Sisters of Misery

by Megan Kelley Hall

  “Well, I like the gift part,” Kate muttered, “I’m not too thrilled about the rest of them. God, that reading pretty much sucked.” She allowed herself to look disappointed for only a moment before brushing it away. She smiled, turning to the other girls. “Well, at least I know it said I was a queen and that I have a gift coming my way. That’s pretty cool, right?”

  Cordelia jumped off the counter and took a closer look at the reading laid out on the table. “Actually, the gift stone is reversed, too.”

  “Cordelia…” Rebecca interrupted. “I don’t…”

  She continued. “It shows you bringing harm to your friendships and intense separation all due to your self-centered behavior. I think that’s a pretty accurate reading, Mom. Good job.”

  Next, Rebecca dangled a crystal pendulum over the card and stones, watching intently which way the crystal swung. Maddie had never witnessed Rebecca doing such an intense reading before. It seemed to go beyond simply what Kate wanted to know. It seemed as though Rebecca was doing it for herself.

  Suddenly, she dropped the crystal, and she grabbed Kate’s hand again, wrenching it toward her over the table as if she was looking for something hidden in the lines of her palm. She almost seemed confused, even flustered.

  “Um, ow?” Kate said again, widening her eyes toward her friends.

  Rebecca paid no attention to Kate’s remarks, instead furiously studying the lines in her hands. The longer and harder she stared into Kate’s upturned palm, the more distraught Rebecca seemed to get. It was as if she was witnessing something horrible unfolding in Kate’s future.

  “What?” Kate said anxiously. She peered into her own hand as if there was some secret message inscribed there that she could also see if she only looked deep enough. Then, catching herself, she put on a bored expression and said in a haughty tone, “Well, what do you see?”

  Rebecca looked up at Kate and released her hand, obviously holding back what she really wanted to say. “It’s actually quite close to your card and stone reading. Your palm tells me that you are very fortunate. Just beware that some things that you take for granted—that you feel are your due—can come back to haunt you.”

  “Oh, wow,” Kate said in a mock serious tone. “Thank you so much, Mrs. LeClaire. I feel so enlightened now. This has been so educational.”

  Rebecca didn’t look at Kate or the other girls as she packed up her divination tools. She grabbed the bottle marked Oil of Abramelin and held it out to Kate. “Are you sure this particular oil is what you want?”

  Kate smiled, “Oh, yes. I read about it somewhere, and I just knew that this would be the place to find it.”

  Rebecca held Kate’s gaze for a moment, her beautiful face expressionless. “Then I won’t charge you any extra for it. But be careful. These are not things that should be played around with. Maddie, I need Cordelia’s help out back. Can you watch the store for me?”

  Maddie nodded as Rebecca and Cordelia hurried into the back room.

  “Do you think that she could have guessed all of the crap about the Queen and material wealth and good taste and that I get everything I want by my Rolex, my diamond rings, my Kate Spade purse, or was it really all in the cards? Ooooohhh, so mysterious!” Kate said jokingly. “Plus, the only reason she said all that crap about me being a bitch and wreaking havoc or—what did she say?—having uncontrolled and destructive forces is because that’s exactly what Cordelia wanted her to say. Just to scare me. Look at me, I’m shaking,” she said, holding out her hands. The other girls laughed along with her. “God, what a racket they’ve got going here. Good thing for them that we’ve got so many gullible people in this town.”

  “Kate,” Maddie said in an exasperated tone, “what else do you want? I mean, are you finished here?”

  “Oh, no, Maddie darling,” Kate said. “I’m just getting started.” She burst out laughing as the other girls followed her out the door. “Don’t be late for the game tonight. Or else, you’ll be subjected to my destructive and uncontrollable wrath.”

  Maddie went into the back room after the girls had left, curious to see what Rebecca really saw in the lines of Kate’s hands. Rebecca was speaking in hushed tones to Cordelia, but stopped abruptly when Maddie entered. Rebecca quickly made an excuse to leave, saying something about needing supplies as she hurried past Maddie.

