Page 10 of The Locked Ward

Two days. That’s how long it takes me to uncover the truth.

I couldn’t believe how simple it was to test Georgia’s claim.

DNA kits are sold everywhere from drugstores to the internet, with some specifically designed for potential siblings.

I ordered one that promised rigorous reviews of markers and fast results.

All I had to do was swab my cheek and send in my sample along with Georgia’s hairs, paying for expedited shipping.

Even though I suspected it, seeing the result almost knocks my legs out from under me. I stare at the email on my phone, rereading the information that just landed.

Georgia is my sister.

I ease onto the counter stool at my kitchen island, my coffee and eggs growing cold.

More than anything, I wish my parents were here to talk through my next steps.

We’d sit at their round kitchen table, like we always did for important conversations.

My mother would bring out banana bread or cookies, because one of the ways she showed love was by feeding us.

My dad would write up a list of pros and cons, like he did whenever I had to make a big decision.

I still have one of his old lists from when I was weighing whether to get a gecko for my tenth birthday: CON—you have to clean the cage.

PRO—geckos are awesome! My mom, the quieter and more anxious of the two, would chime in with a smart question like: What if Georgia is a murderer and she’s released and begins to fixate on you?

But in the end, they’d support whatever decision I made, even if they didn’t agree with it. The greatest gift my parents gave me was steady, uncomplicated love. After they died, it was like an invisible safety net beneath me disintegrated, one I didn’t notice I possessed until it was gone.

It’s safer to keep my distance from Georgia. My parents would secretly hope I’d do that.

But Georgia is the only family I have left.

The grand stone Myers Park church is already filled with mourners fifteen minutes before the funeral begins. Hundreds of white flowers decorate the room. A harpist’s fingers glide across the strings of her instrument, filling the hallowed space with an ethereal melody.

An usher hands me a program. I look down at the name written in embossed gold on the front: Annabelle Cartwright.

I couldn’t stay away from her funeral, not after what Georgia told me.

Over the last two nights while I tilted beer glasses under taps and cleared plates off tables, and as I lay sleepless in bed with the moonlight painting stripes across me through the slats in my blinds, I thought about what she’d said.

I didn’t do it. And: They’re going to kill me.

But she’s in a high-security psych ward. Don’t they all say that?

Now I look down at the program in my hand. In her photograph, Annabelle has wavy blond hair and a smile so big I can see her gums. She looks wholesome. Genuine. Beneath her photograph are the years of her birth and death.

She was only four months younger than Georgia. In a way, they were almost twins, too.

I’m just about to take a seat in the last pew when an anguished wail erupts from the front of the church.

I’m still standing, so I have a clear vantage point down the aisle.

A woman in the front row wearing a black veil is collapsing—but slowly, so it appears as if she’s melting into the ground.

For a moment, I fear she’s going to crack her head against the unforgiving floor, but at the last second a tall, distinguished-looking man with a red tie catches her.

The music halts. Murmurs spread through the crowd like ripples across a lake: “Did she faint?” “That’s Annabelle’s mother.” “Should we call an ambulance?”

Then I see the woman in the veil being helped to the front pew. Someone rushes over with a bottle of water, but she waves it away.

I recognize her from the news articles I’ve been devouring: It’s Honey Cartwright, the woman who raised Georgia. The woman who told a reporter she’d lost two daughters on the same day.

“Can you imagine?” the woman next to me murmurs to her companion. “All she’s been through. What a nightmare.” Their deep drawls are much more pronounced than my light Southern accent. They look to be about Honey’s age; they must be neighbors or friends.

If they know the family, they must also know Georgia.

I shift closer to them.

“I keep thinking of that Christmas pageant,” the other woman replies. “Probably because it happened right here in this church. Do you remember?”

“I wasn’t there, but I sure heard about it.”

“I knew something was wrong with Georgia even way back then. That look on her face—it was like she was proud of what she did to little Annabelle. Like she enjoyed hurting her in front of everyone.”

“And remember what Georgia did when Annabelle was in a stroller near a busy street? She could’ve killed her—” The woman cuts herself off as a hush falls through the crowd. The priest is approaching the pulpit.

I tune out during his opening prayer, and a reading of Annabelle’s favorite poem by Mary Oliver, and the soloist’s performance of “Amazing Grace.” I refocus during the eulogy, but there’s scant information in it.

Georgia’s name is never mentioned; instead, the priest focuses on Annabelle’s volunteer work with the younger children in the parish, her hope of traveling the world one day, and her energetic, buoyant character.

I scan the crowd. The younger women—those around Annabelle’s age—have sleek blowouts and are disproportionately blond. The older women wear glittering jewelry, and the men are dressed in dark suits.

Their faces are alternately stoic or tear-streaked or downcast. I wonder what lies behind their socially appropriate expressions. Memories must be roiling through their minds—not just of Annabelle, but also of my twin.

The people in this room have the key to the thing I desperately want: to understand my sister.

“God rest her soul,” the priest concludes his eulogy.

“Amen,” reply the hundreds of mourners as one.

What did Georgia do to Annabelle at the Christmas pageant? I wonder. And what else did she do to her younger sister?

There’s a private reception for family and friends at the Cartwright estate following the service. The same place where Georgia allegedly killed Annabelle.

I need to find a way in.