Brenna pushed her huge sunglasses onto the top of her head as she stepped into the cat shelter’s reception. She took a deep breath, wishing she could wear them indoors; they were her shield. But doing so would only make her look strange. And she was sure the people she’d encountered so far in the Lake District thought her odd enough already.
It was still early in the morning, so it was empty inside, save for a woman with her head bent low over a computer, barely noticing Brenna. A colourful picture of a ginger cat was painted on the wood panelling at the front of the desk, and behind the reception, framed pictures of cats that had been adopted out from the shelter adorned the walls. They were all gorgeous: a fluffy, white, blue-eyed cat; a timid-looking ginger cat with his head down; a tuxedo cat with puzzle-like shapes decorating its face; a stripy cat with a long tail. And in the corner was a picture of all the black cats Brenna had adopted from here, clustered together as one big, shadowy mass, so you couldn’t tell where one cat ended and the other began. Her lips twitched in a smile. She’d sent them that photo after she’d adopted the cats, while they were still settling in and hadn’t yet befriended her other black cat – her childhood pet – Soot.
‘Excuse me?’ Brenna said to the receptionist.
The woman glanced up. Brenna hadn’t seen her before; she mustn’t have been here when Brenna adopted her cats. When she saw Brenna standing there, she stood up from the computer so they were at eye level. ‘Hi! Sorry, I’ve been too distracted this morning catching up on our emails. How can I help you?’
‘I adopted my cats from here,’ Brenna explained, and she pointed at the photo of the black cats. ‘But I wanted to come in and make a donation.’
Even though she’d adopted her cats when she first arrived in Cumbria, she’d been nervous about splashing her money around and hadn’t given them a cheque like she wanted to. She intended to make up for that today. She’d even considered volunteering with them so she could integrate into the local community – she knew they were looking for more volunteers to help them out – but something was holding her back. It was like there was an invisible hand pulling at the back of her clothes every time she thought about it.
‘Oh, how lovely!’ said the woman, beaming. Her name tag caught the light – it read Meredith, with an illustrated pawprint stamped next to it. ‘That’s so generous of you.’
‘Is a cheque okay?’ said Brenna, reaching into her pocket for the chequebook. ‘Do you have a pen?’
‘A cheque?’ Meredith raised her eyebrows and laughed. ‘A little young for cheques, aren’t you? It’s not often we get asked . . . People usually use our online donation portal, or a bank card.’
Brenna bit her lip. ‘I think you’ll see why I prefer to do it this way.’
‘Okay . . .’ Meredith grabbed a pen from a pot on her desk. It was pink, with a wobbly cat head on the top.
Taking the pen, Brenna smoothed out the cheque on the surface of the desk and wrote out the details and the amount, the cat head on the pen bobbing as she did so. She still couldn’t believe she had enough money to add that many zeroes to anything. The imposter syndrome rose up in moments like this; sometimes she still questioned if all of this had happened to her. Meredith would probably question whether it was the right number. Had they ever seen that many zeroes on a donation before? Unlikely.
Sure enough, when she handed the cheque over to Meredith, her eyes bulged. ‘W-Wait,’ she spluttered, holding the cheque closer to her face and squinting at it. ‘You’re donating . . .’ She mouthed the number silently. ‘Is this right?’
‘It’s right, yes,’ said Brenna.
Meredith brushed her dark hair out of her eyes. ‘Well . . . this is . . .’ she spluttered. ‘I don’t know what to say! I don’t think we’ve ever had a donation like this before.’ She kept shaking her head. ‘This is unreal . . . Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ said Brenna, choosing her words carefully. ‘I’ve . . . come into money recently, and I’d like some of it to do good for the cats here.’
‘It’s so incredibly generous of you,’ said Meredith, still agog. She flattened the cheque on the counter and smoothed it out like Brenna had, as if checking that the numbers hadn’t floated off the paper and into the ether. ‘Thank you . . .’ She checked her name on the slip. ‘Brenna. Truly. I don’t know what else to say. This is amazing. Just such an incredible . . . thank you.’
