The Wicked Sister

by Karen Dionne

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  NOW

  Rachel

  Rachel?” Diana’s voice prompts.

  “Should we answer?” Trevor asks.

  I shake my head and point toward the security cameras that top the gate. I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing us panic. I feel like one of the beetles my sister used to make me catch so she could pin them in a shoebox and watch them squirm.

  “She can see us?” Trevor mouths.

  I nod. “She can hear us, too,” I whisper. “My family has a tendency to overbuild. We need to get out of range.”

  Trevor grabs his messenger bag from the back seat and slings it over his shoulder. I grab nothing, because I have nothing to grab. The idea that I am leaving everything behind is oddly freeing.

  The security camera looks down on us like the eye of God. But the cameras are fixed in place. Once we’re out of range, Diana will have no idea which way we’re headed. I let the cameras see me leading Trevor away from the gate and toward the south, then cut a wide arc through the woods, cross to the north side of the road, and double back toward the cliffs. Let Diana think we’re going to ground in one of the densest areas of our acreage hoping to use the trees for cover. I have a better plan.

  “Where are we going?” Trevor asks.

  “To the lake. We can’t climb over the gate—not with all that wire. And the cliffs between here and the road are too steep. The only way off the property is to go around them. There’s a section of fencing that sticks out into the lake where the cliff ends that we’ll have to swim around, but once we do that, we’re home free.”

  “Wait. That water was only recently covered with ice. It might still be. You do realize how crazy this sounds?”

  “I do. Please. You have to trust me.”

  I wish I could give him more. His reporter’s brain has to be overflowing with questions. But there simply isn’t time. I also don’t say anything about what we’ll have to deal with after we swim around the fence. It’s three miles to the highway. Hiking through the forest in soaking wet clothes with the air temperature barely above freezing, hoping that we won’t die of hypothermia before we get there, doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Never mind that the last time I hiked through the forest, I got lost. It’s a terrible plan, but this truly is our only option.

  “All right. But once this is over, you’re going to owe me big-time.”

  I don’t disagree. If I’d had any inkling of the danger I would be walking into, I never would have come home at all, let alone gotten Trevor involved. At the same time, I feel as though this is my last chance to make things right. Saving Trevor from the situation I got him into won’t balance the scales of justice, but it will help.

  We start off. It’s tough going. The base of the cliff face is littered with boulders, the forest that butts up against the cliffs dark, tangled, wet. At least the difficult conditions will work in our favor. Diana is thirty-five, Charlotte well over sixty—so Trevor and I have youth on our side. Before Diana finds us—if she finds us—she’s going to have to work for the privilege.

  “How are you holding up?” I ask.

  Trevor is more fit than me, so what I’m really asking after isn’t so much his physical condition as his mental one. I’m sure when he came to the lodge expecting to interview my aunt and my sister, he didn’t anticipate that the day would end with him fleeing for his life. But when it comes to mental strength, I have the advantage. I’ve been locked up, subjected to electroshock therapy, spent weeks in solitary, been hosed down with cold water along with a host of other humiliations. I’ve been forced to undergo hypnotherapy, I’ve been sleep deprived, drugged. I may not be his equal physically, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got him beat when it comes to endurance.

  “I’m fine. Don’t talk. Just keep going.”

  And then, as we slog our way through the dark into the unknown, a curious thing happens: memories of how I survived those two lost weeks begin to return. I see myself running through the forest knowing that something was chasing me, but not knowing what it was or where I should go. I remember I found a warm, dark place to shelter in, as in my recent dream, where I felt safe. My therapists once hypnotized me to try to help me regain my memories of those lost weeks. I guess they should have set up a reenactment. Because with a clarity that is almost frightening, suddenly, I remember everything.

