The Lost Sister

by Megan Kelley Hall

Genres: YA Family

Synopsis

Sisters are born, not chosen. . .

Maddie Crane is grappling with the disappearance of Cordelia LeClaire, and trying to escape the grasp of The Sisters of Misery--an insidious clique of the school's most powerful girls, whose pranks have set off a chain of horrific events, and who have Maddie in their sights. . .

Beware the sister betrayed. . .

Now in a prestigious boarding school far away from her mysterious hometown of Hawthorne, Massachusetts, Maddie feels free from danger. But when an unmarked envelope arrives at her dorm containing a single ominous tarot card, Maddie realizes with terror that some secrets won't stay buried. Knowing she must return to Hawthorne--a town still scarred by the evil of the Salem witch trials--Maddie prepares to face the fears of her past. . .and the wrath of the sister she wronged.

Praise for Megan Kelley Hall and Sisters of Mercy

"An exciting, dangerous, and mysterious world! Megan Kelley Hall has crafted a story that'll keep you guessing until the last page." --Richelle Mead, author of the Vampire Academy series

"One of the very best things in life is discovering an author you want to read more of. Sisters of Misery makes me want to read a whole lot more of Megan Kelley Hall." --Ellen Hopkins, author of Crank and Impulse

"Hall will leave readers eager to know what happens next." --Publishers Weekly

Release date: July 28, 2009

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

First of all, I’d like to thank my husband, Eddie, not only because he’s my best friend, most ardent supporter, and the love of my life, but also because he noted that I put him on the last page of my acknowledgments in
Sisters of Misery
. So, right off the bat, I want to say, thank you, Eddie! Thank you, thank you!



The members of my family, Gloria, Jocelyn, Connor, and Jim Kelley, have been so incredibly helpful. I am forever indebted to you for all you’ve done for me and my career as a writer: from giving me moral support, to helping me with the daunting task of raising an incredibly willful and spirited six-year-old while attempting to write books; from giving sage advice, to being there when I needed you—always.



To Kelley & Hall Book Publicity, thank you for taking a debut young adult novel and getting it onto the pages of
USA Today, Publishers Weekly, Boston
magazine, and
Family Circle
. No easy feat, for sure! You do an amazing job for all of your authors and are the hardest-working people I’ve ever known.



To Elisabeth Weed, agent extraordinaire, thank you for supporting and encouraging my work, and for giving me wonderful advice when I needed it most.



To the most amazing editor anyone could ever ask for: Danielle Chiotti. I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to work with you on my first two books.



I’d like to thank the members of the GCC—the Girlfriend’s Cyber Circuit: a fabulously talented group of women writers who are so supportive and generous. Thank you for bringing me into your circle of friends. You’ve all provided so much encouragement and help during the stressful and sometimes painful process of writing and promoting books. You girls help make it a blast!



To my in-laws, Shirley and Fred Hall, thanks for the encouragement and enthusiasm throughout the years. And Fred, I’m so happy to have made my way onto your signed, first-edition, debut-author bookshelf.



Thanks to all the incredible book bloggers, reviewers, and teens out there who championed
Sisters of Misery
and gave me such wonderful reviews.



And, most of all, I have to thank Piper Elizabeth, my little movie star. Who could have predicted that you would be in your first movie the same year that my first book came out? I know that you wish I wrote “real” books (i.e., books for six-year-olds) and that I would spend less time on e-mail, on the computer, and doing “book stuff.” But I want you to know that you provide constant inspiration, a wonderful reprieve from my work, and that your energy and excitement about the world around you is truly magical. You are my best friend and my whole reason for being. I promise in the future to try to stop saying that I’ll play with you “in a minute,” spend less time working on the computer, and more time playing with my little fairy princess.













