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Chapter 1
Chapter 1: The Last Box
The removal van had a dent in its side shaped like the country of Italy, and Ella Colby stared at it the entire three-and-a-half-hour drive from Birmingham. She stared at it because staring at a dent was better than looking at the green hills rolling past, or the road signs switching from English to Welsh, or her mother's white-knuckled hands on the steering wheel.
"Nearly there," Jeanie Colby said for the fourth time. Her voice had that bright, stretched quality, like a balloon blown up too far.
Ella said nothing. She pulled her knees up to her chest and pressed her forehead against the cool window glass. Her phone sat in her lap, the group chat with Maisie and Priya scrolling with messages she hadn't answered.
*miss u already ella!!*
*send pics of the sheep lol*
*its not gonna be the same without u*
She locked the screen.
The van turned off the main road onto a lane so narrow that branches scraped both sides of the car like fingernails. Then the lane opened up, and there it was.
Grandma Bronwen's farmhouse.
It looked worse than Ella remembered from visits years ago. The whitewash had gone grey and was peeling in long strips. One of the upstairs windows was cracked. The front garden—if you could call it that—was a jungle of nettles and foxgloves growing waist-high, and the stone wall around it had collapsed in two places like a mouth with missing teeth.
"Home sweet home," Jeanie whispered, and her voice cracked on the last word.
Ella glanced at her mother. Jeanie's eyes were glassy. She was gripping the steering wheel even though the car had stopped. Ella knew that look. It was the same look from the funeral three months ago, the same look from the solicitor's office when they'd learned about the will.
"Mum," Ella said quietly.
Jeanie blinked and forced a smile. "Right. Let's get unpacking."
They spent the rest of the afternoon hauling boxes inside. The farmhouse smelled of damp and old lavender. Dust lay on every surface like grey snow. The kitchen tap coughed and spluttered brown water for a full minute before running clear, and when Ella flicked the light switch in the hallway, nothing happened.
"Fuse box," Jeanie muttered, disappearing into the cellar with a torch.
Ella stood alone in the hallway. The wallpaper had faded roses on it. A grandfather clock stood against the wall, silent, its pendulum still. On the shelf beside it sat a framed photograph of a young woman with dark curly hair and a wide smile, standing in a field of buttercups.
Grandma Bronwen. Young. Happy. A whole lifetime ago.
Ella picked up the photo and wiped the dust from the glass with her sleeve. She'd loved her grandmother—loved her stories and her Welsh cakes and the way she sang while she gardened—but she hadn't been ready to move into her house. She hadn't been ready to leave everything behind.
The lights flickered on.
"Got it!" Jeanie called from below, her voice echoing.
Ella set the photo back down and went to find the box marked *Ella's Room*. She carried it upstairs to the small bedroom at the back of the house, the one with the sloped ceiling and the window that looked out over the woods.
The woods were enormous. They started just beyond the overgrown back garden and climbed up the hillside in a dark, tangled mass of oak and ash and birch. In the late afternoon light, they looked almost black.
Ella dumped the box on the bare mattress and sat beside it. From downstairs came the sounds of her mother opening cupboards, running taps, trying to make the place liveable.
Outside, a blackbird sang from the top of a crooked fence post.
Ella pulled out her phone and typed a message to the group chat: *arrived. its awful. miss you.*
Then she deleted it without sending.
