Sisters of Misery (15 page)

WATER

“J
ust bring her into town,” Abigail instructed Maddie a few days before Christmas. “Maybe some fresh air and Christmas festivities will snap her back.”

Tess was sitting in her rocking chair, singing to herself as she looked out the window toward the ocean. She was always staring out at the waves, looking out to where her husband—Maddie’s grandfather, Jack Martin—died at sea. “The sea gave him life and took it away,” Tess once said, often pointing out such examples of the cyclical nature of the world. She encouraged Maddie to become aware of such patterns, to pay attention and be guided by the little signs offered to them, if they knew just where to look.

Tess was always the one who seemed to guide them—she was the rock that Maddie turned to whenever she needed strength and stability. Now Maddie watched as her grandmother became more and more childlike and helpless, unable to fight off the dementia that was quickly taking over her mind. The grief and tragic events were too much for the old woman to bear.

Both Abigail and Maddie felt that Tess’s daily visits with Rebecca were doing more harm to Tess than help for Rebecca. Each time Tess returned from Ravenswood, it was as if she had left a piece of her self, her very soul, behind. Abigail had recently put a stop to the visits.

Maddie forced a smile as she said brightly, “Come on, Grams. Let’s go check out the Christmas festival. I could use a nice cup of mulled cider, couldn’t you?”

Tess stopped rocking and looked past Maddie. She smiled as if she was seeing an old friend. It unnerved Maddie so much that she had to turn to make sure that she was still the only one in the room.

“We’ll have fun together, won’t we?” Tess asked in a tiny voice. “We always had lots of fun at the festival. It’s a pity Rebecca and Cordelia never got the chance to go.”

But Tess’s positive mood drastically changed once they began their walk into town.

“The people here are evil. Pure evil. Nothing we say or do will bring Cordelia back,” Tess hissed as they walked past carolers and women loaded down with shopping bags.

Maddie truly believed that some fresh air and time outside of the house would do wonders for Tess and help raise both of their spirits. Yet the yearly Christmas festival did nothing to alleviate the pain and anxiety that had become a constant for both of them. Tess clung to Maddie’s arm, hissing into her ear about all the different people who were putting hexes on their family. Maddie tried to calm her down to no avail. At one point, Tess pulled her shaking hands from behind the starchy folds of her dress and subtly raised her index and pinky fingers. This hand gesture, according to superstitions she had told Maddie since she was a child, warded off the evil eye. She pointed her narrow fingers at whoever she believed was intending them harm or bad luck.

“Look at her,” Tess pointed at a well-dressed woman bossing around a worker tying a Christmas tree to the top of her Mercedes. “She doesn’t even care about the O’Malley boy helping her. He’s freezing and working his fingers to the bone, and she’s too busy and full of herself to even give him a tip.”

“How do you know Finn?” Maddie pressed as Finn continued to hoist trees out for potential buyers’ inspection with ease. The O’Malley body shop lot had been turned into a forest of Christmas trees overnight. Maddie’s stomach did a little flip when she saw Finn spin an eight-foot balsam around for a little girl’s inspection, obviously wanting to help the girl pick the perfect tree.

“Oh, the O’Malleys have been around forever,” Tess clucked. Her bad mood lifting for a moment as it always did whenever she spoke about Maddie’s grandfather. “Your grandfather went way back with the O’Malley boys. They always used to get each other into trouble, but there was never any harm done. It was all in good fun.”

As if on cue, Finn turned and locked eyes with Maddie. She quickly looked away, chiding herself for staring. He was dressed in a lightweight flannel shirt, despite the cold winter air, and his hair was tucked back into a knitted cap. She had never noticed how strong and muscular he was until she saw him lifting the huge firs and balsams onto the expensive cars with ease.

“Did Cordelia ever talk about Finn?” Maddie asked in a hushed tone. She knew that he couldn’t hear them, but the way that Finn eyed them, she could have sworn that he knew they were talking about him.

“Finn? The young boy? No, I never met him, but he looks just like his grandfather did at that age. Spitting image,” Tess chuckled, lost in thought. “If I hadn’t already given my heart to your grandfather…” Tess’s voice trailed off. “Good men, those O’Malleys. Had a bit of a wild streak in ’em, but at least they were real. Not like most of the people in this town.”

