The Sisters of the Crescent Empress

Chapter 3: Sibilia

No, Scribs, I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet, in any case, and not before I understand what happened today. As if I didn’t have enough things to worry about already… What things, you might ask. Seriously, Scribs, you’re a book of scriptures! There’s absolutely no excuse for you to always act so dumb!

There’s only four months exact left before my debut. We’ve huddled in this house for almost four weeks already, and it seems to me that we’ll be here for many more not-so-splendid months to come. If we haven’t left this house by the end of the last spring week, we won’t make it back to the Summer Palace in time for the ceremony. Though I don’t know if there’s anything left of the city to return to, if the gagargi ordered the palaces torn down, if the people who once filled them fled or if they stayed and chose to serve him instead. Perhaps nothing changed or only very little did. Something as grand and glorious as our home can’t simply cease to be, coup or no coup.

Spilled ink. Can’t be bothered to even try and wipe it. I should get on with it, shouldn’t I? Even though Celestia found me a new pen while rummaging through the rooms, there probably aren’t that many more simply lying around.

Very well, then. Here goes.

This morning, as is our routine, after the breakfast we lingered in the drawing room. Celestia and Elise stylished our coats by the oval table, though I don’t know if any amount of velvet ribbons (also known as former pillowcases) or decorative stitching (we’ll have to do with stars, as Celestia forbade crescent motifs) will ever transform them into anything else than tortured blankets. I didn’t offer my help because, to be entirely honest, I absolutely loathe everything that has to do with altering yarn or fabric with any sort of shape of wood or metal. Yes, this includes crocheting, knitting, and the apparently most-beloved pastime of all highborn ladies: embroidery. Though Celestia and Elise are bound to run out of things to stitch soon. I’m thinking, if reporting to you keeps me sane, what will my sisters do once they’re ready with the coats? At times we’re already at each other’s throats! There are moments when I seriously think of strangling Merile, especially when she becomes obsessed with repeating everything she can recall of Nurse Nookes’s lectures.

No, I would never really hurt any of my sisters. Not even Merile. Note: pinching her or tugging her hair doesn’t count. Applied in right measures, it keeps her properly in tow.

Yes. I’m prattling. Putting off the inevitable. How observant of you, Scribs. But I have way too much time on my hands. If I were to write in a short and compact form of all that came to pass today, I would then have nothing else to do. Apart from reading the scriptures and dreaming of K. Though I don’t want to write about K now. It might be that I won’t see him ever again, and that would be the MOST HORRIBLE THING, worse than the gagargi betraying Mama and…

Let’s not go down that path. Also, let’s not think about K (but please feel free to refer to pages 1, 3–4, 7–9, 12–17, etc. for a reference of what those thoughts might entail). Huh, a terrible thought just occurred to me. If anyone ever gets their hands on your pages, I will die of shame.

I don’t want to think about that either. Onward to yet another topic.

Consider this when you get a chance, Scribs: we’re stranded in a house in the middle of nowhere. It’s decently enough furnished, though it seems that at some point someone snatched everything that could be taken with ease and hastily brought back what they thought we’d most urgently need. In any case, this is one of those places where people like us have been sent to exile for as long as there has been a Crescent Empire. Under the circumstances, it’s wise to assume that no one is coming to take us home anytime soon. We must flee, and that’s what Celestia no doubt has in mind. This far up in the north, the winter will last for a month or more still. Yet, I bet she’s got a plan forming in her mind already. Celestia being Celestia, she won’t share it with any of us. And who can blame her, given that even though she kept her previous plan a secret from everyone, including her own sisters, somehow the gagargi still found out about it and as a result, she lost her seed!

No, I’m not worried about mine any more than I’m hoping that he’d dash to my rescue either. General Kravakiv has been off fighting for the empire from even before the day I was born. Sure, Celestia says that he’s been defeated, but that doesn’t change a thing. Back when Mama (the Moon bless her poor soul) still lived, he would have never dared to switch sides. But I wouldn’t put it beyond Gagargi Prataslav to manipulate my seed into thinking he’s actually serving the empire better by siding with him. The gagargi is pure evil.

Argh. This is no good, Scribs. It seems like whenever I try to avoid writing about a specific topic my mind drifts off to even more miserable ones. Brace yourself. And don’t you dare to even hint that I might be going a little soft in my head, because what I’m about to write next is true, every single word of it.

