“I transferred to Stanton Prep in Maine,” Maddie stated, not willing to go into further explanation.
“Really? They have a crap field hockey team. Are you on it?”
Reed interrupted. “Bronwyn, cut it out.” Maddie couldn’t understand what he saw in her. Granted, she was a beautiful, blond athlete who came from tons of money, and this house was a major step up from the boat he used to live in, but that didn’t cancel the fact that she was a straight-out bitch. Kate Endicott had always despised her, but it was most likely because they were too similar to like each other. But now that she had more money and a higher social status than Kate, it must be an all-out war, Maddie mused.
Bronwyn continued the interrogation. “So, if you’re at Stanton now, why are you back here? Don’t they have winter sessions, college-readiness programs, internships?”
“My mom kind of needs me,” Maddie said softly. She turned to Reed. “My mom is pretty sick with cancer and she needs help with the house and with my aunt. Now that Tess is gone, she’s all alone in that big Victorian. She could use the company.”
“Well, aren’t you a doll for taking care of your family like that?” Bronwyn said disingenuously. Then she looked at Reed and her mood suddenly shifted. It was obvious that she had more important things on her agenda to worry about than her former field hockey player and her sick mother. “Speaking of family, we are having dinner with my family tonight at the club and we’ve really got to get going.” She patted Reed’s knee and spun around heading toward the stairs.
Halfway up the stairs she called down to them, “It was good seeing you again, Melissa. Give our condolences to your family.”
Reed waved her off as she rushed up the stairs, as if telling Maddie to pay no mind to his new girlfriend’s insensitivity.
“I see we’re moving on to bigger and better things,” Maddie joked.
“You’re hilarious,” Reed said, giving the trademark grin that she remembered so well. Without Bronwyn around, Reed and Maddie fell back into their old comfortable ways. It was as if they just picked up where they had left off so many months ago.
“Seriously, Reed,” Maddie said in a hushed tone. “What’s with the Stepford Wife in training?”
Reed sighed and looked into Maddie’s eyes for a long time. “This is a small town where everyone wants to get into everyone else’s business. And since the only interesting girls I know are under my age limit, it was suggested by my family and Bronwyn’s that we start seeing each other.” He seemed pained to talk about the arrangement.
“What?” Maddie laughed. “Are you in an arranged marriage or something? Is this the eighteen hundreds? Did I escape a time warp when I crossed the town lines?”
“Ha, ha,” Reed said in a tone that was not amused. “Listen, you get to go out and live your life and date whomever you want. I’m stuck in this town if I want to have access to my trust—”
“And let’s not forget about your new girlfriend’s bust—I mean trust,” Maddie joked.
Reed rolled his eyes. They both were fully aware that the merging of the Campbell and the Maxwell families was something that was desired for many years. Relationships seemed to be more of a corporate merging than anything else in Hawthorne. Even Kate Endicott and Trevor Campbell’s arrangement was more of a relationship of convenience and assets than of true love. It was the Hawthorne way.
“Besides, I hear you’ve taken up with a Fortune 500 brat,” he said. “Aren’t you dating a billionaire’s son? The Richard Branson of the U.S.?”
“Luke is a friend. My best friend. He’s helped me through a lot over the past few months. He’s been my rock. But really, we’re only friends.”
“Friends with benefits?” Reed said with a gleam in his eye.
“Ew, excuse me, Professor. Isn’t that a little inappropriate for you to ask me?” Maddie said, laughing. She could put up with his taunts because there was nothing lecherous about him. If anything, he was the one to put the brakes on anything ever happening between them before she left Hawthorne. And now that she was seventeen, the age difference seemed to melt even further away. Besides, what did age matter when the feelings you had for someone were so strong?
Plus, their innocent flirtations began way after he was let go from Hawthorne Academy because of his alleged involvement with Cordelia—something to this day Maddie still refused to accept. He definitely helped Cordelia out of a hard place, either by guilt over what Trevor did to her, or by an honest caring and concern for her. Both reasons were enough to satisfy Maddie, allowing her to realize that his intentions came from a good place.
“Crane, you know I’m just joking around with you,” he said as a cloud seemed to sift across his perfectly chiseled features. “I just want to make sure that you’re happy and that you’re being treated right. After everything you’ve been through, you of all people deserve to be happy.”
“Me and Cordelia deserve to be happy.”
He leaned forward conspiratorially and asked in a hushed tone, “Have you heard anything from her? Has she tried to make any contact? With you or her mother?”
Maddie shook her head. She didn’t want to go into the fact that she felt like she was communicating with Cordelia through her dreams. How could she explain that to him without setting off all sorts of red flags that she was just as loony as her aunt and needed to join her at Fairview Hospital?
“But—” She stopped herself, unsure how much she should confide in him.
“But?” he asked, his voice going up an octave.
