Sisters of Misery

by Megan Kelley Hall

  “I don’t know anything about those rocks or who would have put them at your door.”

  “Did you get one, too?” Hannah asked, her voice raised an octave. She sounded like a scared little girl.

  Maddie shook her head again. “I don’t think so. But even if I did, my mom could have thrown it away without telling me.” It was plausible that Abigail, known for rising at dawn each day, could have come across the stone and heaved it into the bushes or gotten rid of it somehow without telling Maddie.

  Kate stood up and dropped hers in Maddie’s lap. “Here you go, Merry Christmas. Now you won’t feel left out.”

  Maddie turned the stone around in her hand. She ran her finger over it and then tried to scratch at it to see if paint would flick off. The crimson color looked like it had actually seeped down into the stone itself. She wasn’t sure if it was marker or spray paint, but she knew what it was intended to look like—blood.

  “So with your aunt stuck in the loony bin and your cousin on the run, you’re the closest thing we have to a fortune teller,” Kate said snidely as she took her seat again, lighting up a cigarette. “What’s the story, Crane? What is this supposed to mean?”

  Maddie had learned the rune stone meanings by heart in the months that Cordelia had been away. She kept finding rune stones around the house, and as she collected them, she’d consult Rebecca’s old book, memorizing the meanings. The symbol “H” was one of the most powerful and dangerous of all the stones. Someone was sending them a message.

  “H is the rune stone that means Hagal or hailstorms,” Maddie said quietly.

  “Oh, right, hailstorms,” Kate mocked, her voice thick with sarcasm, “that explains everything, doesn’t it?” Then her voice sharpened. “We don’t need a weather forecast, Crane; we want to know what it means.”

  Maddie closed her eyes trying to remember the description from Rebecca’s book. “Hailstorms represent…um…destruction…setbacks…upheaval…”

  And then she opened her eyes to meet Kate’s and said forcefully, “It means war.”

  Chapter 17

  THURISAZ

  THE GIANT-BOUNDARIES

  Shape Changers, Demons, and Negative Energy;

  A Force of Destruction, Conflict

  “Are you in?”

  I look around at the insistent faces surrounding me. There’s no escape. I weigh my options. I could go along with them, betraying my closest and dearest friend. Or I could share her pain.

  “Maddie, are you in?” The words hiss at me this time. I look at her lips curling over her gritted teeth. She knows that somehow, I hold her fate in my hands.

  Slowly, I nod. And, just like that, my fate is sealed.

  Maddie flopped backwards into bed after hurling her alarm clock against the wall, pulling the covers up over her face. Still reeling from her encounter with the Sisters of Misery, she was frustrated that the only bit of information she had gotten out of them was who was cheating on their girlfriends-boyfriends, who had come out of the closet, what were the new must-have bags and shoes that they all desperately needed as if their lives depended on it. Nothing about Cordelia. Even when Maddie had brought it up, the subject was quickly and expertly changed.

  Her most recent nightmare—now a common occurrence—gave her a little insight into what could have happened. As Maddie went back and reread her entries in her dream journal over the past few months, it read like something out of a Stephen King novel, not something that could actually occur in real life. But Maddie was grateful to finally have a few pieces, even if it was only an image or two, to grasp hold of and roll around in her mind so that they could grow larger and larger until she had something substantial enough to fill the gaps.

  And not only did she have a terrible night’s sleep, but Maddie also dreaded the upcoming agenda for the day: seeing Rebecca. Once the word got out that Ravenswood was being shut down, her mother had needed help moving Rebecca to a new facility. Abigail also wanted to put an end to Maddie’s free time that, according to her mother, was being wasted on Reed Campbell. Abigail gave Maddie the job of overseeing the transfer, doing the paperwork, and making sure that the relocation of her aunt Rebecca was seamless.

