"Very good, very good. Remember to work from fifth position not third. Millicent, remember your arm positions. Pointed feet girls, pointed feet. Susan, keep your back long. Knees should bend over the feet not forward. Very good turnout, Maria and Vanessa. Very good everyone."

Ladybird paced before her young students correcting and praising them. When she nodded to her sister, Wysteria stopped playing the violin. "Next we will work on our arabesque. Who can tell me the names of the different arabesques?" As she scanned the room she saw the door open and a tall man enter. He smiled at her and she smiled back. "All right, everyone to the barre, I want you to practice your battements until I get back." She ran gracefully across the floor and all the girls giggled as she stepped out the door with the man.

"You do a good job with these children."

"Philemon, I wasn't expecting you. Ladybird said, "Did you come to watch the class?"

Philemon Yewtree smiled. "No, I came to invite you to supper tomorrow night. It's one of my favorite spots."

Ladybird smiled. "I wish I could, Philemon but my Pointe class is on Friday nights."

"Have your sister do it."

"I can't. The girls will be expecting me and Wysteria can't play, dance and instruct."

"What about, Beatrice?"

"Beatrice is playing croquet with a friend and I can't ask her to decline again."

Philemon nodded. "When we are married there will be none of this."

"None of what, Ballet?"

"No," Philemon said wrapping his arms around her. "No one coming between us." He kissed her. "I'll have you all to myself." He kissed her again.

"I'll have to think about that," Ladybird said. She heard someone coming up the hall and turned to see Beatrice with a racket in one hand and a bag in the other.

"Hello, Beatrice," Philemon said. "Did your match go well?"

"I won," Beatrice shrugged.

Philemon nodded. "That's a good girl," he said. "Never mind us love birds over here."

Ladybird pushed away from him when he tried to kiss her. "Not in front of my sister," she whispered.

Beatrice yawned. "I'll be in the studio," she said. "Goodnight, Philemon."

As she went inside Philemon looked down at Ladybird. "That one has some fire in her doesn't she?"

"My sisters are like fire and ice," Ladybird said.

"Wysteria is certainly ice," Philemon said. "The Snow Queen."

"Let her be," Ladybird said making him laugh. "She just doesn't talk much is all. I used to be much the same until I had to take responsibility of everything."

"Hector Smart told me he would like her to go with his family to England," Philemon said.

"Wysteria hasn't told me," Ladybird said.

"Maybe she's not ready for you to know," Philemon said. "I know that if I were her, I'd not dawdle on such an opportunity. You all are from the south so you know what I mean. You won't have to worry about swinging from a poplar tree just on account of the color of your skin in England."

Ladybird looked through the glass at the class at the barre as Beatrice took over instructions and Wysteria played her violin. "She'd be so far away," she said more to herself.

"You'd have Beatrice," Philemon shrugged. "And...you'd have me."

Ladybird turned around and smiled at him. Outside of her sisters he was the most pleasant company.

/

Supper that night was very quiet. Ladybird looked around at her sisters as they ate their chicken and wild rice. She cleared her throat. "How was work today, Wysteria?"

"Oh, it was the same," Wysteria said. "Children grow so fast."

Ladybird nodded. "Say...you didn't...you didn't mention to me that Mr. Smart was moving his family to England." She forked chicken into her mouth.

"Didn't I?"

Ladybird shook her head. "Wysteria, are you planning on going with them?"

Wysteria could tell her sister was worried and she looked down at her plate. "Well I thought about it. They have been asking me about it for a long time now but I wasn't really sure."

"But that's across the ocean; you wouldn't be able to come and see us nor us you." Ladybird said. "You've never lived apart from us."

"What difference does it make?" Beatrice said. "It won't be the same around her once your marry Philemon anyways."

"Beatrice is right," Wysteria said. "What do the two of us do once you marry Yewtree?"

Ladybird sighed. "You can call him Philemon you know. And he's willing to support all of us. We'd be his family too then."

"Well Mr. Candlewood thinks I should go abroad to school," Beatrice said. "He suggested France but I don't want to learn French so I thought I'd go to college in England."

"What is wrong with the schools here?" Ladybird asked. "Do you two really want to be separated like that?"

"I don't." Wysteria said. "It's just..."

"You started it, Ladybird," Beatrice said. "The moment you said you would marry Philemon."

"You're being unfair," Ladybird said.

"Mama made us promise on her deathbed that we would stay together," Beatrice said twiddling with her fork.

"Yes but she didn't intend for us to be spinsters. Marriage is a beautiful part of life and I hope my sisters can enjoy that one day."

Beatrice snickered. "Not if Wysteria is going to marry an old man."

Wysteria shot her a look. "I don't think I could go abroad," she said to Ladybird. "But I have been thinking how you being married would change things. I would feel awkward living in a house with Yewtree."

"Since when do you not feel awkward?" Beatrice snickered.

"His mother likes to talk a lot too," Wysteria said.

"And she's always coddling him," Beatrice said. "She'd be over your house every day and telling you how to raise your children. That woman makes me insane."

"Oh stop it, Baby B, you exaggerate," Ladybird said. She quickly finished off her rice. "And you remember that we have supper with that woman next Wednesday and I don't want any snarky behavior."