Maddie weighed whether or not she should clue Reed in to the delivery she had received prior to returning to Hawthorne and the letter that mentioned that Cordelia was back and looking for her. “Did you ever send me a letter at school?”
“Me? Write a letter? I’m a recovering English teacher. The closest I come to writing is e-mail and texting. If it doesn’t come with spell-check, I’m not doing it.”
“It’s just that I got this letter up at school and I thought…” Maddie said, her voice trailing off. It must have been Finn who sent the note about Cordelia being back and coming for her. But why hadn’t he mentioned it earlier? Maddie shook her head and gave up trying to ignore the stomping around upstairs by Bronwyn. She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Sounds like your warden is giving you the sign that it’s time to wrap things up.”
“She can wait a little longer. God knows how long I have to wait for her when we go on our shopping excursions. Or her new kick, going to libraries and doing genealogy and family trees.”
Maddie rolled her eyes and fought back a laugh.
“Seriously, though,” Reed continued, “what did you get in the mail up at school?” He sounded a little edgy, concerned even.
Maddie started slowly, giving herself ample opportunity to amend her statements accordingly, just in case it was a member of her own family—namely Rebecca—who was sending out the threatening notes and cards.
“Well, when I first got up to school, my mother wrote to me about the whole Endicott Hotel debacle and how Finn and the historical society put a halt to tearing down Ravenswood.”
“Yeah, your friend Finn isn’t at a loss for enemies in this town. People are losing millions, especially the Endicotts. Their investors are dropping like flies. You might want to warn your friend to watch his back.”
“I think he’s pretty much used to that by now. He went through the same interrogation and suspicion when Cordelia first went missing.”
Reed no
dded. “Guess that makes us kindred souls or blood brothers, right?”
“In this town, it’s more like prisoners of war,” Maddie said. “The letter was strange, but then I got something else that was even stranger.”
“What was it?” Reed asked, leaning forward and listening intently, almost too intently.
Could Reed have been the one to send her the ominous note that warned, CORDELIA IS BACK AND SHE’S COMING FOR YOU ? Was he the one who sent the tarot card? “I got a note that said that Cordelia was coming for me…and then I got a card. A weird one.” Maddie spoke hesitantly. The sounds from upstairs had quieted and she wondered if Bronwyn was eavesdropping on their conversation from the top of the stairs.
“What kind of card? Was it one of those fortune tarot cards?” His interest seemed unusually piqued.
Maddie nodded.
At that moment, Reed walked over to the oak rolltop desk (a beautiful antique that obviously belonged to Bronwyn) and slid an envelope from behind a stack of papers and brought it over to Maddie.
The envelope was addressed to Bronwyn, but from the furtive glance Reed threw at the staircase, Maddie assumed that Bronwyn had never laid eyes on the note.
Without saying a word, Reed handed the envelope to Maddie with shaking hands. Inexplicably, a whisper echoed in Maddie’s ear.
Run, Maddie! She could feel the cool breath on her neck and ear and visibly winced. She crossed her arms over her chest and glanced around the room; there weren’t any open windows.
Damn nerves, Maddie thought furiously; she’d been spooked as she turned every corner once she set foot back in Hawthorne.
Willing her hands not to shake, Maddie opened the envelope, knowing all too well what rested inside. A tarot card. It was the Hanged Man. Maddie tried to remember the meaning of the card. She had received the Death card when she was up at school. While the Death card seemed ominous, after some research she soon learned that it also meant new beginnings and a closure on the past. Moving forward was something that she wanted to do more than anything, so she chose to focus on the positive aspects of the card as opposed to the negative.
But the Hanged Man was a different story. There were a few different ways to read the card, but none of them was very promising.
Without raising her eyes from the card, Maddie asked solemnly, “When did she receive this?”
Reed leaned closer to her. “Not that long ago, maybe a few weeks before you came back to town. You got one, too, didn’t you?”
Maddie nodded as she felt a familiar flutter in her stomach, though she tried to ignore it. He was so close to her now, their knees were touching each other. It was hard to concentrate on the severity of the situation. How many nights had she dreamt about Reed Campbell? How many nights had she lain awake wondering if he was thinking about her? Once Luke came into the picture, it was easy to lock her feelings for Reed in a little box in her heart. But now it felt like the lock had sprung open and her feelings for him were swirling through her body. But did it really matter? He obviously wasn’t going to wait for her as she’d always hoped.
So it was no surprise that Bronwyn had been the target of the tarot card sender. Maddie wondered if Kate was sending the cards just to stir up trouble in town.
“Do you know what it means?” Reed asked hopefully.
“It’s not good,” Maddie said, and then quickly added, “But I’m sure it’s just some stupid joke. Someone with a flair for the dramatic.”
He looked at her straight in the eye. “Do you—?”
