The Last Dryad: The Complex Read online

  "Sarah Cradit's writing is tight and masterful. Her keen sense of how to pace a book and her ability to use just the right language to express the desires, fears and hopes of her characters is flawless."- Ionia Martin, Vine Top 100 Reviewer, Readful Things

  "Cradit does an incredible job of building suspense. It's a slow, moody, edge of your seat suspense with a palpable sense of foreboding. This atmosphere kicks the book off and slowly escalates as you sink deeper into it."- Julie Whiteley, Clue Review

  "The books are well written, the plot flows so quickly that you reach the end of the story well before you are ready and without realizing how much time has gone by since you were enchanted, committed and flung into the world of the Sullivan's, Deschanel's and their friends. You become a part of their lives as you are reading the books and think about the characters long after you have finished reading the book."- Stephenee Carsten, Nerd Girl Official

  "The writing is top-notch, the story gripping and fast-paced, and the character development incredible. I will be impatiently awaiting the next installment."- Teri Polen, Books & Such

  Never miss a single moment in the lives of these ancient, powerful, cursed families…

  If you have trouble with the image above, CLICK HERE

  Excerpt from The Illusions of Eventide | The House of Crimson & Clover Volume I

  Living no longer interested me.

  This decision was a rare instance of clarity in nearly thirty years of debaucherous living. I could not pinpoint the exact moment when it initially crossed my mind. Hell, I couldn’t tell you when it went from a whim to a done deal. Like most things in my life, it didn’t occur to me slowly. The idea did not evolve, although looking back, every moment leading up to my realization essentially shouted the same forgone conclusion.

  I was only numbly unaware of my plan as I gassed up the Porsche, or as I packed my small leather bag, carefully placing inside the box housing my father’s handgun. Even the drive to Deschanel Island on New Year’s Day was free of interesting revelations. If I were the insightful type, I’d have started putting the puzzle pieces together sooner; I’d have recognized this sojourn to my family’s private island was not just another one of my notorious, spur-of-the-moment getaways. This was more than Deschanel spontaneity rearing its self-indulgent head.

  There were plenty of assholes who expected something like this from me years ago, after the accident that killed off most of my family.

  I grew up with four half-sisters. Products of my father’s inability to stop rutting with his French maid; sisters my father loved far more than he ever loved his only son. This didn’t bother me the way it should have. I grew up doing whatever I pleased, whenever I pleased, however I pleased, and there was no one who cared enough to stop me. Even my own mother, who I loved despite her faults, was too self-absorbed in misery of her own creation to tend to my emotional needs.

  What should have been an exclamation point in my life was, in reality, more of a footnote. My entire family–except my youngest sister, Adrienne–died in a car accident deep in bayou country. An interesting correlation as they were also en-route to Deschanel Island for a family vacation. At the ever-so-tender age of twenty-one, I was faced with unfathomable tragedy. Most of the family biddies were on edge, waiting for me to do something characteristically selfish like drink myself into oblivion and walk down the Mississippi River levee naked.

  But I was too stubborn to give the Deschanel Sewing Circle the satisfaction of being right. Besides, I had already done my share of drinking naked on the levee. I could think of far more creative ways to go off the deep end.

  It was easier to let them believe I didn't care, though I did. A great deal. I loved my father even if he was a prick. I loved my conniving mother, even if it was her fault he excluded me. And I loved my half-sisters too, though they probably never knew it.

  My “I’ve got all I want” illusion was apparently very convincing. I should have been on suicide watch; people should have been concerned for my frame of mind and personal safety. The kitchen at Ophélie should have been swimming with shitty casseroles. But it wasn’t. Because no one saw me mourn. Friends, other family, our lawyers, staff all assumed I didn’t care. They mistook my lack of tears as a sign of apathy.

  Although beyond their understanding, I did experience sadness. I grieved for what I could have had, but never did. And now, never would.

  But this wasn’t why I came to Deschanel Island to die. It had nothing to do with some repressed grief or inexorable loneliness stemming from my crappy upbringing, or from my family’s accident. That was almost a decade ago. I’d experienced very little heartache in my life since, and despite my often dysfunctional rearing, I had never been lonely. My life had always been pretty fucking good, if I do say so. And up until a month ago, I was happy.

  I knew what people thought; I partied, traveled, passed from one experience to another as a way of making up for the lack of sincere affection in my life. I let people believe that because it sounded a lot less fucked up than just admitting I preferred my lifestyle to normalcy. I loved excess. I loved money. I loved women.

  Of course, it was love, and my screwed up definition of it, which brought me to this point.

  My family had owned the small island off the Gulf Coast of Louisiana for many years. Since before I was born, but how long exactly I really didn’t know, or care. What I did know is that it was small, private, and there would be no chance of encountering another living soul.

  There were five houses altogether on Deschanel Island, all owned by the Deschanel estate. Rentals mainly, although there would be no tenants at all now, as I had been very clear with our agent I wanted the island to myself until the end of January. I didn’t know how long it would take me to sort my shit out, but I definitely didn’t need tourists enjoying the show. Of course, I didn’t consciously acknowledge I was going to off myself when I made my plans, so my subconscious must have been in control, showing a rare moment of foresight and clarity.

  Neither Oz nor Ana had been surprised at my decision to go away for a while. Guilt, most likely.

