The Lost Sister. Megan Kelley Hall
imagine herself bald. She pulled her graying hair back severely, away from her forehead. Cupping the top of her head, she squinted in an attempt to make her hand blend into the rest of her skin.
This will never do , she thought bitterly.
Abigail wasn’t so concerned with her health, but rather, how she’d be viewed by the other women in town. Bald women made people feel uncomfortable, guilty even. She was already getting the odd stares at the farmers’ market or when she went into local shops. She heard the whispers, she could feel the stares. Everyone wanted to know what had happened that night in Ravenswood. So once she started the cancer treatments, people would stare at her because of not only what they had heard about her, but also what they saw. It was bad enough that Cordelia had turned their family into a freakish side show, but Rebecca’s suicide attempt and institutionalization had pushed her to the limit. No wonder Maddie transferred out of town and now she was forced to return on her mother’s behalf.
Chemotherapy would have to wait, at least until the Misery Island Gala—the last event of the season. She envisioned her mother, Tess, rolling her eyes, scolding Abigail for being a ridiculous vain fool. Even though Tess had passed away many months ago, her presence was still very palpable within the walls of the house.
Getting rid of the cancer was more important than the way people saw you, Tess would have insisted. At least, before the dementia had taken over her mind. Once that happened, it was like living with a little girl. Two girls, including Maddie.
Foolish girl, Tess would have snapped at her if she were still alive. She could almost hear her wise voice in the groans and shudders of the house, in the lapping of the ocean at the base of the street. You’ll never understand what’s important in life. And when you finally do, it will be too late.
Abigail sneered at the imagined voice. She furrowed her brow and abruptly turned from the mirror in disgust. Yet just before she had turned completely away, something in the reflection captured her attention. It was only a wisp of movement by the cellar door, quick as a minnow, but she caught it at the edge of her vision just the same. The door had been nudged open again. No matter how many times she locked it up, barricading the blasted portal, it seemed to find a way to open itself up again. The objects she placed in front of the aging door were always neatly moved to the side, allowing it to swing freely once more. Someone or something didn’t want to forget what had happened down there in the early hours of the morning last Halloween. The time she had told Cordelia the truth about her father. The last time she had ever laid eyes on the girl. Something just wouldn’t let her forget her sins.
Abigail narrowed her eyes, making a mental note to get someone from town in to fix the thing, maybe even hire someone to plaster over it—board it up once and for all. That’s what she’d do. Abigail Crane was too sick to battle any more demons, too tired to quiet restless spirits.
It was time for her to end it once and for all. But with Maddie back in the house, that would at least make the time she had left bearable. But at what cost? Abigail contemplated this as she reached into her pocket and felt the well-worn tarot card she’d received a month ago. It was the Death card and it was slid under the front door in the middle of the night. There were only two people who would have left that card for her, and one of them had been locked up in a psychiatric ward. The other one was a mystery.
Even when she lived here, Cordelia LeClaire was a mystery. And since she’d disappeared on Halloween night, she’d grown into a local legend. The beautiful temptress who calls men to their destruction. The free spirit that dances through the town by moonlight, bewitching and beguiling. The siren that wails by the ocean, causing havoc and chaos among those who love and are closest to her. All of these descriptions were adequate, but none quite matched up with the vision that Abigail was left with the last time she saw her niece, bloodied and enraged. She saw a beautiful but fierce young woman. A caged animal that had been taunted and provoked and angered. Her eyes were filled with hatred. It was the face of someone driven to the ends of her sanity. Someone who was capable of anything.
Revenge…destruction…murder.
As Madeline Crane walked through the town upon her return, every new face, every car seemed unfamiliar and ominous. The trees that lined the historic streets clumped together and stretched upward in a wiry, tangled mass. Like the witches in Grimms’ fairy tales, they pointed their bony fingers in an accusatory manner at those who passed by. The clouds in the sky were a vast, pillowy assortment of grays and foamy whites, hovering above the town preparing for its hibernation during the long cold winter months ahead. A sense of despair and loneliness echoed inside everyone in the town of Hawthorne. Spring couldn’t come soon enough to chase away the dreariness that would soon settle over the townspeople throughout the coldest season.
Maddie once again was reminded of the constant ache and edginess that comes with the disappearance of a loved one, keeping her uneasy and depressed. It was in the low, soulful caw of the crows, the desperation in the call of the swallows. She and her beloved aunt Rebecca always held out hope, even in the face of all the doubts and nightmarish images that threatened to plunge them into all-encompassing despair.
After everything that had happened, it seemed impossible to Madeline how the world kept moving on, indifferent as air. Cars sped down the one-way streets, trucks grumbled by, joggers continued along their morning route. It was as if Cordelia LeClaire never existed. She was just one of the many stories that linger around old fireplaces and curl into children’s nightmares.
Don’t run away or you’ll go missing like that Cordelia LeClaire….
It seemed obvious to Maddie now that Cordelia and Rebecca never would have been accepted into Hawthorne society, or any of the other wealthy North Shore communities. The girls of Hawthorne were similar to the rest of the adults in town: very judgmental and not inclined to welcome anything or anyone different. It was as though the water from the local wells had poisoned their minds, perhaps in the same way it had affected their strict puritanical ancestors.
As Maddie walked past the town post office, she noticed a familiar face grinning at her. The picture was dirty and curled at the edges, but she remembered blanketing the town with those flyers right after Cordelia’s disappearance. She and Rebecca had worked tirelessly stapling them to every phone pole, bulletin board, and wall in town. Most of them were probably long gone by now. That was before Rebecca’s breakdown—perhaps she, too, was now long gone, lost in her own mind. Her attempted suicide that night at Ravenswood had been the final straw—cementing the fact that Rebecca would never be the same, at least until Cordelia’s return. Even then, Maddie wasn’t so sure she’d ever fully recover.
Madeline always wondered about the photos that were used in “Missing” flyers. The eyes of the victims were always so innocent and unknowing. Even before Cordelia had come and gone from her life, Madeline would search the eyes of the missing children on posters and flyers. She’d look at the yellowing, curled pieces of paper tacked up on the walls of the post office or the local convenience store and try to see if there was any hint of what was to come in their lives.
Did they know in that shutter speed of a second that this would be the photo used to tell hundreds and thousands of people that they had disappeared? That this was what they looked like in a happy, unknowing point in their lifetime, and that if anyone should ever come across this face in an altered form—a bloated, waterlogged version after a drowning, or a cold blue version on a morgue slab—then they would at least know what beauty was once there?
Madeline walked through the town and finally came to her home on Mariner’s Lane. She sadly looked up into Tess’s window, still half expecting to see her grandmother’s crinkled face watching for her return. The house hadn’t changed much since Madeline left it behind. The stark Victorian sat high up on the hill, aloof and untouched by its surroundings. Only now it lacked the sense of welcoming that it had when Tess was alive, the lack of excitement that buzzed through the weathered clapboards when Rebecca and Cordelia breathed life into the house that now was an empty shell.
Aunt Rebecca’s store, vacant for over a year now, still sat across the street from the old Victorian where she grew up. The sign, REBECCA’S CLOSET , hung from the wrought-iron hanger. The windows