Page 19 of Twisted Truths
Unfortunately, when she finds out her role this morning is to feed the animals and muck out their pens, she might consider that a punishment within itself.
“Hadley,” Gabriel barks my name, and I flinch.
He points to the vacated seat, and I climb in, ignoring thecurious gazes of the two other girls already settled in the truck. I’ve no doubt they’re wondering what the hell I’m doing here. Well, that makes three of us. I don’t know what game Gabriel is playing, but I do know I need to be careful. Seraphina won’t be happy if she finds out about this. I’m glad she and Guardian Solomon are in Sydney for the weekend, and I pray that means she won’t hear of it.
Gabriel climbs up next to his brother, Isaac, who is driving, and the tension in the cab only intensifies. It’s thick with unspoken questions and the weight of silence. No one utters a word as we drive into Barrenridge, and in the silence I get lost in my memories.
I haven’t left the property since I arrived here three years ago, searching for my sister. After our father left, Madeline did her best to look after me—stealing food to feed us, finding shelter on the scary Sydney streets—but we only lasted a week before the authorities picked us up. They put us into emergency care, and thankfully, kept us together. It may have had something to do with Madeline kicking and clawing at the man who tried to separate us at the police station.
It took six months to find a family willing to take both of us, and a week before my seventh birthday we moved in with Jack and Dianne. Their eleven-year-old son Brayden became our biggest protector.
I always wondered if something happened between Brayden and Madeline, because they spent a lot of time together, but anytime I asked, she laughed it off. She changed when he moved up north for university, became moody and distant, spending more and more time locked in her bedroom. Two weeks after my sixteenth birthday, she left without a word. No note, nothing.
Jack and Dianne did everything they could to find her, but it seemed she didn’twant to be found.
Four months after she disappeared, Brayden took his own life, overdosing on a lethal combination of oxycodone, fentanyl and alcohol. There were no signs. His roommate found him and the note beside his bed that read,“Everything hurts. I can’t take the pain any longer.”
Jack and Dianne divorced soon after Brayden’s funeral. Fuelled by my own grief, I developed an eating disorder, and Dianne withdrew me from school, choosing to home school me in between dragging me to therapists and specialists.
While I overcame my aversion to food with time, it put a strain on our relationship. I felt like I couldn’t breathe under her constant scrutiny. It was exhausting, but I think she was simply terrified of losing me, too.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened.
On my eighteenth birthday, I received a letter from a lawyer in a small rural town in New South Wales containing an antique silver locket, a cheque for one thousand dollars, and a letter from Madeline.
I’ve read it so many times, her words are ingrained in my memory.
Dearest Hadley,
I know you probably hate me for leaving, and I don’t blame you. One day you will fall in love and experience that all-encompassing feeling of living, and breathing, and fighting for that person. I only hope that when you inevitably have your heart broken, you don’t let it consume you as I let it consume me. Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve everhad to do, but I couldn’t breathe in that house without him. You deserved a better future than what I could offer you, broken and defeated as I was. I know I don’t deserve a second chance, but if you can find it in your heart to forgive me, I’m not that same scared little girl. This money is everything I have. It isn’t much, but I have no use for it where I am. Take it and dream big, Bug. I’ve made my peace in this world, and I want the same for you.
Take this world by storm, Hadley.
I’ll always love you,
Madeline.
There was no date on the letter, no return address other than the law firm in Rafters Falls. That didn’t matter, though. I was one step closer to finding my sister.
I knew my leaving would kill Dianne, but the only thing I cared about was finding Madeline. So, I packed my bag in the middle of the night and snuck out before she woke. I read and reread my sister’s letter on the long bus ride to Rafters Falls, creasing the paper from all the times my hands trembled.
When I arrived, the law firm directed me to Barrenridge and the Sunfire Circle.
I’d been eighteen months too late.
My heart shattered when Guardian Seraphina took me to visit a simple white cross marked with Madeline’s name. That was the moment I knew I was truly alone in this world. I couldn’t go back to Sydney, to Dianne, knowing Madeline wasburied here. What hurt even more was the tiny, unnamed cross next to hers. According to Seraphina, my sister and her baby died due to complications during childbirth.
I hadn’t even known she was pregnant.
Seraphina held me while I broke down, and then she offered me a place at Sunfire Circle. Not having anywhere else to go, I accepted, and for two and a half years, I embraced everything the Circle offered. I had clothes, food, and shelter. For the first time in my life, I felt safe.
The Circle is peaceful in its routine. At least, I thought it was untilshearrived.
The rumours circulated around Gabriel deviating from the Awakening ceremony and bringing in an outsider six months ago. He announced in front of the entire congregation that she was already pregnant with his child, which gave Guardian Solomon and Seraphina no choice but to accept her into our family.
It all blew up in their faces when she left almost a week ago. Now, tension is brewing, flames of unease licking at their feet, as rumours swirl around why she left in the shadows of the night. The foundations of the Circle are starting to shake, and Gabriel’s deviation from their carefully constructed routines is only crumbling them further.
The early morning sun paints the sky with soft hues of pink and gold as the truck slows to a stop in the town centre. My eyes widen as I take in the market stalls, which are set up across from the main street. People bustle about, and my heart rate increases at the unfamiliar faces.