  I remember that after Diana forced me to kill White Bear, I ran away as he told me to do, dodging and feinting through the forest like a frightened deer, until I came to a tall cliff not unlike the one we are walking beside now. I remember I wanted to climb it, but I couldn’t. Then I saw a small opening halfway up the scree, a bear’s den, the same den where my mother told me she and my sister first saw White Bear. I scrambled up to it, sobbing as I climbed because I knew that White Bear wouldn’t be inside the den when I got there because I had killed him.

  Only the den wasn’t empty. Another bear had taken it over, as bears sometimes do. The bear was sleeping. I crawled inside and snuggled against him and cried.

  The following days are less clear. I remember it snowed, but the bear kept me warm. Occasionally the bear would stir and open one eye and look at me sleepily and close it again. I remember I ate snow for water. I knew that doing this would lower my body temperature because my parents had taught me many survival skills, but I was counting on the warmth from my companion to raise it again. I was very hungry. Most of the time, I slept.

  Then one day, a raven called: Cr-r-ruck tok, cr-r-ruck tok, cr-r-ruck tok, cr-r-ruck tok. I opened my eyes. The raven called again. This way, he said to me in words that, somehow, I could understand. You can’t stay here. I’ll show you where to go.

  I crawled to the opening. Outside, it was very bright. The snow was gone, and the day was sunny and warm.

  Follow me, the raven said, and so I did. I slid down the rocky incline and followed the raven until we came to the access road. I started back toward the lodge, but the raven flew away in the other direction, so I went after him and slipped through the security gate and followed him to the highway. It seems impossible to me now that a child so weakened by hunger and trauma could have walked those three long miles, but obviously I did because the police report says a passing motorist found me lying beside the road, though I don’t remember.

  All will become known, the raven who greeted me said. The same raven who helped me when I was a child? I’d like to think so. I glance over my shoulder at Trevor and grin. I can’t wait to tell him my memories have come back. He’s going to have one fantastic story. Assuming we live to tell it.

  “What? Why are you smiling?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  Then the morning sun breaks over the top of the cliff, and I realize we have a new problem.

  “Faster,” I urge. The forest is now bathed in sunlight. It’s early spring, with no leaves on the trees. Even if I wasn’t wearing a red plaid shirt beneath my jean jacket, our movements would be easy to spot. I glance over my shoulder. We’ve been hiking for nearly half an hour, and there’s still no sign of Diana. Yet I can’t help feeling that I’ve made a mistake. It feels as though we’re walking into a trap. My sister was never this easily fooled. She’s let us get this far because she knows something I don’t. Perhaps she’s opened the gate and driven through it and is waiting for us to come around the other side. Perhaps she’s stationed Charlotte at the end of the fencing with a rifle. Perhaps she’s planning to shoot us as we swim. If so, once again, I will have made it far too easy for her to dispose of our bodies.

  Despite my misgivings, we press on because what else can we do?

  A raven calls from high over our heads. Is it trying to get my attention? Ravens have excellent vision. It’s possible that this one can see my sister. That it wants to help us get away. A raven saved me once; perhaps a raven will save me again.

  “Where is she?” I ask.
Let Trevor think I’m musing aloud and talking to myself.

  The raven sounds its alarm call and flies off toward the access road.

  “Hurry,” I say. “She’s coming.” I don’t tell Trevor how I know.

  We run. The ground turns mucky and wet. I hate that we’re laying down such an obvious trail. The only thing we can do is stay out ahead of her—out of range of the rifle she is undoubtedly carrying.

  Then I see a bear’s footprint in the muck, a big one, a single hind footprint much larger than a man’s. Our bears are not naturally aggressive, but this one has just woken from his winter’s sleep. He’s going to be hungry. Grouchy and unpredictable. Bad enough that we’re in danger from my sister. If we cross paths with this bear, there’s no telling what it will do. The bear is heading toward the lake. The only way we’re going to avoid it is if we go in the opposite direction it’s traveling, back toward its den.

  Back to its den.

  Of course. It’s movement that gives a person away. Whenever a person is being chased through the forest, their best option is to go to ground. Until now, I had no idea where we could hide. Now I do.