Today, the strangest—well, considering what we’ve been through before, perhaps this categorizes only as strange—thing happened. I was sitting on the sofa by the arching windows so that I don’t have to squint at the pages (freckles I don’t mind, but I’m really too young for wrinkles). Alina and Merile were playing in their room with the rats. Lately, they’ve been acting, I don’t know, or that is, I do know: suspiciously. As if they had imaginary friends. I’ve heard the names “Irina” and “Olesia” whispered, though the only servant around here is called Millie. I can believe Alina coming up with that sort of thing, but for Merile to encourage that when she knows how vulnerable our little sister’s mind is to begin with! Note to self: talk with Merile. Even if she seems to detest me almost as much as I loathe her peeing, pooping rats, I should be able to sort this out. I don’t want to bother Celestia and Elise. They need to be able to concentrate… Well, not in their sewing, but in forming a plan that will help us get away from this place for once and for good—and preferably in time for my debut!

Getting sidetracked. I swear, Scribs, this isn’t intentional on my part.

As mentioned, I was once more reading through the scriptures (and yes, it’s a bit challenging now, because I’ve written sideways over half of your pages already). I don’t know if it was because of me lacking anything else to do or because it was blessedly silent in the house for once, but I got really immersed in the passages, and before I knew it, the letters floated off the pages, and just hung there, over the paper. And as I stared at them, they morphed into glyphs I’d never seen before. The hairs on the back of my neck jumped up, and I got goose bumps all over!

These glyphs were of a foreign language, and if I were to have tried to pronounce them, I think the sounds would have been guttural, something between a croak of a bird whose beak has been glued shut and a howl of a wolf that has lost its voice. Yet I knew what each meant instantly. They formed incantations, summoning our heavenly father’s attention.

I barely dared to breathe, let alone move. I sat there, with the book open on my lap, with the slanting morning light wrapping around each glyph. I think the only movement was that of my mouth a-gaping.

Really, who am I to blame Alina and Merile for making up imaginary friends when I’m seeing things myself? Except that I’m not. The glyphs are real. They make sense to me.

“Sibs, are you dreaming of chocolate once more?” Elise’s question made me blink, and the glyphs fled back onto the pages, there to completely fade away. My sister studied me from across the table, her embroidery on her lap, smiling mischievously.

“I…” I stammered, staring at what now was completely ordinary text. I fanned the page, hoping to somehow coax the glyphs forth again. But they wouldn’t reappear. And what was it that Elise had asked? Scribs, you know it, there’s one magic word that every older sister is always happy to hear when they’re waiting for an answer. “Yes.”

I’m pretty sure she mentioned chocolate, though. We haven’t come across any since we left the Summer Palace. Though Millie seems to like us (at least much more so than the ever-changing servants that attended us during the train journey), the meals we eat are simple and there’s rarely any desserts. And if there’s dessert, it’s lingonberry kissel or at rare occasions butter rolls with NO sugar sprinkled on top.

Luckily, the grandfather clock decided to strike eleven then. With the paddling swan that heralds every new hour with a different song, I find it very beautiful. Celestia says it’s purely mechanical, which makes it even more marvelous to me. Speaking of Celestia, she swiftly rose up from her sofa chair, set the coat down on the table, and clapped her hands twice. “It is time.”

And you know what eleven o’clock means in this house, Scribs! But today, I was so puzzled by the glyphs that I forgot all about the best part of the day, the dance practice! Can you imagine that?

I know I’ve said many things about Celestia in the past and not all of them have been exactly flattering. Back in our old lives, she was distant and cold toward us younger sisters. But now that I think on it, perhaps it wasn’t entirely her fault—I suspect that back at the Summer City she may have been under Gagargi Prataslav’s spell! In any case, now I’ve got my sister back, and she’s a very good sister. We share the same room, and though we don’t exactly talk the nights through, she’s always there, ready to listen to my worries and comfort me, even if she doesn’t exactly confide in me. Also, the dance practices were her idea.

“Gather around!” Celestia clapped her hands again, the movement smooth and graceful, even though I’m absolutely certain that, unlike Elise, she’s never ever practiced anything before her mirrors, and I know for sure she hasn’t done so since we arrived here. Yes, Scribs, perhaps I once swore that I would start practicing myself, but I haven’t. Not even when I seem to have all the time under the Moon. “Elise, please help me move the furniture. Sibilia, would you be so kind as to fetch Merile and Alina?”

