Hannah’s mother, Trina, had passed away a year and a half ago. Huck and Hannah had been new, and he’d met and charmed her only once. He tried to come with Hannah to the funeral, make the arrangements, see the house she grew up in. That sad little box house in Plymouth, Pennsylvania. She’d stopped him. She hadn’t needed him then. She wasn’t even sure that she’d cried. “You’re so strong,” he told her then. Proud of her, like strength was an accomplishment, something to strive for. It never occurred to him to question where it had come from.
But this felt different. Heavier. They were engaged. It hadn’t even been a question this time: Huck was here. The thought made her hands clench. There was so much he didn’t know. Would he think she was strong this time? Unlikely.
Hannah sat up, smacked her mouth. She dug around for a piece of gum and a dog treat. Rink slept soundly in the back, sighing softly, legs kicking at a dream. She turned around and tucked the treat between his nose and his front paws. He woke long enough to eat it and drifted back off.
Hannah’s eyes burned, reminding her that her car sleep had been spotty at best. She dialed work and left a voice mail for her director. “I should be back on Monday; there’s been a family emergency.” She thought of her boss, Patrice, a severe, private woman who would scoff at the excuse. It was a hot, sunny Friday. Surely Hannah had just taken off for a long weekend with that “hunky fiancé,” as Patrice called Huck.
Hannah was in charge of brochures: ad copy and placement of pictures of happy couples frolicking on beaches. She loved the idea of making life look wonderful and glossy. But still, she had the odd habit of trying to imagine her life like the pictures on a brochure: perfect boyfriend, pristine apartment, small yet loyal circle of friends laughing around a campfire.
“Hannah?” Huck’s hand on her knee. She jerked her leg away and regretted it. She was jumpy, too little sleep, too much energy charging through her veins.
Hannah reached out and gripped Huck’s hand. It was calloused, even in the summer—especially in the summer—because of his job as a landscape designer (the gardener, she sometimes called him, sexy and silly).
Huck knew almost nothing of Aunt Fae and Uncle Stuart, aside from their names. He’d never met them. He didn’t know much about her childhood, and he knew nothing of the castle. He knew her mother had died. He knew very little of the summer of 2002. He knew she had an older sister who’d died when she was young, but not why or how. Well, no one knew how, Hannah supposed. He knew that she and her sister had spent summers at her aunt’s house in New York, but surely he imagined something normal: a cabin, a ranch, a colonial.
Hannah knew so much about Huck’s life before her: his idyllic childhood, his four brothers, parents who swelled with pride for their children and love for each other. His whole childhood had felt like a slap. Even after meeting the whole brood, she’d glossed over her own childhood with a broad, shiny brush. Huck’s family was loud, raucous, ribbing each other at holidays. His mom sat at the head of the table, cheeks flushed. His parents lived less than an hour from them in Virginia. Somehow Hannah still managed to find plenty of excuses to beg off visits.
Besides, they’d only gotten engaged three short weeks ago. They hadn’t progressed past the showing-off-the-ring stage of engagement. The word wedding had barely been uttered. They had time, Hannah reasoned. They should be enjoying this time. Not mucking it up with heavy pasts and childhood traumas.
Would she have told him about Brackenhill eventually? Of course. Maybe. She’d rarely given it a thought in seventeen years. Except for the nights she woke up sweating, crying, the faint outline of a dream tugging at her subconscious. Her hands clenched until they cramped, a deep ache across her shoulders. A heavy refrain, the memory of a sound. Click, click, thump, thump. Once and only once Huck had found her standing in the living room naked, her clothes strewed on the floor. Hannah didn’t remember it, but Huck had told her she had clawed at the hardwood, crying.
Later, when she woke up and he recounted the story, he’d laughed. “Like you were digging something up. It was bizarre.” At the