Daisy Darker

by Alice Feeney

Like my favorite resident says every time she sees me: the secret to having it all is knowing that you already do.

Families are like fingerprints; no two are the same, and they tend to leave their mark.

Pity fades with age, hate is lost and found, but guilt can last a lifetime.

Everyone’s life has uncharted waters—the places and

people you didn’t quite manage to find—but when you feel as though you never will, it’s a special kind of sorrow. The unexplored oceans of our hearts and minds are normally the result of a lack of time and trust in the dreams we dreamed as children. But adults forget how to believe that their dreams might still come true.

Childhood is a race to find out who you really are, before you become the person you are going to be. Not everybody wins.

Some people drink to drown their sorrows; others drink so they can swim in them.

Families are like snowflakes: each and every one is unique.

Doesn’t everyone wonder who they might have been if they weren’t who they were?

“The world we live in today is a little too careless with its memories. I hoped seeing ourselves as we were might remind us who we are.”

Sometimes people don’t know they’re in love until they’re not.

It’s a special kind of love that holds families together, even dysfunctional ones. Our love is like an intrinsically woven net made from a million memories and shared moments. The knots in the net are tight, but there are holes, just big enough for all of us to slip through if caught the wrong way.

So, rather than keep you in suspense any longer, I have decided to share my will with you tonight.”

‘The future is a promise we can still choose whether to keep. The past is a promise we’ve already broken.’

“Daisy is the only person in this family who never asked me for a penny,” she says, smiling in my direction. “I plan to leave a sizable sum to her favorite charities.” “Thank you,” I say,

“My literary estate will continue to make donations to my own favorite charities, as long as there are sufficient funds for it to do so. I will be leaving Seaglass in my great-granddaughter’s precious hands. I hope we can all agree that Trixie is the future of this family. My home will be held in trust for her alone, until she is older, along with any other royalties and future payments from publishers

As soon as the final clock strikes twelve, I hear a terrible scream.

Nana is lying on the floor in a white cotton nightdress. Her eyes are closed, her skin is gray, and there is a large gash on her head and a pool of blood beneath it. Poppins the dog is lying next to her, and neither of them is moving.

Daisy Darker’s family were as dark as dark can be. When one of them died, all of them lied, and pretended not to see. Daisy Darker’s nana was the oldest but least wise. The woman’s will made them all feel ill, which was why she had to die. Daisy Darker’s father lived life dancing to his own tune. His self-centered ways, and the pianos he played, danced him to his doom. Daisy Darker’s mother was an actress with the coldest heart. She didn’t love all her children, and deserved to lose her part. Daisy Darker’s sister Rose was the eldest of the three. She was clever and quiet and beautiful, but destined to die lonely. Daisy Darker’s sister Lily was the vainest of the lot. She was a selfish, spoiled, entitled witch, one who deserved to get shot.

Daisy Darker’s niece was a precocious little child. Like all abandoned ducklings, she would not fare well in the wild. Daisy Darker’s secret story was one someone sadly had to tell. But her broken heart was just the start of what will be her last farewell. Daisy Darker’s family wasted far too many years lying. They spent their final hours together learning lessons before dying.

Don’t waste your life wishing to be like someone else, decide who you are and be you.”

“Everyone deserves a second chance,”

“Everyone you know is both good and bad, it’s part of being human.”

But I am certain of one thing: my dad is dead.

There are pockets of sadness in all of our lives, and mine are deep. The diagnosis of my broken heart felt like a death sentence, and five is awfully young to find out that you won’t live forever.

They say that your life flashes before your eyes when you die, so you should make it a life worth watching.

Our future is just our past in the making.

This is where the story ends, Of fractured families and forgotten friends, And people too blind to make amends.

If you can’t find your way back to Happy, Navigate to the place you know as Less Sad.

Sometimes we have to let go of what we had in order to hold on to what we’ve got.

I was nothing but a disappointment. A broken promise. She blamed herself for my broken heart, and when she looked at me, all she saw was guilt. In that moment, I understood that my mother loved my sisters, and she loved that garden, but her love for me was not evergreen, or even perennial; it would not grow back. Sad memories hide inside us all like ghosts.

“Hope so. Just between us, you’re my favorite.”

Nana’s book Daisy Darker’s Little Secret was a bestseller all over the world. I know some people thought the character was based on me, but the real Daisy Darker was never quite as sweet or broken as everyone wanted to believe. I have a secret of my own. And some secrets are worth killing to keep.

Rose was always changing the words of nursery rhymes when we were growing up—swapping the real lyrics for something a shade darker.

Albert Einstein once said that weak people revenge, strong people forgive, and intelligent people ignore. It was one of the few things he was wrong about. Success is the best revenge. Try to remember that.”

“When you love someone, you can’t just turn it off, there isn’t a switch. Even if you hate someone that you once loved, there is still a little bit of love there. Love is like the soil that hate needs in order to grow. I think it’s rare in relationships to have one without the other.”

Love is as instinctive as breathing, but we don’t have to give it away. Like our breath, we can hold on to it if we choose to. But not forever. Because then it starts to hurt.

I really thought you’d figure it out once you saw the Scrabble letters stuck to the VHS tapes: WATCH ME, HEAR ME, NOTICE ME, SEE ME. Those are all the things you wanted your family to do since you died. But even before you died, they didn’t really see you. And Scrabble was a game we always played together, so I thought you might guess it was me. Try not to be too sad about all of this, Aunty Daisy. Some people are ghosts before they are dead.”

“It turned out everyone knew what really happened that Halloween except me,”

“Even my son, your father. They all kept quiet to protect your sisters, the Darker family reputation, and their future inheritance. Which is why none of them deserved a penny of it. I am not foolish or blind. I knew that my family were selfish and unkind. But they took you away from me, then they lied about what happened, and I could never forgive them, or Conor, for what they did. You were always my favorite, my darling girl. You inspired me to write my own stories, you gave me something to live for, and you made me want to be a better person. They had to pay for what they did to you.”

Rose only ever did good things to make herself feel less bad. Rose let Lily and Conor throw you over a cliff. She witnessed something truly terrible and did nothing to stop it. Then lied about it. That makes her just as bad as the rest of them.”

“In some ways, they were all killed by what they loved the most.

“Frank was killed by his desire to be alone with his music. “Nancy was killed by her precious plants. “Rose was killed by something to do with her work, which she always put first. “Lily was ...

“And Conor died eating his own words. Bei...

did what I did, the way that I did it, because I wanted them all to feel the fear you must have felt before you died that night. And, if I’m going to be completely honest, because I wanted to be proud of what I was leaving behind after I’m gone. I’m proud of you and Trixie. I’m proud of all my books. But I wasn’t proud of any of them. Not dealing with them before I died … it would have been selfish and irresponsible, like leaving litter on the beach. If that silly old palm reader in Land’s End is correct, then I’ll die when I’m eighty.

“I’ll always be here,” she says, gently putting her other hand over my heart. “The people who truly love us never leave us. And you were never broken. In my eyes, you were always perfect. I love you from here to the moon and back three times and once for luck.”

“Perhaps writing your own story is the only way you get to escape this life?

inside stories when the real world got too loud. I don’t know if anyone will ever read mine. There are some stories only time will tell.