Herding in our little sisters is always better than hauling the furniture around (I’m pretty sure I would get bruised from even thinking of pushing a chair aside or moving the table against the wall). Yet, Elise never complains about the tasking. I wonder what’s got into her. She claims she enjoys sewing, and she even partakes in setting up the table for the simple dinners we eat every night with the guards in the sparsely furnished second-floor hall. That, if anything, is peculiar.

“Sure I will,” I replied. But first, I took you, Scribs, to the room I share with Celestia, there to hide you under my pillow. Only then I went to get Alina and Merile.

I don’t know exactly why I did so, but for some reason I decided to press my ear against the door rather than knock. And true enough, I heard a curious exchange.

“So, this was your house?” Alina asked in a chiming child-voice that before this day I hadn’t heard in months.

Merile sounded more skeptical than a twelve-year-old has any right to sound. “How did you come to live here?”

From this exchange, I concluded that my little sisters’ imagination had taken over any sense either of them have left in their tiny heads. They can’t fathom why these sorts of houses exist, scattered in the four corners of the empire. Scribs, I have a theory of my own about this house’s former occupants, but it’s something I want to talk about with Celestia in private. And even then, I suspect she mightn’t answer entirely truthfully. Some subjects are too delicate even after decades.

“You can tell us,” Alina prompted. “Really, you can.”

“Secrets. I won’t believe a thing you say if you keep secrets from us.”

I knocked on the door then and proceeded to push it open without waiting for an answer, because being an older sister comes with certain privileges that I love.

Alina and Merile turned to look at me as one, gray and brown eyes wide, thin-lipped and wide mouths gaping. They sat on the bed with Merile’s rats curled on their laps. They obviously wondered if I’d heard them talking. I pretended that I hadn’t.

As expected, there was no one else in the room.

No, Scribs, I didn’t get down on all fours to check if someone was hiding under the bed and neither did I pull open the wardrobe’s doors. If someone had been in the room, they wouldn’t have had time to hide. I’m sure of it.

I’m just a tad ashamed to admit that at times I’m happy that the train guards with their rifles share the house with us. This is an old, creaking, croaking house riddled with drafts that put out fires and lamps that turn off on their own. Sometimes I glimpse white shapes in the mirrors, though that’s no doubt just dust catching rays of lights in odd angles. Even so, I don’t know how Elise has the courage to sleep the nights alone. I would never agree to that!

“Alina, Merile…” I wiped my palms on my dress and clapped twice. It didn’t sound or seem as refined as when Celestia did so, even to me. “It’s time for the dance practice.”

Alina and Merile glanced at each other. Alina studied me, as if to double-check if I’d seen something. She nodded to Merile, satisfied I hadn’t (because there was NOTHING to see).

“Urgh.” Merile stuck her tongue out at me, insufferably smug. I think it would serve her right if the magpie that frequents the walled garden were to try and snatch it on one fine afternoon. “Do we really have to?”

I waved toward the open door, at Celestia and Elise, who had by then almost finished hauling the furniture against the room’s sides. Even here we must adhere to the routine. And when the dance practices are concerned, I’m happy to enforce Celestia’s decrees. “Yes.”

Merile sniffed, but Alina stared right before her, as if someone were sitting on the bed there. Then she blinked and snatched the silver hand mirror up. She pressed it against her chest as if to guard the reflection. “It’s all right, Merile. They’ll come with us.”

I glared down my nose at the rats. Of course they’d come with us, to nip at our hems and bite at our ankles, and ruin our practice. Not that that has happened that many times to date, but I don’t want to trip over a rat and sprain my ankle. Limping becomes absolutely no one. “I’d rather they stay behind.”

“Hurts.” Merile sniffed again as she ran her hand down the black rat’s back. I felt just a tiny bit ashamed. After everything we’ve been through together, asking Merile to be apart from her beloved, adored rats verged toward being cruel. “My leg hurts.”

But even if I was partially at fault, I couldn’t exactly admit that or I’d lose my authority as a big sister. Besides, she injured her ankle months ago, enough time for it to heal three times already. I realized she was just trying to mess with me!

“No, it doesn’t.” I pressed my fists on my hips and shot her my best scolding look. “But soon it will, unless you get up right at this instant.”

Alina and Merile glanced at each other. Then they jumped down onto the floor and dashed past me, into the drawing room with the rats at their heels. Celestia always says that violence isn’t the answer, but threatening with it certainly gets things done.