‘It’s no problem.’
‘Can we thank you on our website?’ asked Meredith, leaning forward onto the desk. ‘We have a page where we thank donors. It’s all we can do to give back. And if you have a small business, or a personal website, social media . . . We’re happy to promote it there as a thank-you.’
Panic darkened the corners of Brenna’s eyes. She had to lean against the reception desk for support, trying to shuffle over so the motion looked more casual. She imagined what would happen if she said yes: her name dancing over the website. It’d probably get picked up on search engines too. The very idea made her feel sick, and she swallowed. They might post the amount of her donation. All of that information, in the wrong hands . . . It wouldn’t be good.
‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘I’d rather be anonymous. Sorry.’
‘Oh.’ Meredith sounded crestfallen, but after a beat, she beamed. ‘No matter – I understand, of course. Everyone will be thrilled either way. I can’t wait until my manager hears the news. She won’t be back until later. Would you like to stay for a bit? I’m sure she’ll want to thank you herself—’
‘I should probably get going,’ said Brenna. Meredith’s suggestion had lit a fire under her feet, and she wanted nothing more than to hurry for the exit, get in her car, and drive home.
‘Are you sure? I can make you a cup of coffee or a tea. I really can’t think of any more ways to thank you—’
‘No thanks needed. Just get the cats whatever they need.’ Brenna offered her a strained smile and drew away from the counter, stuffing her hands in her pockets.
‘Of course. Will you stop by sometime and let us know how your cats are doing?’
‘Sure.’
Brenna hesitated midway through turning for the door. There was a stack of brightly coloured flyers piled up on the left-hand corner of the desk. Catpurrcino Cat Café, the bold text read, alongside a logo of a cheeky-looking cat sticking its face out of a cup of coffee. Underneath, there was a photo of a café interior, a room filled with tables and dotted with scratching posts and shelving that formed runways around the walls.
Meredith must have noticed her looking. ‘Oh, have you visited Catpurrcino?’ she asked. When Brenna shook her head, she continued, ‘It’s quite lovely and well worth a visit! They do the most delicious cat-themed desserts, too.’ She reached over, plucking a leaflet from the top of the heap and pushing it towards her. ‘Here, take one. We partner with them for events sometimes. There might be something you’d like to attend.’
‘Th-Thanks . . .’ said Brenna, folding the leaflet and sliding it into her pocket. ‘Bye.’
‘Bye, Brenna – thank you again!’
Brenna headed for the door, emerging into the car park, where a breeze was swirling through the surrounding trees, stirring the leaves into a breathy murmur. She tugged her sunglasses down so the world darkened. Her whole body relaxed with the knowledge that now, no one could see her face.
Catpurrcino did sound like her kind of place. Somewhere she could go to get out of the house, but still have her solitude; maybe curl up in a corner with a book. Maybe she’d go in for a coffee?
Prickles of uncertainty stabbed at her, though. She had to be careful not to upend the safety she had; it was too precious. If word ever got out about where she was, and the kind of money she had . . . Brenna shuddered at the thought.
She hurried over to her car, still feeling the ghost of an imposter hovering over her shoulder – and the nagging worry she might be found by someone she would rather stay away from.
Chapter 2
By the time she’d arrived back at the house, Brenna’s shoulders had relaxed, her worries left behind on the twisty roads winding through the peaks and troughs of the fells. ‘House’ wasn’t a significant enough word for her new home – but using the term ‘manor’ felt utterly pretentious, even though the sign outside read Willow Grove Manor. That’s what the old owners had called it, anyway.
She sat in her car in front of the iron gates for a moment, as she always did, absorbing the fact that all of this was hers. This huge, sprawling stone manor with eight bedrooms and four bathrooms, set on nine acres of beautiful green fields and extensive woodland. She even had a paddock, should she ever decide to develop an interest in horses instead of cats.
