Sisters of Misery

by Megan Kelley Hall

  Cordelia flushed at the compliment and then took her place at the front of the class.

  “Well, there’s not much to say. My mom is from Hawthorne. I was born in California. My dad passed away about six months ago, and now I’m living with my cousin, my aunt, and my grandmother. That’s pretty much it.” She laughed and held her hands up awkwardly. “Am I done?”

  Maddie smiled. Even her cousin’s awkward little speech came off as charming and utterly cool. All the guys in the room—including Mr. Campbell—stared at her as she fiddled with the pale pink bra strap that peeked out from her peasant blouse. Kate seethed when she noticed Trevor staring intensely at Cordelia. Maddie observed it all from her seat in the back of the class, knowing that nothing good could come of any of this.

  A couple of weeks into the semester, Kate and the girls had made it quite clear that they were not going to give up on making Cordelia’s life miserable. Maddie couldn’t understand why her cousin had become the brunt of all of Kate’s anger, but she assumed it had something to do with the fact that Cordelia was probably the only person in the history of Hawthorne Academy who wasn’t completely terrified by Kate Endicott. She wasn’t impressed by her money, her family’s influence, or her obvious wrath.

  During French class one afternoon, Kate kicked a cheat sheet under Cordelia’s desk. When Maddie tried to signal to Cordelia, Madame Rousseau noticed the interaction and demanded to know whose cheat sheet it was. Kate giggled, eagerly anticipating Cordelia’s punishment.

  But Cordelia stood up and said in a loud, clear voice, “Je ne sais pas qui a écrit la note, Madame Rousseau. Peut-être elle appartient à quelqu’un dans la classe qui n’a jamais habité en France ou ne peut pas parler la langue couramment, comme j’évidemment bidon.”

  Kate turned and looked with great surprise at Darcy, who shrugged her shoulders. Madame Rousseau smiled and said, “Ms. LeClaire has informed me that she doesn’t know who wrote the note, but perhaps, it was someone in the class who has never lived in France and cannot speak the language fluently, as she obviously can.”

  She turned to Cordelia and said, “Two things are obvious, Cordelia. One is that someone is trying to get you into trouble”—she narrowed her eyes at Kate before continuing—“and two, you belong in a higher level of French.”

  “Merci, Madame,” Cordelia said gratefully. “Je suis d’accord complètement avec vous.”

  After class, Maddie slammed her lunch tray down on the table, exhausted from having to divide her allegiance between the Sisters of Misery and Cordelia. Luckily, Cordelia had been spending her lunch hours with Mr. Campbell. She was excelling in his English class, so he was giving her training to do some tutoring work on the side. As much as she wished she could have lunch with her cousin, it worked out perfectly because Maddie knew that she’d never be accepted at their lunch table.

  “Nice job in French class today, Kate. Real nice,” Maddie said angrily.

  “Je ne comprends pas,” Kate said innocently. “I was just trying to help your cousin out. Who knew she was freakin’ Celine Dion?”

  “Celine Dion isn’t from France, you moron; she’s from Canada,” Darcy said.

  “French Canadian! Close enough.” Kate retorted. Bridget took her place at the table, and Kate smirked when she saw that Bridget’s tray held nothing but wilted lettuce and a fruit cup. Bridget, who used to be a normal, healthy weight, had wasted away to nothing over the summer after Kate had gotten the rest of the girls to call her Bridget Bubble Butt or Triple B. She begged her mother to put her on Weight Watchers and supplemented her diet with a daily cocktail of assorted diet pills. Some were smuggled out of her mother’s medicine cabinet, and others—illegal in the U.S.—she bought off the Internet. Her rapid weight loss didn’t seem to send up any red flags for her teachers or her parents. So she continued to waste away, the skin around her eyes sunken and hollow, her clavicle too prominent, and her head too large for her slender body. Maddie finally understood why girls who lost weight that dramatically were called The Lollipop Girls.

