The Lost Sister (4 page)

Just then, the name came to Maddie—as if someone had whispered it in her ear.

Wyrd.

The Wyrd stone.
That’s right,
Maddie thought.
Now, what
does it mean again
? Blank…blank slate? A new beginning? No, that wasn’t the right definition.

Maddie picked it up and carried it with her as she moved across the room, checking to make sure that all her belongings were packed up. Maddie already shipped most of it yesterday, the big things. But the rest would be traveling with her by train.

Wyrd…Wyrd…Wyrd.
Maddie ran it through her head a couple of times.

Standing at the window, Maddie watched as bundled-up students made their way across the icy quad. She dropped her head to the side, closed her eyes, and tried to will the meaning into her head.

“Now, that looks like an invitation if I ever saw one,” Luke said. Before Maddie realized what was happening, his lips were drifting lightly across her neck. He whispered in her ear, “Do you really have to go home, darlin’?”

Maddie laughed, stepping just out of his reach, angry at the rising swell of her heart and annoyed at his teasing. When she turned to face him, however, Maddie noticed his face held no sign of humor. He simply stared into her eyes. So intensely, in fact, that Maddie could swear she felt trembling in the back of her knees.

“Luke…” Maddie let the word hang between them for a few moments, not quite sure what he wanted from her. She wasn’t planning on being one of his “girls,” and he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—give Maddie the type of relationship that she wanted.

“Aw, Maddie. You know I love ya,” he said, dimples deepening as he lightened the awkward moment. “Come here and give me a hug good-bye.”

He pulled her into his arms and squeezed tight, too tight. Maddie could feel him inhale deeply, as if trying to identify her brand of shampoo, and then he sighed heavily. They held on for a few moments, a little longer than normal, when his cell phone went off again.

Damn phone,
Maddie thought. Probably some beautiful, airheaded, rich girl without a care in the world.
Who am I kidding? I’m the girl with the sick mother, the crazy aunt in a psych ward, the deadbeat dad, the disappearing cousin—right now, I don’t even want to deal with someone like me.
Talk about depressing. Only Cordelia could get away with having such a crazy life and still have guys falling at her feet.

“Well, gotta go. You know how I hate to keep the girls waiting,” he joked, and pulled her away from him by her shoulders. Maddie didn’t want to look at him, couldn’t look into his eyes. She didn’t know if she hated him or loved him; if she was going to laugh or cry.

Luke tilted her chin up with his finger. “I’m gonna miss that face.”

Maddie gave him a half smile. “I’ll miss you, too, Luke. I—”

He dragged his finger up to her lips, shaking his head. “Uh-unh. I hate saying good-bye just as much as you do.”

Maddie smiled beneath his finger and he leaned in and kissed her cheek, whispering, “Call me if you need me. For anything. Anytime. Seriously.”

Before he headed out the door, they hugged one last time and he murmured something about staying a good girl during her time in Hawthorne. Maddie heard his phone ring persistently as he made his way down the dorm hallway. She rolled her eyes, sighing audibly as she scanned the room, eyeing the packing that still needed to be done.

She dropped down onto her bed, burying her face in her pillow, and squeezed her eyes shut.

Leaving Maine was going to be difficult, Maddie thought as she rolled over and gazed out the dorm window, but going back to Hawthorne…well, now, that would be murder.

As the train moved through the beautiful New England landscape, Maddie knew that she’d never be able to focus on the books or magazines she’d packed for this trip.

“Would you like something to drink?” A woman’s voice jolted her from her thoughts. She had a rolling tray of canned sodas and bottled water. Maddie reached into her travel bag, digging around for some money to get a Diet Coke, when she felt something cool, round, and smooth at the bottom of the bag.

Maddie pulled out the Wyrd rune stone. She didn’t remember packing it. And she still couldn’t remember the meaning.

“Ahem.” The woman coughed to get her attention. “Whaddya want, hon?”

“Oh, sorry,” Maddie stammered. “I guess I’m all set, thanks.”

The woman made a sighing noise as she lumbered past and Maddie closed her eyes, trying to remember the meaning.

She stared out the window, her vision growing blurry as the trees whizzed by.
Oh, never mind,
Maddie thought. There were more important things to think about. Like what she was in for when she returned home to Hawthorne. Everything she’d been able to avoid for the past year.

Maddie realized she had been squeezing the rune in her hand so tightly that it left a deep red indentation inside her palm. She traced the red line with her free hand, as if it held a deeper memory. Something that was familiar in the darkness of that night…

The Wyrd stone—the meaning suddenly jumped into her mind—was something that could not be known or controlled. Something that could only be determined by fate.

Ironic,
Maddie thought as she looked out the window, contemplating her trip home as the outside world deepened to a purple under the darkening sky.

She shoved the stone into her backpack and got a paper cut on her hand. The delicate inner part of her finger had scraped across an envelope that had been left at her door right before she left for Christmas break. She hadn’t had time to read the corny card that was obviously from Luke, so she stuck it into her bag to read on the train.

The thin line of blood ran quickly across her finger and she shoved it in her mouth as she fished the envelope out of the backpack. She was sure it was going to be a hokey Christmas card or a picturesque postcard of some exotic location with a comment from Luke saying,
Look what you’re missing.

But it wasn’t any of those things. She pulled the card out of the envelope and immediately she felt sick. It wasn’t a holiday card or a postcard or a silly letter from Luke. It couldn’t have been from Luke at all.

It was a tarot card. A picture of the Grim Reaper adorned the front of it and underneath it was a single word.

Death.

A
s she waited for her daughter to arrive home from prep school, Abigail Crane peered into the mahogany mirror hanging in the hallway of the old Victorian on Mariner’s Way, trying to 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 and doors were boarded up. The word
WITCH
was scrawled in large sloping letters across the rotting boards. No one wanted to rent it since Cordelia disappeared, 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.