‘Still real,’ she whispered.
She wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to this new reality. What woman in her mid-twenties would ever expect to end up somewhere like this, unless she’d already been born into wealth to start with?
She opened the iron gates with her key fob, then snaked up the sweeping driveway, around the stone fountain set in the grass in front of the house, and parked by her front door, tyres crunching against the grit.
The house still took her breath away. A sandy-coloured brick exterior, with hedge plants creeping over the brickwork, multiple chimneys rising towards the sky, several pointed peaks adorning the façade. It stretched wide and imposing, towering over the grounds and the fountain before it. This was the type of place where maids and butlers would come to greet her, if her life were a historical drama – maybe even the rest of her family: a husband, a few smiling children.
Except there was no one here to say hello, no one lined up by the door under the stone archway to greet her. Only the soft hushing of the wind through the trees and the call of a bird somewhere in the distance. A black hole of loneliness opened up in her chest and almost made her flinch.
Because one thing she had hoped to find, by the time she turned twenty-seven, was the right person to share the things in her life with, to start thinking about settling down with. She knew she wasn’t old, not by any stretch, and she had plenty of time – that was what her nan would say – but she craved someone good, someone right. She knew others had found that, and she wanted it too. Instead, she’d wasted so much time on the wrong person . . .
Don’t be so ungrateful, she told herself. This is all yours. It’s all you could ever want. She shouldn’t be feeling this way.
She clambered out of the car and let herself into the house. The walls in the hall were painted a warm yellow and the floorboards were sprawled with a floral-patterned rug her nan had ordered for her as a moving-in present. Even the hallways felt luxurious – far bigger and wider than those of her previous homes, and brightly lit by large windows interspersed across the property. Room to breathe, instead of feeling crammed in.
Three of the cats came to greet her, having heard her key in the lock no doubt. Cheshire brushed up against her legs, and she knelt down to stroke his favourite spot near his tail.
‘Hello, you three,’ she crooned, stroking Toulouse with her other hand and moving on to scratch Niya under her chin. The cat rolled over, onto her belly, exposing a white patch underneath, and Brenna laughed. ‘Where’re your brothers and sisters? Still being lazy upstairs?’ After fussing over them all, she straightened up. ‘Let’s get you some treats, then.’
Brenna made her way into the kitchen, tugging off her coat – it was the grandest kitchen she’d ever had, and not a patch on the dingy flat she’d once lived in with him, with the leaky sink and the mould festering across the ceiling that she constantly had to clean off. This room was big enough for her to host a party, even if the other rooms in the house didn’t exist, with dark wooden beams stretching across the ceiling and a bright window overlooking the emerald woodland at the back of the house, continuing on for miles. There was even a crystalline chandelier hanging over the shining breakfast bar, its arms curling up towards the beams.
She dished out some treats for the cats, and they were crunching on the snacks by one of the cupboards when Brenna’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She placed her coat on a chair and took a seat at the breakfast bar to answer it, assuming it might be the cat shelter manager calling to say thank you for the donation.
It wasn’t – it was her nan.
‘Hello?’
‘Brenna! How are things over at Black Cat Manor?’
Black Cat Manor was Nan’s affectionate name for her new home, bestowed when Brenna brought home the small fleet of black cats from the shelter. ‘All good,’ she said. ‘Oscar is still a bit shy, but he’s coming around.’
‘Good to hear! I’m so sorry to call you so early in the morning, darling, but we’ve been meaning to arrange my visit, haven’t we? We’ll want to sort the train tickets soon.’
‘Okay, I’ll do it for you today,’ said Brenna. ‘The same dates?’
‘Yes, dear. And a nice and early train, I want to get there in good time so we don’t waste a moment. I can’t wait to do some stargazing. Have you set up the telescope yet?’
