Winterborne Home for Mayhem and Mystery by Ally Carter

Author:Ally Carter [Carter, Ally]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780358531791
Publisher: HMH Books
Published: 2021-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

The Sadiematic One

“I don’t have a mother,” April said one more time when Sadie found her in the long corridor on the top floor that ran along the back of the house, overlooking the cliffs and the horizon. She didn’t care that her lungs weren’t working right. She didn’t even mind that there was something wrong with her eyes and they wouldn’t stop watering.

Only one thing mattered to April, and it was that the world always understand . . .

“I don’t. I don’t have a mother. Never have.”

“April . . .” Sadie crept closer. Like April used to do to Gabriel in the beginning. Like Sadie knew that, if she pushed too hard, April would open up those great big windows and jump, fly away like the ocean mist that always blew on the breeze. “It would explain why she had the key. If your mother was a Winterborne—”

“A woman gave birth to me, Sadie. And then she left me! I. Never. Had. A. Mother.”

“Okay,” Sadie said softly. “Yes. Of course. But if she really is that woman—”

“Then what, Sadie?” April should have felt bad for snapping. None of it was Sadie’s fault. And Sadie just wanted to help—she always wanted to help, because Sadie was a good kid. April was the thing that was already broken on the inside—the thing that shattered in the mail but you don’t know yet that it’s in a million billion pieces.

April was Schrödinger’s disappointment.

“What difference does it make, Sade? Is it gonna make the last ten years not happen? Huh? One time, when I was five, I spilled some milk, so my foster father made me drink it off the floor. To teach me to be more careful. Then I moved to a different house where my foster mother lost my shoes in a poker game. I wore her old slippers to school for three days before they called me into the office. I got in trouble. The principal said if I wasn’t going to dress appropriately, the other children would find it distracting. They were more worried about what the other kids might think about the girl who didn’t have shoes than they were about the girl, but whatever.”

“April—”

“The nurse was nice, though. She said she found me some in the lost and found, but there was still paper in the toes. I didn’t even know new shoes had paper in them. The next week, I got moved to a different home, and that one was nice, so . . .” April shrugged, but her eyes were all wet again. “Now you tell me, Sadie, if all this time I was a Winterborne . . . Tell me why I know that you’re supposed to slip some food in your backpack every day during the last month of school so you have something to eat over the summer?”

“Oh, April . . .”

Sadie’s eyes were wet then too. The mini mansion was entirely too dusty.

And then April was shaking again. Was it rage or shock, cold or fear? April couldn’t tell anymore.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.