Edwina
Location: New York
Edwina was getting restless. Ever since Vandenberg
Nutraceuticals shut down the Florida factory and word
got out about the church’s questionable practices; they
were hounded by the police. And while they found enough
evidence to link the company to at least !ve deaths at church
campuses in the Northern United States, family lawyer, Mr.
Lundy, and his team had done such a good job of covering their
tracks that no one person could be blamed…except of course, one
of their Ambassadors who died under suspicious circumstances
while in prison. They took the fall for Erasmus’s death, and the
death of a Deaconess at one of the Pennsylvania church
campuses. But the older cases went so far back that it would take
many more years and cutting through lots of red tape and corruption
to get to the bottom of it all.
7
Danielle Palli
Still, the damage had been done. In addition to Vandenberg
Nutraceuticals facing bankruptcy, church membership had fallen
by nearly 40%. Apparently, the faith-healing business was not
what it used to be. Then, of course, there was the fact that Emma
Post, a !gure model who now controlled the bulk of the company,
was planning to sell o" both factory properties…one in Florida
and the other in Dublin.
And, as if it couldn’t get any worse for Edwina Vandenberg,
daughter of Erasmus Vandenberg, Erasmus saw to it that Edwina
got next to nothing in his will. The New York condo now
belonged to her daughter, Elsbeth, and in another few months,
Edwina would be tapped out and forced to sell her luxury estate
in the Hamptons.
She had already laid o" all of the housekeepers at both locations,
with the exception of Ferdinand, Erasmus’s personal
assistant. Despite taking a considerable pay cut, Ferdinand
remained a loyal member of the church and to Edwina.
Edwina sat on the couch of the home that now belonged to
her daughter, recognizing that she had limited time left as
Elsbeth’s guardian. She $ipped through a tabloid that unearthed
a conspiracy theory that everyone on sta" at the factory or at the
Vandenberg residences where also secret Ambassadors and
Elders of an underground cult. Unfortunately, the story was a
little too on point.
Edwina let out a hu" as she ripped the cover from the tabloid,
crumpled it up in a !t of anger and launched it like a baseball into
the !replace. It hit the mantle and dropped, un-singed, in front of
the hearth.
“Would you care for a sherry, Madame Edwina?” Ferdinand
asked. “It might settle your nerves.”
Edwina sti"ened her shoulders for a moment before
consciously relaxing them away from her ears and tilting her
head from side to side to loosen her neck.
8
It Had to Be You
“I’m afraid I need more than sherry to settle my nerves
tonight, Ferdinand. What I need is…a miracle.”
9
