Sisters Red (33 page)

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and breathing in the scent of each other's hair while Silas watches, silent, confused.

My sister has the heart of an artist with a hatchet and an eye patch. And I, we
both
now know, have a heart that is undeniably, irreparably different.

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EPILOGUE A Fairy Tale, Seven Months After

The sisters walk slowly. Their arms are weighed down with bags, and the afternoon sun beats down on their necks mercilessly. Scarlett stops to drop a handful of change into a street drummer's bucket while Rosie pauses to count the money in her pocket. Their thoughts are on each other as they almost always are. They reach their destinations simultaneously, Rosie on the platform of a train station with her luggage in tow, and Scarlett asking one of the junkies to grab the apartment door for her.

There are letters outside Scarlett's door, and it looks as if someone has already rooted through some of the mail. She grabs what's left--the important ones almost always get left anyhow. The ones from Rosie. She kicks open the heavy wooden door and drops her bags just inside, tearing into the paper eagerly.

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The cursive handwriting tells her that Silas is still learning to play guitar--and still isn't very good at it--and that Rosie is practicing all of Oma March's old recipes--and isn't very good at them. Scarlett smiles and sets the card on the dining table with the others. There are hundreds, one almost every day, filled with folded roses and swans and frogs. They come from different cities--San Francisco, Phoenix, Boston, New York. Silas sold his father's house so he and Rosie could use the money to visit and make amends with his siblings, to get purposefully lost in strange places, to eat local fare and hold hands as they explore the world together. Their lives are the eager question "Where should we go?" while Scarlett's is a resolute answer: "Here is where I am needed."

The sisters rarely call each other, because whenever they hear the other's voice, they repeat the same things into the phone: I love you, I miss you, are we making a mistake? And both know the answer to the question. No, this is not a mistake. This is a hard, and perhaps cruel, necessity.

Rosie grins as Silas catches up to her, two train tickets in his hand. He abandons his suitcase and puts his arms around her. They kiss like lovers in an old movie, two people who don't care if others are watching. She giggles as he looks at her adoringly, as though she is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen and if he blinks, she may vanish. She runs her fingers across the hair at the nape of his neck and smiles as the train pulls into the station.

Scarlett climbs the stairs to the rooftop deck. Tonight will be a good night to hunt. Already the desire to take to

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the streets pulls at her like an old friend. She stares out at the city.
Where to go tonight? Whom to protect, whom to defend?
She sweeps her hair back into a ponytail as she looks at the streets below.
Her
streets,
her
responsibility and passion. It's already dusk--she hurries back downstairs, preparing to leave early. The apartment isn't quite what it used to be; Scarlett has hung up the hundreds of decorations and drawings and elaborately folded papers that Rosie has sent, so many that it's like a field of flowers that bloom year-round. She runs her fingers across the crimson red cloak that hangs on the back of a chair.

Rosie takes her seat while Silas puts her luggage overhead. Her cloak is inside the battered suitcase, tattered, largely unused but still present, like a quiet friend who's waiting for a moment to join the conversation. She turns to gaze out the window as the train eases forward, uncertain exactly what it is she's looking for.

Scarlett pulls the cloak onto her shoulders in one swift, fluid motion; Rosie smiles as the landscape begins to fly by. Scarlett steps out into the city streets and Rosie reaches for Silas's arm. Matching memories swirl in their heads, memories of running through the grass and spinning in circles and holding each other in the garden, memories where they lose track of who is who and they begin to feel like a beautiful, golden link connects them. A single, shared heart.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

If writing my first book was hard, then writing my second--
Sisters Red
--was near impossible. At this rate, I'm terrified of writing the third, but luckily I know I can count on a few people to help me out--people who helped give Scarlett and Rosie voices, stories, and a heart. Thus, I'm forever indebted to the following:

Naturally, to my sister, Katie Pearce, not only for being the source of much inspiration but also for telling me exactly how brutal a beating Scarlett, Rosie, and Silas could take without breaching medical plausibility.

Granddaddy Pearce, who helped me get Rosie out of the subway tunnel.

Saundra Mitchell, who critiqued early drafts of
Sisters
328
Red
in record time, marked it all to pieces, and made the book sparkle like never before.

Rose Green, for translating English into German for me and Oma March.

Cyn Balog, R. J. Anderson, and Jason Mallory, for reading
Sisters Red
when it had been "complete" for all of five minutes.

The 2009 Debutantes, for continued support, wisdom, and candy.

My editor, Jill Dembowski, for believing in the March sisters, and because not many editors would dress up in a red cloak and send you the picture.

My parents, for continued support and for taking me to the Apple Time Festival as a kid--with paper apples stapled to my clothes.

And again, to Papa, because I'm certain he had something to do with this.