Sisters of Misery (13 page)

Rebecca crouched in the corner of the store, rocking back and forth on a pile of glass and ash and flowers and debris. Her hair had become a rat’s nest, and her clothes were dingy and stained. There were blood stains on her peasant blouse, and her arms were scratched and torn and bloodied. Tess and Maddie looked at each other through their tears. Without having to say anything, they both knew that the wounds were self-inflicted.

“Come on now.” Abigail’s voice softened a bit as she tried to pull her sister up off the ground, but Rebecca only cried out as if in pain and scuttled closer to the door.

Tess and Abigail looked at each other helplessly, not sure what to do.

Tess pleaded, “Rebecca, who did this? How did this happen?”

Rebecca looked up, her eyes glazed over. When they finally pulled into focus, they landed directly on Maddie. “You,” she said softly. Then her voice got louder and more forceful. “YOU!”

Maddie took a deep breath as she stepped backward into Tess’s steadying arms.

“YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU!” Rebecca shrieked so loudly that it seemed that any remaining pieces of unbroken glass would soon shatter from her shrill tone. Her accusatory voice filled the entire store and burrowed into Maddie’s brain.

Finally, Abigail took control of the situation, as she often did, and simply said, “Ravenswood.”

Tess looked horrified. Maddie began crying openly. But they all realized that despite their best intentions, Rebecca was too far gone for any of them to help. Cordelia’s disappearance had sent Rebecca spiraling away from them, away from her own sanity.

“Go on,” Abigail instructed Maddie. “Get your grandmother out of here. She doesn’t need to be subjected to this. I’ll deal with my sister.”

Tess and Maddie hurried out of the store. “Why was she screaming at me like that? I swear I had nothing to do with that mess in there, Grams,” Maddie pleaded with her grandmother. She wasn’t about to go into the events on Misery Island, and she wondered if somehow, Rebecca had used her gift and had seen the horrible events of that night.

“It’s the devil in her,” Tess said quietly. “The devil is in all of us at times. Some people more than others. Some people can’t help letting him in. Rebecca was just too weak to keep him out. Others, well, they are more than happy to let him in whenever he pleases.”

As Tess spoke of the devil, Maddie flashed to an image from Halloween night. Kate was standing before the bonfire. Her pale eyes were lit orangey red, reflecting the color of the flames, her hair lifting up and down with the coastal winds. Maddie felt a sickness in her stomach as Kate seemed to revel in Cordelia’s pain. “It was the devil in her,” Tess said again firmly. And though on the surface, Tess was talking about Rebecca, Maddie had a sinking feeling that underneath, she was talking about someone else entirely.

“It’s for her own well-being,” Abigail said the next morning at breakfast, her expression tight-lipped. Any sympathy she may have shown for Rebecca the previous evening had turned into annoyance. “She hasn’t slept or eaten or even bathed in weeks.” Her nose wrinkled in slight disgust. “Rebecca needs help to get through this—real psychological help that we can’t give her. She’s always been an emotional basketcase. And when that spoiled brat of a daughter returns, I’ll make sure she pays for this, once and for all!”

Tess sat at the kitchen table rocking back and forth, staring at her bird-like hands. Maddie knew that it must have been a horrible thing for a mother to experience, seeing her daughter on the brink of madness. Almost as terrible as what Rebecca was going through—having a daughter disappear into thin air. And Maddie felt responsible for all of it. Maddie was desperate to tell Tess the truth about Halloween night. Yet the words choked in the back of her throat whenever she tried. Maddie couldn’t bear to see the look of disappointment in Tess’s eyes, so instead, she remained silent.

She tried to think of who else she could tell—the police, her mother, anyone—about what went on that night on Misery Island. But her confession to Mrs. Endicott made her realize that it wouldn’t make a difference. Cordelia was gone, and nobody really cared.

