Page 106 of Persephone's Curse
“Is it?” he asked. “I’d lost track.”
“Oh, Henry,” I said. “I wish there was another way.”
“I know,” he replied, not looking at me, looking out the dark windows to the backyard instead. “Me, too.”
The next morning—Christmas morning—it snowed again.
We woke up early, thanks to Clara, who hadn’t yet outgrown the urgency of Christmas morning, the anticipation of the presents under the tree.
“It’s just like Narnia,” she breathed, standing in thick wool socks, peering out the front windows of the house at the street beyond.
“It’s been like this all week,” Evelyn said.
“Right, but in Narnia, it’s never Christmas and then itisChristmas,” Clara argued. “And now it’s Christmas!”
It was too snowy, too gray, to see the tear in the sky, but I felt it deep inside me. It had a heavy pulse to it, like listening to music with the bass turned up too high.
No one else was up yet, just us, not our parents, not Aunt Bea.
Bernadette made hot chocolates, carried them into the living room balanced carefully on a tray. She took the mug with the chip on the rim and faded photos of puppies. She’d made whipped creamthe old-fashioned way, with heavy cream and our mother’s older-than-us hand blender.
“What are you watching?” she asked, sitting on the couch as the three of us remained by the window, looking out.
“The snow,” Clara said.
Evelyn went and sat next to Bernadette. I couldn’t look at Evie, couldn’t bear to see her face. I didn’t know where Henry was but I knew today was the day and that secret felt too heavy to carry by myself.
Clara took a mug of hot chocolate and sat down, and I followed her so I wouldn’t be the only one left at the window. I stared at the floor as Bernadette tapped her phone and started Harry Connick Jr. on the speakers.Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
“Itissnowing,” Clara said, her voice filled with so much wonder and happiness that it made us all laugh.
Then Evelyn said, “I have something for you all,” and from her thick, plush robe, she pulled out three identically sized boxes. She handed one to each of us.
“It’s not much,” she said, but we knew even as we were peeling off the wrapping paper, opening the boxes, that it would be the most thoughtful and meaningful presents we would receive all day because Evelyn had always been, this will surprise no one, the best at gifts. She saved up her money all year, whatever she got from the few long-term piano students she tutored during summer afternoons, from the music lessons she gave on weekends in the spring and summer, from saving pennies and hoarding dimes, she would buy us each a gift that was guaranteed to make at least one of us cry.
Clara, who had no money to her name at all, usually made ussomething homemade and personal and sweet, coming in second place in the unspoken Farthing sister gift contest.
Bernadette, who had a job but saved everything until last minute, usually got us something we wanted but which wasn’t a surprise (because she asked us): an expensive sweater, new paints, a vintage cashmere scarf.
And I, having sometimes money from various allowances and odd jobs and birthdays, and sometimes good ideas, usually got my sisters books. Books I had loved, books I knew they would love, books I thought might be meaningful to them in whatever their current struggle was.
The three of us took care to unwrap Evelyn’s gifts at the exact same speed, so no one would spoil it for anyone else. Under the paper was a small cardboard box and inside that was a beautiful evergreen velvet jewelry box.
We opened it together, our movements in near unison. Clara gasped, Bernadette sucked in a sharp breath, and I was silent as we pulled the necklaces out.
They were gold, twinkling, circular discs set on delicate gold chains. The discs had lines emanating from the middle outward, like the rays of the sun. In the center of the lines was a raised heart. On the other side, in the middle of the disc, were all of our initials: BEWC.
“I thought it would always connect us. Remind us,” Evelyn said, moving aside her robe to show us that she had bought one for herself, too.
What I wanted to say was—I don’t need a reminder that I have sisters.
What I wanted to say was—This is so, so beautiful.
What I wanted to say was—I’m so sorry, Evelyn. I don’t deservethis. If I could use this to patch up the hole in the sky, I would. I would in a heartbeat.
What Ididsay was, “What about the rest of the note? What was it going to say?I know why you did it and I—what? Youwhat, Evie?”
Evelyn’s face was hard to read, and she didn’t quite look at me when she replied. “I didn’t know you saw that.”
