The Curse of Dark Root: Part Two (Daughters of Dark Root Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

cycles.”
    “Can't you just talk like a normal person for once?” Eve asked, sighing as she lifted a third bra––a lacy red piece that left little to the imagination. “Do you think Paul will like this one?”
    Merry glanced up, winking. “He's a man, Eve. He wouldn't mind if you skipped underwear entirely.”
    “Say...” Eve's dark eyes lit up.
    I shook my head. “Don't even think about it. I'm the only one who gets to go braless around here. One partial nudist in the house is enough.”
    Eve eyed my chest and grimaced. “Yeah, but yours are all leaky and wilty.”
    “I was going to say balloony,” Ruth Anne said, returning her glasses to her face. “But wilty works. Makes them sound like flowers.”
    “Dying flowers,” Eve agreed.
    “Gee, thanks you guys. And here I was wanting to talk to adults for a change. Ruth Anne, can I order nicer sisters from Wings and Wrenches?”
    “If the place was called Wings and Wenches , you probably could,” she answered, then went back to her circling. Soon, the entire menu was one black ink mark.
    “Maggie, I'm just trying to be honest,” Eve said. “My breasts will be wilty if I have a kid, too. Then I'll have to get another surgery to hike them back up.” She sighed, as if the weight of the world rested on her cleavage. “Just be happy you don't care what you look like. Beauty is a circle without an end.”
    “Which brings me back to my question,” I said, rolling a green baby sock inside a blue one because neither had a match. “The last three months have been a blur. A constant cycle of feeding, sleeplessness, and holding my pee until I'm about to burst. Three months have passed and I hardly remember any of it.”
    “Welcome to parenthood,” Eve said. “I don't remember much about my time with Nova either.”
    “Perhaps that's because you were only with her in Seattle a few months,” I reminded her.
    “You've only had Montana three months,” she countered.
    I groaned, stopping myself from entering a conversation that, like Eve's beauty circle, was without end.
    “Time is moving very slowly for me,” Merry said, returning a stack of photos to their box and leveraging herself from the sofa. “Maybe Ruth Anne is right. Everyone experiences time differently.” She glanced at Montana and smiled. “I'd give anything to experience being a new parent again.” Her eyes drifted towards the front window, her mind on her daughter, June Bug, who currently resided with her father in Florida.
    “I'm sorry,” I said. “I can't imagine what it's like to be without your child.”
    “It's tough,” Eve agreed, sitting on the armrest of the couch with the red bra dangling from her hand.
    I squinted at Eve sideways but let it go.
    Merry nodded. “Tougher than anything I've ever done.”
    In that moment, I no longer saw my sisters as the kids I'd known, but as the grownups they'd become. Eve had softened and Merry had grown stronger. Did parenthood change you? Or did it merely enhance the parts needed to make it through the adventure?
    “You'll both see them soon,” I said.
    They nodded but there was doubt in their eyes. Merry excused herself to make tea.
    “Wings for dinner?” Ruth Anne suggested. Her lips were black, too, from chewing on the pen. “There are at least nine flavors I'd like to try. My treat.”
    I looked at Montana. If I ate anything remotely spicy, he had bad burps and diapers for days. “Can you order some of them without sauce?”
    “If they serve them, I'll get them.” Ruth Anne patted herself down, searching for her wallet. Unlike the rest of us, she didn't carry a purse. “Well, ladies, I'm off. I'll be home by dinner with the remnants of my carnage.”
    “Poor chickens,” Merry said, returning from the kitchen with a tray of cookies and tea.
    Ruth Anne took three cookies, jammed one in her mouth, and pocketed the others. “Better them than us,” she said, grinning with a blackened, crumb-covered mouth as she made her way to