The Lost Sister

by Megan Kelley Hall

“Anything,” he said firmly. He loved having the opportunity to be the knight in shining armor.

  “Try to find Cordelia,” she said quickly. It was like pulling off a Band-Aid. The faster she said it, the less it would sting.

  “Maddie,” he said, his voice thick with disappointment. “We’ve been over this before. Some people don’t want to be found. You can’t blame yourself forever about something you had no control over. Cordelia can’t be found.”

  “This isn’t about me making things right with Cordelia,” she insisted. “This is about saving two people’s lives. Two guys that I care about very much that are going to go down for a crime they didn’t commit!”

  But it was more than that. It was hard for her to explain to Luke her motivation for finding Cordelia. She was like the missing puzzle piece, the lost key, the only one who could help her make sense of these dreams that made her feel like she was going crazy. Maddie needed Cordelia to be there for Rebecca, who was utterly falling apart. And she needed support while she helped her mother in her fight against the cancer that was ravaging her body. Now that Darcy had been killed, it felt like anything was possible. And since Tess was gone, Cordelia was the only other person who could offer Maddie sage advice.

  “Two guys you care about? Whoa, Crane, slow down. Didn’t realize that reconnecting with old boyfriends was part of your agenda in Hawthorne.”

  Maddie could hear a little concern—even jealousy—in his voice.

  “They’re friends, Luke. Just friends,” she reassured him. “But they were both suspects in Cordelia’s disappearance and now with Darcy—well, let’s just say that all eyes are back on them. So if you could turn your underground network of informants onto this case, maybe we could convince Cordelia to come back and clear their names.”

  He chuckled at the thought of him having a network of minions at his fingertips. “Well, I could make a few calls, pull some strings, call in a few favors…” he said slowly, thinking it through. “But the question really isn’t finding Cordelia, is it? It’s convincing her to go back to Hawthorne. From what you’ve told me about her, that’s no easy task.”

  “She’ll come,” Maddie said firmly. “If she knew what was happening with Reed, with Finn, even with Rebecca, she’d come back to make things right.”

  Maddie wasn’t really sure she believed this, but there was no other way for her to fix what was happening.

  “Unless…” Luke paused. “Unless she’s already back and responsible for some of the things that have happened.”

  The thought hit her like a punch in the stomach.

  Cordelia already back? She’d never even considered it. What if Cordelia had been here all along? What if she was responsible for Darcy’s death? What if it was her form of retribution? What if that unshakeable feeling of being watched wasn’t all in her head?

  “That’s ridiculous,” Maddie said, trying to reassure herself as much as she was trying to reassure Luke. “Now, I don’t need you planting creepy things in my head. I’m dealing with enough as it is. Just do your job and track my cou—sister down, okay?”

  “Aye-aye, Captain Crane,” he said brightly.

  Maddie could imagine the sparkle in his eyes, the way his eyes crinkled at the edges when he laughed, the sun shining down on his tousled dirty-blond hair, but she quickly shook the thought away. She wasn’t going to let herself go down that path right now. For all she knew, he had been with at least a dozen wannabe models and rich girls who were smitten by Luke’s boyish charms and his daddy’s wallet. But then again, she hadn’t exactly been devoted to Luke, she thought as she recalled her passionate kiss with Reed out on Misery Island.

  “And, Maddie,” he said softly. “Be careful. Please. I couldn’t live with myself if anything ever happened to you.”

  “I will,” she said.

  “You know I love ya,” he said cheerfully, kind of the way a buddy says it. Not the way a girl wants to hear it from the boy she’s secretly been in love with.

  “Yup,” she said quietly.

  “No, really, I do,” he said sincerely. “I think about you all the time.”

  There was a long silence between them. Maddie didn’t know what to say.

  “Uh, hello? You still there?” he said nervously.

  “I’m here, Luke,” she said. “I’m always here for you.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief over the phone. “Good, let’s keep it that way. Listen, I have to go. I have this very important top-secret mission I need to set into action, so I need to put the call out to all my agents. We’re tracking a missing girl—a runaway.”

  Maddie smiled. “Yes, you should go do that. Go put those people to work. And get back to me with your results ASAP.”

  “Copy that,” he said military-style.

  “I miss you, Luke,” Maddie said just before she hung up the phone.

  “I’ll see you soon.”

  As she hung up the phone, a pang of regret came across her. She knew that he had a lot of connections and that finding Cordelia shouldn’t be that hard for him. But at the same time she wondered if it was right to involve him in this—involve the guy she cared about most in the world in the craziness of Hawthorne and of her own life. She felt like she was leading cattle to slaughter. Dragging him down with her wasn’t going to make things better. At least if he kept a good distance from Hawthorne, then everything would be okay.

  But she knew Luke. If he sensed she was in trouble, he really would be there in an instant. And then she’d never forgive herself if anything ever happened to him. She knew what Hawthorne was like to outsiders. Look at what they did to Cordelia. And now, it seemed with Darcy’s murder, they were turning on themselves.