C


ordelia took off her shoes. She walked slowly up the side of the giant rock that lurched into the water, picking her way along the jagged edges, not noticing the rough barnacles as they dug into her feet. Her hands were still bloodied and filthy from the horrific events from the previous night. She looked out across the water as the sun made its ascent into the sky and looked out at Misery Island. The daylight made the place seem harmless, almost tranquil. There was no evidence of the violence and the cruelty that she’d endured the night before. The hatred that was bestowed upon her by the girls made the bile rise up in the back of her throat, but Maddie’s involvement—her own sister!—made her want to cry.



And Abigail! Abigail hadn’t even let her shower—hadn’t let her say good-bye to anyone. What was the point now? Everything had been a lie. Her real father wasn’t the one she’d always believed him to be. Her aunt hated her. Her sister had betrayed her. Her own mother—her best friend—had lied to her. She only had one person she could count on in this world—herself.



Cordelia knew that she would be leaving Hawthorne forever. And she wanted to get one final glance before she headed out of town. With the money given to her by Reed and Finn burning in her pocket, it was enough to get her away and give her a new start. The blood that snaked down her leg convinced her that if she ever had been pregnant, it was all lost now. The harsh blows and kicks she received out on the island had put an end to a situation that she didn’t know how to handle. But she couldn’t bring herself to tell Finn. She could barely look at him—what must he think of her? She was humiliated and betrayed and lost.



But she could change all that. She could begin again someplace new. Somewhere she could just hide out, remove herself from the lies and the stories and the torture. She could just disappear.



Once on top of the rock, she stood and looked out over the horizon. She rocked back and forth on her feet, assessing the distance from where she stood to the sharp and jagged rocks below. It was a good ten to fifteen feet into the angry swell below her. She resisted the temptation to dive in and cleanse her grimy clothes, allow the salt water to lick her wounds and melt away all the signs of the terrible night. Even though Cordelia was an expert swimmer, the tide was rough and she could easily be thrown back against the rocks, knocking her unconscious and drowning her as dawn broke over the harbor. In that eerie half-light between day and night, Cordelia considered her fate for just a moment. It would be so easy just to take one step forward and let all of the pain and betrayal stay behind her forever, wipe it all into oblivion.



She delicately raised one leg in front of her, pointing her toe in an arabesque pose. Teetering for a moment, Cordelia felt the thrill rush through her body as she considered what it would be like to just let everything drop away: all the pain, all the confusion, all the heartbreak. She would be with her father—her real father, the one who raised her and who died too early, not the biological father that she had only just learned about, Malcolm Crane, the man who made Cordelia and Maddie sisters by cheating on his wife, Abigail, with her own sister—Cordelia’s mother. She could be lulled into an everlasting sleep underneath the gentle waves and wouldn’t have to deal with the betrayal by Maddie, by Abigail, or—more importantly—by her own mother, Rebecca. Cordelia closed her eyes and imagined the salty waves reaching up to her and caressing her skin, pulling at the strands of her hair, coaxing her forward. She started to hum as her body swayed back and forth, keeping time with the rhythmic lapping of the waves. It would be so easy, she thought again. Who would really care?



Just as she started to sway forward, a large gust of wind knocked her off balance, sending her tumbling into the wide fissures of the craggy rock. The pain that shot up her back and down her legs woke her from the dreamlike trance she’d been in. Horrified at how close she was to doing something tragic, Cordelia scurried down the rock, away from the dangerous whispers of the sea—the calls that tried to lure her into an everlasting swim.



She had to leave this moment. She could almost hear Tess—her wise and thoughtful grandmother—whispering in her ear that it was time for her to go. She was desperate to say good-bye to the old woman whom she’d grown to love so much in her short time in this town, but she knew that if she stayed, she might be unable to resist the temptation to let it all slip away.





The card signals great transformation, renewal, change, rebirth, resurrection, making a final decision. You cannot hide any longer, face what you have to face, make that decision. Change. Time to summon the past, forgive it, and let it go, begin to heal.







