Abigail’s voice trembled in growing anger and frustration.
“I worked so hard to be accepted. Again and again, my position threatened. First, when Malcolm took off with some slut. And then the money—ha! Never enough!” Then Abigail turned quickly to her daughter, as if begging for her forgiveness as well.
“I did it for both of us, Maddie. It was so important for you to befriend those girls. You didn’t think I knew about the Sisters of Misery, but I did. They’ve been around for a long time—generations. I could never be a part of that group because we didn’t have the money or the family name. You had the opportunities that I never had,” she reasoned. “Those families are powerful. Being accepted by them opens doors that will never open any other way. I did that for you. But you turned your back on them and chose to spend your time with Cordelia and Rebecca.”
Rebecca’s sobs had subsided, and she watched intently as Abigail paced back and forth between them.
“And then that Halloween night, I waited up for the girls to return. When I found Madeline passed out on the front stoop, I was livid! Cordelia didn’t even have the decency to see my daughter home safely. Got her drunk or drugged and just left her on the front stoop for the whole world to see. I was angry with Maddie, but even more furious with Cordelia for letting this happen to my daughter. I never could have imagined what would happen, what I was capable of, when she returned.”
The tension in the room was overwhelming. The world seemed to drop away. Even the rainstorm that raged through the broken windows seemed to die down a bit. Everything awaited the outcome of Abigail’s story.
“And so I waited. And when she snuck into the basement, stinking of booze and cigarettes and Lord knows what else, I confronted her. She had money on her, a lot of it. I asked who she stole it from. She tried to push past me, said it was none of my business. I was so angry that I yelled. ‘Answer me! This is my house!’ She ignored me and said that she needed to sleep, needed her mother, needed a shower. And so I told her that what she really needed to do was leave. And that if she didn’t, I would throw both of you out on the street for good,” Abigail rambled on.
Finn squeezed Maddie’s back closer to his chest as he inhaled sharply. She could feel his racing heart beating against her. They stood there listening, barely breathing, waiting for the inevitable.
“Cordelia swore at me, saying awful, dirty things. She told me that I’d be sorry if I tried to force you out. That she’d make me pay, just like she’d make the others pay. I slapped her hard across the face. And then, I don’t know, something just exploded inside her. She tore at me like a wild animal. I grabbed her by the hair and shoved her backwards. She fell against the wall and then down to the dirt floor. I told her to get up and get the hell out of my house. Now, I didn’t think I pushed her that hard, that I swear to you. But I must not have known my own strength because that’s when I saw the blood on her. It looked black in the dim light of the basement, and it smelled of old pennies as it dripped down from her hair into her face. She got up off the floor and spit at me.
“And so that’s when I told her the truth—the truth about who she really was.”
Rebecca held her head regally like she was the queen of this fallen castle. Her face slick with tears, her voice was calm, resigned as she asked firmly, “How could you have told her? That’s why she’s gone. Don’t you see? She hates me now. She’ll hate me forever!”
Maddie searched her mother’s tired face, almost afraid to hear what was coming next. Abigail turned to her and simply said, “Maddie, Cordelia’s not your cousin. She’s your half-sister.”
It was at that moment that Maddie finally understood the animosity between her mother and Rebecca. Her father had an affair with Rebecca. When she left town as a pregnant, unwed mother, everyone assumed that Simon LeClaire was the father. Simon had raised Cordelia as his daughter, even though he knew that she wasn’t biologically his own.
Cordelia and Maddie were sisters.
Maddie finally spoke. “Mom, where is Cordelia?”
Abigail shook her head. “I honestly don’t know. She left the house in a rage, screamed at me that we’d all pay for what we’ve done. I thought she was just playing a game—punishing us for everything that happened. I never reported it. I couldn’t. It would have—I just didn’t want—”
“You didn’t care about Cordelia, Mother. You just didn’t want anyone to know the truth,” Maddie said flatly. “And all this time, it was more important to keep up appearances than to help us find her. What kind of person are you? How can you be so cruel? How—how could you!?”
