The book Dark Secrets by Elizabeth Chandler is a book with two stories: Legacy of Lies and Don’t Tell. Both of these stories are graphic, haunting, and based in the town of Wisteria. They share many similarities and reoccurring themes such as death and paranormal activity, but they are also very different.
Legacy of Lies-Words of the Wiser:
In Legacy of Lies, Chandler uses advice to help guide the main character, Megan’s, decisions. To start off the story, Megan’s grandmother invites her to visit, and though she is reluctant, her father advises her to go, saying that it was for her mother’s sake. When Megan finally arrives at her grandmothers a variety of odd things begin to happen; things are being …show more content…
This story is primarily about taking moments from the past and using them to figure out how to move on. The story begins with Lauren recalling the night her mother died saying, “I could tell from Aunt Jule’s voice that something was wrong. The bundle she was carrying was long and limp. Even before I could see her clearly, I knew it was my mother.” This adds to the emotion of the story, setting it up before we even really get into the book. It lets us into Lauren’s mind as a child. As soon as she arrives in Wisteria, Lauren feels out of place and weary. She doesn’t know how to feel or how to react to her surroundings. Lauren gets to her aunt’s house and is reintroduced to her cousin Holly, her old best friend Nick, who both greet her with open arms, and her cousin Nora who is cold, childlike, and obviously is in need of some psychiatric help. Almost immediately after Lauren gets there odd things being to happen, she remembers them as the same things her mother used to talk about, “She’d tell me things were moving in her room. “There’s no hand touching them, baby. They move by themselves.” Lauren decides that it is just Nora acting out to her being in the house again and moves on. She is in Wisteria for a reason after all, she wants to know exactly what happened to her mother remembering that Aunt Jule waved the cops off, “Aunt Jule had argued fiercely with the sheriff and the state police, insisting that the drowning was an accident, begging them for my sake not to stir up any rumors with a pointless investigation.” Lauren thinks that her aunt is trying to cover up a murder and jumps to conclusions that it is Nora. But when remembering that the strange things happening to her now also happened to her mother before her death she decides to ask a psychiatrist about Nora. He tells her that when a brain gets too stressed