  “You do realize that, unless you bring them with you, there will be no women, and no booze, correct?” Oz had said. I resented him for thinking we had come to the point where jokes were okay again. Newsflash, asshole: I still hate you.

  Ana had been less flippant about it, instead sending me a brief email with the line: This isn’t like you. Do you want to talk? No, she hadn’t earned the right to have an opinion about my life again, either. That email, like all the others she had written to me in the past month, went unanswered and promptly deleted.

  Why I continued to humor Oz, but not Ana, was somewhat of a mystery to me. I only knew I felt the need to punish her more, because her actions broke my heart the most.

  But they could both go straight to hell, as far as I was concerned. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be sitting in my parents’ beach house with my father’s .357 on my lap.

  The only two people I had ever cared about–the only two people in the world who I knew cared about me–were now the only two people in the world I wanted nothing to do with. But, like a chump, I continued letting things go on in their vaguely passive manner. Continued my surface-level discussions with Oz, and resisted the urge to reply to Ana’s tentative emails with a vitriolic rant. Continued pretending superficially I was over what they had done. Ironic really, my method of coping with a loss a decade prior, was essentially the same manner in which I was functioning now.

  We had an uneasy truce. I wanted nothing to do with either of them, but I was unable to find the energy, or wherewithal, to bring things to a dramatic conclusion. What was more, I felt the bizarre need to protect their ungrateful, deceitful asses. I even went to the trouble of writing a suicide note which exonerated them from all responsibility or guilt. Infuriating.

  Anger was easier, anyway.

  Storm clouds formed over the crystal blue water. It was too late in the season for hurricanes, but a
winter storm in the Gulf could be equally nasty. I supposed I could wait until tomorrow to do the deed. It wasn’t like I was on a damn schedule.

  I ran my fingers over the cold steel of my father’s gun. I actually had to look online to figure out how to shoot the cursed thing. Oz knew about guns. Hell, he handled one like a pro not so long ago, back when everyone’s world started to fall apart.

  Why did Oz have to unburden his conscience on me? If ignorance was bliss, I had lived an entire life of utopia. I was perfectly happy not knowing a goddamn bit about anything. I liked that my only concern in the world was whether to spend Christmas in Switzerland, or France. I didn’t care what my apathy said about me, because I usually did not give a damn what others did with their lives, either.

  Knowing about Oz and Ana changed everything. Now that I knew, the rug had been pulled out from underneath my hazy, fantastical world, and I was standing on a foundation of crumbling sand. I had to face reality: all people were selfish creeps, and I was but one among many.

  I sent a text message to Oz the first night. I knew I shouldn’t, but it was an old habit, and old habits have always been hard for me to break. And I knew he would let Ana know, which would give me some comfort, because I wasn’t able to force myself to talk to her. Arrived. Safely. I know ur being a little bitch and worrying so wanted to put ur mind at ease.

  Oz responded almost immediately. Thanks for your endearing note. Enjoy your self-induced solitude, Thoreau.

  I smiled, and then mentally smacked myself for it. This is how we had talked to each other for years, for as long as we had been friends; all our lives. I had loved Oz like my own damn brother. Hell, he was my brother, if you considered he married my half-sister Adrienne. Oz had been martyring himself on Adrienne’s behalf for years, and they were finally together, and happy. At least I thought he was happy. All happiness comes at a price. I believe Oz paid for happiness, the way we all pay to have the things we want most in life. Adrienne had paid, too.

  He didn’t deserve my text aimed at easing his mind. He didn’t even get credit anymore for his care of Adrienne, after what he had done to her. If I hadn’t loved my sister, I’d have told her all about what her husband had done. But I did love her, and so I didn’t.

  It was hard to put aside thirty years of friendship. I didn’t know how to see him through this new, darker lens. Intellectually, what he did was fucking terrible. My heart–that cold, dark organ renting space in my chest–was torn asunder by it. But somewhere deep down, I also knew Oz was the best man I had ever known. Those perspectives were having a hell of a time reconciling themselves in my head. Reasoning shit out was not something I enjoyed under any conditions.

  A conversation I had, years ago with Ana, suddenly popped into my head. About a year after my family’s accident, she asserted I could control my reaction to a situation completely, with practice.

  That is some bullshit, I had said.

  Is it?

  If it were true, you would not be such a raving basket-case, I countered.

  If it weren’t true, you’d have never survived the demise of your family, she said, bluntly, right to the point as always. I loved that about her.

  Explain, I challenged, interested.

  You don’t actually believe it didn't bother you? she asked, her eyebrows cocked almost unnaturally upward.

  No, Ana, I really didn’t give a fuck, I said, although she and I both knew that was patently untrue.

  No. You quite clearly decided not to give a fuck, and therefore, a fuck was not given.

  Of course I had to retort I generously gave plenty of fucks, and how dare she accuse me of being stingy. We debated it for another hour or so, before she conceded (knowing she was right), and I won (knowing it wasn’t really a victory). If I hadn’t loved her so much, I might have hated her for making me think about my own emotional choices.

  But sitting here, watching the Gulf tides, and feeling the brisk, cool air tug at my jacket, I knew she had been wrong all along. If I could control how I felt about this situation, I’d have forgiven her and Oz both, and all would be well. I’d be off to Greece for the winter, beautiful but unremarkable women on each arm, and not a care in the world. Blissfully ignorant.

  “Fuck you,” I said, to nothing and no one in particular.

  Ready to read on? Follow this link.