While the afternoon started off tense, their walk through the Christmas festivities in town, making their way past storefronts wrapped in ribbons and lights, sipping hot cocoa and mulled cider, seemed to ease Tess back into a lighthearted mood. Maddie was delighted.

As they strolled by the festival booths, they reminisced about some of the past Christmas festivals they’d attended together. Carolers, ice sculptures, the smell of wood smoke and pine trees in the air. Carefree times. Times that were filled with happiness, before Cordelia came bursting into their lives like a flame and then, just as quickly, was extinguished.

Tess had always been the comforting presence in Maddie’s life, the kind of mother who she always wished for. Tess comforted her as a child when Maddie woke up in the deep, heavy hours of night, pulled from her dreams by the sounds of the pounding surf. As the tide got higher, Maddie feared the waves were somehow reaching out to her, calling and echoing down the crooked cobblestone streets, rising up over the trellises choked with tuberose and clematis, through the shutters of the creaking window, and along the knotted and gnarled floorboards. Finally, they reached their way across her patchwork quilt, whispering,
Come and play.

When fear of the churning waters finally got the best of her, Maddie would scurry up to Tess’s room, the weathered pine floors groaning beneath her naked feet while echoes from the sea drifted in. Tess always welcomed Maddie into her bed, banishing any fear or monster that Maddie had been dreaming of. Back then, Tess had a way of making the bad things go away, but with Cordelia’s disappearance, Rebecca’s breakdown, and her own battle with dementia, even Tess couldn’t make the monsters disappear.

But for now, Maddie was relishing the moment, allowing the Christmas spirit to envelop them both. For a little while, at least, they could pretend that life was normal. They tried to enjoy themselves as they went from store to store, picking out presents for each other and gazing at the window decorations until Tess stopped suddenly. The way that she stopped and the force with which she grabbed Maddie’s hand made her fear that her grandmother was suffering a heart attack. Maddie followed her grandmother’s gaze over to Rebecca’s shop. The plywood used to cover the windows and door until Rebecca’s return had been spray painted. The word DIE stretched vertically over the door, and the word WITCH was sprayed in bloodred block letters across the window. Tess squeezed Maddie’s hand until her fingers tingled from lack of circulation.

“Let’s go home,” Tess said firmly. “Now.” They walked quickly and in silence. Maddie noticed Tess dabbing at her eyes the entire way home. But they never mentioned what they saw to Abigail—or to each other.

Someone was giving them a message, and it came through loud and clear.

Later that night, Maddie let Tess go on and on with her stories of Hawthorne and the original settlers. It was a good way for both of them to come to terms with what they had seen down at Rebecca’s store earlier that day.

Maddie had heard all her grandmother’s stories numerous times and never tired of them. And now with Tess facing the prospect of losing her stories and memories forever in a battle with her own mind, Maddie was anxious to hear Tess’s stories again and again so that they’d never disappear.

“Doesn’t surprise me one bit what they did to that store-front. Not one bit,” Tess spoke solemnly. “Back in the days of the early New England settlements, stories traveled quickly of a town occupied by women and children who threw rocks and terrorized any outsiders who dared to enter. And the men were even more brutal and savage, capable of unspeakable acts. Hawthorne never welcomed strangers.” She paused for a moment. “I should have known better than to bring Rebecca and Cordelia back to this place. This place has trapped us all.”

Maddie knew that when Tess was a young mother and wife, leaving Hawthorne was what she had wanted more than anything in the world. The only thing that kept her going on those long days and nights while Jack was at sea were their plans of traveling around the world once Jack returned. Just Jack, Tess, their daughter Rebecca, and the new baby—the one that even Jack didn’t know about yet—growing inside Tess’s swollen belly.

But sadly, her dreams of escape quickly turned into a nightmare. On the day that Jack planned to return to Hawthorne, Tess waited by the window, watching for his ship as she packed up and boxed away their belongings. The ocean and the sky shared the same color of slate gray that afternoon.

“The color of death,” Tess said knowingly. She heard a moan, a wail, a cry that broke across the horizon, something that was imperceptible to others but that rang out in the deep hollow of her heart.