  Chapter 16

  EIGHT OF SWORDS

  Blinded and stuck in the prison of your own making. Restrictions and limitations. Hard work reaping little reward, frustration, despair, depression. Effort being exercised in the wrong place. Moving away from a problem rather than finding the solution to it.

  I ’m sitting in the store laughing and talking with Rebecca. The smell of cinnamon and apple cider fills the small space within the brick walls of the store. I have an overwhelming sense to reach out and hug Rebecca, nestle my face into her long red hair, almost like she is my real mother.

  We are talking for what seems like hours about all of the places Rebecca has lived, the tiny villages along the French countryside, the villas in Spain, the vineyards of Italy. The joy is dizzying as we sit across from each other, our fingers nimbly creating floral works of art, raveling and unraveling tendrils of ivy and vinca, all the time laughing about the strange characters in Rebecca’s endless stories. The Gypsy woman on the bleached sands of the Côte d’Azur, who showed her how to seek fortunes from rune stones and tea leaves. The milliner on Prince Edward Island, who taught Rebecca and Cordelia about the mysterious allure of textures and fabrics; how they could create a language, an entire story, by piecing together sumptuous textiles. All of these people and places seemed oddly real, as if I’d seen them myself.

  But that was impossible! I wonder where Cordelia is and whether this is a glimpse into the future or a wish of what had occurred in the past.

  The front door swings open, allowing the frigid December wind to whip through the store.
The candles lit all around us flicker, almost going out and then magically relighting. I turn, expecting to see Cordelia, but I’m shocked to see the face looking back at me—someone I’ve never expected to come face-to-face with.

  It’s my own face peering back at me. Not a reflection from a mirror, not a hallucination. It is Maddie Crane. I look down and notice my long tendrils of red hair. I have become Cordelia!

  Maddie sat up in bed with a start, trying to catch her breath and figure out the meaning of this unusual dream. Thinking back to the way that Rebecca was acting toward her, she felt it was as if she really were Cordelia. Or at least witnessing life through Cordelia’s eyes. Maddie realized that this must be the psychic ability that Tess had told her she might have. The ability to look into the past through someone else’s eyes. To wander around in other people’s dreams and thoughts. It was so real, so accurate. She could feel, smell, hear everything from the store. And she even remembered that day of walking in and seeing Cordelia and Rebecca together. But she’d never witnessed it from Cordelia’s point of view, never witnessed that conversation. Could Cordelia be trying to tell her something? Was there something in that store that would lead Maddie to wherever Cordelia was now?

  If there ever was a time when she needed to find her cousin, it was definitely now. With Finn and Reed both in custody over Darcy’s murder, and with the charges that they had something to do with Cordelia’s disappearance, Maddie knew she had to track Cordelia down and make her come back to prove their innocence.

  The light of dawn had yet to creep across Hawthorne when Maddie was pulled from her dream. There was no way she could get back to sleep. She decided that any clues as to Cordelia’s whereabouts must be locked within their old store, Rebecca’s Closet. The place had been completely trashed by Rebecca prior to her hospitalization and the police had combed through the wreckage, but Maddie knew that something there would lead her to Cordelia.

  Maddie snuck out of the house, careful not to awaken Abigail in the early morning hours. She didn’t need to be hassled about where she was going. Not now.

  The plywood across the door came off easily. Maddie still had the key from when she used to work there after school and on weekends. Everything remained in shambles—just as they had found it right after Rebecca had destroyed the store.

  Rebecca’s voice still rang loudly in her ears, “You, you, you, you !” For a moment, Maddie could almost feel the tender touch of Tess as she led her out of the store last year. Tess . Maddie still hadn’t gotten over losing her beloved grandmother. It was times like these when she missed her most. Times when she could ask her grandmother what to do, what was going on with her strange dreams. Was she really coming into her psychic powers? She couldn’t talk to her mother about these things. Nor could she talk to Rebecca or Cordelia. She had to figure this out on her own. All alone.

  Maddie picked her way across the store. The once-gleaming hardwood floors were now covered in dirt and filth; a broken window had allowed animals in to nest in the store. There was trash piled high and broken pieces of glass strewn about. A rotting smell pervaded the small space and it was so strong it almost choked Maddie. She felt dizzy for a moment, reaching out to balance herself and avoid falling down onto the dirt-covered floor.

  A sudden flicker blinded Maddie for a moment, as if a flashlight were shone in her eyes. The place had a dreamlike quality to it, everything seemed hazy, but Maddie assumed that was because of all the dust and the bizarre actions she’d witnessed here a year ago, prior to Rebecca being committed. She could still hear the echoing blame in Rebecca’s voice as she screamed in utter torment. The light in the back of the store went from dark to a soft orangey glow. Dizzy from the change in her vision, Maddie stumbled backward, knocking over an apothecary jar.

  “Easy there.” The voice came from the back room. She inhaled quickly, stunned by the sound. “Don’t go destroying the place.”

  Rebecca!