“Do I think it’s Cordelia? No. Cordelia barely even knew Bronwyn. She’d have no reason to try to scare her.”
“But…” Reed hesitated. “What if it wasn’t meant to scare her?”
“What else could it be?” She could feel her stomach drop even before he said the words that she knew were coming.
“A warning,” Reed said flatly. “Maybe Cordelia is warning you both to watch your backs.”
“But how would she know?” Maddie asked dumbly, understanding all too well how Cordelia might know. How was Cordelia privy to half of the things she knew? Had Cordelia told Reed about the family gift that Tess had told them about last year, before her passing? Or did Reed see it as a threat and not a warning against outside influences? Did he think that Cordelia was out to get them? That she was planning revenge?
“Cordelia is more in tune to what’s going around than anyone I’ve ever known,” Reed said in a serious tone.
That’s the understatement of the year , Maddie mused as she fought the familiar jealousy that she’d felt last year. The feeling that there was something very special between Reed and Cordelia. Something that she could never come close to. Something that even Bronwyn couldn’t replace.
Reed gave her a sidelong glance. They were both aware that when it came to Cordelia, no explanations were necessary. No explanations could even begin to tell the story of Maddie’s magical, ethereal cousin.
Maddie treated her question as if it were rhetorical. “So where does that leave us?”
Reed sighed, brushing his hand through his dirty-blond hair. “We need to find out who sent these cards and what they mean. And I have a feeling that we need to do it fast.”
“What, are you psychic now, too?” Maddie attempted a lighthearted tone. But she realized they were way past that.
“No, I’ve just gotten used to the feeling of when I’m being backed into a corner,” he said, and then he added, “And also that awful feeling that something bad is about to happen to the people I care about. Something real bad.”
Chapter 12
THE LOVERS
Often is interpreted as representing new or rekindled relationships; however, a deeper level suggests that difficult, personal choices must be made—there are usually many options to select from. Tune in to your inner wisdom: the correct choice will soon make itself known.
“I don’t care what you say, Maddie, this is something that I want to do. I’ve been putting off my chemotherapy specifically for this occasion. And if you don’t want to go, I’ll just have to go out there myself. The fresh air will do me good tonight,” Abigail said. “Plus, I’d like everyone in town to see that I’m fighting this cancer and I’m going to beat it.”
Maddie wanted to say that the fresh sea air was just as accessible from the mainland as it was out on Misery Island—and probably wasn’t as freezing—but she didn’t want to get into a fight. She had agreed to come home to take care of Abigail, and her mother had refused any chemotherapy treatments until after this event, so Maddie decided to make the best of it. It would be one bright spot for her mother in what would be several coming months of pain and anguish.
Despite the fact that it was one of the coldest Decembers in recent history, the Endicotts were paying to have a huge, heated tent erected on the island. It was going to be a gala affair, right in the middle of the frosty, wintry coastal winds. It was truly the last place on earth that Maddie wanted to go. But she knew that it would raise Abigail’s spirits, so she resigned herself to go.
Plus, it would be a good opportunity to talk with the Sisters of Misery—get them all in the same place, trapped on an island with nowhere to go.
The last time they were all out there together was with Cordelia, Maddie thought painfully. Perhaps the island event would trigger m
ore memories, she mused. Or more nightmares.
The gala on Misery Island was the event of the year. Kate and Kiki Endicott made sure of that. They knew that if the right people from the wealthy North Shore—as well as Boston’s elite—were present, it would be covered by all the local newspapers and magazines. What Kiki hadn’t counted on was the appearance of Maddie Crane and her mother. Suddenly waves of whisperings rippled through the elegant affair. Just the sight of them brought up ugly memories of Ravenswood. It was hardly the type of attention that Kiki and Kate wanted. Instead of piquing the interest of the wealthy elite of Boston to invest in the Endicott, rumors swirled about the tragic events that took place at Ravenswood. Hardly an investor’s dream come true.
“Did you hear about the bloody night at Ravenswood? I heard Abigail tried to kill her own sister!”
“Did that Rebecca LeClaire die? Isn’t she still locked up at Fairview?”
“I heard that Cordelia’s ghost haunts Ravenswood. Just what we need, another witch putting a curse on the town.”
The rumors and whispers rippled through the party. To Kiki Endicott’s horror, the reporters seemed more interested in rehashing the night at Ravenswood than the party they were attending.
Kate had a feeling that this would be her first run-in with Maddie since she left for Stanton; she just didn’t realize she’d be upstaged by her former friend and the dark memories that clung to her like her basic black Ann Taylor dress. It wasn’t even original; Darcy was wearing the same exact dress. Kate’s long, pale blue Roberto Cavalli shift, which was meant to bring out the blue in her eyes, seemed to be the cloak of invisibility.
Kate looked at Darcy and made a face. Darcy turned red and slunk away from the crowd.
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