August

Issue 47

On her twenty-first birthday, the eldest Derosa daughter returned home to be installed as rosavore. So it was that Cora graduated early, summa cum laude, from Redmont College with an unheard-of triple high honors in Transformation, Animal Telepathy, and Elementals. Redmont hoisted its red and gold banners, the professors turned out in force to see her go, and her friends pressed dried corsages and strings of coral into her hands, for luck. I was lucky just to get her safely aboard before the train lurched forward. I'm Cora's twin sister, and I go where Cora goes.

The house elves asserted their right to unpack the luggage, which was just as well because the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, family friends, neighbors, members of the local Redmont Alumnae Association, and the entire Greater Poconos Ladies Gardening Club waited to welcome her home. The garden twinkled in red, white, and pink fairy lights. The central fountain bubbled with rose water. A pixie string quartet serenaded us from their perch in a maple tree over the greenhouse. I hugged, shook hands, received kisses, and agreed that my sister was a talented and intelligent young woman. At dusk, I pleaded a headache and escaped to the quiet of Cora's and my shared bedroom.

I woke well past midnight to moonlight across my bed and the sounds of Cora and my parents fighting. I sighed and called a house elf to bring a cup of tea. It was startling and inexplicable, this sudden rash of arguments between Cora and my parents. Already I'd learned that there'd be no peace until Cora won.

I was reading on the window seat when the commotion ended. Cora slipped inside the room and stopped short when she saw me. She closed the door.

"We have to go to the garden."

I put the book down. "What were you fighting about now?"

"I'll tell you in the garden."

"Was it Herbology?" It was the only subject in which Cora earned a B. I'd received honors with distinction.

"What? No." She'd already pulled on sneakers. "Come on, I don't have much time."

"For what? What's going on?"

"Just hurry."

I shoved my feet into sandals and followed, my heart pounding. A line of light shone beneath the door to our parents' bedroom.

A bronze rose petal served as the door handle for the deck door. Outside, high, thin clouds obscured the faintest stars, and a full moon rode low in the west. The trees at the edge of the yard bent dark and full over the lilac bushes and lattice fence. The grass was wet with dew, and the air cool. I tucked my hands under my arms and wished I had another cup of tea.

"Are Mom and Dad coming?" I asked.

Cora glanced back. It still shocked me, one month after the fact, that she had cut her hair as short as a pixie's. We'd both worn our hair long as a concession to twindom since kindergarten, when we rebelled against matching outfits.

"Not for this," she said. "They thought it called for some twin time."

We reached the garden gate. Raspberry bushes grew against the wall, along with honeysuckle. In a far corner of the garden, the green house nestled under the branches of the quartet-hosting maple. Cora twisted the latch on the gate, and the gate spoke: "What price dreams?"