Five Sisters (18 page)

All day she'd been lying here, thinking so much her head had begun to throb. All she could see was Ethan's face and all she could hear was his voice. They were tormenting her, torturing her, trying to force her into saying she really did love him and wanted to be his wife, Mrs. Mary Lindsey.

Mary Lindsey. Meredith Lindsey. For the twenty-two long months she and Ethan had courted, Mary had repeated that name over and over again in her head, like a silly schoolgirl with an incurable infatuation. She'd written it on the corners of her napkins and hummed its melody as she dressed each morning. Mary Lindsey. Oh how lovely it had sounded. Meredith Amelia Lindsey, wife of Dr. Ethan Lindsey. How perfect! How melodious!

And now, after only one long day, the name made her cringe. She shuddered in disgust. How on earth could she have ever yearned to be Mrs. Mary Lindsey? It sounded so strange, so ugly, so awkward and misplaced. As the sound of it reached her ears, Mary recoiled in shame, hiding her face beneath her blanket.

Oh how stupid she'd been, to think that she and Ethan could ever truly be happy together. How foolish she'd been to accept his proposal.

Mary had never felt more miserable in her entire life. She didn't know what she was supposed to do. Perhaps Sara was right, and it really was just a case of pre-wedding jitters. Perhaps she was just a blushing bride.

Or perhaps she was absolutely right. Perhaps she and Ethan weren't meant to be together. Perhaps they were meant to go their separate ways and never meet again.

The idea of a wedding had always sounded so exciting: picking out the napkins, sending the invitations, choosing the flowers, and trying on white dresses. But once the day was over, once the dancing had stopped and the champagne stopped flowing, she would be left to face reality.

When Mary was a girl, a wedding had always sounded like a great, magnificent party that every girl should dream about. But now it seemed far less appealing. She knew now that once the party was over, she and Ethan would be left alone to start their new life together. Oh how she dreaded that upcoming life she had foolishly agreed to.

An hour had passed. It was almost eleven o'clock now. Slowly, many pairs of feet, some small and some large, began to trudge down the staircase and into the hall. Mary could hear her sisters saying their goodnights to the sailors and Gail whispering farewell to Nathaniel.

Without thinking on it more than a moment, she hid her face beneath the quilt again and pretended that she had fallen asleep.

Sara, Nora, Emy, and Gail entered on their tiptoes, afraid they may wake their eldest sister. Yawning and sighing, they each put on their nightclothes and climbed into bed. Then, they whispered their goodnights. Sara blew out the candle beside her bed and the girls curled up beneath their blankets, drifting off into dreamland.

The four girls were so exhausted after the long, stormy night that they each fell asleep as soon as their head hit the pillow.

But Mary, tired though she may be, couldn't fall asleep no matter how hard she tried. Images of white dresses, golden wedding rings, and Ethan's sweet face haunted her mind. She had a feeling that this was going to be a long, long night . . .

No matter how hard she tried, Mary couldn't sleep a wink that night. She tossed and turned uncomfortably, beads of sweat running down her forehead. Her nightdress clung uncomfortably to every inch of her body, making her squirm and wriggle beneath her sheets.

Horrible thoughts ran through her head, wondering if Ethan really loved her, if she really loved him, if they would be as happy together as she'd once thought, and most importantly, whether she was really supposed to marry him. Suddenly everything was so uncertain. Mary didn't want to be held down to one man for the rest of her life if she wasn't sure he was the right one, yet how was she supposed to know who
was
the correct man for
her?
It was an impossible thing to answer and Mary finally gave up trying.

She needed to be free. Tired of being held down by Ethan, and this engagement, and her hot, sticky sheets, Mary jumped out of bed and removed her damp nightgown for a fresh one. Then she grabbed her robe, slid on a pair of slippers, and washed her face, before ascending the stairs to the deck.

It was a chilly night and most girls would have shrunk back to their warm beds after feeling the gusts of cool wind, but Mary found it refreshing. Her beautiful black waves weren't pinned up for once, but blew around her face and into those sky-blue eyes.

With slow steps, she walked once around the back of the deck before noticing a dark figure up ahead. For a moment it scared her, for she thought everyone must be fast asleep downstairs at this hour, but then she remembered Charlie mentioning once that each of the sailors took turns keeping watch during the night. She hadn't any idea which one it might be until she took a few steps forward and realized that only the McAdams brothers were as large as this man. It was Noah.

He was only a few feet away, and yet he didn't see her. His broad shoulders faced the enormous sea, his hands were placed firmly on the railing, and his eyes focused outwards on some vague object in the distance that Mary could bet was nothing more than a large piece of driftwood or perhaps a lost buoy.

Taking a few more steps forward, Mary tried to rustle her skirt a bit and gave a fake cough so that she wouldn't scare him by arriving so suddenly, but he jumped anyway. He'd been so intently focused on the constantly moving, shuffling waves that a human form, and quite an attractive one at that, was a frightening, or rather shocking, sight.

"Good evening, Mary," he managed to say, "Whatever are you doing up so late? It must be at least two o'clock by now."

