Sisters Red

by Jackson Pearce

  324

  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 328Red 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.