Dear Diary,







If it weren’t for the little baby boy with the Coke-bottle glasses, I would have killed my father by now. The poison would be seeping into his veins effortlessly with every sip of the herbal tea concoction that I made especially for him. But the moment I saw that little boy, my stepbrother…half brother…whatever—I couldn’t do it. It’s not because I want Malcolm Crane to live, not after what he’s done to me and the lives of all the women in my family, but because he has another life dependent on him: the life of an innocent little boy. And so, for that reason, I’ll let him live.







For now
.





No one knows me here. Even those I’ve left behind in Hawthorne couldn’t recognize me now. Besides, no one would ever think to look for me up in the boondocks of Maine. My hair, once a brilliant shade of red, my most striking feature, has been dulled to a mousy brown, courtesy of a sable-brown henna
.





I often wonder if anyone has even noticed that I’m gone, not that I really care. Everyone I trusted, everyone I loved has lied to me or let me down. I’ve always felt like I was on my own. Now I know that to be true
.





All I know is that I have to get back home to California where I belong, and find some way to make it back there by myself. But first things first. Someone needs to be taught a lesson. And I’m not leaving until everything—and everyone—has been taken care of
.



“One cup of passion fruit-lime green tea,” Cordelia said softly to the man behind the newspaper. She poured the tea carefully, watching the leaves swirl in the bottom of the cup. Rebecca had taught her to read the messages in the leaves, not only once the cup was finished, but also as they swirled into the delicate teacup. She tried not to read the warning in the leaves. Once you knew where to look for certain signs, it was hard not to see them in everything. And she could read this message as clear as day:
Kill him
.



She looked at the little boy sitting across from his father. He peered up at her face, which was half hidden behind her long sheath of brown hair. She winked at him, causing him to erupt into giggles. He couldn’t be more than three or four. Cordelia wondered where his mother was, who his mother was. What would become of this little boy if she went ahead with her plan: to pay Malcolm Crane back for all of his wrongdoings? For deserting Maddie and Abigail, for impregnating her mother and never taking responsibility for any of his children back in Hawthorne, Massachusetts, and then simply running off to Maine to start all over again. Cordelia wondered if he would desert this little boy as well. Maybe she would be doing him a favor by stopping Malcolm Crane—the father she’d only known of for a very short time—from hurting anyone ever again.



“And for the little man?” she asked quietly. She waited for a glance from the man she now knew to be her father. The man that up until only a few minutes ago she had planned on killing in cold blood.



After leaving Hawthorne, she quickly made her way up to Maine where she knew that Malcolm had been living for more than a decade. Once she found him—which wasn’t the hardest thing to do, since he was known for being not only the town drunk, but also one of the professors in the tiny community college—she shadowed his every move. She knew about all of the girls that he was sleeping with—students, assistant professors, barmaids. This was something that she was able to figure out very quickly. She crept into the back of his lectures, studying the man that was her biological father.



She noticed some similarities in their appearance. Although everyone always said that she was an exact replica of her mother—the fair, porcelain skin, the copper hair, the delicate features—she detected some traits that she inherited from her father. The husky, butterscotch voice, the intense, lavender-blue eyes, the lean, athletic build. These were all things that she—as well as many of the dreamy-eyed girls in his classroom—noticed right away. The only two places that he frequented besides his lecture halls and his home were the town pub and the coffee and tea shop across from the college.



She had watched Malcolm Crane in between his classes. She’d managed to get a job at the Maine Tea and Coffee Bean—the only place he frequented during the week—and served him almost daily, but he never showed any sign of recognition. He was flirtatious and friendly, but it was all on the surface. She truly believed that if there was anything good in him, he would recognize his own daughter. But then, sadly, he probably wouldn’t even recognize Maddie and he had watched his little girl grow up and knew her to be his own. But even that didn’t give him reason enough to stick around in Hawthorne, to stay with his wife and young daughter.



