Sisters of Misery Read Online Free PDF

gift, a sort of extrasensory perception that allows us to know things that cannot be explained.” Maddie smirked, used to Tess’s stories about “special powers and gifts,” but Cordelia leaned forward, fascinated.
    Maddie had heard this before, of course. Every time Tess spoke of the “family gift,” Abigail laughed it off, saying that it was one of Tess’s many eccentricities, the result of having too much time on her hands. Maddie wondered if the gene had been passed along to Cordelia and Rebecca, because it certainly hadn’t made its way through to Maddie or her mother.
    “I discovered my gift when Rebecca was just a baby,” Tess began, allowing her gaze to drift back to the window. She explained how she dreamt about the color blue for weeks, her mind crowded with wide expanses of deep blue skies hovering over cool aquamarine waters. She dreamt of blueberries, fat and ripe, rolling across the dining room table, which was formally set with expensive china as delicate and blue as a robin’s egg. Cobalt blue water goblets were filled to the rim with grape juice, and the vases were cluttered with hydrangea, cornflowers, and sweet pea. “The images stayed with me long after the dreams dissipated, but I shrugged it off, not knowing what to do with the premonitions.”
    “So what happened?” Cordelia asked.
    Tess sat up a little straighter, her face flushed with excitement at having a new, rapt audience to tell her magical stories to. “It wasn’t until I awoke from a late summer afternoon nap and felt compelled to look in on my sleeping baby girl—your mother—that my dreams started to make sense,” Tess paused dramatically. “As soon as I walked into the nursery, all the blue images came rushing into my mind when I saw that your mother’s face was the color blue that had haunted my dreams.”
    Cordelia gasped as she learned that the baby had become tangled in her bedclothes and blankets, and the lack of oxygen had caused a blue tinge to stain her cherubic face.
    “What did you do?” Cordelia cried. Maddie was surprised at Cordelia’s emotional reaction—the tense energy coming from her cousin was palpable. Tess explained how she quickly hoisted the child from its confines, pressed her mouth against the baby’s tiny sliver of blue lips, and forced heavy bursts of lifesaving air into the lungs. After several tension-filled minutes, the baby began gasping and wheezing, her returning pink coloring flushing away the deathly blue.
    “After that, I knew that my dreams would foretell an important event, but the symbols never gave me a warning,” she said ominously. “The symbols were there; the meaning was not. This is why it is so important to be aware of the signs that are always around you. If you look close enough, you can see the patterns of what’s to come. You can and you must use the signs to protect yourselves—and each other.”
    Maddie was suddenly overcome with the feeling of being watched. She rubbed away the goose bumps that appeared on her arms.
    Finally, Abigail threw open the door and glared at Tess.
    “Is there a reason you’re keeping these girls up so late? You know that they have a lot of work ahead of them in the store tomorrow,” Abigail scolded. Tess ignored her daughter and simply clasped the girls’ hands tightly in her own. Abigail sighed and said as she shut the door, “Fine. Don’t blame me if they’re the walking dead tomorrow.”
    “Your mother refuses to see her gift,” she said to Maddie. Next, she turned to Cordelia. “And your mother doesn’t know what to do with hers. I think she blames herself for not being able to stop your father’s death—just as I had no way of stopping your grandfather’s.” Maddie noticed Cordelia stiffen at the mention of her father, her mouth drawn into a grim line.
    Tess continued, “It’s important not to share the knowledge of this gift with anyone but each other. You know what Hawthorne is like.” Tess said, turning to