Abigail looked like she had been physically struck by her daughter’s words. She hung her head and started weeping. It was the first time Maddie ever remembered seeing her mother cry.
“All those nights that I escaped from here, from this prison, watching, waiting, listening, returning to Mariner’s Way, trying to discover who had taken Cordelia from me—I never dreamed it would have been you, Abigail,” Rebecca cried, bringing her hands to the sides of her head and shaking it as if she was trying to comprehend it all. “I thought it was those girls, so I left them a warning. I gave them each a stone. Then, I thought it was a boy, so I stole her love letters to try to learn the truth. I even wrote in Maddie’s journal, trying to scare her into coming clean about what happened to Cordelia. But nothing worked. All of those nights, all of that wasted energy, all of my carefully planned escapes, all of it, only to discover it was you all along, Abigail.” She looked at her sister incredulously. “I know you hated me for what happened with Malcolm, but I never thought that you’d punish me by taking away the only thing I have in this world to live for. That you would make Cordelia leave me forever!”
All of the questions that had plagued Maddie for months—the red-haired girl in the basement, the missing letters, the rune stones, the scribbling in the journals—all of it could be explained with one word: Rebecca.
When Rebecca finally stood, she was trembling, her body was drenched from rain, sweat, tears. Maddie could see the pale skin of her arms glistening. She reached her arms out toward them, palms out, fingers pointed to the ground. In front of her lay a shard of glass that had come from one of the broken windows. At that moment, Maddie noticed it was stained with blood.
Grabbing the flashlight from Finn’s hands, Maddie pointed it directly at Rebecca, who recoiled from the bright light. At this point, they all noticed for the first time that Rebecca was not drenched from the rainstorm—her veins were split open from wrist to elbow, and her body was covered in blood. The entire time Abigail had been telling her story, life was slowly draining from Rebecca’s body.
Abigail sprung across the room and grabbed her sister. Tearing the scarf from her neck, Abigail made a feeble attempt to stop the flow of blood.
“Call an ambulance!” Abigail shrieked. “Do something!” Rebecca tried to pull away from her; the women struggled back and forth. Through Maddie’s tears and in the shadowy room, it almost looked like they were dancing.
Finn ran over to Rebecca, pulling off his belt, and used it as a tourniquet on one of her arms. He ripped the scarf from Abigail’s hands and pulled it tight around the other arm. He spoke in a calm voice. “Hold on, Rebecca. It doesn’t have to end like this. You’ve got to look at me. Do it for Cordelia. If she’s still out there, she’s gonna need her mother. You gotta hold on for me, okay?”
Abigail was sobbing and cradling her sister’s head as Rebecca seemed to drift away. It occurred to Maddie then, in a moment of morbid absurdity, that it was the first time she had ever seen them embrace.
In the distance, the sirens of police cruisers grew louder. Tires crunched up the gravel path to Ravenswood. Hopefully, it wasn’t too late. If they got Rebecca to the hospital quickly, she could be taken care of. Everything could be taken care of, Maddie was sure of it.
Minutes later, Sully stepped through the door with his gun drawn. “Alright, everyone stay right where you are. Jesus H. Christ, what the hel
l is going on in here? Is everyone okay? Someone had better start talking right now.”
Maddie said in loud, panting sobs, “My aunt Rebecca…she…she…You have to help her. She needs an ambulance.”
Maddie looked over at Finn for help, dizzy with confusion. When he stood up, he was covered in blood.
“Finnegan O’Malley, you have the right to remain silent,” Garrett Sullivan barked as he wrenched Finn’s arms behind his back. “I knew I should have listened to Kate Endicott when she told me you were nothin’ but trouble. First, you go after the daughter, now the mother. I shoulda put you away when I had the chance.”
“Sully, no!” Maddie screamed. “He’s trying to help us. He’s saving my aunt. She…she did this to herself. We need to get her to a hospital now!” Sully reluctantly released his grasp on Finn.