But Mary didn't answer. She knew what she wanted to do, what she'd been yearning to do for weeks, and without giving it a moment's hesitation she committed the unthinkable act.

Wrapping her arms around Noah's neck, she pulled him closer until her body was pressed against his. She pressed her soft lips
firmly against his own
.

Their first kiss only lasted mere seconds before Noah pulled away.

"But Mary," he began, "I thought . . . I thought . . . What about that doctor you're getting married to? Lindsey? Are you sure you should be-"

"Positive," Mary interrupted, pulling him in for another kiss.

Although she knew it was forbidden, Mary never wanted the moment to end. In truth, the fact that she knew such a thing was frowned upon only made Mary act with more passion and more fervor than if it weren't.

Noah embraced her; she felt so small when encircled in his large, strong arms. His kisses began to lower down her jawbone till they reached her neck. From there they continued down even further. They pressed against the thin fabric of her nightgown so hard Mary felt as if tomorrow she may find they'd left bruises. Sometimes his kisses were so passionately forceful they hurt. And yet, Mary never wanted him to stop.

As her heart began to race from the immoral pleasure, her chest heaved up and down and she felt her robe slip off her shoulders and onto the ground. Despite the horrid fact that she was kissing someone other than her fiancé, now she was making it worse by being clothed in only a thin, loose nightdress. Her mother would have died of horror if she could see her now.

Downstairs, Sara suddenly began to toss and turn in her own bed. She'd had a terrible dream.
A nightmare, really.

It began on the most horrible day of Sara's life- the day of her parents' funeral:

Everything was exactly as it had been two short years ago, eerily so. She and Mary were standing near the door in drab black dresses, trying their best to greet the guests with a smile, but failing miserably. As the two oldest children, it was their duty to be strong and take control of things, but at that moment Sara wished more than anything that she could just sit in the corner and weep, like her younger sisters.

Nora sat on a stiff, high-backed chair with her hands her lap. There were dark circles beneath her eyes; she hadn't slept since Roy and Amelia had passed away and her sisters hadn't either. Every so often she'd reach up and dust away a tear with her handkerchief.

Gail sat on the sofa beside Nora, only twelve years old. A large black bow held back her red locks and her feet were crossed at the ankle. She sat demurely, which was very unlike her usual loud and unruly self, and stared at the wall, barely blinking. She'd always been the most headstrong of the St. James sisters, but now she felt just as useless and grief-stricken as the others. But she had taken the news differently than her sisters as well. After one night of weeping, her eyes dried out and she hadn't cried a tear since. She simply walked around as though in a daze, always burdened by the image of her father and mother lying lifeless in their bed.

Emy was standing in the corner, her head down. Every so often another tear would crawl down her cheek, but she didn't bother to brush it away. Although she'd always been a rather quiet girl, after her parents' death she became even more reserved than before. For several weeks after it happened, she didn't speak a word, virtually becoming a mute. It took some time, but she finally found her voice again and became the Emy her sisters knew and loved today.

The mourners arrived, dressed in black. They sighed over the unfortunate girls, now orphans, and gave their condolences. But nothing anyone could say would make Sara feel better.

In the front of the room were the two coffins, lying side by side. Roy lay in one and Amelia occupied the other.

None of the girls had looked at their parents yet, and they weren't sure if they wanted to or not. For most of the wake they'd made sure to stay at least several feet away from the coffins at all times, scared to see the cold white bodies inside.

The dream skipped over an hour or so, landing at the graveyard where Mr. and Mrs. St. James were buried. The crowd of mourners stood on three sides of the coffins, dabbing their eyes as the pastor spoke of Roy and Amelia's life and what wonderful people they'd both been.

Sara didn't hear a word the pastor said. She was so dazed and lost in her thoughts that she couldn't concentrate on the funeral. She could only remember the fat gray pigeon walking beneath a nearby oak tree.

It waddled back and forth gaily; completely unaware of the processions going on several yards away. Sara wondered if it could even fly, for it seemed far too large to be able. Although she was completely unaware of it, a tear began to roll down her face, staining her cheek.

The pigeon hopped away and Sara was forced once more to turn her attention back to the funeral. The pastor had ended his speech and the mourners each stepped forward to place a rose on the coffins. As Sara followed Mary up to the graves, however, a strange thing happened.

The people surrounding them all disappeared: the mourners, the coffins, and even Sara's three youngest sisters. The sky darkened till it was a deep, mysterious gray and the flourishing green trees all lost their leaves, becoming scary black shadows.

Mary almost looked translucent. She was hovering above the ground like a ghost and her dark ringlets were blowing about her face. She handed Sara the two roses she'd been holding so that Sara now had four.

But when Sara turned to place the flowers on the coffins, she found that the coffins had disappeared and were now replaced with two marble gravestones, etched with the names Roy St. James and Amelia Gallagher St. James.

Sara blinked, wondering if this could all be real. When she turned around to ask Mary, she found that her sister had gone as well. She was completely alone in the dark graveyard, with only the fat gray pigeon and her parents' gravestones for company. In the distance, where old buildings used to stand, a heavy fog was inching forward.