Free The Patterson Girls by Rachael Johns Page B

a loved one. She glanced at her sisters and from the look on their faces they’d seen it too.
    â€˜Dad?’ Lucinda pressed.
    â€˜It’s codswallop.’ He stood and dumped the card in the waste paper basket beside him, avoiding their eyes. ‘That’s what your mother used to say and she was absolutely right. You girls are far too intelligent to believe a word of it.’
    Madeleine laughed. ‘Of course we are, but can’t you at least give us something. I know the great aunts were a bit eccentric, but a curse? What kind of curse?’
    Abigail held her breath. If anyone could get it out of Dad it was Madeleine. She hadn’t seemed the slightest bit interested back in the bedroom, but they all knew their oldest sister didn’t like being kept in the dark.
    Dad, already on his way out of reception, paused. ‘I’m sorry, but I promised Netty I’d never tell you. She didn’t believe in it, and she didn’t want you girls to ever have that kind of negativity affecting your lives. Just forget about it. Please .’
    With a sad and slightly angry look on his face, Dad walked through to his office and closed the door behind him.
    â€˜Well,’ Abigail blinked. ‘Was that weird or was that just me?’
    â€˜Weird,’ agreed Charlie and Lucinda.
    â€˜I need a drink,’ Madeleine exclaimed, turning and heading to the bar.
    The others followed and without asking she unscrewed a bottle of McLaren Vale chardonnay and poured four glasses.
    â€˜Okay, I’ll admit,’ Madeleine said after taking her first sip, ‘ now I’m curious.’
    Abigail smiled. ‘So what are we going to do about it?’
    â€˜Maybe we should just leave it,’ Lucinda suggested, twisting the stem of her wine glass between her thumb and forefinger. ‘Mum and Dad obviously don’t want us knowing. I trust their judgement and shouldn’t we respect their opinion?’
    Charlie nodded. ‘I agree. If we hadn’t stumbled on the cards we’d be none the wiser.’
    â€˜But we did ,’ Abigail pleaded, excitement thrumming through her veins.
    â€˜And I for one have better things to do than spend all eternity wondering if some curse is going to strike me down dead when I least expect it,’ Madeleine said. Abigail couldn’t tell if she was taking the piss or not, but at least she now wanted to know.
    Charlie shot Madeleine a disbelieving glare. ‘I didn’t think you’d place any importance on things like curses? Aren’t they in the same basket as palm reading, horoscopes and all the other things you take great joy in teasing me about.’
    â€˜Maybe.’ Madeleine shrugged. ‘But none of those things affect me personally. This one is a Patterson curse. I think we all have a right to know.’
    Silence followed and Abigail guessed her sisters were all pondering the same thing as her. Did they have a right to know? And did she really want to know? What if the curse was something about death or bad luck or disease? She shuddered. Dad’s brother, Uncle William had died long before his time when he was caught in a rip on a family holiday to Goolwa Beach. And as Madeleine had just informed them, Dad’s aunts had died in a horrific car accident.
    And what about Mum’s bee sting?
    Sheesh! Maybe there really was some ghastly Patterson curse.
    â€˜So how do you plan on finding out?’ Lucinda asked. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea to keep pestering Dad in his current state.’
    â€˜Yes, Lucinda, thank you for that blindingly obvious piece of information.’ Madeleine tapped her fingernails on the bar. ‘We could ask some of the locals who’ve been in Meadow Brook forever. Someone might know something.’
    Lucinda shook her head. ‘You’ve been living in big cities too long. Word would get back to Dad and he’d be upset we’d gone behind his back. I