Just then, a team of men entered the room: EMTs, firemen, and policemen. After they removed Rebecca from the room, Finn filled the authorities in on the details.
Maddie went to her mother, who was slumped on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. She put her arms around her and helped her to her feet.
“My sister…please…I didn’t mean to—don’t let anything happen to her. She’s my sister,” she cried to the EMTs as they placed warm blankets around both her and Maddie’s shoulders.
Emotions surged through Maddie’s body—at one moment, nausea, and the next, crippling sadness. She walked over to the shattered window, gripping the blanket tightly around her, shaking more from the events that had just taken place than the chill of the night. Headlights swirled below her, creating a sense of vertigo. Maddie braced herself against the rotting sill to keep from falling. Then Finn was at her side, his warm hand on the small of her back. His touch felt familiar somehow. Right. He whispered something about the EMTs taking her mother outside to make sure that she was okay. Maddie nodded, finding it difficult to absorb what had just occurred, still focusing on the mosaic of lights below her.
Maddie stayed at the window a few moments more, and behind all of the swarms of activity, the flashing lights, the sirens, the commotion, and the sea of uniforms, she saw movement in the shadows. There in the blue, white, and red flashes of emergency lights, Maddie thought she saw the twirl of a skirt and then a glimpse of long red hair. Perhaps it was the flashing lights reflected off the raindrops, playing tricks on her eyes, but as she watched, she was sure she saw Cordelia and Rebecca, mother and daughter, reunited, dancing. And then just as suddenly as they had appeared, their images disappeared into the shivering trees.
Maddie smiled.
Chapter 29
INGUZ
EARTH-POTENTIAL
A Time When All Loose Strings Are Tied; Freedom
to Move in New Direction
JUNE
“Everything comes full circle. Life is lived in a series of cycles,” Tess once told Maddie when she was a little girl, curled up like a cat on Tess’s large quilted bed. Now those words rang loudly in her ears, as Maddie realized that through all of her running around Hawthorne, fighting with her mother, looking into Cordelia’s disappearance, spending time with Reed, Tess had been slipping away from them all. The morning after that horrible night in Ravenswood, Maddie shuffled into the kitchen, still in a fog of sleep, and saw fresh grief streaked across her mother’s face. Though not a word passed between them, Maddie knew that the worst had happened: Tess was finally granted her life’s wish—to leave Hawthorne forever. While Rebecca began her recovery, Tess had passed away.
When the will was read, Tess had left money for Maddie to go away to school. It was her dying wish for Maddie to leave Hawthorne and start a new cycle far from this town. How could she possibly object? Besides, leaving this town and going away to boarding school would give her the time and space to deal with everything she’d been through over the past year. It would give her a chance to heal.
It was a pale, unseasonably cool day in early June that Tess Martin was put into the earth, laid to rest for all eternity.
Maddie stood at the gravesite, welcoming words of support and acknowledging the kindness of people who had come to pay their respects. She tightly clasped her mother’s hand, giving her support and deriving her own comfort from her steady presence.
Maddie tried to be cordial as Kate and the rest of the Sisters of Misery pressed their cool cheeks to hers, all showing the appropriate amount of sorrow.
She accepted their condolences, for what else could one do at a time like this? But in her heart, she was unwilling to forgive them for their part in Cordelia’s final days in Hawthorne. They may not have been directly involved with Cordelia’s disappearance, but in her mind, they were still guilty. Cordelia and Rebecca’s blood was on their hands. What they did to Cordelia may not have ended her life, but it did, in fact, set in motion a chain of events that destroyed the bond between mother and daughter, between sister and sister.
She was my sister.
Kate pressed her lips to Maddie’s cheek and whispered, “If there’s anything…”
Maddie nodded. Kate hesitated for a moment and looked into her eyes, searching for something.