  How is this possible? Maddie raced into the back room of the store only to find it in picture-perfect condition. Exactly the way it had been before Cordelia disappeared, before all of the craziness had taken over their lives.

  “Rebecca?” Maddie said in a strangled voice.

  “Ummm, I thought we agreed that you had to wait until you were at least eighteen to call me that,” Rebecca said, laughing and gathering Maddie into a hug.

  “We did?” Maddie looked around anxiously. What happened? She’d heard about those rips in time and space continuum, but they couldn’t possibly be real, could they?

  “Let’s just stick with ‘Mom’ for a few more months, okay? I know you’re all grown up now, being sixteen and all, but could you still pretend to be my little girl, for just a little while?”

  Rebecca had clearly lost her mind. But Maddie knew that already. The question was: how did she escape from Fairview? Was this going to be a repeat of that horrible scene at Ravenswood? And yet Rebecca seemed eerily calm—like the old Rebecca. The Rebecca before…

  “I—I—where? How?” Maddie muttered incoherently, still looking around the store, trying to figure out what was going on.

  “Your journal? Is that what you’re looking for? You keep moving it so that I can’t find it, not that I’d go looking in my daughter’s private diary. I know, I know. It’s not your real diary, just a journal to keep you busy while you’re bored in the store. I don’t blame you,” Rebecca said, laughing. Maddie ached when she heard that beautiful laugh. It had been so long since she’d heard it. It was like the tinkling of bells. “I get bored out of my mind when you and Maddie are in school and I have no one to talk to.”

  Maddie?

  Oh my God , Maddie thought. She thinks I’m Cordelia. She’s escaped from the hospital and returned to this store and cleaned it up like nothing ever happened. She’s just been here waiting for Cordelia to come home, as if Cordelia was just at school and hasn’t been missing for the past year.

  It was starting to make sense. Rebecca had just erased the past horrific months and had gone back to a happier time and place. A time when Cordelia was living in Hawthorne and they were one big happy family.

  Maddie knew from her experience at Ravenswood that she needed to be careful with Rebecca, especially in her current mental state. She shivered, not just because of the cold December air, but because of the state of mind—and dress—that Rebecca was in. Her hair was in disarray, her clothes stained, her face gaunt. She didn’t look as awful as she had that night in Ravenswood, but she definitely fit the description of a madwoman.

  “Yes, my journal. Where is it again?” Maddie asked slowly, as if speaking to a child.

  “Well, not that I was spying on you,” Rebecca teased. “But I think I saw you over by the loose bricks on the back wall.” She waited a beat. “Ahhh, you didn’t think I knew about the loose bricks, did you? A perfect hiding place, I must say. I came across it when I was trying to find a good spot to hide some cash when the safe was broken. But you and your beautiful leather journal had gotten there first. Don’t worry, I didn’t read it. I’m not a snoop like your aunt Abigail.”

  As Rebecca spoke, her eyes glazed over as if she were on some kind of drug, Maddie started to feel dizzy, like the world had been turned upside down.

  “Are you okay? Let me get you some honeysuckle ginger tea. Sit down, baby. Mama will take care of you,” Rebecca said as she turned and started toward the front of the store.

  “No!” Maddie called out. She knew that if Rebecca saw the condition of the front of the store, it would
snap her back into reality and cause her to break down again. Maddie couldn’t handle that by herself.

  Rebecca stopped abruptly in her tracks and turned. “Honey, I’ll be just a minute.”

  “You don’t want to go in there. It’s a mess. Just, just wait here while I pick it up,” Maddie said, trying to push past her aunt.

  “Now, don’t tell me that you’re becoming a clean freak like your aunt Abigail. Ugh!” Rebecca said as she continued into the front of the store.

  Maddie knew she needed to get out of there fast. As soon as Rebecca saw the front of the store, she’d lose her mind all over again and who knows what she was capable of doing?

  Maddie headed for the back door, but before she left, she noticed a loose brick in the wall. The journal!

  Maybe there was something written in there that would give Maddie a clue to where Cordelia had gone. The original journal she found in the house had given her some information last year, but nothing definitive. Maybe this one held the answers she desperately needed. Ripping the brick from the wall, Maddie reached in and grabbed hold of the leather-bound journal. She only had a few minutes before Rebecca discovered that she had been living in a dreamworld and would completely fly off the handle. Maddie was racing to the back door when a voice called out to her.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Rebecca stood at the entrance to the back room with a steaming mug of tea in her hand. She seemed completely oblivious of the state of disrepair that the front of the store was in. So oblivious, in fact, that she was able to make a cup of tea. How was that even possible? Maddie turned to the door and tried to pull on the handle, but it felt like it had been welded shut.

  “You’re not going anywhere, young lady, not when you’re feeling dizzy and I need someone to help out with the store.”

  With the journal in hand, Maddie knew she had to push past Rebecca and get out the front door. Once she was safely outside, she could call the police or the hospital and let them handle getting Rebecca back to Fairview.