  “Stop. Wait. Change of plan.” I point to the tracks and explain what I’m thinking.

  Trevor’s eyes are wide. “You want to hide in a bear’s den?”

  “Just until the coast is clear. It’ll be fine. The bear is going to the lake to drink and to feed. It won’t go back to its den for hours, if at all.”

  I want to add that hiding in a bear’s den worked for me before, but there’s no time for that now. If we’re going to make it to the bear’s den before Diana catches up to us, we need to hurry. I realize that to Trevor, our escape no doubt seems chaotic. First, I tell him that we can drive away, then that we need to hike along the base of the cliff and swim around the end of the fence, and now I’m leading him back toward the lodge with the promise of refuge inside a bear’s den. Even to me, the plan sounds crazy. Or perhaps the truly crazy thing is that I am so certain it will work.

  “You’re serious,” Trevor says.

  I nod. “It’ll work. I promise.”

  A promise I hope I’ll be able to keep.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Are you sure this is the right way?” Trevor asks twenty minutes later as we slog through yet another boggy area that sucks at our boots like quicksand. “Can you still see the trail?”

  “This is it.”

  I don’t tell him that I lost the bear’s trail some while ago. But I’m not worried. Ever since we turned away from the lake, the raven has been flying a short distance ahead, alighting on a low branch while it waits for us to catch up, then flying on again just as it did two days ago when I got lost. Anyone else might think that the raven showing up when he did is a coincidence, and that he’s flying through the forest without any particular purpose or intent, and that his actions have nothing to do with Trevor and me. But I know otherwise.

  I’m also not worried about the question of whether or not the den is going to be big enough for both of us—a concern that Trevor has also expressed. When bears excavate a den, they make it the same size as they are, which makes sense if you think about it, because why hole up for the winter in a cavern bigger than you that will only rob you of precious body heat? Judging by the size of this bear’s footprint, there’s no question we’ll fit. The only question is what kind of den this one will be. After a bear reaches adult size, as this one surely has, they return to the same den year after year unless another bear happens to get there first. Some dig their dens into the side of a cliff, such as the one in which White Bear was born. Some are dug into the root systems of a tree. Sometimes a bear will use a small cave as its den or dig into the side of a sandy hill. If they’re really hard up, they’ll even bed down for the winter in a small depression out in the open. Obviously, I’m hoping for something warm and dry.

  Cr-r-ruck tok, cr-r-ruck tok, the raven calls as it lights on yet another branch. Only this time, when we catch up to it, it stays still.

  I hold up my hand to call a halt and turn a slow circle looking for disturbed earth or a clump of branches where they shouldn’t be and find the den beneath a pile of branches near the exposed roots of a large white pine. I pull them aside.

  “Here we are. Home sweet home.”

  “How—”

  I shake my head and crawl inside. I’m not about to tell Trevor how I found it.

  He crawls in after me. It’s a tight fit. The den is also much closer to the access road than I would have liked, and in fact, from here I can see a section of road clearly. But I have to believe that the raven knows what he’s doing; that this is the only place in the forest where we will be safe.

  “And if the bear comes back?” Trevor asks after we’ve pulled all the branches that we can reach in front of us to camouflage the opening.

  “He won’t. He just came out of hibernation. He’s as hungry as a—well, you know. He won’t come back until he’s eaten, if then.” Bears are hardly this predictable, but I’m hoping Trevor doesn’t know this.

  “Anyway, I’ve done this before. This is how I survived those weeks that I was lost. I sheltered in a bear’s den. I remember.”

  I tell him everything: how my sister made me shoot the rare albino bear I had befriended, how I ran into the woods after I killed him because I was afraid that she was going to shoot me, how I found the den and crawled inside, how the sleeping bear kept me warm. I don’t tell him that it was White Bear who warned me to run away, or that a raven eventually led me to safety.

  “Incredible,” he says when I finish. “Wish I had a pencil.”

