Girls of Brackenhill by Moretti Kate

Author:Moretti, Kate
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-10-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Now

Back in the car, Hannah concentrated on deep breathing. She’d left Lila’s in a hurry, probably suspiciously quickly. She didn’t care. She needed to sort through the knot of new facts, needed time alone to unwind the skein of memories, coming furiously now.

Ellie, with the red hair, tough but so beautiful. Bright-red lips, tight skirts, high heels. Mean, caustic. That last summer, Ellie and Julia tucked away in Julia’s room, Hannah with her ear pressed against the door, trying to hear a whisper, a giggle, anything. Not understanding why she couldn’t come in, be part of it. Why couldn’t two be three? She wasn’t a baby, only two years younger. She knew about boys and clothes. She could have been part of them. Why? she’d wanted to shout at the time. Why was she so excluded? The isolation felt sudden, as if she’d been surgically extracted from her sister’s inner life. It had been whole and complete in a matter of a few weeks, and she’d been left alone in the castle night after night while her sister sequestered herself in her room with Ellie, who alternated between mean and forlorn.

Three days before her sister had gone missing, Hannah remembered finding Julia alone in the courtyard, her skin shining from the light of a bright full moon. Julia’s eyes had been wild. Her hair matted on one side, like she’d been sleeping on it. What time was it? Almost midnight. What had made Hannah wake up and look out her window to the courtyard below and see Julia, ethereal and white, in her nightgown? What had made her run down the spiral staircase, through the halls, and out the kitchen door after her? She’d just been standing there. Hannah could have sworn her mouth was moving, like she’d been talking. But to whom?

“Why are you completely ignoring me this summer?” she’d asked her sister.

Julia’s hand pressed against her forehead, as though staving off a headache. “It’s not personal, Hannah, please. There’s a lot of shit going down. You can’t even know. You’re fifteen. The world isn’t like you think it is.”

“That’s so condescending. I know what the world is like, Julia, and since when does that matter to you? We’re a team. Against Mom, against Wes, exploring this castle, spending our summers together. That was the deal. Now I’m alone all the time, and I’m tired of it, and I want to know why.”

“I can’t tell you why, okay? Trust me. I’m sorry. It’s not what you think. It’s not a club you’re not part of. It’s bigger than that. It’s huge.” Julia’s hands went around in a circle, and Hannah huffed. Her sister had always been one for drama. Julia’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You know how I see things sometimes?”

Hannah rolled her eyes. This again. Julia had read a book a year before about mystics and fortune-tellers, something about the dark arts, and since then she had claimed—too publicly for Hannah’s liking—that she could see people’s spirits.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.