7 Souls Read Online Free PDF Page B

desperation was an act—Mary was already relaxing. Ellen was going to do it; she was going to take care of Mom and let Mary off the hook. Mary could tell.
    “What I want you to do”—Ellen had leaned crazily to one side and was reaching down for her canvas book bag, on the book-cluttered floor beside her bed—“is have a wonderful birthday.”
    Mary stared at Ellen, who held out a small object—something wrapped in a pretty cloud of bright purple tissue paper with a gold ribbon. A birthday present.
    “Where are you …?” Mom called plaintively.
    “Go ahead,” Ellen said. “Take it. I’ll totally handle Mom; don’t worry about it. I’ve got three free periods anyway—I was going to skip homeroom and chill. You go ahead and I’ll see you at school.”
    “Oh, Ellen …” Mary lunged over and grabbed her sister, pulling her into a bear hug. It should have lasted only a few seconds, but Mary found herself not wanting to let go. “Ellie-belle, you are a goddess .”
    “Yuck!” Ellen’s voice was muffled by Mary’s crazy, matted hair as she firmly hugged back. “You smell awful , girl. Hurry up and take a shower while I do Mom.”
    “Thank you,” Mary whispered, giving Ellen a final squeeze before letting go. “Thank you.”
    “Here,” Ellen said awkwardly, pressing the gift into Mary’s hand. “Now, come on—stop wasting time. You’re seventeen—go out there and seize the day.”
    “You’re a goddess—truly,” Mary repeated, rising to her feet. One part of her mind was already scanning through her wardrobe, facing the terrifying challenge of figuring out what to wear. “You’re sure you’re okay with this?”
    Ellen smiled serenely. “Of course I am, dear sister. Now get out of here.”

2
9:06 A.M.
    W ALKING SOUTH DOWN P ARK Avenue under the pale white sky, right thumb beneath the faded strap of her familiar book bag, Mary tried to tell herself that she felt better—that everything was back to normal.
    It almost worked.
    She definitely looked better—but then, that wasn’t saying much. She had probably never looked worse than the crazed, polyester-and-tennis-shoes-clad vagrant she’d been just ninety minutes before, climbing out of the taxicab (and, as expected, facing a $24.99 fare—before tip—that she had to pay for with the Crate and Barrel cleaning lady’s twenty-dollar bill and the sweetest, most apologetic smile she could muster). After a three-minute power shower and a few minutes at the mirror, cleansing her poreless vanilla skin and blowing out her shoulder-length jet-black hair and applying Givenchy Illicit Raspberry to her full lips and Shu Uemura Basic around her ice-blue eyes, she’d begun to feel almost human again. The steam had been billowing from the Shaynes’ tiny bathroom as Mary riffled through her overstuffed closet full of size zeroes, impatiently hurling useless couture across her hatefully cramped bedroom. The discarded tops and trousers and dresses on their store hangers cascaded loudly against the thin, cracking wall, while behind that wall, Ellen was ministering to Mom—Mary could hear their muted voices and the clinking of glasses as Ellen struggled to get the orange juice mixture just right.
    Finding something to wear hadn’t been easy. All the clothes were wrong: the silver Badgley Mischka dress from Amy was too much; the floral Nela dress that Joon bought her at the Bendel preview party was too pretty; the Dior shirts from that sample sale were utterly ridiculous and needed to be burned in some sort of voodoo bonfire. Mary tugged down more hangers, scanning each outfit within milliseconds, asking the same embarrassing question over and over—the question she had secretly asked herself every morning and every night out for the past three years: What would you wear if you were Mary Shayne?
    She never asked it out loud because she knew what Amy and Joon would say if they heard it: “What do you mean, if you were Mary Shayne? You are Mary