and blue only an hour ago, had turned rust red. In the bright-white midday sun, if Hannah didn’t know it was impossible, she would have thought it was filled with blood.
CHAPTER NINE
Now
Hannah found the hospice nurse standing in the back hall, blinking. She’d come in the side door, near the driveway, scaring all of them.
“Is Fae here?” the woman asked, and it occurred to Hannah that telling people their loved ones had died was exhausting. Was the nurse a loved one? Maybe. She was at Brackenhill every day. The same woman for over a year, she’d heard.
“I’m Hannah.” She extended her hand, and the nurse shook it. “Please come in.” Which felt stilted and unnecessary. The woman was likely more at home here than Hannah.
“I’m Alice.” She was tall with a wiry build—so thin she appeared gaunt. Her hair was pulled tight against her head, and she wore plain gray scrubs. She gave off an air of no nonsense, something that in regular circumstances Hannah would appreciate, as she always valued efficiency. Nature’s cruel joke, then, that she’d ended up engaged to Huck, whose internal time clock had two speeds: cautious and careful. But Alice, she vibrated nervous energy. Hannah immediately liked her, but without a clear understanding why.
In the living room Hannah motioned to the chair, and it occurred to her that was Uncle Stuart’s old leather La-Z-Boy. Alice sat and stared at her expectantly. Hannah took a seat across from her on a deep-green velvet sofa with worn patches on the armrests and ornate claw feet. Fae’s taste in decorating ran more bohemian than regal, and this living room reflected both the older furnishings inherited with the house and Fae’s tendencies toward plants and natural fibers. The eclectic combination lent itself to comfort and familiarity, even when Hannah hardly remembered any of it. The room was large, spacious to the point of echoing, and too late Hannah realized she and Alice were awkwardly far apart.
“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