  The red monster jutted out against the backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean at the edge of Hawthorne, as it had for the past century. Trees dotted the perimeter of the insane asylum, the reach of their arm-like branches beckoning, Come closer. Don’t be scared. The menacing face of the crumbling Gothic hospital erected on the site of Fort Glover appeared to stare at her as Maddie drove along the winding path sheltered by a canopy of trees. Rebecca had been held prisoner there for months. She was one of the last residents of Ravenswood, and now, thanks in part to the Endicotts, the state was officially shutting the place down. Abigail wanted Maddie to check on Rebecca before she was moved to a new facility. Typically, Tess would have done it, but it seemed like each day she was losing more of her grip on reality.

  So Maddie was determined to use this as an opportunity to communicate with Rebecca, something that hospital workers hadn’t been able to do throughout her time spent there. She was desperate to find the Rebecca she knew and loved. The one who seemed to have disappeared months ago and who had left this hollow shell, this changeling, in her place. But at the same time, Maddie was terrified that she would be on the receiving end of another one of Rebecca’s tirades.

  The asylum was intended to be an idyllic, soothing environment for the mentally ill when it was originally conceived. The doctor who was responsible for Ravenswood, or as it was called back then, Hawthorne Lunatic Asylum, envisioned a place filled with light and music, surrounded by the calming sounds of the Atlantic Ocean—a haven from the harsh, cruel world. The Gothic spires, turrets, and cupolas served as a picturesque tribute to this vision. But years of overcrowding and underfunding had collapsed this romanticized vision of helping the mentally ill. Many of the most dangerous patients were forced to inhabit the rooms built in the labyrinth of tunnels that ran beneath the massive brick and granite structure. The tunnels were filled with the groans and stench and misery of people trapped in total darkness, who sometimes never saw daylight for weeks or perhaps, even years.

  And now the asylum was finally being closed. Maddie noticed some windows, cracked and jagged like teeth, behind the rusted bars. Ivy had grown up like tentacles trying to drag the Gothic fortress back down through the gates of hell from which it was born.

  Maddie parked the car and entered the building. Overcoming a sudden urge to run, she resolved to make Rebecca’s arrangements for the transfer to the new facility as quickly as possible. It was hard enough for her to wait outside during Tess’s visits, but actually going inside and seeing the place that had haunted her throughout her entire childhood was almost too much to bear.

  Maddie entered the mouth of the asylum and allowed the monstrous beast to swallow her whole. The negative energy there was gruesomely palpable. The musty air was thick and close. Sounds seemed to come from all around her—a cacophony of groans and cries. Lost souls peered out from sunken eyes suspended in grim, ghastly faces.

  Maddie tried to get a good look at the people in the common room to see if she could recognize Rebecca among them. One woman stood in front of the blank television screen and pushed the buttons incessantly. Another man dressed in only a ratty bathrobe and soiled boxer shorts sat next to the peeling, pockmarked walls; he was deep in conversation with an unseen companion. The dilapidated equipment and decrepit wheelchairs littered the hallways. Corridors teeming with shadows appeared to stretch out to infinity.

  A stocky nurse turned and looked over at Maddie and sighed as she made her way across the grimy floor.

  “Can I help you?” The woman asked. Her upturned nose could almost pass for a snout.

  “Yes, I’m Madeline Crane. I’m here to see Rebecca LeClaire. I’m her niece.” Maddie smiled. Nurse Ratched, I presume?

  “Well, my name is Dot,” the woman snapped. “And I’m your aunt’s nurse. You’d know that
if you had ever come to visit your aunt, but I guess you and your mother were too busy.”

  Maddie wasn’t prepared for this woman’s harsh criticism, but she was determined to do the paperwork and see Rebecca, despite this woman’s obnoxious attitude.

  “Can you just show me to Rebecca’s room, please?” Maddie was quickly losing patience. She wanted to get this over with and get out.

  Dot stopped suddenly in front of a tremendous spiral staircase completely shrouded in high walls of mesh wire, most likely to keep inmates from jumping to their deaths.