THE HUNTER

N
ot long after Rebecca was sent to Ravenswood, Mr. Campbell held Maddie after class. “Now, Madeline,” Mr. Campbell said tenderly, dragging a chair over to her desk and flipping it around so he could sit on it backwards. His blue eyes were warm, friendly beneath his blond lashes. “I know that this has been a difficult time for you.” He paused and took a deep breath. “But I wouldn’t be doing my job as your teacher if I didn’t discuss this with you and how it is affecting your grades in my class.”

Maddie tugged at the ends of her hair, nodding halfheartedly. Cordelia had been missing for weeks, and her sleepless nights were starting to show. Mr. Campbell dropped his head to his arms folded over the back of the chair, looking more like a guy her own age than her twenty-two-year-old teacher. “Looks like Maddie’s the new teacher’s pet,” Kate said. The others laughed as they pushed out the door. If Mr. Campbell heard the comment, he paid it no mind.

“What can I do to make things easier for you? Would tutoring or, I don’t know, counseling help?”

Maddie shook her head, staring out the window.
Why is he singling me out now?
she wondered. He never seemed to care this much about her before. She entertained the thought—for just a moment—that maybe he was digging to find out how much she knew about the night of Cordelia’s disappearance. Could her cousin have gone to Mr. Campbell’s house after getting off the island? Did he know about what went on that night?

“Are you still on the field hockey team?” he asked.

“I don’t have time,” Maddie said, not wanting to explain that she had nothing
but
time these days. She just didn’t want anything to do with Kate and the rest of the Sisters of Misery. Every time she looked at them, the guilt only dug its bloody claws deeper.

“What about friends? It seems like you don’t have time for them anymore either,” he offered. “Are you going to visit your aunt a lot?”

Maddie shrugged off the question. Since Abigail had Rebecca committed to Ravenswood, her aunt had shut the entire world out—Maddie especially. It was as if she were frozen in time, Sleeping Beauty locked up in her castle, surrounded by thorns and bracken, waiting for Cordelia to return and break the trance. She was so far gone that Maddie wondered if she even recognized herself in the mirror. But Mr. Campbell didn’t need to know that.

After the breakdown in the shop, Maddie couldn’t face her beloved aunt. Her nights were haunted by Rebecca’s accusatory shrieks—
YOU, YOU, YOU!
Maddie didn’t have the strength to face her, not until she found Cordelia and made things right again.

Seeing that he was getting nowhere, Mr. Campbell tried another tactic. “I think that you are taking on an awful lot for a girl your age. I know it’s hard, but you should let the police do their job of getting Cordelia back, let your aunt recover from all this craziness, and you just worry about taking care of yourself.” He patted her gently on the back and moved his hand up to give her shoulders a squeeze. Ticklish tingles traveled up from Maddie’s shoulders, along her neck, up to the base of her hairline. His hands were like magic.

“My age?” Maddie laughed, realizing the irony of his comment. Girls her age were responsible for this mess. Girls her age were capable of unspeakable things. “You’re not that much older than me—or Cordelia, for that matter. You have no idea—” She stopped herself, afraid that she would say something that she’d regret. Something that Kate would
make
her regret. She dropped her face into her hands. “I just feel like I should be doing something. Something more. Like it’s my responsibility to find her.”

“Your job is to get good grades, and right now, you’re averaging a D in my class. It’s my job to step in when there’s a reason for concern.” He paused. “Should I be concerned, Maddie?” She trembled. What exactly was he asking her? Was he asking her what she knew, what Cordelia may have told her in confidence?

“I’m sorry, Mr. Campbell,” Maddie said. “I’ll try harder. I really will.” She yearned to tell him more, tell him about what happened on Halloween night, but from the rumors that were swirling around about his alleged affair with Cordelia, he was the last person she should trust.

His face was close to hers, his blue eyes searching. When the silence between them became too awkward to bear, Maddie blurted out, “You’re Cordelia’s favorite teacher. Did she…say anything…to you?”

“I wish she had come to me, if she needed help,” he said, sighing. He shook his head and looked down, a sad smile spread over his face. “She was really something special.”

“She
still
is special! I don’t know why everyone keeps referring to her in the past tense!” Maddie insisted.