“Maddie,” she said as she leaned in closely, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her mouth like a cat watching a mouse squirm right before it pounced. “Maybe you can’t remember that night because you don’t want to. But I remember.” She looked over her shoulder at the girls. “We all do. So you can run off to boarding school and try to start over, put this all behind you. But deep down, you know that you’re a part of us—a part of Hawthorne and the Sisters of Misery. You always will be. The choice is up to you, Crane. Do what thou wilt.”
Maddie resisted the urge to slap Kate across the face. “Do what thou wilt, Kate? Have you decided to lead the Sisterhood into black magic?”
Kate held Maddie’s gaze for a long time. She reached up and brushed a strand of Maddie’s hair back from her forehead, eyeing the spot where Maddie had been struck by the rock. Maddie knew instantly that Kate was the one who had struck her that night out on Misery Island “Fine, Maddie. Run away, run away from all of us. Just like your…”—she leaned in closely and hissed the last word into Maddie’s ear—“sister.”
Maddie’s eyes went wide with shock. How does she know?
Kate gave a saccharine smile and said smugly, “What can I say, Maddie? Payback’s a witch.”
With that, Kate turned and joined the rest of the girls. Maddie hated that even after everything that had happened, Kate was still able to get under her skin and ultimately, get the last word. Did Kate really know that Maddie and Cordelia were sisters? Or was she referring to Cordelia finally being initiated into the Sisters of Misery? It was just one more piece of the puzzle that Maddie didn’t have the strength or desire to put together.
Looking around at the memorial service, Maddie understood why Abigail hadn’t wanted to get the police involved. Their family saga became the big news of the moment. There were people present at the memorial services who Maddie had never seen before—people more curious about the rumors of the tragedy that had occurred at The Witches’ Castle than concerned about Maddie’s family. It was sure to become part of the local lore: months after a teenager goes missing, the crazy mother of the missing girl slits her wrists in The Witches’ Castle just before the demolition of the asylum. The only witnesses were the sister, the niece, and one of the main suspects in her daughter’s disappearance. Meanwhile, the grandmother dies alone at home.
It had all the makings of one of the many legends of Hawthorne. Was it a crime of passion? Did Rebecca try to kill herself out of guilt? Was she responsible for her daughter’s disappearance? Was Cordelia a runaway or a murder victim? All were good questions—great questions, in fact. Questions that would probably remain unsolved.
Both Reed and Finn attended the service. Maddie stole a glance at them during the service, such a contrast to each other. Blondhaired Reed, with his sexy stubble and broad shoulders, appeared rattled and sleep-deprived. And then there was Finn, dar
k-haired, handsome, troubled. His hands clasped respectfully in front of his crisp suit, his face unreadable, eyes downcast. She was bonded to both of them by a force greater than she ever could have imagined.
“Maddie,” said Reed as he finally made his way over to her. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine, Reed,” she said in a clipped tone.
“I don’t—I can’t really think of anything to say, except that I’m sorry. I’m so incredibly sorry for your loss,” he said softly. Despite the moment they’d shared on the boat, Maddie didn’t feel the same warmth and affection she’d felt—or imagined she’d felt—for him a few weeks ago. His feelings for her had never been real—they’d been a favor to the Sisters of Misery.
“I’m sorry for yours as well,” Maddie said coldly.
“I don’t…wait, what are you talking about?” Reed asked hesitantly, the pupils of his deep blue eyes grew slightly wider.
“Your loss. Your baby,” Maddie snapped. “The one you fathered with Cordelia. The one you gave her money to get rid of. Or maybe you just gave her the cash to disappear so she wouldn’t cause you any more embarrassment than she already had. I’m sorry for that, Reed. Oh, and I’m sorry that you failed to do your job and keep me occupied so that I wouldn’t find out what happened to my cousin. I’m sorry about so many things, Reed, that I can’t decide which one I’m most sorry about.”
“N-No, no, you don’t—you don’t understand…”
“No, Reed, you don’t understand,” Maddie continued. “I put my trust in you. Cordelia put her trust in you. I don’t understand how you could take advantage of my cousin like that and then turn around and lie to me about it.”
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