Sisters Red Read Online Free PDF Page B

feels like dreaming to win the lottery, but it's still a dream. All the fear, the darkness... gone.
    I throw my feet over the side of the bed and tiptoe across the worn hardwood floors, stepping over the floorboards that I know will creak. Periwinkle sunshine pours in through the tiny octagonal window at the end of the hall. It casts shadows off the ceiling beams and doorknobs that dapple the ground in light, like a forest floor. The house is silent, but outside, the earliest birds are calling out in the brush and I can hear the low, rumbling sounds of cattle. I love this time of morning; being inside is like hiding out behind some secret screen in the middle of rolling southern farmland.
    I creep closer to Rosie's door, stepping over Screwtape. He claws my leg in annoyance, all gray fur and teeth. I shake
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    him away, and he scampers off with an indignant look. I pause, hand wrapped around the doorknob.
    One, two, three .
    I fling the door open, letting it slam into the wall behind it. I sprint forward, leaping through the air at the very last moment and pouncing on Rosie in her tiny twin bed. She screams and leaps up, hair frazzled and eyes only half open, pink quilt clutched to her chest.
    "What the hell are you doing?" she demands groggily. She falls back onto the bed beside me and yanks the quilt over her head.
    "I'm apologizing for the... uh... 'thing' that happened last night."
    "By jumping on me? Your apology sucks."
    "Not this--this is just me being your annoying older sister. The apology is that... we can have a movie night tonight. And you can pick the movie."
    Rosie sits upright and eyes me cautiously. " Any movie?"
    I press my lips together to hide my distaste at the idea of Rosie's movie selection. She likes love stories. I can't help but think they're a waste of energy.
    Rosie folds her arms. I nod reluctantly.
    " And you let me have the solo hunt next time?" she adds.
    "I promise... I promise to try."
    Rosie rolls her eyes, but we both know it's as good as I'll do. "Okay. But then you also have to promise you won't back out of the movie again."
    "I promise."
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    "And promise me you'll get out of my room and let me sleep like a normal person," she says as she melts back into her mattress. I laugh and retreat just as Screwtape leaps onto the bed and nestles in beside Rosie's legs. I yank the door shut behind me, snickering as it crashes closed and I hear Rosie groan in annoyance. What are older sisters for? The upside-down books are righted again, though. I can go on with my morning.
    I duck back into my bedroom just long enough to throw on a pair of jeans and pull my hair into a ponytail, then slip out the downstairs screen door.
    Our backyard is bordered by the cow pasture and tall grasses and mostly consists of a garden that Rosie and I attempt to tend. I peer at the soil. Nearly time to plant snap peas, which I'm supposed to do by moonlight, according to my grandmother. I'm not sure that it matters, but I'll do it anyway. It was always difficult to tell when Oma March was imparting wisdom and when she was merely storytelling. More than once she replaced our nightly fairy tales with something clever inspired by her philosophy books or a rhyme intended to help us learn German. We absorbed it all, never realizing she was teaching us.
    The German didn't really catch on beyond a few phrases, but there were bits of philosophy that stuck with me. Descartes, Hume, Plato... I look at the sun, squinting. My favorite was a story she told several times before I realized it was more than a fairy tale:
    "Once upon a time," Oma March said, her singsong voice carrying across the bedroom Rosie and I shared. 38 "Once upon a time, there was a man who lived in a cave--"
    "What was his name?" I interrupted.
    "It doesn't matter."
    "He has to have a name!"
    "All right, his name was John. And he lived in a cave with his sister, Mary," my grandmother continued as Rosie and I snuggled close to each other beneath fleece blankets.