We arrived just in time. Celestia and Elise were moving the last sofa chair against the wall. I checked my posture in the tall mirror that hangs on the door side of the room. Ugh, Scribs, whenever my concentration sways, I end up looking like a hunchback. And these long, too-loose sleeves, I want to rip them off. There’s nothing I can do about the sleeves as such, because it’s too cold in the house to consider altering them, but if I remember to roll my shoulders back and push my chest out every once in a while, I think that I do look rather good.

Celestia waited for us to form pairs. I always dance with Elise and Merile with Alina. We started the practice with a waltz—my favorite, as you know. I counted the one-two-threes in my head and let Elise lead me across the floor. My sister understands that I really need the practice and always lets me dance as a girl.

Though the dance practices are the best part of the day, they also fill me with melancholy. Scribs, I miss music. I wish we could have taken the gramophone with us from Angefort garrison, but I bet that even if we had asked (and a Daughter of the Moon is never supposed to ask for anything), that awful Captain Ansalov wouldn’t have let us have it. The best we have here is Celestia tapping the rhythm against the paneling as she strolls the length of the drawing room, from the door of Elise’s room, past the mirror, to the light blue door leading into the narrow hallway and stairs. When we first started the practices, Merile’s rats trailed after Celestia, thinking she was hiding treats! The stupid rats still keep on trotting to her every now and then.

Today, Celestia did look very thoughtful as she tapped the rhythm, and I bet her mind wasn’t busy with instructions on how to improve my pose or steps. Let alone those of Alina and Merile. Can you imagine this, Scribs, my little sisters danced both as girls! A waltz doesn’t really work that way!

“Alina, Merile,” I hissed at them from under my breath when the steps took us to the furniture clustered by the fireplace, as far away from Celestia as the room would allow. It was becoming increasingly difficult for me to keep track of the one-two-threes. Them messing around certainly didn’t help. “Could you at least try and concentrate?”

I might as well have spoken to one of the rats. Merile sniffed, the tip of her wide nose pointed up. Alina lifted her hem high, revealing her knobby knees, and spun wild. They’re hopeless, both of them! When they swirled toward Celestia, the rats in tow, they left so much space between Elise and me that another couple could have easily fit in there. And despite all the fooling around, they managed to maintain that space, even when I intentionally pushed Elise toward them.

“Sibs.” Elise drew me closer as if she were indeed a cavalier of the opposite gender. Her hand pressed lightly against my lower back. She tightened her hold around my right hand. “On the dance floor, all that matters is you and your partner. Nothing else can really touch you.”

My sister picked up a tune of a waltz and softly hummed it under her breath. I don’t mind that she sometimes does so. It’s very nice of her to help me. I don’t want to make a fool of myself if WHEN I debut. Because we will return in time to the Summer City, and the palace will be there waiting for us in just the same glorious shape as we left it, and K will be there, and the lords and ladies will be there, and there will be servants with trays full of macarons and…

No, enough of that. For the time being, I won’t fill another page with wistful thinking. I have, after all, only a limited supply of pages left. But let this be said, one day I will own the dance floors of the Summer Palace, just as my sister once did.

“Better.” Elise guided me into a swirl, and I simply couldn’t resist the temptation. I closed my eyes, tilted my head back, though I could feel my coiffure unraveling. I laughed, and at that moment I felt… free!

When I returned to Elise’s arms, I opened my eyes and caught my breath. Only to accidentally lock my gaze with that of Captain Janlav and lose it again. He watched us from the door leading to the hallway, those gorgeous brown eyes of his gleaming with interest, lips drawn into a faint smile. He looked positively dashing compared to the scrawny Boy next to him. That poor creature is all limbs and pimples and wet, straw-colored hair, but then again, according to Elise, he does have a bit of a tragic past.

“Stop ogling him,” Elise chided me, but there was a hint of amusement in her voice. Of course there would be. She’s had her chance to sneak out and kiss with boys while I’m still waiting for mine!

I stepped on her toes. On purpose, I admit that, Scribs. I wasn’t ogling Captain Janlav. I was admiring him. Bearded now, with his brown hair braided, he cuts a fine figure of a man. He’s definitely not a boy. Now, given the completely hypothetical and unlikely scenario that we mightn’t get out of this house in time for my debut, or in the worst case before we turn into old hags, if I had to ask someone to kiss me—because I do want to be kissed at some point of my life—at that moment, I did wonder what it would be like to kiss him. Would his beard scratch? Would he taste of smoke and cigarettes? Elise would know…

Elise sucked in her breath. “Do watch out for my toes, Sibs!”

