The Lost Sister. Megan Kelley Hall
and Rebecca went crazy and got locked away like a witch from an old fairy tale.
Maddie pushed the heavy door open.
“Mom?” Maddie called into the dark Victorian. She was met with a chilly burst of air. Old houses near the ocean always held on to some of the coolness of the salty nights, but their house always seemed unnaturally cool. Tess once told her that cold spots were a sign of spirits, and Maddie was sure that Tess was still lingering around the house, bustling about and watching over Abigail. Not even death would stop Tess from watching out for all of them. Maddie could almost hear a faint chuckle as she called again to her mother. “Anyone home?” Typically, Tess would be the first one to greet her at the door, and it kind of felt like she had.
It wasn’t clear who was more surprised at seeing the other. Maddie tried to take in her mother’s frail appearance, shocked at how the cancer had visibly taken its toll on her. Abigail had never been large, but now she was barely a wisp of a woman. Somewhere deep inside Maddie came the urge to instinctively care for her mother, to wrap her arms around her and take away any pain. Her eyes filled with tears until her mother’s razor-sharp tone snapped Maddie back into reality.
“Don’t they feed you at Stanton? You’re all skin and bones!” her mother said with a judgmental tone. “And that hair? Were you ever planning on getting it cut or are you going to let it grow down to your knees?”
Maddie self-consciously tucked her mid-back-length hair behind her ear and steeled herself for the onslaught of criticisms. That brief moment of closeness they had shared after the night at Ravenswood and before she left Hawthorne seemed never to have happened. Her mother was back to her old bossy, scrutinizing ways—no matter what the sickness was that currently plagued her. Any hint of softness and camaraderie was now long gone.
Abigail barely recognized her own daughter as well. How could such a short time away from Hawthorne have changed her so much? She wondered if the transition had been taking place before Maddie transferred to the new boarding school. Who is this confident, stubborn young woman? Where is the shy, quivering mouse of a daughter who took off months ago? Abigail wondered. Maddie appeared to have shot up overnight. She seemed taller, but perhaps that was just because she stood straighter and with more confidence. She had a defiance in her eyes that shook Abigail to the bone.
This new version of her daughter seemed very different from the one who took off last June. The girl who could be startled and thoroughly shaken by the most common of occurrences: the tickle of a spider, the wail of a loon at dawn, the flutter of a bat or bird overhead. She was a girl who always looked over her shoulder, but now it seemed that she looked at life with her chin thrust forward, as if daring you to take one step closer, tempting fate to throw one more hurdle in her path. She had become more like…her. Like Cordelia. And that worried Abigail more than anything else.
“So, how does it feel to be back?” Abigail asked tersely as she shuffled Maddie’s bags farther into the hallway. Madeline Crane misjudged her mother’s illness. She knew that Abigail had been diagnosed with cancer—the silent killer that had worked its way through many of the women in town—the result of a town too close to a faltering power plant. Madeline always found that morbidly ironic. Most people from this town were too afraid to leave—scared of the evils that existed beyond the boundaries of Hawthorne—and yet the biggest threat came from staying too long in this town and being exposed to the harmful leakage from the power plant. Abigail Crane was dealing with a form of cancer that required bed rest. Maddie should have known that her mother wouldn’t listen to the doctor’s recommendations. Even though she was a sick, frail woman, not even cancer could stop her from doing things on her own terms.
“How are you feeling?” Maddie said, looking around and noting how nothing had changed at all in the house since she’d left.
“Never mind that. I’m fine. Now, let’s get your things upstairs so your bags don’t clutter up the hallway. When you unpack your clothes, you can put the empty suitcases in the guest room.”
The guest room was actually Cordelia’s old room, and yet Abigail still couldn’t bring herself to say Cordelia’s name out loud. It was as if the brief time that Cordelia had spent in Hawthorne was just a bad dream…a nightmare brought to life. And her mother would never forgive her cousin for all the unwanted attention on the family.
“Fine, I’ll put my bags in Cordelia’s old room,” Maddie said firmly, not just to hear her cousin’s name out loud again in this house, but also to gauge her mother’s reaction.
She turned back to Maddie, holding her gaze for a few beats, as if she was not quite sure what Maddie’s intentions were, and then continued up the staircase, spine perfectly straight, head held high.
“It would still be Cordelia’s room if she hadn’t run off the way she did,” she said sternly over her shoulder.
Okay, here we go , Maddie thought. It would be an interesting visit.
Later that evening, after they had eaten dinner, Abigail steered the conversation to the local gossip. She filled Maddie in on the big debate over Ravenswood and how the Endicott family was fighting the town to have it made into a hotel. The red tape that was expertly set up by the historical society was suddenly coming under scrutiny, and it seemed, as usual, that the Endicotts would end up winning in the end.
“You know that Kiki Endicott,” Abigail clucked. “She’s a pit bull, that’s for sure. She never gives up until she gets what she wants. Well, you know that with Kate. ‘Apples don’t fall far, my dear.’ You remember Tess was fond of that expression.” Abigail smiled softly at the mention of Tess. Though the women never seemed to get along in life, now that Tess had passed on, Maddie wondered if Abigail regretted her treatment of her mother.
Maddie felt as if she would start to cry if she spoke about Tess, yet she chose that moment to broach an even more delicate subject.
“Speaking of Tess, did she—had she known about…about me and Cordelia? That we were sisters?”
Abigail’s face hardened. “That you were half sisters? Yes, I’m sure that she knew. We never spoke openly about it. Rebecca and I made a pact to never discuss it. It was something that we all regretted. An unfortunate predicament, that’s for sure. But when Rebecca left with Simon, I thought it best to leave it all alone. After that, your father and I—well, let’s just say that some fences were never meant to be mended.” Abigail’s face soured at the mention of Malcolm Crane. “But you know your grandmother, she always seemed to know things that she’d have no way of actually knowing. Tess was a smart woman. She must have known. But she was wise enough to let it stay silent.”
Maddie remembered her mother’s philosophy and said dryly, “If you don’t talk about it, it’s not real, right, Mother?”
Abigail held her daughter’s gaze, lifted her chin, and then nodded firmly. Maddie sighed. Some things would never change.
Maddie decided to excuse herself, knowing that the conversation would only go downhill from there. She’d only been in Hawthorne for a few hours and already her stress level was rising.
After unpacking a few of her clothes, Maddie got ready for bed. Nothing had changed in this room. Her old oak dresser still contained the Crabtree & Evelyn scented drawer liners, making the room smell faintly of spring rain. It didn’t show the signs of all that had transpired over the past year.
Already irritated with her mother, Maddie collapsed onto the bed. Why wouldn’t Abigail accept her part in Cordelia’s disappearance? Why was she acting like nothing had changed when their entire world had been flipped upside down? Cordelia was gone. Rebecca locked up. Tess had passed away. And Maddie had started a life far from Hawthorne. Things couldn’t be more different, and yet Maddie started to feel that familiar sense of dread.
Chapter 4
THE HANGED MAN
Loss. Lack of commitment. Preoccupation with selfish and material things. Despite drawbacks, a preference for the status quo. Oppression. Apathy in pursuit of goals. Failure to act with an inability