‘It was one of the first things I did.’ Her lips twitched. When Brenna was young, Nan hadn’t understood her fascination with the skies, but when she’d finally got her first telescope, she’d loved looking at the moon with her. And here in Cumbria, the sky was even clearer than back home.
‘Excellent,’ said Nan. ‘I’ll pay you for my train ticket when I arrive—’
‘Nan, I literally won the lottery,’ Brenna cut in with a laugh. ‘You don’t have to pay me for a train ticket.’
‘I know, love, but—’
‘No buts. You’ve taken care of me my whole life since my mum left. It’s my turn to take care of you for a change.’
When Nan responded, Brenna could hear the smile in her voice. ‘Alright, Brenna dear. There’s something else . . .’ She hesitated, and there was something in her voice that made Brenna’s heart pound fiercely in her chest. That tone, as if she were bracing to break some bad news. Brenna clenched her fist on top of the breakfast bar.
‘What is it? Are you okay?’ she asked her.
‘I’m fine. It’s not me.’
If Nan was okay, what else could it be? She didn’t have any other family to worry about. A heavy weight lodged itself on Brenna’s shoulders, pressing down.
‘I’m sorry,’ Nan continued, sounding weary. ‘It’s Cameron . . . I saw him the other day.’
The room was suddenly spinning, and Brenna had to put her on speaker and lean both elbows on the breakfast bar, her head in her hands. It was the second time today she’d had to lean on an item of furniture for support. Cameron . . . She’d escaped him long ago and she had hoped to never hear his name again once she moved here. Just hearing about him made the back of her neck crawl. She wanted to dive back under the duvet and sleep with the cats, pretending she hadn’t heard anything.
‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘Did he come to the house?’
‘No. Nothing like that, though he obviously knows where I live well enough,’ said Nan. ‘I saw him in town, bumped into him by chance. Still wearing those ugly wolf T-shirts.’
‘I thought he moved away?’ said Brenna, swallowing down the lump in her throat and trying her best not to sound rattled, even though her heart felt like it was going to jump right out of her chest.
When she’d finally decided to leave Cameron, she hadn’t told him in person, because she’d known how that would go and that he’d resist. When he’d gone to visit his parents one day, she’d quickly packed up her things and left, leaving only a note behind. Then she’d squirrelled herself away, staying in a kind colleague’s spare room for close to nine months and desperately hoping he wouldn’t catch wind of where she was living, too afraid to venture out much other than to go to work.
Until one evening, she’d clutched a winning lottery ticket in her hand, and felt that delicious wash of freedom. Of escape.
Not long after, she’d heard from her friend that Cameron had moved away anyway.
‘Well, he’s back in town,’ said Nan. ‘He recognised me, of course. Said he was back in the area. Lost the job he went away for. Redundancy.’
Brenna took several long, deep breaths and glanced up at the glittering chandelier overhead. Just because Nan had bumped into Cameron, it didn’t mean anything. Brenna hadn’t seen Cameron in years. Thank goodness she’d finally moved on from that little town. There was no chance she would ever bump into Cameron while running errands.
‘He asked about you, of course – started fishing,’ said Nan. ‘I said you were long gone, moved on, and he ought to stop asking questions because I wasn’t going to tell him a thing. And I told him to keep away from me if he knew what was good for him.’
Brenna sighed, running her hands through her hair; it was only then that she realised her fingers were shaking. If only she’d had Nan’s steel when she’d been dating Cameron. It still felt like she might disintegrate, just hearing he’d been near someone she was close to.
‘I’m sorry to tell you,’ Nan went on. ‘I wasn’t going to . . . But I thought it best in case you wanted to come back here and visit me sometime . . . in case you saw him.’
‘No, I’m glad you did,’ Brenna reassured her, through gritted teeth.