  Rebecca then stopped mid-stride, turned to the girls and said, “I don’t think you should be spending much time with that Kate girl. Her aura is very bad, very dark. Plus,” she hesitated for a moment as if choosing her words carefully, “her purchase this afternoon is disturbing. Anyone buying that particular oil…” her voice trailed off. “Have you ever heard of chaos magic?”

  Maddie stared at her blankly. “Oh…never mind,” Rebecca said quickly. “I know that you’ve been friends with those girls for a long time, but trust me when I tell you that they are up to no good. They are dangerous.”

  She paused for a moment, as if weighing how much she wanted to tell Maddie.

  Maddie recognized the worried look on Rebecca’s face—it was the same one that Tess had when it came to the Sisters of Misery. Maddie was always worried that Tess would disapprove if she found out what went on in their meetings, especially the initiation rituals. According to the ritual, each member of the Sisterhood had to spend the night alone on Misery Island. Luckily, up until that point, Maddie had never been chosen to stay the night—Kate had never held her to it because of her family name. Somehow, the Crane name was both a blessing and a curse. She was fortunate that she didn’t have to spend the night out on Misery, but it always felt like she had little choice in her friendships.

  “The card that Kate originally picked was this one.” Rebecca extended the card so Maddie could take a closer look at the grotesque figure on the card and read the word at the bottom: Devil. “To make matters worse, it was reversed when she pulled it from the deck.”

  “What does that mean?” Maddie asked, knowing from Rebecca’s expression that it couldn’t be good.

  Rebecca looked back and forth at the two girls. “It means you need to stay away from that girl—all of those girls—but that one especially.” With that, she raced out of the store, claiming that she needed to cleanse herself from all the negative energy.

  “What was that all about?” Maddie asked Cordelia, who was putting price tags on various items.

  “Mom just got freaked out by your friends,” Cordelia said, making air quotes when she said the word friends. “She wants us to stay away from them. She said something about Kate taking ‘the left-hand path’ and seeing darkness and then when Kate pulled the Devil card, well…whatever.”

  Maddie wouldn’t let it go. “What did that card mean? What did Rebecca see?”

  Cordelia explained, “Seeing the Devil card in any reading isn’t a great thing, which is why Kate probably tried to hide it from my mom. But it’s especially bad when it’s reversed. It means a lot of things, actually—none of them good. The reversed Devil card signifies true evil, abuse of authority, greed, bondage to a person or situation or thing, emotional blackmail, and even death.”

  Cordelia’s words hung over them for a few moments as they stared at each other.

  Finally, she shifted her gaze back to the price tags. “Whatever,” she muttered. “Why did they even come here? God, it’s bad enough that we have to deal with those snobs at school, but here? That just sucks.”

  “What did Rebecca mean when she mentioned chaos—er something?” Maddie asked. She’d always thought the little rituals that Kate orchestrated out on Misery Island were just pretend games. But were they?

  “Chaos magic. It’s a kind of black magic. One where you kind of make stuff up as you go.”

  “You sell that stuff here?” Maddie asked.

  “We sell magic supplies and Wiccan tools. We hope that people use them for good magic. But it depends on the person,” Cordelia said flatly. “We have no control over what’s done with the stuff once it leaves the store.”
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  “Well,” Maddie stated, “no one has ever been able to control anything that Kate Endicott does, so it’s no big surprise there.”

  “Here, this is for you,” Cordelia said, handing her a silk brocade purse.

  Maddie opened the purse and found that it was filled with rocks and herbs.

  “What’s this for?”

  “Protection. It’s called a mojo bag. I figure with those girls as your friends, you need all the strength you can get, right? And now that my mom is all freaked out about Kate, you probably need it more than ever,” Cordelia said offhandedly, retrieving the small silken purse from Maddie’s hands. She opened it and pointed carefully to its contents. “Mandrake for protection, thyme for courage, and tiger’s eye stones—they’ll help you overcome your fears and give you a little more independence. I figure it can’t hurt. See, I even made one up for myself.”

  Cordelia reached around her neck and pulled the silk bag up from under her shirt. She opened the bag, displaying the herbs and stones that made up her protective charm. “I’ve put in some nettle—that keeps away petty jealousies,” she laughed.