“I’m sorry, Maddie. I never meant to say—to suggest…Well, you’re right. If she’s found, it will be a great relief to all of us…”

“When
she’s found,” Maddie whispered, lowering her eyes to the floor.

He reached out and covered her slender hands with his. Maddie noticed the blond hair moving as the sinewy muscles in his hands tightened around her own. “Yes,
when
she’s found.”

He swung his head downward; they were sitting so close that the tips of his soft blond hair gently brushed past her cheek. It smelled like a combination of woods and sand, just how she always imagined it would.

Maddie wanted to tell him that she knew he wasn’t involved in Cordelia’s disappearance and that if there was a way Maddie could set things straight with the people in town, she would. Maddie wanted to express something, but every word she tried to say got stuck somewhere down in the base of her throat. With the town’s rising suspicions regarding his involvement with her cousin, Maddie could see the visible effects of the toll it was taking on him. His eyes were rimmed red, and the circles under them were deep.

A noise made them both look up. Trevor Campbell stood in the doorway with an odd accusatory look on his face. Mr. Campbell’s face darkened. He met his brother’s gaze and shook his head subtly. Trevor paused for a moment before walking away. Once he was gone, Mr. Campbell smiled, his watery blue eyes crinkling at the corners, and he clapped heartily as if a weight had been lifted. “Good. I’m glad we had this little talk.”

But before she left the classroom, Maddie was struck suddenly by the look on Trevor’s face. “Mr. Campbell,” she asked quietly, “has Trevor said anything about Cordelia?”

Mr. Campbell’s smile froze on his face for a moment as he seemed to carefully choose his response. “Not really. I mean, he’s upset by her disappearance. We all are,” he paused. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” she replied, suddenly overcome with the feeling that Trevor seemed unusually pleased that Cordelia wasn’t around—almost as happy as Kate. “See you in class tomorrow.”

She left Reed Campbell staring after her, his eyes narrowed and head cocked to the side.

As Maddie lingered on the edge of sleep, her mind drifted to a conversation she had with her grandmother years before Cordelia and Rebecca came to town. It was the first time that she had ever suspected Tess had a “gift.” That night, the winds rattled the old window panes, and Maddie gathered her grandmother into a long hug, “I’m never going to leave you,” Maddie said, deeply inhaling the comforting scent of rose and gardenia. Tess swatted her granddaughter away playfully, accusing her of trying to get a peek at her well-worn Gypsy Witch cards during their game of gin rummy.

She chuckled softly. “Well, I guess it’s my own fault. I shouldn’t have taken you two in so quickly after your father left town. If I’d had my wits about me, I would have forced you two to move somewhere else. But I guess I was selfish. I wanted to help raise my lovely granddaughter, even if it prevented your escape from Hawthorne.”

“Escape, Grams?” Maddie giggled, thinking that her grandmother could be so overly dramatic at times. Looking back now, Maddie could see what Tess meant, though at the time, she’d never felt any danger in her hometown. “What’s there to be afraid of in Hawthorne?”

Tess looked Maddie squarely in the eyes as she dropped her hand to the quilt displaying three Jacks and a run of spades. She plucked the Ace of Diamonds and Ace of Hearts from her granddaughter’s hand as if she knew exactly what cards Maddie held and turned them so that she could read the fortunes printed above a slew of birds on a bloodred background and a monstrous-looking fox.

Maddie read the fortunes out loud:

“Madeline Crane, when the time is right—and trust me, you’ll know when that time comes—leave everything, all of us, behind,” she whispered as she leaned across the bed and grabbed Maddie by the shoulders, her fingers digging sharply into her skin, “and just run.”

Maddie was still not sure what Tess had known at that point—or if she suspected the terrible events to come. It was long before Cordelia and Rebecca moved back, so it couldn’t have had anything to do with them. But the look in Tess’s eyes at that moment—like she was looking into the future and seeing only horrific events unfolding—haunted her for months.

