Page 99 of Persephone's Curse
“It was in your hair?”
“It was in my hair,” she confirmed. “That’s still not as bad as talking on your cell phone while looking for your cell phone. Which I have also done, many times.”
“When is the snow supposed to start?”
“Thursday. We’ll have to pick up lots of wood and have fires. Remember that Christmas we all readLittle Women?”
Of course I remembered. It had snowed so much we hardly left the house for a week. Clara had been four, me six, Evelyn andBernadette eight and ten. The electricity kept going in and out and we’d toasted marshmallows on the fire and Mom had read a couple chapters every night, holding all of us in rapt attention, even our father, who had at first hung around near the doorway, downplaying his interest, but by the third night was sitting cross-legged on the floor with us, Clara on his lap, their eyes wide as they waited to hear whether Amy would die after falling through the ice.
“We all loved that book so much,” I said.
“I loved it, too. It was a secret thrill, having four girls. I tried to get you all to call meMarmeebut it never stuck.”
“Well, Bernie cut off all her hair. That must count for something.”
“She’s my Jo, for sure. Always has been.”
“You know, Louisa May Alcott based that scene on her own life. She caught typhoid pneumonia during the Civil War and the doctors cut off all her hair while she was delirious.”
“And she had three sisters, too. One of them died. One of them got married. She wasn’t really subtle with the parallels.”
“Do the rest of us,” I prodded. “Who’s Clara?”
“Amy. Although less frivolous. But still underestimated.”
“Evelyn?”
“Meg. Sweet, reliable, stalwart.”
“And that leaves me as Beth,” I said. “Which is sort of depressing, as she’s nobody’s favorite sister, and all she does of interest is die.”
“I don’t think that’s true, at all, that she’s nobody’s favorite sister,” Mom said. “She’smyfavorite sister. She was the kindest and the most decent. And the most altruistic.”
“What doesaltruisticmean again?”
“It means you care about other people. And you need to study more SAT words.”
“I don’t know about that. I feel pretty selfish.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re anything but selfish. You care so much about your sisters, about this family. You’re always exactly where you’re supposed to be. And you keep everyone together.”
She kissed my temple as we continued to walk, as we looped around and headed back toward home, every step feeling heavier and heavier, Mom’s headache, I knew, coming back, by the way she rubbed at her forehead absentmindedly.
“Just like Beth,” she said a full minute later.
By then, we were underneath the black tear again, in front of the brownstone, the house Persephone had blessed, the house the Farthings had built and then lived in forever, the house where Henry had died and been buried underneath the jasmine bushes.
I couldn’t let anything happen to this house. I couldn’t let anything happen to my family. I wouldn’t.
“Come on, kiddo,” Mom said. “I think it’s time for all good godlings to be in bed.”
I had a dream about the night Clara ran away from home.
She’d been eight and absolutely obsessed with Bernadette, who was fourteen and incredibly unpredictable; sometimes kind and loving, sometimes cruel and distant. I couldn’t remember the details now, but Bernadette had said something to Clara after dinner, and I’d watched Clara’s eyes close into slits, resolution spreading across her face.
As a family of girls, we were no strangers to running away. Bernadette had done it, even Evelyn had done it, and now Clara would do it. Only I seemed unwilling to leave the family home; my long walks always led me straight back to our front door.
Clara waited until everyone had gone to sleep (even then, at eight, she was a little night owl) and I waited to hear the telltale signs of a suitcase being packed.