  When Maddie mentioned to Kate how concerned she was about Bridget’s health, Kate took great pleasure in singing or humming the “Lollipop” song or simply doing the plop sound whenever Bridget walked by. And then, whenever Bridget started looking healthy again or was seen eating normally, Kate was always at the ready; whether it was “innocently” blowing bubbles with bubble soap or bubble gum, anything that reminded Bridget of Kate’s taunts from the previous year would send her spiraling back into picking at lettuce or gnawing on carrots, while wistfully looking away from their full lunch trays.

  “You’re going to need more than that to eat if you’re going to be any help to us today in our match against Cross Prep,” Kate complained. Bridget pretended that she didn’t hear her and pushed food around her plate. “Or maybe you’d like to save your energy to try to hook up with Trevor again. I bet he’d love that.”

  Kate controlled all of the dynamics within the Sisters of Misery, and when she was in a bad mood, she typically took it out on the rest of them. Once, when Trevor and Kate were broken up, he’d hooked up with Bridget after having too much to drink at a party. This had infuriated Kate to no end. If Bridget hadn’t been part of the Sisterhood, her life would have been mercilessly destroyed by Kate. Once they got back together, Kate and Trevor started calling Bridget “Fish Sticks,” saying that Trevor only did it to see how far she would go with him, but that he stopped when he realized she smelled like fish and her body felt like a bag of sticks. When that scandal faded, they made up another rumor about catching Bridget hooking up with another girl.

  But today, Bridget was desperate to deflect Kate’s wrath onto someone else. “Where’s your cousin, Maddie? Isn’t she the one who’s been hitting on Trevor these days? Or is she too busy being Mr. Campbell’s teacher’s pet?”

  “I already told you,” Maddie sighed, “she’s not into Trevor. I don’t think she’s into any of the guys at Hawthorne,” Maddie said, conveniently ignoring the comment about Mr. Campbell. Even though Cordelia stressed that their relationship was purely platonic, strictly student-teacher, she didn’t want to give Kate more ammunition.

  “Well then, there are plenty of girls for her to choose from,” Kate laughed. “Just tell her to stay away from me.” She paused and looked over at Bridget. “Hey B, you want a shot at Maddie’s cousin?”

  Bridget shot Kate a fierce look and then gave her the finger.

  Kate laughed louder. “Rrrreowr! She’s a tiger. I think Triple B may be too intense for your skanky cousin.”

  Kate twirled a strand of honey-blond hair around her fingers, staring Bridget down and smiling. “Hey, I know, Maddie, since our game against Cross isn’t until later tonight, why don’t we check out your aunt’s store after school today? I mean, it must be a pretty cool place if you’d rather spend your time there than hang out with us, right? Do they have cauldrons and eye of newt and bat wings and all that jazz?”

  Maddie gave Kate a sour look. The last thing she wanted was to have Kate and the rest of the girls there poking fun at Rebecca and Cordelia. She could handle it at school, but she didn’t want to deal with it anywhere else. “I don’t think it would interest you, Kate. If you want a witch store, go to Salem.”

  Undeterred, Kate turned to Bridget. “Maybe they have some sort of potion for losing weight. Whaddya think, Bridge?”

  “How about a potion to make people stop being such bitches,” Bridget cried as she shoved her tray in Kate’s direction and took off in tears.

  “Why did you do that?” Maddie asked Kate. Hannah and Darcy were giggling like crazy, excited that they had managed to escape Kate’s wrath—at least for today.

  “Because I can, dear,” Kate snapped. “Because I can.”

  Chapter 6

  URUZ

  POWER

  A Dark, Unstoppable Force, A Challenge, Unpredictable

  Power, Death, and Greed

  Maddie was already at Rebecca’s Closet when the girls
filed into the shop, one after another, their faces a mixture of curiosity and disgust. She had foolishly hoped that they wouldn’t show up. The less interaction between Cordelia, Rebecca, and the Sisters of Misery, the better.

  Kate ran her fingertip along the wooden shelving and then brought it up to her face, as if inspecting for dust. Maddie smiled, knowing that Kate Endicott had never dusted in her life, so it was probably something she’d seen in a movie and was doing for the other girls for effect.

  Stopping next to the shelf filled with essential oils, Kate picked one up and said, “Ah, Oil of Abramelin, just what I wanted.”