  Maddie had never realized how difficult living in Hawthorne would be for her cousin. Kate and the others made no effort to hide their feelings of contempt. But Cordelia didn’t seem to care. It was as though she could endure thousands of insults hurled at her like stones without feeling a thing. No one could touch her.

  Of course, Cordelia knew about the rumors that swarmed around her like angry insects surrounding their nest, stinging, swelling, but eventually subsiding. She could handle the taunts and insults that would have forced even the thickest-skinned kids at Hawthorne Academy to tears. And this angered Kate more than anyone. The more Cordelia withstood the girls’ attacks, the harder they tried to break her down. Even when someone scrawled WITCH in bright red letters down Cordelia’s locker door, she simply shrugged it off and proceeded to cover the word up with stickers of flowers, rainbows, and peace sign stickers.

  The boys in their class, most of them sweaty-palmed and snickering, gazed at her through half-lidded eyes, making bullish, clumsy advances. But when Cordelia ignored them, she was teased and taunted, called a lesbian or a prude.

  “I also added bloodstone to get rid of sadness and rose quartz for healing. Plus, I added a moonstone and an opal because they bring me the ability to commune better with the spirits of the night,” she continued.

  “What’s that one?” Maddie asked, pointing to a reddish flower.

  “Oh,” Cordelia said, her eyes widening. “That’s called dragon’s blood.”

  “Yuck.” Maddie made a face, wrinkling her nose. “What’s that for?”

  “Revenge,” Cordelia said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Sweet revenge.”

  Maddie and Cordelia decided to eat their dinner down by the ocean that night. The water was calm, and the sand still held a little warmth from the afternoon sun. As they ate their sandwiches, Maddie opened up a little more about her group of friends and how they were called the Sisters of Misery, the initiation rituals, and some of the milder things they had done. Shop lifting, egging people’s houses, toilet papering trees, spray painting mean words on the sidewalk in front of people’s houses. As Maddie relayed this information, the expression on Cordelia’s face turned from mild annoyance to disgust.

  “And you call these people your friends? Why, Maddie?”

  Cordelia picked up a flat stone and whipped it toward the water, watching it skip across the calm sea.

  Maddie couldn’t explain. There was never a time in her life that those girls weren’t her friends. They were just always there—for the good times and the bad. She’d never really questioned it before, not until Cordelia came into her life.

  “You’ll see,” Maddie offered. “It’s just a lot easier being on their side. They can make life pretty brutal.”

  Maddie told Cordelia about the first time she was involved in one of Kate’s schemes, one that still made her stomach wrench with guilt. When they were ten, Kate had taken a particular dislike to a girl in her class, Emily Patterson. Kate decided one afternoon to lure her into their group. From the look on Emily’s face when Kate was kind to her, it was as if the clouds had parted, and she was basking in the warmth of Kate’s attentive glow. At only ten years of age, Kate had already taken part in a few Misery Island rituals with her older sister. And she seemed eager to take the dirty tricks she had learned from the older girls out on others. Maddie, Hannah, Bridget, and Darcy were just happy to be on Kate’s side. It was much safer than being against her.

  “Come on, Em,” Kate said cheerfully as she invited the group back to her house after school. Emily trotted along happily beside Kate like a lamb being led to slaughter. As the girls gathered round the granite island in Kate’s expansive kitchen, Kate set out some cookies for everyone, watching as they happily sat back and chomped away, gossiping about school, boys, teachers, other girls in the class. Emily devoured her cookie and slugged back some milk. It killed Maddie to sit idly by, forced to watch Emily’s humiliation.

  Earlier that day, Kate had dipped Emily’s cookie in the school toilet, allowing Darcy and Hannah to take turns peeing on it. Maddie watched them, horrified, begging Kate to reconsider. Kate hissed, “If you say one word to that cow before she eats the cookie, plan on having to closely inspect everything you eat around us from now on. Got it, Crane?”

  “But, Kate,” Maddie pleaded, “she hasn’t done anything to you. It’s not fair.”

