The Lost Sister. Megan Kelley Hall

      Abigail Crane pinned her hair up carefully as she looked at her reflection in the low light of her bedroom. She tried wrap-

      ping her mind around what the doctors had told her—chemo was the only course of action to stop the spread of cancer in her body. Toxins placed in her body to seek out and destroy other deadly toxins. It was like sending in a black widow spider to take care of a venomous snake. The goal was for them to destroy each other—her body would end up as the ravaged battlefield.

      She had just placed the call to Maddie at Stanton, asking her to come back to Hawthorne for winter break. It wasn’t too much for a mother to ask of her own daughter, but there were plenty of reasons that Maddie would want to refuse. True, most children would want to take care of their sick mothers, but most children hadn’t been betrayed in the same way that Abigail had betrayed Maddie. She realized that not telling Maddie the truth about Cordelia—that they weren’t cousins, but really half sisters—was the wrong thing to do, but she couldn’t take it back now. What else could she do to make it up to her? When Maddie left Hawthorne, she left with her own baggage—guilt about her treatment of Cordelia and over Rebecca’s mental state that had nothing to do with Abigail. She had her own demons to fight.

      Abigail had been visiting Rebecca for months—trying to make up for own failings—for causing Cordelia to run away, for not telling Rebecca about their confrontation. If she’d told the truth sooner, perhaps that night at Ravenswood and Rebecca’s attempted suicide could have been avoided. She had her own ghosts to put to rest. But she needed her daughter now; perhaps tough times would help to mend their broken family. She didn’t think her request of Maddie was too much to ask.

      But the horrified reaction from Maddie made her think otherwise. Madeline had made it clear that she didn’t want to return to Hawthorne until she had successfully tracked down Cordelia—a means of assuaging her own guilt. But it was too late for that. Abigail’s cancer wouldn’t wait for a flighty teenager who could be anywhere in the country to be tracked down. She had made her amends with Rebecca—or was at least trying to. Now it was Maddie’s turn to come home and put things to rest. No matter how painful or uncomfortable it would be—for all of them.

       Chapter 2

       THE FOOL

       A blank slate, infinite possibilities, new start, change, renewal, and a brand-new beginning, movement, a fresh, exciting new time.

       I t’s funny how one phone call can completely change your life, Maddie thought angrily as she packed her bags for winter break.

      She’d made her peace that she was finally done with Hawthorne—the past, the betrayal, the pain—and then one day Maddie got a call that changed everything. Maddie’s mother, Abigail Crane, the strongest woman she’d ever known, was diagnosed with cancer. While helping her mother—a woman whom she couldn’t even recall the last time she hugged—was one of the last things Maddie wanted to do, her school therapist suggested that going back to Hawthorne, helping her mother through her chemo treatments, checking in on her aunt Rebecca in the new facility, and finally coming to terms with what had happened to Cordelia, would help with the nightmares. Maddie might finally begin to move on and let go of the weight of it all.

      Maddie thought it strange when people whom you expect to be around forever suddenly are at risk of being taken from you. Like Cordelia, her grandmother, Tess, and now, inevitably, Abigail. Even though Maddie made the decision to leave Hawthorne and its secrets and curses behind without thinking twice, now that Maddie knew she only had a limited amount of time with her mother, it all suddenly seemed unfair.

      “Come with me, Maddie,” said Luke Bradford as he grabbed a handful of her neatly folded clothes and promptly removed them from her worn duffel bag. “I’ll give you a raise.”

      “I don’t work for you.” Maddie laughed.

      “But you could,” he said.

      “You know I can’t.”

      “Come on, Maddie! It’ll be a blast!” Luke insisted. Maddie looked at Luke, wondering how she was ever going to survive without her constant companion. Ever since they were lucky enough to room across the hall from each other in Eaton Hall, sixth floor, since she transferred, Luke Bradford and Maddie had been inseparable. And since he was one of the most sought after guys on campus, Maddie became the instant “best friend” to girls who wanted the inside track to the sandy-haired athlete who could easily pass as a close relative to Brad Pitt.

      Maddie swatted him and started putting her clothes back into the suitcase, allowing her long, straight brown hair to fall over her shoulder, shielding her sad smile.

      “I have a place all set for you on the ship,” Luke insisted. “It’s easy money. Basically, we get paid to have a monthlong booze cruise in a beautiful tropical paradise. Isn’t that much better than going to a freezing wasteland like Hawthorne, Massachusetts?”

      “Not a wasteland, a winter wonderland,” she retorted.

      Luke Bradford’s father—a permanent fixture in the Fortune 500 list year after year—decided that his only son and future heir to his empire needed a good dose of corporate work ethic. Plus, he knew that it would enhance and effectively pad his résumé, allowing him to move one step closer to getting accepted at one of the Ivies. Unfortunately, Luke’s grades weren’t helping to clinch the deal, so a Bradford library might be in order.

      “I would love it, really,” Maddie moaned. “I’d rather do anything than go back to Hawthorne.”

      “Thanks.” Luke collapsed into a chair by the window, staring outside at the snow-covered quad. “That makes me feel special. Spending Christmas break with your best friend is just barely more appealing than going back to a place you hate. No, really, that makes me feel great.”

      It hit Maddie then, how much she was going to miss Luke. She’d taken for granted all of the things that had carried her through the past few months and kept her mind off Hawthorne: his unannounced drop-overs when he’d show up balancing a bag of Chinese takeout in one arm and stacks of horror movies in the other. At times she’d had to remind herself why they never got together. Boyfriends come and go, friends are forever was what Maddie told anyone who asked why they weren’t a couple yet.

      Instead, Maddie sat back, watching him go through girl after girl, always returning back to her to relay all the unpleasant details of each relationship, describing how he felt trapped or bored. And then it was just the two of them again, starting with his knock on the door, pizza, and Red Bull, preparing for a night filled with dirty jokes, mindless movies, and uncontrollable laughter.

      It was better than any real relationship either of them had ever had, and they were both terrified of tampering with perfection. Deep down Maddie knew