Back then, Cameron had loved to escalate things. It started off with wanting to talk – usually about something Brenna had done wrong, like wearing the wrong type of skirt that he deemed several inches too short – and it ended with him shouting and calling her all sorts of names, accusing her of things she hadn’t done. She hoped this instance of bumping into Nan wouldn’t escalate.
‘We won’t let him near you again,’ said Nan.
Brenna smiled. ‘I know.’
‘How are things in your new life, in the Lakes? Are you meeting people?’
‘Um . . .’ said Brenna, not expecting the sudden question. If she had, she would have prepared a better answer instead of stumbling.
Nan sighed. ‘Brenna, darling. You need to enjoy your new life up there, and put yourself out there. Okay? Explore, make friends, get involved with the community.’
‘I know . . .’
‘The Lake District is a beautiful place, and you deserve to savour it.’ Nan hesitated, as if she were trying to figure out how to say what was on her mind. ‘You can’t let caution hold you back forever. What good is money, if you aren’t going to enjoy your life and live it to the fullest?’
‘I’ll . . . I’ll do my best,’ Brenna said. She’d interacted with very few people since being here – the cat shelter employees, delivery drivers, staff in supermarkets and shops. Aside from that she’d mostly been a shut-in. Sometimes it felt impossible to build a life, and relationships, for herself, as if she were surrounded by a wall of concrete with nothing but her bare hands to break it down, when really, she needed a sledgehammer. But Nan would only worry if she said all that. Instead, she added, ‘How are you doing? Do you need anything?’
Her nan chuckled. ‘No. You’ve made sure I’m well taken care of. And I’m grateful. You don’t need to worry about me.’
Brenna tugged at a strand of her hair, watching it catch the sun spilling in through the kitchen windows. Cameron had said it was beautiful once, but after they’d moved in together, he’d started jeering that she looked like a carrot and she should dye it. Once, she’d retorted that his wolf T-shirts were peeling and faded – ugly decals from cheap online shops – and looked worse than her hair, and that he should replace them. Shouting had ensued and she’d wished she hadn’t responded at all. Brenna closed her eyes, trying to shove the memory away.
‘Nan . . .’ she started, testing the words in her mind before she spoke. She already knew the answer, but it was worth a try. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to move here? There’s plenty of space . . .’
‘Ah, love, you know it’s just not for me,’ said Nan, and she sounded deeply sorry, enough that Brenna felt guilty for asking. ‘I have my friends here, my neighbours, my little routine. And this house? It’s been mine for such a long time – it’s home. Besides, I don’t think Arnie would get on with the cats – he’s too scrappy.’
Arnie was a little terrier her nan had adopted after Brenna moved out with her cat, Soot. They’d bonded quickly, and walking him was the highlight of her day; she loved to walk a route around the neighbourhood that allowed her to say hello to her friends at the same time, maybe even visit someone for a cup of tea before she went home.
‘It’s okay,’ said Brenna, forcing the brightness into her voice. She would not let her nan know how lonely she was. That was a Cameron move: to guilt someone into something, and she was not that person. Don’t go see your nan – I’ll be lonely! he’d moan. You spend more time with her than me! And later: you know she hates me! Why are you putting her before me? Don’t you love me?
She might have considered moving closer to her hometown, but she couldn’t stand the thought, not when she’d finally escaped. She truly did love the landscapes here, and the safe haven this home had become, in spite of the lonely black hole that had punched itself into her chest. She wanted to stay; she just had to ignore it. It would go away in time.
‘I’ll get going,’ said Brenna. ‘I have a few things to do around the house. But I’ll order your tickets and send you the details.’
‘Wonderful,’ said Nan. ‘Take care, love.’
Brenna said goodbye and hung up. The conversation seemed to linger in the quiet kitchen, casting a shadow over her morning. The cats had eaten all their treats and disappeared somewhere in the vast, echoey house. The silence was defeating, the echo of her nan’s words resounding in her head.
