Back to Thorn Hill ✓

Part I

The day before

Thorn Hill Mansion towered like an austere guardian over the small town of Black Falls. None of its inhabitants, though, had ever been deluded that the bastion served to watch over them, for the only things guarded by the lush household were the secrets of its residents. And Alexandra knew that better than anyone.

The building rose on the ruins of an ancient abbey and could be reached only through the main road, since it was entirely shrouded in a wild vegetation. In that moment Alexandra didn't manage to nail down the name of her ancestor who had purchased the whole ridge, and then decided to open a path winding upward till its top, cutting straight through the neglected cemetery hugging the southern hillside—he certainly must have got a screw loose, though. Of course, several of her ancestors—and current members of the family alike—had shown a peculiar kind of disposition towards activities that most people would define macabre, at the very least. But when someone was outrageously rich like the Graham family, the banal concept of morally abhorrent did not exist.

For how Alexandra saw it, old Fielding was right: The Grahams had made money their own God, and it plagued them like the Devil. Too bad that this time was her turn to cope with the vagaries of those trivial kinsmen.

As soon as she had turned eighteen and gained access to her trust fund, Alexandra hadn't wasted time—she had packed her things and had hurriedly walked away from Thorn Hill with all intention of not coming back, ever again. Yet, there she was.

Uncle Vernon was dead, and that day at Thorn Hill Mansion would be held a little gathering for the reading of his last will and testament. Alexandra would have found herself in Nepal right now, climbing the Annapurna, if uncle Vernon—who she had only seen a couple times in her whole life, one of which from the window of her bedroom as he stalked away from her father with furious strides—hadn't decided to appoint her, Alexandra Graham, his executor.

Alexandra rested the heel of her Jimmy Choo on the driveway, lingering a few more seconds still into the smelly but reassuring space of the taxi. A light tremor went through her fingers before she gripped the edge of the car door and compelled herself to emerge into the long shadow thrown by Thorn Hill Mansion.