Everything that Cordelia had done up until this point had been meticulously planned. She had taken the rat poison from the storage room—there were so many boxes, she was sure that no one would miss it. By the time anyone realized that Malcolm Crane had been murdered, she would be long gone. They didn’t even know her real name. Over the past few months, she’d made sure not to leave a mark. She lived like a ghost among mortals. She felt like she had died that night out on Misery Island and could only be brought back to life once she’d exacted her revenge. And the first one on her list was Malcolm Crane. But then this little boy had to come along and change everything.



“Danny, you heard the lady, did you want something to drink?” The little boy looked up and smiled at her and the toothy grin broke her heart.



“Milk, please,” he lisped.



“Sure, right…milk,” she stammered, backing away from the counter, feeling the rat poison burning in her apron pocket. She couldn’t do it. Not with this little boy. No matter how much she blamed Malcolm Crane for everything that had gone wrong in her life up until this point—the lies from Rebecca, the return to Hawthorne, even the death of the man she believed to be her real father up until a few months ago, even though deep down she knew he had nothing to do with Simon LeClaire’s death—she couldn’t make this little boy, Daniel Crane, go through the pain of losing a parent. It was still too real and raw for her—too hard for someone her own age to deal with, let alone a little boy.



She backed up into another table and practically knocked over another waitress. “Hey, watch it, CeeCee.” Cordelia steadied herself and turned to apologize to her coworker. She’d gone by CeeCee, a nickname given to her by the man she grew up thinking to be her father—the man that up until his untimely death from cancer was her true father. The man who cared for her as if she were his own flesh and blood, and who, a few horrible months ago, she discovered was not her real father. Her biological father was this man sitting in front of her. This waste of a human being. This horrible, selfish narcissist. He finally looked up at her. After months of her serving him his morning coffee and his afternoon tea, he actually made eye contact with her.



“Are you all right, darlin’?” A look of concern crossed Malcolm Crane’s face, the lines around his eyebrows deepened. Despite his weather-beaten face, she could see why some girls in his classes hung on his every word and the waitresses at Maine Tea and Coffee Bean cooed about him looking like Robert Redford. Yet instead of the lusty feelings that his gaze seemed to evoke with everyone around her, she only felt nausea.



“I’m fine,” she clipped. “I’ll be back with the milk for your son.”



He winked, rolled his newspaper up, and lightly bonked the little boy’s head. “Say thank you to the pretty lady, Daniel.”



“Thanks, pretty lady,” the little boy whispered, and then giggled.



Cordelia knew in her heart that she couldn’t go through with it. She couldn’t take away this little boy’s father. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t stick around long enough to make Malcolm Crane wish he was dead.



From behind the Formica counter, she saw a look of concern wash over Malcolm Crane’s face. He scrunched up his forehead and peered more closely at the newspaper. Then he sat back and stared straight ahead for a few moments, looking as though he were very far away, while little Daniel busily colored the paper place mat with the café’s crayons. Cordelia walked hesitantly back to the table, curious of what had caused this sudden shift in his mood. She placed the plastic cup in front of the young boy and tried to see what paper Malcolm had been reading.



It was the
Hawthorne Gazette
. Odd that he was still receiving news from home all the way up here in the boondocks. She prayed that it wasn’t another article about her disappearance. By now she had managed to avoid the second glances and the quick looks of recognition, people trying to place her face, knowing that she looked familiar, but not quite sure from where. When she first left Hawthorne, she had chopped what was left of her hair and dyed it brown so that she could slip away easily. Redheads often commanded more attention than brunettes. But she couldn’t change her features. People often called her beautiful, ethereal, even exquisite. She wondered how they’d describe her after she’d become a murderer.



Cordelia watched as Malcolm gathered up his son and left the coffee shop in a hurry. She rushed over to the empty table and grabbed the newspaper that was left behind in haste. Her eyes flicked down the page and a jolt of shock went through her body. There was an article about an ongoing fight between the Endicott family and the historical society of Hawthorne. Other neighboring towns of Salem, Marblehead, Beverly, and Swampscott were weighing in on the historical importance of the building. But that wasn’t what caught Cordelia’s attention. The article was written about all of the tragedies that occurred at Ravenswood Asylum throughout the years, especially the most recent one that took place only months ago.



