Hannah Emery - The Secrets of Castle Du Rêve - A thrilling saga of three women’s lives tangled together in a web of secrets

They watch for a while, curled together like cats. Isobel’s mind whirs steadily through hundreds of thoughts. She gazes around Tom’s flat and thinks of her own. They are both so small.

But they have until June. She closes her eyes again, presses her body against Tom’s.

The first day back after half term is one of those days that never gets light. November darkness lingers in Isobel’s classroom: even with the lights on, it’s dingy. The English department is based in one of the round turrets at the top, with an arched window that rises so high it almost touches the ceiling. Isobel taps out emails on her laptop as the pupils work, glancing now and again around the room and out of the huge windows at the side of her desk.

The sky outside is a brooding purple-grey. Seagulls swoop past, cawing like rooks. The trees along the entrance to the school are almost skeletal now that winter is coming, their branches clawing in the wind. Between the trees, the grey sea churns in the distance. Isobel loves the view, loves this classroom. She can sense the past here, seeping from the huge stone bricks. When she can, Isobel weaves into her lessons stories about the castle and its past. She makes the younger classes write stories about the ghosts that might be trapped in the walls, about the horses and soldiers that might have trotted across the courtyard and the grand people who lived here when it was first built hundreds of years ago. She tells them about the enigmatic Edward du Rêve, whom the castle was built for, and how his family stayed here for generations. She tells them about how later, the chateau-style castle was used as Silenshore University for over forty years.

Isobel remembers her mother telling her stories about the strange disappearance of the du Rêves. She tries to recall the details now, as she watches silver raindrops begin to gather on the windowpanes. She sees scenes from a long time ago in her mind: images of sitting up in bed, her hair in a plait so that it would be crimped in the morning, her mother sitting on the pale-pink chair in the corner of the room with her long, thin legs crossed as she told Isobel stories to send her to sleep. Words come back to Isobel now, shrouded in her mother’s voice: they just vanished! But Isobel can’t remember the details. There are so many fragments of conversations with her mother that lie in Isobel’s mind like bits of broken china. If she thinks about them too closely, or tries to touch them, their sharp edges sting her.

She clears her throat and a few of the more restless pupils look up from their biro scrawls, eyes round with hope that the lesson is over. When Isobel announces that it is, there’s a sigh of contentment and a final rustle of papers. She clicks her laptop shut and collects the answers in, the thought of what she needs to do now that her working day is over looming in her mind.

When she reaches the bottom of the main staircase, Isobel turns away from the double doors that lead into the main hall and reception area, and instead pulls open the side door and steps into the wet afternoon. Impressive as it is, Silenshore Castle has too many secret exits to be a high school: teachers and children escape all too often. Isobel should stay and do her marking, and normally she would. But today, she can’t concentrate until she has seen her father.

Blythe Finances is about halfway down Castle Street, between the Co-op and Wheels chippy. Isobel regrets not bringing her car as the raindrops hammer down on her like needles. She has an umbrella, but the hostile wind whips it out of shape. By the time she arrives at the shop, rain has seeped through her pumps, her feet squelching unpleasantly as she pulls open the door.

Isobel’s dad sits at his usual desk, surrounded by files and Post-its. He looks away from his screen briefly and smiles as he sees Isobel.

‘Izzie! What brings you here?’

She shrugs. ‘Thought we needed a catch-up. Got time?’

Graham clicks his mouse a few times and glances at his watch. ‘Jon’s finished, so there’s only me here. I’ve just got a few phone calls to make, but then I’ve got a bit of time.’

‘I can wait,’ Isobel says. ‘I’ll go up to the flat, shall I?’

‘Go on, then,’ her dad says. ‘I’ll be up as soon as I’m done.’

Isobel surveys the lounge as she reaches the flat. A dining table that used to be the family one, on which she knows her clandestine initials are carved somewhere, sags with junk in the corner. There are no dining chairs: they’ve somehow all disappeared over time. The whole room seems wrong: the lampshade isn’t straight, the clock is four hours fast. A curling rug lies in the centre of the small room, fuzzy with cat hair. The perpetrator of the fuzz, Duke, licks his paws dolefully next to Isobel. The curtains are drawn, as they always are. She can see a crack of her father’s bedroom through the open door. His bed is unmade, his room littered with books and clothes.

Isobel shakes her head and pulls out her phone. She has a message from Tom.

Hope it goes okay. Can’t wait to see you later. T xxx

She taps out a reply as she waits for her dad to come up. He might be a while. He’s more and more involved in the business lately, and less inclined to spend time with Isobel. It’s fine, she tells herself, because he’s busy and he’s okay and that’s the main thing. But it’s not like it used to be.

After fifteen minutes of flicking through her phone, Isobel stands up, restless. Just as she reaches for the door, it opens, and her dad hurries in.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ he says. ‘I just needed to get those phone calls made.’

Isobel sits down on the old brown sofa and gestures for her dad to do the same.

‘That’s okay. Are you done for the day now?’

‘No. I’ll go back down for a bit, I think. Plenty to be getting on with, as usual. So, what’s new?’ he asks.

‘Well,’ she begins.

Her father pats his knee for Duke to join him. The cat springs up and curls on his lap. ‘Yes. We’re listening.’

‘I’ve met someone. A man. It’s going brilliantly.’

‘I’m so pleased. That’s great. And?’

‘Why does there have to be more?’

‘With a man, there’s always more.’

Isobel shakes her head and laughs. Then there’s a silence until Duke begins purring loudly, the glottal sounds filling the room.

‘I’m pregnant, Dad.’

As she blurts the words out, Isobel remembers all the other things she has blurted out to her father over the years. I’m doing teacher training, I’ve got a job at Silenshore Castle High School, I’m going to rent a flat with Iris . Her mother always spoke softly, prepped them carefully, built a platform for whatever she was going to say. Isobel has never been like that. She can’t ever think of words other than those that are on her mind. The words she wants to say blink, fluorescent and blinding. No others can be seen. She tries to look at her father but his eyes are lowered.

‘Dad?’

‘Are you happy?’ he asks eventually, looking up at her.

‘I’m really happy. I panicked at first,’ she admits. ‘I’m still kind of scared, I suppose.’

‘Oh, everyone’s always scared of something, Izzie. So if that’s all you have to contend with, then things aren’t so bad.’

They chat for a few minutes. Graham asks when the baby will arrive, and they speculate on if it might be a girl or boy. Isobel tells her father trivial things about Tom: his shifts at the restaurant in Ashwood, his good dress sense, his flat. She makes some tea and quickly wipes the kitchen worktop while she waits for the kettle to boil. There are breadcrumbs, hard pellets of rice and shiny slivers of cheese stuck to her cloth when she’s finished. The tang of fish lingers in the air of the small kitchen, which mixes with the scent of tea and makes Isobel gag behind her sleeve.