7 Souls Read Online Free PDF

did .”
    “Oh, you’re fine —come on,” Ellen said dismissively. The lamplight gleamed off her glasses as she checked her watch. “Nothing happened —you met some people and killed some brain cells and—”
    “Ellie—”
    “—partied somewhere until you did a face-plant and stumbled home in the morning just like a million other nights. Honestly, get over it.”
    “Mary …? Ellen …?”
    Both sisters’ shoulders slumped, in unison.
    Even though their mother’s voice, muffled by two closed bedroom doors, was barely audible, it still cut through to Mary’s ears like a surgical scalpel. That voice , with the double shot of eternal tragedy and helplessness, like she was calling her daughters’ names through mosquito netting as she lay dying in a Ugandan leper colony.
    “Mary-fairy? Ellie-belle? Can you come here?”
    Every morning was exactly the same. Before the girls left for school, rain or shine, Mom had to have her broncho-dilating drugs for her emphysema and a glass of diluted orange juice (two parts Tropicana, one part Fiji). She needed it all brought to her in bed, followed by her pack of Virginia Slims from the dresser and her antidepressants and mood stabilizers for the bipolar disorder and her OxyContin and B 12 for the chronic fatigue syndrome. It had been the same nearly every day for a decade—for so long that Mary could barely remember what her mother had been like before, when Dad was still alive. It was like she had been a different person altogether.
    Ellen and Mary stared at each other, hopelessly.
    “Can you take this one?” Mary asked.
    Ellen gave her a nasty smile. “What’s it worth to you?”
    “Come on , Elle! Look at me! It’s already like eight o’clock and I’ve got to take a shower and figure—”
    “It’s only seven-forty-five.”
    “—out what to wear . I will buy you a pony, I will steal you a new laptop, I will do your dishes for a month….”
    And you don’t really mind , she added silently. It was true. Ellen obviously got some kind of codependent satisfaction from taking care of Mom. If Ellen ended up doing it more often, Mary had determined, it had to be because, on some level, she wanted to; it made up for not having a boyfriend to take care of.
    Not that Mary would have ever said that to Ellen.
    “Ellie? Mary-fairy?” Mary heard Mom’s stricken voice, that patented deathbed voice, calling for them again. “I need you, honey….”
    “Please, please, please,” Mary chanted, gazing yearningly at her sister. “You’re already dressed! I’ve got to change , I’ve got the worst hangover in the history of America, I’ve got a Shama test I haven’t even studied for—”
    “And it’s your birthday.”
    “What?”
    Ellen was smiling at her, gently, sweetly, but her eyes were flat and expressionless behind her glasses. “What’d you think—I forgot?”
    Mary hadn’t thought that Ellen had forgotten. But hearing her mention it, Mary felt a familiar wave of anxiety passing over her. My birthday , she thought, with a sinking feeling. All the attention, all the praise … all the pressure to be perfect, to give everyone the little bit of me they need . All the energy it took to play the part—to be Mary Shayne for another day—was going to be amped up double, triple, today. Gorgeous! Bold! Raven-haired! Stylish without trying, cynical without being too dark, smart without being intimidating, funny without pissing anybody off, sociable but unapproachable … all those qualities she had to effortlessly exude, all the responsibilities of being the senior class’s very own superstar for another day. And she hadn’t even begun to figure out what to wear, which was a major struggle in and of itself. It was the kind of thing Ellen would never understand.
    “You don’t have to do the dishes—that’s silly,” Ellen said. “But there’s one thing you can do for me today.”
    “Anything,” Mary pleaded desperately. “Anything , I swear.”
    But the