  “Are you sure you aren’t one of those nosy reporters?” Dot frowned, grabbing her by the arm. “Ya know, we don’t need any more reporters digging around here. We’re closing down. Isn’t that enough for you people? No, the place isn’t haunted. No, we don’t mistreat our patients. And no, you can’t quote me. Got it?”

  There was a time when Maddie would have stammered and apologized. But she was a different person now. “Excuse me!” Maddie snapped, wriggling out of the stout woman’s viselike grip. “I’m sorry if you’ve had a problem with overzealous reporters prying into the back story of what caused the demise of this impeccably maintained facility,” she said sarcastically, gesturing to the chunks of peeling plaster, gnaw marks in the mahogany banister, and apparently toxic mold visible through the holes in the plaster walls. “But I don’t really care to know what went on here or what forced the state to shut you down. Right now, my only concern is signing the paperwork for her transfer and seeing Rebecca.”

  Dot narrowed her eyes for a moment, then pulled her chapped lips back into an awkward smile, something that didn’t seem to come naturally to her. Maddie was pleased with herself for standing her ground. Dot motioned for her to follow as she unlocked the rusted metal door. The large woman started up the staircase, pulling her heavy body up the stairs by hanging on to the metal handrail bolted to the wall, stopping to catch her breath on each landing.

  “Well, don’t let me stand in the way of your once-in-a-blue-moon visit with your aunt. Now that would just be cruel and indifferent of me, wouldn’t it?” Her sarcasm was as thick as the dusty air that surrounded them.

  Maddie managed to avoid eye contact with the people on Rebecca’s floor, people who were kept in what basically amounted to cages and cells.

  Please don’t let her be in one of those, Maddie silently prayed. Following behind Dot, Maddie kept her eyes on her feet as they shuffled heavily across the chipped checkerboard linoleum. The colors of the various rooms drifted from pale blue to institutional green to soft pink, as if they were experimenting to find the least agitating color for the patients.

  Even though she didn’t want to see the pallid faces and hollow stares—prisoners of their own minds as well as The Witches’ Castle—curiosity overcame her, forcing her to take in the surroundings. The antiquated furniture, the crude artwork scrawled across the walls, the constant hum and buzz of fluorescent lighting, and the smell—a musty, dank scent of sweat, urine, and something indefinable…fear, perhaps? And added to that the all-consuming negative energy that seemed to feed on everyone who passed through.

  Dot led her down to the end of the J Wing until they finally reached Rebecca’s room. The door was ajar, and Dot knocked out of respect for Rebecca’s privacy. While she appreciated it, Maddie wondered if the gesture was only for her benefit.

  Rebecca sat in a strange contraption that Maddie could only assume was a primitive ancestor of the wheelchair. What surprised her more than Rebecca’s haggard appearance was the room itself. Dot had explained as they made their way across the J Wing that the juvenile artwork scribbled across the peeling walls was from Ravenswood’s current patients. Since they were closing down the facilities, the nurses allowed the patients to express themselves on the walls that imprisoned them.

  Some drawings were childlike and innocent—happy suns, trees, and flowers, a family. But some were darker and grotesquely disturbing. Many chose to depict the buildings that made up the hospital. However, the pictures were not representative of the idyllic community that the founding doctors had envisioned decades ago. No, these pictures showed Ravenswood Asylum as an evil beast with windows like the eyes of a devil and doors shown as screaming, gaping mouths, which was just how Maddie saw this place when she entered. Others presented visions that equaled the horrors that lay at the deepest levels of Dante’s Inferno, with turrets and gables as horns and trees with craggy claws reaching out to devour and destroy.

  Rebecca’s drawings were not like any Maddie had seen up to that point.

  Her room was completely filled with flowers. Not real ones, but painted creations that rivaled the beauty of what was found in nature. She had painted them in every imaginable color, every floral and plant species Maddie had ever seen. They were delicately detailed, crowding each other for space to unfurl their trailing leaves, tendrils, and petals. The room was alive with color in every square inch. Even the pine floorboards hadn’t escaped Rebecca’s paintbrush. She had even ventured outside of the confines of her room and painted the bars on the window varying shades of blue so that on a clear day, the bars blended with the expansive sky.