Brenna rose to her feet and flipped on the radio that was plugged in on the countertop; the classical music soon drowned the silence.
Chapter 3
Matt was making a frothy latte at the counter as some of the book club members got settled, ready for their August meeting. The book club at Catpurrcino Cat Café met the first Wednesday of every month. He sometimes had the owner Sylvie’s help to set up beforehand – but she’d gone home early today. Before every meeting, he pushed some of the tables together in the main room to make a space big enough for the club to share, and set out some plates of snacks in the middle, with trays over the top to prevent the café’s cats from stealing any of the sweet treats. The items of choice today were squidgy doughnuts decorated to look like cats’ faces, colourful macarons with pointed ears, and pastel iced biscuits with whiskers. Clem had previously been their main baker, but she’d dropped her hours quite heavily to focus on her side business, so she had taught Melissa the ropes, and now she came up with her own creations for the café too.
The large window on the other side of the main room looked out onto the trees and concealed office buildings opposite – the café was positioned partway up a gently sloping hill in the town of Oakside. Triangular lamp posts were stamped at intervals between the trees. The branches were swaying lazily in the wind. A few of the book club members were already here, settling themselves at the table while he made drinks.
He added a dusting of cocoa powder in the shape of a paw to the latte he was making, then set to work on a second. When they were done, he scooped them up and carried them across to the makeshift table, dodging around long-haired and fluffy Baron, who was dancing around his ankles, fuzzy tail held aloft, as if he wanted a latte of his own.
Meredith, a wiry woman who worked at a cat shelter, was settling into a chair at the big table he’d created, hooking her jacket over the back.
‘There you go, Mer,’ Matt said. ‘One cinnamon latte with extra sugar. Sweet, like all of you lot,’ he quipped, shooting a grin around the table and making everyone who was already gathered there laugh, including Grace, his colleague at Catpurrcino. ‘And a regular latte for you, Grace.’
‘Thanks, Matt!’ Meredith said, lifting the latte and drawing it closer to herself.
‘You should have let me help you set up,’ said Grace, sipping her own latte. She held some of her long blonde hair out of the way. Matt didn’t know how she did anything with hair that long; it was down to her waist and almost as wavy as his was.
‘Nah. You’re here for fun, not work. Besides, I get paid extra for this and you don’t. So kick back.’
‘Fair point,’ Grace agreed, giving him a bright smile.
Matt wriggled his foot, now he was no longer holding a hot drink. It was a habit he’d developed because his current pair of trainers had holes in the bottom.
Meredith glanced down. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah, fine,’ he said brightly, though he felt patches of heat spring into his cheeks. He tried to cover them up with another grin. ‘Just need to replace these shoes at some point – been putting it off! Right, where’s my book? Bear with me . . .’
Some of the other members arrived as Matt hurried back to the counter, searching for his book. The café limited its number of visitors so as not to overwhelm the cats with noise and stimulation, but the book club were so respectfully controlled anyway. They were all setting out copies of the book they’d be reading for this meeting – a cosy fantasy about a magical travelling bookshop. Warm sunlight cast the room in a soft glow from beyond the main windows, illuminating the cat towers and the TV screen built high into the wall, which was currently switched off. One of their cats, Lilian, was wandering around a shelf running around the upper wall, looking down at the visitors below with interest. The calico took a seat on the shelf and continued to observe with her shining green eyes, tail swishing.
‘I don’t think you’ve read the book,’ Matt called up to the cat. ‘Maybe you can join us next time!’
The group tittered with amusement, and Matt spotted his book on the other side of the counter, by the coffee machines. He navigated his way around a few squashy armchairs and grabbed the beaten-up copy with the broken spine.
The book club group was fairly small these days – five members currently, including himself. Matt had been helping out with the club since he was first hired at Catpurrcino, and he often wrote reviews and think pieces on the books they read online. He had a small page on a site called the Forge, a social media community built around writing and publishing content. He . . .
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