Cordelia’s fingers trembled as she read the story entitled “Bloody Night at Ravenswood Remembered.” She skimmed the story, picking out the most disturbing phrases.



Rebecca LeClaire, one of the last inmates before the closing of the asylum, apprehended after apparent suicide attempt…Witnesses at the site were sister, Abigail Crane, niece, Maddie Crane, and local teen Finnegan O’Malley. Tess Martin, 82, passed away in her sleep that same night, unaware of the tragedy that had overtaken her family.



Cordelia inhaled deeply as she continued reading about what had happened in the wake of her disappearance. Since that night, there had been an ongoing fight over the property—how the Endicotts wanted to turn it into a luxury resort, capitalizing on the fright factor of its proximity to Salem, Massachusetts, and the witch trials, as well as all of the tragic legends that surround the place. The historical society had tied up any future projects with enough red tape until they could declare it a historic property.



Cordelia was hit by a wave of vertigo. The world spun around her, almost knocking her from her feet.





I have to go back
, she thought. Something she thought she would never do.



“Easy there, CeeCee. Take a load off. You look like you’re going to be sick.” Her manager, Chris Markson, had come up behind her and noticed the color drained from her face. “Sit down, I’ll get you some water.”



Cordelia was used to getting this attention from the guys in her life. She knew that the girls were probably in the back gossiping about how she was being a drama queen and how unfair it was that she got a break in the middle of her shift. But Cordelia didn’t care. All she could think about was what her family had gone through—all of the pain that she had brought upon them by running away—and all that she had missed while she was gone. How long had it been? How many months had she made them suffer in her absence? Could it really be almost a year? A year of hiding her past, her true identity, her intentions. Keeping everyone at an arm’s length, not letting anyone in and trying desperately not to think of all the people she’d left behind.



In her attempt at starting a new life and seeking vengeance on the one person who, in her mind, was responsible for destroying all of their lives, she had done even more damage by leaving than she could ever have thought possible.



In her attempt to cut herself off from everyone and everything in Hawthorne and create this new life, she never realized all of the destruction she caused in her wake. Why would she do that to herself and her family?



“Water?” the voice called out. And then again, “Water?”



Cordelia looked up and saw her coworker holding a glass of water in front of her.



“Yes, water,” Cordelia said in a daze, remembering the ritual hazing events that took place on Misery Island—Fire, Water, Air, and Earth—the degrading and painful events that forced her to leave it all behind. The pain and humiliation she endured. The betrayal. The lies.



“Thank you, Chris,” she said, taking the glass from his hand, ignoring his perplexed expression.



As she gulped down the water, she allowed herself to think about what had happened that night. Since she’d moved to Maine, she had managed to put those memories aside, choosing not to think of that night, but instead to channel her anger and energy toward the man she believed was at the root of all of her suffering: Malcolm Crane.



“Uh…CeeCee?” Chris hesitated. “You need to lie down or something? Do you need a break?” She could hear her female coworkers snickering behind the coffee bar. Cordelia was uncomfortable with this kind of attention. She had managed to fly under the radar for so long, she wasn’t about to let anyone get too close to her. Not even a handsome and sweet college student like Chris Markson. When she looked at him and his perfectly sculpted features, all it did was make her miss Finn and his crooked smile even more. She couldn’t imagine facing Finn again. For all he knew she had taken off carrying his child. He must hate her for not letting him know if he was a father or not. The truth was that even though she might have been pregnant, she couldn’t even be sure that the baby was his. It could just as easily have been Trevor’s. A bastard child from a bastard rapist.



“Yeah, I just need some fresh air,” she managed. Standing up, she tucked the newspaper under her arm and rushed past him and out into the crisp autumn air. She walked across the street to a bench and sat for a few minutes staring at the paper folded on her lap.





What’s happening? Everything was falling into place and then that little. . .