  “Life isn’t fair, Maddie,” snapped Kate. “The sooner you figure that out, the better.”

  So, Maddie watched sadly as Emily happily munched on the cookie, thrilled to be included in the “cool” girls’ afternoon plans. It was only after she finished eating that Kate gleefully told Emily what she had just consumed.

  Maddie had always thought “turning green” was just an expression. But that afternoon, Emily Patterson’s face turned a mild shade of chartreuse. She abruptly ran for the counter sink, heaving into the stainless steel basin. The girls all laughed, and Kate said something about how she was only trying to help Emily kick start her diet. Maddie felt compelled to run to the girl’s side, rub her back, pull her hair from her face, do something, anything to make her feel better, but just as she made a move from her chair, Kate caught her eye.

  “Don’t do it, Maddie. Never cross your sisters,” she said icily. “Never.”

  When Maddie finished her story, Cordelia was staring at her, almost in disbelief. “Now it makes sense.”

  “What makes sense?”

  “Why you put up with all this crap. You’re terrified of them,” Cordelia mused. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. I get it.”

  Maddie turned away in anger, but Cordelia appeased her by saying, “No, no. I totally get it. I’d be freaked out by them, too, if those were the only people I’d ever known. But you need to know that the way they act—what they do to you, to other people—is NOT normal.”

  Maddie nodded. “Kate definitely has a power trip thing going.”

  “You think?” Cordelia said with a laugh, shaking her head. Maddie silently hoped that her cousin didn’t think less of her because she went along with the Sisters.

  “So, just stay away from them. Easy enough, right?” Cordelia offered. The air was starting to cool down, and a wind had picked up across the coastline.

  “Actually…” Maddie admitted to her midnight plans—going night swimming with Kate and the girls. It was a tradition that Kate had started years ago at the beginning of every school year.

  Cordelia thought for a moment and then said flatly, “Then I’m coming.”

  “What? No!” Maddie said quickly. She hated the thought of going by herself, but if Cordelia tagged along, it would be even worse for both of them.

  “Why not? After what I’ve seen and heard, I don’t trust them. Plus, my mom warned me about those girls. She saw something…something bad.”

  “Exactly,” Maddie insisted. She knew it w
as a bad idea from the start. “But I’m safer with them than you are.”

  Cordelia smiled. “I’m a strong girl. I can take it. Besides, maybe I want to join your little sorority.”

  Maddie looked at her, dumbfounded. She couldn’t be serious.

  Cordelia broke into hysterical laughter. “I wish you could see your face right now. It’s priceless!” She paused for a moment, chewing thoughtfully on her sandwich. “Don’t tell Kate I’m coming, though. I don’t want to give her time to plan any little surprises for me.”

  Maddie was surprised at how well Cordelia could anticipate Kate’s actions.

  Maddie was beginning to feel like a frayed rope in an endless game of tug-of-war between Cordelia and the Sisters of Misery. She only feared what would happen when the rope inevitably snapped.

  A look of shock passed across Kate’s face when Maddie showed up with Cordelia high atop the jagged rocks at Fort Glover that cool September evening.

  “I didn’t realize we were bringing new recruits tonight,” Kate said.

  “I wanted to see what all the fuss was about your little group, that’s all,” Cordelia shot back. “Maybe I want to join.”

  Kate and the other girls laughed hysterically.

  “We’re not like the Y. Not just anyone can join,” Kate said.

  The tide had changed dramatically since their peaceful dinner on the beach, and the water churned angrily below them. Maddie could only see the white caps on top of the black water, moving as if it was a living entity, a monster beneath the surface, waiting to devour its eager and willing prey.

  “Isn’t there a nepotism clause? I mean, I am related to one of your members,” Cordelia said, not willing to back down.

  Kate looked at the others and then turned back to Cordelia.

  “Fine, but you have a few things you need to accomplish before you are officially a Sister.”

  Cordelia sighed and then crossed her eyes at Maddie, obviously holding back a grin. Maddie tried to avoid eye contact. The last thing they needed was for both of them to start giggling.