  “Don’t worry. Once this is over, I promise I’ll give you an exclusive.”

  We fall into silence. I shiver.

  “Cold?” he asks. He extricates his arm from between us and slips it around my shoulders and leaves it there.

  “I’m okay. It’s just—”

  I stop. Because the thing is, telling Trevor about my flight through the woods the day my parents died has brought back more memories, a jumble of images and emotions that don’t yet quite make sense.

  “Just what?”

  “Shh. Let me think.”

  I close my eyes, let the sounds and pictures that flood my brain take form and coalesce, and shudder. The account I related to Trevor is not quite correct. Because after I shot White Bear and ran away, but before the raven led me to the bear’s den, I went back to the gun range. I don’t know why. Possibly I did this because the farther I traveled, the more I couldn’t believe that White Bear was really dead. Perhaps I wanted to go back to check. I realize now that this was a dangerous and reckless thing to do considering that my sister was presumably still at the gun range with a rifle, but at the time, I wasn’t thinking clearly. As I drew close, I heard voices. I dropped to my hands and knees, then crawled through the underbrush as close as I dared to watch and listen.

  I saw my parents and Diana and Charlotte. Everyone was pointing at White Bear and yelling. My mother looked toward the woods and called my name. But before I could answer, Charlotte shot my father. My mother screamed and ran to my father and threw herself on top of him. Diana pointed her rifle at our mother. My mother was on her knees. “Do it,” I heard Charlotte say clearly. My sister pulled the trigger.

  I feel like I’m going to throw up. I was there. I saw everything. I witnessed my parents’ murders. It’s no wonder I conflated the death of White Bear with the deaths of my parents. Three deaths in quick succession would be enough to drive anyone to the brink, let alone an eleven-year-old child. I marvel at the fragility of memory, how my brain corrupted the memory and put me in the scene as a participant instead of an observer. But now I know the truth. I remember.

  “Cold?” Trevor asks when I shiver again.

  I nod dumbly. He draws me closer. I lean into him, rest my head against his shoulder while I absorb the enormity of what I ju
st learned. I always knew my sister was evil. Knew that when she chose to be the witch when we played Hansel and Gretel, or she wanted to be the wicked stepmother in Snow White, or the evil queen in Sleeping Beauty, that these roles suited her nature. But I didn’t realize that Charlotte was just as bad. I used to think of Charlotte as my sister’s lackey, her faithful servant whose only wish was to serve. After I got older and I learned about various personality disorders at the mental hospital, I even felt sorry for her. Clearly, she was suffering from dependent personality disorder: difficulty making everyday decisions, such as what to eat or what to wear, a tendency to be passive and to allow others to take the initiative and assume responsibility for major areas of their lives—it all fit.

  But now I truly understand the depravity of her servitude. Charlotte killed my father. I saw it. My aunt and my sister deserve each other more than I realized.

  What they don’t deserve is to go on living in my home. I have to tell the tale of two murderesses living happily ever after at the lodge while the people they murdered lay beneath the forget-me-nots on the hill.

  I think about the words Diana scratched into my belly. I have to live. I am the only one who can bring them to justice.

  Because this is how their story ends.

  THIRTY

  We wait in the den a very long time. My back aches and my butt hurts and my legs tingle and my feet are numb. Trevor is crouched beside me with his arm around my shoulders and his head kinked to the side because the den is too small for him to sit up straight. His neck has to be killing him as much as my legs are hurting me, yet he doesn’t complain, doesn’t offer up recriminations or second guesses, doesn’t question what we’re doing or why. He trusts me.

  I wish I was as certain of myself. I can’t help worrying that Diana isn’t tracking us as I presumed and she has something else entirely in mind. When I think back to all the times I thought I knew what she was going to do and didn’t, all the times when I believed that I had gotten out ahead of her and then she got the better of me, I can’t help but doubt. I feel trapped and vulnerable. I can’t stop thinking about Scotty. I wish I’d told him goodbye.