble. And now Brackenhill would leave its smudgy fingerprints all over everything.
In the distance, down the hall, or in another part of the castle entirely, Hannah heard it: the soft opening of one door, the closing of another.
Creak, click.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Then
2001
“Do you think Mom would let us live here?” Hannah asked.
“You mean go to school? In Rockwell?” Julia was lying on a double inner tube, pale-pink toenails kicking up a quiet plume of water against the side of the pool. She wore a red polka-dot bikini and a large straw hat she’d found in one of the bedrooms. The pool was in the backyard through a barrel vault from the courtyard. It was old, square, with faint moss along the edges and