When Rose Wakes Read Online Free PDF Page B

subject of sex was clearly taboo. It seemed strange given how open they were otherwise, but Rose chalked it up to old-world propriety.
    In France they had lived in a beautiful house. She remembered the house, and that the nearby village had been quiet—completely different from a modern American city. But from what Rose herself had learned thus far of the world she had woken to, she found she did not mind her aunts’ old-fashioned morality at all.
    “I get it,” she said. “No boys.”
    Aunt Fay hesitated a moment, then nodded and smiled in relief. “All right. Out of bed, then, and be quick about it. Aunt Suzette is making pancakes and you’re not going to have time to eat them.”
    “Yay, pancakes!” Rose said. They had quickly become her favorite food, mostly due to the thick maple syrup Aunt Suzette had drowned them in the first time she had made them for Rose.
    “Only if you hurry,” Aunt Fay reminded her, rising from the bed and picking up the empty cup from the herbal tea the superstitious ladies still made her drink every night at bedtime.
    “Hurrying,” Rose said as she leaped from bed.
    She grabbed clean underpants and a bra before rushing out of the room to the shower.
    •
    St. Bridget’s High School was on Marlborough Street in Boston’s Back Bay, half a mile from the aunts’ Beacon Hill apartment. The entrance and small parking lot were in the back, accessed by a public alley that existed to allow rear entrance to all of the properties on the two streets that paralleled it. Rose had been fascinated by the alley and liked that it seemed to allow a peek at the secret backs of things, the private workings of the neighborhood.
    Aunt Fay had wanted to drive the short distance to the school, concerned that by arriving on foot they might appear to be some sort of charity case. Aunt Suzette had called this “classist nonsense” and said that Aunt Fay was too in love with her Mercedes and that they all could use the exercise. Rose had piped up in favor of walking. It was a lovely day, the first Monday in October, and she wanted to see more of the city.
    At last Aunt Fay had relented, which was how they now found themselves walking up to the entrance of St. Bridget’s, admiring the granite steps and the marble relief of the school’s patron saint above the main door. The keystone of the building indicated it had been built in 1957, so the school was young by Boston standards, but its architecture seemed to harken back to older days, seeming archaic in comparison to the row houses around it, which were in all probability older.
    Aunt Suzette smiled proudly as she held the door for Rose and Aunt Fay to enter. Rose stepped into the schooland paused. Though she had never been in this particular building before, she had hoped for at least some sense of familiarity. After all, she had gone to a small private school in France. How different could this be?
    But as she looked around at the trophy case and the sports banners hanging on the walls and the plaques of prestigious awards and portraits of the school’s original benefactors and the large crucifix on the wall, none of it created any resonance within her. There were no familiar echoes. She studied a small alcove where a statue of the Virgin Mary stood, bathed in light from a recessed bulb above, dust motes swirling around her.
    “What is it?” Aunt Fay asked.
    Rose thought about telling her, but how to truly explain? She recognized everything, could put a name to it, but without her memory they all felt like things she knew only from television or from reading about them, not from any personal experience. It was a disquieting feeling. Yet, if anything, that feeling itself had become all
too
familiar ever since her release from the hospital. The strangest things felt odd and new to her, even something as miniscule as putting on a pair of pants.
    Her aunts had stocked her wardrobe fairly well, but Rose had discovered that she hated wearing pants. Today