The good thing about me blushing easily is that my sister thought me embarrassed of stepping on her toes, not because of… Scribs, guard my secrets well. No one must learn that I’ve fallen this low in my desperation. Because my first kiss is going to be with K, not with some turncoat guard, no matter how manly and handsome he may appear in my eyes after months of candy and eye-candy deprivation.

I gathered myself quite well, I think. My sisters and I danced for some time more and, as I checked myself from the tall mirror, I didn’t look that terrible, not at all like a hunchback. Toward the end of the practice, Captain Janlav and Boy grew bored, though. They closed the door behind them, but didn’t lock it. They’re not concerned about us trying to flee. The nights are too cold and with the wolves hunting in the woods, we’re not stupid enough to try! And then there’s the garrison and Captain Ansalov and his hounds to think about, too. I’m sure Celestia has taken all this into consideration already. She’ll share her plan with us any day now.

The grandfather clock’s swan chimed twelve silvery notes.

“My dear sisters.” Celestia knocked the paneled wall with her knuckles, and then she knocked again, just to get our full attention. “This suffices for today.”

Elise and I paused, flush-faced, leaning on each other for breath—but we weren’t so badly winded as we were when we first started these practices. My sister grinned at me, and somehow even that expression was dashing. “That was fun!”

I nodded, pushing the pins holding my hair up deeper to salvage what I could. But it occurred to me that Celestia mightn’t be organizing these practices just for fun. She must have some ulterior motive of her own. I don’t know what it is, but the sessions leave us sweaty and sometimes even exhausted. Which feels good! The Moon knows we do enough sitting around, sipping tea, and strolling in the freezing garden.

“I think we should let in some fresh air.” Celestia glided past the oval table and the sofa, to the arching, tall window. I knew to expect this, but not her next words. “Why, hello there, bird black and white.”

And true enough, there on the windowsill, on the other side of the glass, sat a magpie with a shining white belly and glistening black coat. Had it, too, been watching our practice? Hopefully so, as I really need to get accustomed to performing before an audience, and it’s about time I don’t mix up my steps just because someone is looking at me.

“A magpie!” Alina dashed past the furniture to the window. She placed her right palm against the pane. I really expected the magpie to take to the air, but instead it rapped the glass with its mighty beak as if greeting her. “Nurse Nookes once told me a story about magpies…”

“Now did she?” Celestia wrapped an arm around our sister’s narrow shoulders.

“Yes, she did!” Alina leaned against our eldest sister. “But I can’t remember it anymore. Do you know it? Will you tell me a story?”

Though this house has a library, it now serves as living quarters for the guards. Also, I’ve been told, the books are all gone, no doubt burned for heat or the pages used in other disrespectful ways. Sometimes my sisters and I reminiscence about the past, but we never tell stories as such. It really hadn’t occurred to me earlier that back at the Summer Palace, Nurse Nookes still told Alina bedtime stories.

“A story about a magpie?” Celestia mused. “I do recall one.”

“Will you tell it?” Alina chimed. Merile and her rats drifted toward the window, too. I remained in the middle of the dance floor with Elise, though at that moment, I yearned for nothing as much as to hear a story, the sort where all ends well. “Pretty please!”

Celestia unwrapped her arm from around Alina and kneeled before her. She placed her palms on her shoulders. “I will.”

And then she spoke in a melodious voice that filled every nook and corner of the drawing room, and somehow, even the hollows where longing had etched in my heart.

With the final word fading, the magpie took off. Celestia pressed a kiss on Alina’s forehead and then rose up. She opened the window, sighed deep, and stared after the bird. I wonder, did she at that moment dream of flying away? Sometimes, she speaks in her sleep about white wings and fallen feathers as if she thought herself a swan.

“Can we go now?” Merile’s question broke the wonderful, solemn moment. Scribs, my sister really has no clue on what’s appropriate and when. “Alina, are you coming?”

Celestia tousled Alina’s gray-brown hair. Though our little sister seems more cheerful these days, she hasn’t grown an inch since we boarded the train. I wonder if there exists a potion for that somewhere.