“You’re friend’s grandfather, Matthew O’Malley, came to my door that day. He didn’t have to say a word. I could see it in his eyes. Jack was dead, his ship lost at sea. It was at that moment that I knew I was to remain in Hawthorne for the rest of my life. And I did.”

Maddie had heard that story before, but only now did she really feel the sorrow and loss—the loss of a man she never knew, but was part of her family, the love of her grandmother’s life.

Tess added, “I should have stopped you girls on Halloween night. If only I hadn’t been foolish enough to take that nap—but then, I’m not as strong as I once was.” She shook her head, the gray braid that ran down her back moving like a silver fish. “I should have told you.”

A chill ran down Maddie’s spine. “Told us what?”

Tess turned and looked Maddie straight in the eye. “The ocean that day was the same color as it was when your grandfather was lost at sea. But then, you didn’t go near the ocean that night, did you?”

Tess held Maddie’s gaze for a few beats.
What does she know?
Maddie thought as guilt crept through her body. Before Maddie had a chance to respond, Abigail came bursting into the room.

“Look what Santa brought us! Maddie, you have to come and see.”

Maddie left Tess lying in her bed, and she followed her mother into the living room. A beautiful Christmas tree stood in the center of the room. She noticed someone underneath the tree, trying to straighten it and tighten the stand. Finn stood up after the tree was secure.

“What do I owe you?” Abigail asked as she scanned the room for her checkbook.

Finn held his gloved hand up and shook his head. “This is on the house, Mrs. Crane. After the year you all had, this is the least my family can do for you this holiday season.”

Maddie felt her cheeks flush. “Well, tell your family I’m very grateful,” Abigail said before leaving the room. “And happy holidays!”

“Thank you, Finn,” Maddie stammered. “You didn’t have to—”

He held his hand up, stopping her from saying any more. “I saw what they did to your aunt’s store. I’m going to go over there tonight and put some new boards over the spray-painted ones. I’m just sorry that your grandmother had to see that.”

“Do you know who did it?” Maddie asked.

“I have a couple of people in mind that could have done it. Nothing surprises me in this town anymore.” Finn sighed. “I just knew that your family could use a good dose of Christmas cheer more than anyone else right now.”

Before Maddie could say anything, Finn continued with a crack of a smile, “Besides, my grandpa was a sucker for Tess. He would have kicked my butt if I didn’t do something nice for you all this holiday.”

Maddie burst forward and hugged Finn. She assumed that he was doing this out of his feelings of loyalty toward Cordelia, but she suddenly was overwhelmed by his kind gesture. He smelled of Christmas trees and woodburning smoke. “Thank you,” she whispered, holding back tears.

He held her for a moment, squeezed her tightly into his body, and then let her go.

“Merry Christmas, Maddie,” he said softly and turned toward the door.

By the time she returned to Tess’s room, Tess had fallen asleep. Maddie covered her grandmother with the bedsheets and turned off the lights, placing a soft kiss on her cheek. It wasn’t until later that night, with thoughts of Finn O’Malley crowding her mind, that she remembered her grandmother’s words before Finn and the Christmas tree’s arrival.
But then, you didn’t go near the ocean that night, did you?
Tess knew about Misery Island. But how could she? And why had she waited this long to speak up?

The next day, Maddie checked Rebecca’s store. Finn had been true to his word—the plywood had been replaced, and the cruel words were gone. As she made her way home through town, Maddie realized how taken aback she was at her mother’s reaction toward Finn O’Malley the previous night.

For as long as Maddie could remember, Abigail Crane would never lower herself to show appreciation for or to speak to someone like Finn O’Malley. Even though she had grown up with a similar background, once Abigail married into the Crane family, one of the most well-known and wealthiest families in Hawthorne, she had become deeply rooted in the lifestyle she had grown up idolizing. Abigail did everything she could to distance herself from her poor upbringing as a sailor’s daughter. Immediately, she joined all the exclusive clubs in town—ones that would never have let her in prior to marrying into the Crane family. Abigail became so involved in the community that she overlooked her husband’s penchant for late nights at the local taverns. Malcolm Crane was the one who finally ended the marriage. He just picked up and moved to Maine with one of the young barmaids in town, instantly severing all ties with them.