The Lost Sister. Megan Kelley Hall

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      As Madeline Crane walked through the town upon her return, every new face, every car seemed unfamiliar and ominous. The trees that lined the historic streets clumped together and stretched upward in a wiry, tangled mass. Like the witches in Grimms’ fairy tales, they pointed their bony fingers in an accusatory manner at those who passed by. The clouds in the sky were a vast, pillowy assortment of grays and foamy whites, hovering above the town preparing for its hibernation during the long cold winter months ahead. A sense of despair and loneliness echoed inside everyone in the town of Hawthorne. Spring couldn’t come soon enough to chase away the dreariness that would soon settle over the townspeople throughout the coldest season.

      Maddie once again was reminded of the constant ache and edginess that comes with the disappearance of a loved one, keeping her uneasy and depressed. It was in the low, soulful caw of the crows, the desperation in the call of the swallows. She and her beloved aunt Rebecca always held out hope, even in the face of all the doubts and nightmarish images that threatened to plunge them into all-encompassing despair.

      After everything that had happened, it seemed impossible to Madeline how the world kept moving on, indifferent as air. Cars sped down the one-way streets, trucks grumbled by, joggers continued along their morning route. It was as if Cordelia LeClaire never existed. She was just one of the many stories that linger around old fireplaces and curl into children’s nightmares.

       Don’t run away or you’ll go missing like that Cordelia LeClaire….

      It seemed obvious to Maddie now that Cordelia and Rebecca never would have been accepted into Hawthorne society, or any of the other wealthy North Shore communities. The girls of Hawthorne were similar to the rest of the adults in town: very judgmental and not inclined to welcome anything or anyone different. It was as though the water from the local wells had poisoned their minds, perhaps in the same way it had affected their strict puritanical ancestors.

      As Maddie walked past the town post office, she noticed a familiar face grinning at her. The picture was dirty and curled at the edges, but she remembered blanketing the town with those flyers right after Cordelia’s disappearance. She and Rebecca had worked tirelessly stapling them to every phone pole, bulletin board, and wall in town. Most of them were probably long gone by now. That was before Rebecca’s breakdown—perhaps she, too, was now long gone, lost in her own mind. Her attempted suicide that night at Ravenswood had been the final straw—cementing the fact that Rebecca would never be the same, at least until Cordelia’s return. Even then, Maddie wasn’t so sure she’d ever fully recover.

      Madeline always wondered about the photos that were used in “Missing” flyers. The eyes of the victims were always so innocent and unknowing. Even before Cordelia had come and gone from her life, Madeline would search the eyes of the missing children on posters and flyers. She’d look at the yellowing, curled pieces of paper tacked up on the walls of the post office or the local convenience store and try to see if there was any hint of what was to come in their lives.

      Did they know in that shutter speed of a second that this would be the photo used to tell hundreds and thousands of people that they had disappeared? That this was what they looked like in a happy, unknowing point in their lifetime, and that if anyone should ever come across this face in an altered form—a bloated, waterlogged version after a drowning, or a cold blue version on a morgue slab—then they would at least know what beauty was once there?

      Madeline walked through the town and finally came to her home on Mariner’s Lane. She sadly looked up into Tess’s window, still half expecting to see her grandmother’s crinkled face watching for her return. The house hadn’t changed much since Madeline left it behind. The stark Victorian sat high up on the hill, aloof and untouched by its surroundings. Only now it lacked the sense of welcoming that it had when Tess was alive, the lack of excitement that buzzed through the weathered clapboards when Rebecca and Cordelia breathed life into the house that now was an empty shell.

      Aunt Rebecca’s store, vacant for over a year now, still sat across the street from the old Victorian where she grew up. The sign, REBECCA’S CLOSET , hung from the wrought-iron hanger. The windows and doors were boarded up. The word WITCH was scrawled in large sloping letters across the rotting boards. No one wanted to rent it since Cordelia disappeared, and Rebecca went crazy and got locked away like a witch from an old fairy tale.

      Maddie pushed the heavy door open.

      “Mom?” Maddie called into the dark Victorian. She was met with a chilly burst of air. Old houses near the ocean always held on to some of the coolness of the salty nights, but their house always seemed unnaturally cool. Tess once told her that cold spots were a sign of spirits, and Maddie was sure that Tess was still lingering around the house, bustling about and watching over Abigail. Not even death would stop Tess from watching out for all of them. Maddie could almost hear a faint chuckle as she called again to her mother. “Anyone home?” Typically, Tess would be the first one to greet her at the door, and it kind of felt like she had.

      It wasn’t clear who was more surprised at seeing the other. Maddie tried to take in her mother’s frail appearance, shocked at how the cancer had visibly taken its toll on her. Abigail had never been large, but now she was barely a wisp of a woman. Somewhere deep inside Maddie came the urge to instinctively care for her mother, to wrap her arms around her and take away any pain. Her eyes filled with tears until her mother’s razor-sharp tone snapped Maddie back into reality.

      “Don’t they feed you at Stanton? You’re all skin and bones!” her mother said with a judgmental tone. “And that hair? Were you ever planning on getting it cut or are you going to let it grow down to your knees?”

      Maddie self-consciously tucked her mid-back-length hair behind her ear and steeled herself for the onslaught of criticisms. That brief moment of closeness they had shared after the night at Ravenswood and before she left Hawthorne seemed never to have happened. Her mother was back to her old bossy, scrutinizing ways—no matter what the sickness was that currently plagued her. Any hint of softness and camaraderie was now long gone.

      Abigail barely recognized her own daughter as well. How could such a short time away from Hawthorne have changed her so much? She wondered if the transition had been taking place before Maddie transferred to the new boarding school. Who is this confident, stubborn young woman? Where is the shy, quivering mouse of a daughter who took off months ago? Abigail wondered. Maddie appeared to have shot up overnight. She seemed taller, but perhaps that was just because she stood straighter and with more confidence. She had a defiance in her eyes that shook Abigail to the bone.

      This new version of her daughter seemed very different from the one who took off last June. The girl who could be startled and thoroughly shaken by the most common of occurrences: the tickle of a spider, the wail of a loon at dawn, the flutter of a bat or bird overhead. She was a girl who always looked over her shoulder, but now it seemed that she looked at life with her chin thrust forward, as if daring you to take one step closer, tempting fate to throw one more hurdle in her path. She had become more like…her. Like Cordelia. And that worried Abigail more than anything else.

      “So, СКАЧАТЬ