"Emily, why don't you go lie down upstairs for a few minutes?" Ruth said rather firmly, but it was almost like a front, for her voice quivered with sadness. The child turned and looked into the woman's green eyes; her piercing, mesmerizing emerald green eyes. Like a snake that mesmerizes its prey. "Yes Mrs. Bukater." was all she said. Ruth looked into her eyes, blue as lapis lazuli much like her husband's. How she hated to see her daughter like this, especially when they were meant to be together like the twins that they are. Almost without delay, Emily walked up the stairs quickly. She opened the door to the room she had been sleeping in since June, and flung herself onto the bed in a fit of tears. "Rose is dead!" she kept yelling over and over. Suddenly it seemed as though that had opened the floodgates, and soon more thoughts turned into sentences. Soon Emily was heard shouting "Rose, I could not save you this time. For this, I'm truly sorry. Consider me your murderer." Emily was in the midst of bawling her eyes out when suddenly, the door opened; it was Ruth.
Ruth looked at the mass of flaming red hair laying face first on the bed. "How pathetic she looks, crying over her sister. Poor thing." she thought to herself. Emily didn't look up as she felt a hand touching her hair, pulling the ribbon out of it, and soon that hand was going back and forth stroking ever so gently. "It's okay Emily, Rose will be okay." Ruth said in a calm, gentle tone as though Emily were an infant who needed to be soothed after a good cry. Emily turned her head. Her tears had indeed stained her face and the coverlet that was on her bed. Tears kept coming, although not as fast as they had been. Ruth touched Emily's face, pulling her into an embrace that involved gentle words. Had she still been at home, her mother would've left her to cry, telling her that that was what "babies do" and that she was a "big girl." Ruth herself began to cry; something she would never do in front of her children, for she had to be strong for them. As they embraced each other, whispering that it would all be okay; Ruth looked at the clock on Emily's bedside table. "Emily, surely you're hungry?" She asked, desperately. Emily nodded her head only slightly.
Her soup arrived, and she ate it ever so quickly. She hadn't noticed the small cup of medicine sitting on her table. "Emily, you must take this." Ruth said in a gentle tone. Emily looked at the cup containing the two white pills. "I don't want to; mama makes me take it all the time. I take it at school as well; I don't want to take it tonight, not ever. It makes me someone I'm not." She said as tears began to fall again. Ruth, sensing that she didn't want to kick Emily when she was already down, said "Okay dear, but you must rest. This will help you sleep, your mother informed me of this when you arrived last summer." Emily looked at Ruth and sighed. She was right. These pills were the ones that she would rather take over the ones she had in the morning; those pills calmed her down and made her less excitable, something her mother did not like to be, especially now that she was twelve, soon to be thirteen. Soon Emily was changed out of her school frock and into her nightclothes. "Sleep well Emily." Ruth said as she helped Emily lie down on her bed. A kiss was in order, and the light was turned off. It was going to be a long and uneasy night.