  It seemed unimaginable that a woman who could no longer communicate intelligently through speech, someone who was barely clinging to the edges of sanity, could have created such intricate and complex artwork. How a person who couldn’t handle the simple actions of everyday life—eating, grooming, bathing, talking—was able to capture the smallest details within her artistic creations. Maddie was awed by the display.

  And there sat Rebecca in the center of this Garden of Eden she had created. It occurred to Maddie that the snake wouldn’t be entering this garden. Instead, the snake had swallowed it whole, and now Rebecca and her garden were trapped for eternity inside the belly of the beast.

  “Rebecca, you have a visitor. Do you remember your niece, Madeline?” Dot spoke loudly into Rebecca’s ear. “Maddie Crane? Your sister Abigail’s daughter.”

  Rebecca stiffened at the sound of Abigail’s name.

  At that moment, Maddie remembered walking in on her mother and Rebecca when they were in the middle of one of their fights. It seemed like a lifetime ago. It was after a field hockey practice had been cancelled due to rain. She peeked into the shop and saw her mother and Rebecca yelling and screaming over each other to the point where their words blended and became so muddled that she could barely distinguish one insult from another.

  “…never should have come back…”

  “…just stirring things up again…”

  “…jealous…not my fault…what can I do?”

  “…stay in California!…my life, my town…”

  “…slut!…in my face…not here, not now…”

  “…why don’t you…because of him…”

  Maddie slowly entered the shop, wind chimes announcing her arrival. They both turned to look at her, the heat and anger in their faces still present. Her mother turned away from Maddie, her hands fluttered up to her hair, pressing loose tendrils back into her stark bun. Rebecca smiled at her, though she was visibly shaken.

  “Hi there, sweetie.” She opened her arms wide for a hug. “Where’s my little troublemaker today?” she said, referring to Cordelia.

  “She had some things to do. Field hockey was cancelled, so I came over here,” Maddie said.

  Her mother snorted and said something under her breath—too quiet for Maddie to hear, but Rebecca obviously caught it. She turned and looked angrily at Abigail with tears brimming in her sea-blue eyes. “We can finish this later, Abby.”

  Her mother nodded, turned, and brushed past her. Without even a look in her daughter’s direction, Abigail said sternly. “Dinner will be at six o’clock sharp.” And with that, she exited the building, taking the heaviness with her like a dark cloud uncovering the bright sun.

  Maddie ran over to Rebecca and gave her a big hug. She didn’t have that strict “mom” feeling about her, more like a fun older sister.

  �
�What was that all about?” Maddie asked her, looking behind her, suddenly afraid that her mother had witnessed this outburst of affection between them.

  Rebecca looked her squarely in the eye. “Some things are better left unsaid, y’know? Anyway, I have a bunch of things that I need help with today, and since the elusive Cordelia is nowhere to be found, I elect you to be my apprentice for the day.”

  Maddie was excited to spend the afternoon alone with Rebecca. Maddie always felt like a third wheel when Cordelia was around. Now she would have the chance to make some “potions,” as they jokingly called them, and maybe learn a little more about divination, tarot, or reading tea leaves.

  As Maddie was crushing dried herbs with the mortar and pestle, mixing in just the right amount of foxglove and ginger root, Rebecca came over and gave her a quick kiss on the top of her head. “You remind me of me at your age,” she said.

  “Really?” Rebecca didn’t realize what a huge compliment that was.

  “Mm-hmm,” she said, hoisting herself up onto the wooden countertop and crossing her legs beneath her. She played with the ends of her long crimson braids and then smoothed out the wrinkles in her tapestry skirt. “Just make sure you listen to Tess. Your mom was always at odds with her, but that old lady is one smart cookie.” She laughed as if she were thinking of an old joke.