Now, lying in the darkness, Maddie watched the shadows of tree branches come alive on her wall, moving with the wind. Chances were that someone who was still living in this town was involved with Cordelia’s disappearance. And if that person was still out there, Maddie wondered if she was going to be the next target. It made sense. Maddie was the only person convinced that Cordelia hadn’t run away. And perhaps the person responsible didn’t want her looking too deep. Perhaps that person would do anything to keep the secret of Cordelia’s disappearance buried.

But from what Maddie knew of Hawthorne, a dark place trapped in time that seemed to be straight out of a Grimm’s fairy tale, untouched by the rest of the world, secrets didn’t stay covered up for very long.

People lived in the houses built by their ancestors, dwellings that remained unchanged despite the decades they had weathered. Townspeople coveted the antique houses with low ceilings and uneven pine floorboards that seemed to grow up out of the sidewalks, jutting into the crooked streets like holly-hocks. They boasted about their gardens filled with jewel-colored flowers that grew lush and wild, fed by a steady diet of salty air and coastal sunshine. The same houses and the same gardens tended to year after year, generation after generation.

There was the Hawthorne that most people talked about: the one with stories as old and weathered as the shingles of the historic houses. The town that’s picture postcard perfect, a Currier and Ives landscape filled with scents of apple cider in the fall, pine and woodsmoke in the winter, and honey and jasmine in the summer. The town known for sailing and quaint shops and an enviable coastline.

And then there were the legends.

Stories of ghostly soldiers that still lurked outside the Old Sandy Dog Tavern and the specter of Jack Derby, the tyrannical sheriff who terrorized the town over two hundred years ago. But the most startling of all were townspeople reporting the sensation of a small hand reaching up to grab hold and be helped across the street—the tiny hand of Hester Proctor, who died so many years ago, trampled by a horse and wagon.

Tess claimed that when she was a girl, the thick, heavy scent of the flowers was so overwhelming in Hawthorne that people had to shut their windows during dinnertime or else it overpowered their meals. And at night, many teenage girls were forced to sleep in the stifling heat with windows locked up tight, or else the heavy aroma of the flowers would drive them wanton with ecstasy, causing them to leave the confines of their bedrooms and set off into the night in search of young men.

And then there was the modern-day Hawthorne that Maddie knew all too well: a town made up of small-minded people, people who resisted change, embraced conformity, and despised outsiders. A town filled with men and women who tried to destroy anything unfamiliar or unwelcome. This was the side of Hawthorne that most people tried to hide, the place that had shaped who Maddie had become. The real Hawthorne, the place that had frightened her for all of these years, was something she’d learned to keep to herself.

And what scared her most was this: Maddie was one of them.

Almost a month had passed since Cordelia had vanished. Maddie trudged through the crackling piles of leaves on her way to school each morning, scuffing her knee-high boots through the undergrowth that ran the length of the narrow pathway. Maddie had lost twenty pounds and stopped bathing regularly. Her mother was furious at her appearance, but Maddie had given up caring. She was consumed by guilt and sadness. All other emotions seemed futile.

Life goes on. But Maddie couldn’t. Though Tess visited Rebecca every day, Rebecca just stared out the window at the ocean, remaining completely mute. Her doctors said she was in a “state of shock” and was going through PTSD, or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Maddie typically walked with Tess to Ravenswood, but she would hang back and wait for Tess in Fort Glover, the part that was open to the general public and ran alongside of Ravenswood Asylum. The fort itself consisted of a sloping mound of earth that perched high on top of a cliff above the water. It was rumored to be connected to Ravenswood by narrow underground tunnels. At the center, there stood a dungeon sunken like a pirate’s ship. A narrow fence ran along the perimeter of Fort Glover, offering minimal protection from taking one false step and tumbling downward to the jagged rocks below. Maddie had heard stories of teenagers who would drink at the fort at night and dare each other to dive into the churning waters below. The unlucky few who were either too drunk to know any better or too desperate to fit in ended up at Bell Hospital with concussions or broken bones. Some kids managed to steal into the long-abandoned prison—where the Pickering sisters had been held captive—and throw parties or have sex on the dirt floors.