  Maddie gave her a curious look and was met by one of Kate’s signature blinding smiles. “Hey there, shopgirl, I need some help ASAP.” She banged her hand on the bell that sat on the counter.

  Maddie rolled her eyes. “Kate, why are you here?” Maddie said weakly. She was afraid of what they would say or do. The girls were eyeing the store ravenously, looking for something to use against Cordelia at school.

  “That’s no way to treat a paying customer. I think you need a lesson in customer service, young lady.”

  Darcy squealed as she ran over to inspect a large oak barrel filled to the top with crystals and polished stones. She dug her hand deep into the pile of smooth stones and grabbed a handful, inspecting each one closely. “This is so cool!” she said excitedly. Kate shot her a look, and Darcy, as if on cue, dumped the contents back into the barrel and sheepishly joined the group.

  “Welcome to Rebecca’s Closet,” Rebecca said cheerfully, coming up behind Maddie. “Are you friends of Maddie’s and Cordelia’s?” she asked innocently.

  Kate seemed to be the designated spokesperson for the group. “We’re friends of Maddie’s,” she said pointedly.

  “Ah, but soon you’ll be the best of friends with my little girl as well. I can tell,” Rebecca said brightly as she continued unpacking a box filled with packs of tarot cards.

  “How can you tell?” Kate asked with a feigned wide-eyed innocence. “I mean, are you a psychic or something?” Maddie seethed as she heard the other girls choke back their giggles. Rebecca seemed oblivious to Kate’s sarcasm, and Maddie was thankful for that.

  “Well,” Rebecca said, choosing her words as she narrowed her eyes in thought, “we are all a little psychic. It just takes practice to harness those powers. We all have gifts. You just need to know how to use them.”

  Rebecca’s answer was so earnest that it broke Maddie’s heart because she knew that the girls were just playing along.

  “So can you tell people’s future?” Bridget asked excitedly.

  Kate gave her a withering look. “Of course she can,” Kate said under her breath. “She’s a witch.”

  If Rebecca heard Kate’s comment, she didn’t show it. Silently, Maddie prayed that the girls would just turn around and leave. She stared at the incense burning on the counter and willed it to set off the fire alarm, forcing everyone out onto the cobblestone street. Anything that would remove them all from this potentially explosive situation.

  Rebecca eyed the girls for a moment and then reached underneath the oak counter. “I can’t tell things just by looking at you, but if I use tools like these,” she said pulling out a pack of tarot cards, a bag of rune stones, and a crystal pendulum, “they help me focus my energies and look into the future.”

  Kate moved forward inquisitively and looked at the divination instruments laid out in front of her. Just then, Cordelia came bursting into the store, her arms filled with bags.

  “Help!” she called over to Maddie cheerfully. Her enthusiasm died down suddenly when she saw Kate and the other girls. “Oh, hey,” Cordelia said offhandedly.

  Kate beamed. “Your mom is going to tell our future. Isn’t that cool?”

  Cordelia eyed Maddie and Rebecca as if they were traitors. “Yeah, cool,” she said. She turned to her mother. “How much are you charging her for a reading?”

  Rebecca looked confused. “Oh, I wouldn’t think of charging your friends for a reading.”

  Cordelia laughed sharply. “Friends?” She shot Kate a look. “Like I said, how much are you going to charge Kate?”

  Rebecca flushed, suddenly realizing what Cordelia meant. “Well, I…oh…I don’t mind doing it just this once.”

  Kate gave one of her phoniest smiles. “I’d love for you to give me a very complete reading. Is this enough?” She handed over a crisp one-hundred dollar bill as offhandedly as if it were a five.

  Maddie’s stomach flip-flopped. How was it possible that she had never realized how condescending Kate could be?

  “Rebecca, you don’t have to—” Maddie stammered.

  Cordelia interrupted, “No, Maddie. Let her. I’m curious to see what’s in store for the infamous Kate Endicott.”

  Rebecca tentatively took the bill, shifting her gaze from Maddie to Kate to Cordelia. “Come over here,” she said to Kate, leading the way to a table covered in black velvet.

