The dresser held a music box. A small ballerina twirled when she opened it, and she heard the opening notes of “Clair de Lune.” In the top drawer, Hannah found a small leotard, tights, ballet flats. Little Ruby had been a ballerina. The bookcase contained children’s books: Dr. Seuss and Berenstain Bears and Roald Dahl. An easel sat in the corner, untouched paints and dusty paper, a collection of paintbrushes in a pristine, seemingly unused mason jar.
Hannah didn’t know what she was looking for, exactly. She wanted to understand why she’d lived in this house for five summers after Aunt Fae and Uncle Stuart’s daughter had died and had no idea this room was here, no idea that Ruby had even existed. Aunt Fae had always been secretive, private, but Hannah’s room had shared a wall with a child’s room, and she hadn’t even known it. She could have read these books, painted on this easel. She chastised her own selfishness, but still, a strange feeling of abandonment persisted.
Hannah went to the window and looked out, wondering if Ruby had fallen out her own bedroom window. The window opened outward, joined in the center by an antique latch. She tried to turn the latch, but it seemed to have been either painted shut or cemented together with moisture and age. The windows were old: single pane, drafty. She gazed down at the cement patio below that led into the garden and tried to imagine a child falling. She couldn’t—didn’t want to—envision it. How had it happened? Had Fae been with her? Had she lived with guilt as well as grief?
The ballerina stopped twirling, the music stopped, and Hannah moved to the dresser to shut the music box. From underneath the ribbon-tabbed lid of a jewelry compartment, a corner of yellow stuck out. Hannah lifted the lid. A folded piece of paper. She opened it. A birth certificate.
Ruby Anne Webster, born February 2, 1991, to Fae Summer Turnbull (mother) and Stuart G. Webster (father).
Turnbull? Had Fae and Stuart not been married at the time of Ruby’s birth? Also, Fae and Trina were sisters; they shared a maiden name, and it wasn’t Turnbull. It was Yost.
There was only one explanation. Fae had been married to someone else.
Hannah left Ruby’s room as she had found it, closing the door softly behind her. She tiptoed down the second hall, the one facing the forest, and paused in front of the room next to Uncle Stuart’s. It had been Aunt Fae and Uncle Stuart’s study, with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and a stately mahogany desk. A rolltop secretary stood along the wall, and Hannah lifted the slatted door to find the desk stuffed with paperwork. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she pulled the stack out and sat on the old oriental rug and started sifting through. Bills, tax paperwork, piles and piles of medical records, all jumbled together. She sifted them into piles, pulled a new pile down, and began the same process. When the desk was emptied, she had seven piles—categories of paperwork—organized loosely by date. Nothing jumped out at her. Nothing on Ruby, everything labeled Fae Webster.
Hannah didn’t even know why she was bothering to do this. What did this have to do with Julia? The body in the woods? Aunt Fae’s crash? Probably nothing. But there were so many secrets accumulated over the years, jumbled together like the papers in Aunt Fae’s desk. Hannah took a deep breath.
She’d spent the last decade and a half avoiding any thoughts of Brackenhill. Existing with her mother at surface level. Even with Huck, she tried to stay even, easy, happy. She buried any longing to know about her past because it seemed difficult, even tragic. Life was easier lived without tragedy. She also carried guilt—for that last fight with Julia. For not knowing if her sister had truly come back to her room that night, pale white in the doorway. For not chasing her down, helping her, stopping her. For not remembering the end, for not coming back to Rockwell sooner. Everything she’d done in the past seventeen years felt wrong, like she should have done the complete opposite. She should have called Aunt Fae.
Hannah’s instinct now was to turn around, close the door. She’d avoided the study, kept herself busy with Aunt Fae’s lawyers, Alice, Wyatt, the remains found in the forest. Something about a life boiled down to paperwork, grinding it down to the pulp, felt too exposed. More