Ink and Bone by Lisa Unger Read Free Book Online Page B

kitchen floor. A gift certainly, but not the type anyone would ever want.
    There’s no one there, Finley.
    She’s right there in the blue dress.
    Stop it right now. This is not funny.
    Confused, Finley would fall silent. Thinking about that now—how her mother knew what Finley was and what was happening to her—still made her angry. Finley had been so ashamed and afraid, confused, had held so much in, when all Amanda would have had to do was pick up the phone and call Eloise.
    She never wanted this— for either of us , her grandmother explained. Eloise was always making excuses for Amanda.
    You can’t ignore a thing just because you don’t want it , countered Finley.
    Parents make mistakes, usually out of love.
    Control is not love.
    Oh, Finley. A sigh. There’s a lot you don’t understand about motherhood.
    Finley knew right away that The Three Sisters were differentfrom the other people she saw. Those who came before them were almost like images on a screen, projections with no awareness of Finley. They often repeated the same action—like the old woman knitting the same row on the same blanket over and over. Or the girl clutching her teddy bear and turning over onto her side in sleep—over and over. Finley had been too young to intuit that perhaps they wanted or needed something from her. Anyway, the others never stayed for very long.
    The Three Sisters had movement, awareness of Finley and their surroundings. They were curious, talkative. Patience was the youngest, the sweet one—slender with dark hair and big doe eyes. Sarah was the middle girl; she was a follower. There was a pleasant plumpness to her, a twinkle to her eyes, roses in her cheeks. She didn’t talk much. And then there was Abigail, the oldest. With her mane of auburn hair, that mischievous knowing to her gaze, she was the one who always got Finley in trouble.
    But since Finley had come to The Hollows they hadn’t been around as much—maybe because Finley was busy with school and helping Eloise with “the work” and the house. She was busy in ways she hadn’t been before. Engaged was the word. Finley wouldn’t say she was happy exactly, but she wasn’t raging, miserable, or looking to act out the way she had been when she was back in Seattle. She understood herself better here; she was calmer.
    The girls were attracted to negativity, to bad energy. Finley was doing her best these days to stay away from drama. And she was looking to stay out of the kind of trouble that brought The Three Sisters around. So maybe that was part of it.
    Or maybe, as she had come to suspect when Eloise revealed that the Good sisters were her distant relatives, that they got what they wanted. Finley was in The Hollows, where they were from, and where she apparently belonged.
    Finley brought the bike to a stop in front of the pub. Inside, the lights were already low and the open sign turned off. The street had a quiet, deserted feel. All the shops that surrounded the park in the town square (complete with precious gazebo) were shuttered. TheHollows went to bed early and slept all night. The only twenty-four-hour diner was ten miles outside of town by the highway. You wanted pizza at two in the morning? Too bad. Pop’s, the only pizzeria in town, closed at nine thirty.
    She knocked on the red door and after a few moments, it opened. Rainer stood there smiling his crooked smile—oh, those icy blues and wild dark hair. Her heart fluttered a little at the sight of him; it always did. Stupid. Stupid. Because he towered over her, she had to gaze up at him—which always made her feel small (which, in turn, annoyed her a little). He was wide, too, powerful through the shoulders, with big arms sleeved with tattoos—a dragon, a geisha, a python, a panther, Dali’s melting clock, Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine. Escher’s Relativity traveled over his right shoulder blade, a raven perched on his right pectoral muscle. He was the only one she knew with more ink