  The other girls crowded around as Kate took a seat directly across from Rebecca. Kate placed the apothecary bottle down on the table. When Rebecca saw what Kate had chosen, her eyes widened slightly, and she regarded Kate quizzically. Cordelia hopped up onto the oak counter, swinging her legs back and forth. The sound of feet banging on the counter filled the brick store like a hollow metronome.

  “Where’s your crystal ball?” Kate asked. The other girls giggled, and Rebecca’s eyes clouded over as she realized that these girls were not serious about the reading. They were here to make fun of Rebecca, Cordelia, and this store. Maddie gave Rebecca a pleading look, hoping to impart that she had nothing to do with these girls coming to the store that afternoon.

  Rebecca’s voice lost its friendly tone. “I don’t use one. I use other…tools.”

  “Like from Home Depot?” Kate said, again with an innocent tone. The others snickered.

  Rebecca raised one eyebrow, sat up very straight, and grabbed Kate’s hand suddenly.

  “Ow,” Kate said, laughing. “Boy, this really is a hands-on reading.” Maddie wasn’t sure, but she thought she could almost detect hesitation in Kate’s voice.

  Rebecca placed Kate’s manicured hand over a well-worn stack of tarot cards. She grabbed a bag of rune stones and dumped them onto the table, arranging them around Kate’s down-turned hand.

  “Pick one,” Rebecca ordered. Her easygoing demeanor was now replaced with a more serious focus. Rebecca, like Tess, had the ability of seeing through people to their core. She obviously didn’t like what she saw when she looked at Kate. Her aunt’s beautiful face, typically characterized by a wide smile and relaxed expression, had hardened and drained of color.

  Kate tried to look serious as she dug down through the pile and pulled out a card, but then she glanced at it and quickly shoved it to the bottom of the pack. She pulled another card, looked at it, and seemed pleased as she handed it to Rebecca.

  Rebecca remained expressionless as she placed the card—the Queen of Pentacles—in the center of the rune stones and looked at each one closely. Then she instructed Kate to select four stones. Kate hesitantly pointed at four onyx stones with different, unusual shapes on them. Rebecca arranged the card in the center of the four stones. She pointed to the card and said, “This is you.” Kate reached to turn the card around, but Rebecca stopped her. “Don’t move the card,” she warned. “Part of the meaning is tied to the direction in which the card is pointing.”

  Kate seemed pleased. “I’m a queen!” she said, turning to the other girls. “I always knew I was royalty.” She laughed as Rebecca regarded her with narrowed eyes. “What does the Queen of Pentacles mean?”

  “Well,” Rebecca said hesitantly, her eyes fluttering up to meet Cordelia’s. Maddie knew that the card was reversed—or upside down—which almost always had a negative meaning. Typically, it would be the opposite of whatever positive fortune was held within the card. But Maddie wasn’t sure how much Rebecca would reveal to Kate. Usually, she didn’t like to share anythin
g bad with her customers, and despite her obvious dislike of Kate, it appeared that she was going to remain professional. “The Queen loves beautiful things and has an artist’s eye. She enjoys material comforts and surrounds herself with people who give her what she wants. Her home is impeccably and lavishly decorated. Everything about her is beautifully and tastefully maintained: her clothes, her appearance, her jewelry. She gets what she wants and ultimately,” Rebecca paused, holding Kate’s gaze, “she gets what she deserves.”

  Cordelia laughed. “Now, tell her what the reversed meaning is.”

  Rebecca shot her daughter an angry look, but continued. “Well, the reverse meaning is that the Queen enjoys being surrounded by people who shield her from criticism. Often, she cannot see beyond her own wealth and material possessions. She uses her good fortune to display grandeur and opulence.”

  Rebecca took a quick look at the bottom card of the deck before shuffling it back into its velvet pouch. Her face darkened. She moved the four stones around the card as she continued her reading.

  “The stones you have selected are Isa, which represents ice; Hagal, hailstorms; Thurisaz, thorns; and Gebo, which means gift.”

  “What do they mean?”

  “Isa represents great strength and independence, but also a coldness which can give rise to conflict and arguments. Hagal means hail and is symbolic of uncontrolled and destructive forces, upheaval, and discord. Thur also represents strength, but it can only be found by observing the past and the future. If not, then it can represent negative change, contemplation, and conflict.”