“Go ahead, my dear,” Celestia replied.

Thus liberated, Alina and Merile and her wretched rats disappeared back to their room, no doubt to continue talking with their imaginary friends, the Moon bless them.

I would have really wanted to cool by the window for a while, but Elise twined her long fingers around my forearm and guided me to the exact opposite direction. “Oh, Sibs, your hair is in quite a state!”

A part of me had realized that already. Often when I dance, my locks unravel regardless if they’re braided around my head or secured with all the pins available in this house. I don’t usually care that much about my hair (because once we’re back in the hem of civilization, I’ll have access to all the pins and combs I could ever possibly need). But then it dawned on me that my hair might have been in this state already when Captain Janlav watched us from the doorway. “Oh no…”

As Elise led me to one of the sofa chairs by the fireplace, I thought not only about that, but also about the things I might have been lately speaking about while asleep. That’s the very reason I haven’t dared to ask Celestia about her dreams. I might want to broach the topic that gives me tingles with Elise at some point in the near future, but I don’t really want to talk about boys with Celestia. Though back at the Summer Palace Elise did suspect Celestia of having a lover, our oldest sister never made the official announcement. Elise, on the other hand, was romantically involved with Captain Janlav, even if neither of them seems to be particularly certain about how that affair eventually ended.

Elise patted my shoulder, and I think I caught a glimpse of melancholy in her gray eyes. I sat down, pretending I hadn’t noticed a thing, for I know how much it pains to be apart from your heart’s chosen one. While I can imagine my happy reunion with K and some alternatives to that as well, Elise should know that Captain Janlav is forever out of her reach.

“Now then, shall we have a look at what we can still salvage?” Elise circled behind the chair and started unplucking the remaining pins. I nudged off my shoes (that is, the pair of heels Millie found for me), and pushed away sad thoughts. For my feet, they hurt, especially my toes! But it’s the good sort of pain, the kind we pay to look pretty.

Soon Elise had her fingers around my locks, and thus when she asked the question, I was completely under her mercy. “Now tell me, dear Sibs, who’s the lucky chap who has stolen your heart?”

And my heart stopped beating at that very moment, or that’s how it felt. I fanned my face, to banish my blush. That had been the giveaway. It had to have been, unless she can read my thoughts. And if I’d earlier worried about Captain Janlav seeing me dancing with my hair in disarray, now I had to wonder, had I been radiating scarlet ever since I locked gazes with him?

“Do tell.” Elise playfully straightened one of my locks till it was as taut as a ropewalker’s wire. “It must be Boy. Please tell me it’s not Tabard.”

At that moment, I was overjoyed that she couldn’t see my expression and that Celestia was busy with returning the furniture to its right places. Scribs, I really need to start practicing my expressions before a mirror. But how to do that in secret when I share my room with Celestia? Perhaps I can snatch back that silver hand mirror I brought with me, the one Merile has stolen from me for her own obscure purposes, whatever those might be.

Yes. Getting sidetracked. Sorry about that.

I did spend quite a while thinking of what to say. While Elise knows about K, it was obvious she wasn’t talking about him, and thus revealing his full name would have gained me nothing. And I couldn’t very well tell her that for one fleeting moment (that might have lasted for quite some time) I had pondered her former lover’s merits.

“No one.” I feebly tried. “There’s no one. Really, it’s just that I find myself terribly unaccustomed to exercise.”

“Is that so?” Elise mused. She extracted a pin from my hair, twirled a lock even tighter around her finger, and then the tip of the pin was grazing against my scalp. I’m not saying she did this on purpose, but I think she might have done it subconsciously. Elise is used to having her way.

What could I reply? Could I ask her if the downright flirtatious thing she’s kept up with Captain Janlav really is all for show, painstakingly maintained to soften and manipulate him to be more sympathetic to us so that he would help us flee when the time comes? Could I really ask her if she’d be fine with me dancing and perhaps even… Yes, Scribs, I know I’m daring and preposterous here, perhaps even kissing him!

No, Scribs, I’m not stupid enough to tell this to my sister, no matter how close we are. So, here’s what I said: “My dear sister, I have no secrets from you.”

“Oh, me neither.” And with that said, she leaned over my shoulder and pinched my cheek. Not terribly hard, mind you, but firmly enough to leave a mark of endearment. “Never have had and never will have.”

Sometimes I hate her, Scribs. That I really do.