"Of course, Ladybird," Beatrice said. "I will be good." She washed her meal down and got up from the table. "Goodnight."

/

Ladybird stared up at the dark ceiling of the bedroom listening to the still night. She could see as clear as yesterday the day their mother died and the promise they had all made to stay together but she felt them drifting apart. Not because they had grown up and were taking different paths but because they seldom shared anything with each other anymore. If her father were here he would know straight away what to do.

When it came to making peace he was like a bullet and always brought them back together again. But Amos Winters had been dead for seven years. He had gone murdered to his grave and his killer had gone free simply for being a white man. Her mother had tried so hard, so hard she had exhausted herself and now she too was gone. She had died a sad and lonely woman with many regrets.

"Never let any man make you less than what you are" she always told her "You are a lady"

As a tear trickled down her face she was disturbed by a moaning sound and a muffled voice in distress. She sat up and got out of bed and crossed the hall to the room her younger sisters shared. In the dark she could see Wysteria twisting in her blankets as if she were fighting with someone.

"Wysteria," She touched her softly. "Wysteria, it's all right, you're safe."

Wysteria eyes flew open and she took deep breaths and coughed. "I was back there again," she panted. "It was so dark and cold."

Ladybird hugged her sister to her chest as an orange glow filled the room.

"What's going on?" Beatrice asked groggily from the next bed, her eyes narrowed from the gas lamp at her bed stand.

"It's nothing, go back to sleep." Ladybird said and Beatrice flopped back down on her pillow. Ladybird helped Wysteria to lie back down then she went over to the gas lamp and turned it out.

"Ladybird?"

Ladybird turned back to Wysteria's bed.

"I don't want you to..."

Ladybird came and sat on her bed. "What's wrong? You don't want me to what?"

Wysteria looked into her sister's shadowed face. "I don't want you to go back to your room. Stay with me please."

Ladybird touched her sister's forehead and nodded then slipped beneath the blankets. "Did I ever tell you the story about the ice princess and the snow queen?" she felt Wysteria shake her head. "Well there once was a girl named Gerda and her brother Kai whom she must save from the hands of the Snow Queen. It all started out like this..."

/

Beatrice watched Samantha and Matthew go back and forth on the tennis court as she sat on the bench with her racket. When the match ended with Matthew as the winner he whistled at her but she was too lost in thoughts to notice anything around her until Samantha flopped down at her side.

"What's wrong, Beatrice, don't you want to play?"

Beatrice sighed and got up. "It's my sister."

"Again?"

"Not that one, the other one." They crossed onto the court. "Last night I told Ladybird about Mr. Candlewood suggesting I should study abroad when the time comes and she doesn't think I should. She wants us to stay together but that's easy for her because she is already getting all she wants. I want to be an architect and then teach others."

"You've told me," Samantha said. "Why such a strange profession?"

"It's not strange to me," Beatrice said. "My father was a carpenter and a stone mason. Ladybird paints and so I'm good with wood. Wysteria...she just likes plants."

Samantha looked Beatrice up and down. At her curly brown hair caramel complexion and her blue eyes. "Well your sister is very lucky," she said. "Mr. Yewtree is tall dark and handsome. He's a walking dream."

"Are we going to play or not!" Matthew shouted across the court, his eyes narrowed from the sun.

"In a minute!" Samantha shouted to her brother then turned back to Beatrice. "If I were colored I'd fight her for him."

Beatrice wrinkled her nose. "I'm only seventeen, I'm in no rush."

"Both my sisters were married by then," Samantha said. "The only reason I'm not is because I wanted to take more schooling."

Beatrice grinned. "And because you wanted to be nearer the younger Mr. Candlewood."

Samantha pushed her but couldn't stop smiling. "Wysteria get's to be with him all day, I'm ever so jealous."

"Not for long," Beatrice said stepping away from the net with Samantha following her. "He's going to England with the Smarts and you know what, I just might too!" She swung her racket as Matthew served the ball sending it sailing beyond him. "Sorry!" she shouted as he ran after it. She then laughed and Samantha joined her.

"You play unfairly, Beatrice Winters," Matthew said.

"You're just mad because a girl bested you," Samantha said.

"It's just a game, Matthew," Beatrice said. "Now stop being sorry and let's play."

Matthew threw down the ball and his racket. "I'm finished."

"Fine," Beatrice said. "We didn't want you to come with us anyway." She rounded the net and picked up the ball leaving his racket.

"Well fine I have better things to do than to watch you two prance around in your skirts giggling all the time."

"What will you do?"

"Play cards with the Blackwell boys."

"Ooooh, Mother said you are not supposed to talk to them," Samantha said. She joined Matthew at the bench where he was collecting his school books.

"I can do what I want."

"But those boys are mean," Samantha said. "They pull my hair and they throw rocks at us."

"They never throw rocks at me," Matthew said.

"I meant Beatrice and me," Samantha said.

Matthew glared at Beatrice still on the court. "Well she deserves it," he said, "Her mother was a jezebel."

Samantha gasped; her green eyes wide as she turned to Beatrice. "Ignore him."

"Take it back Matthew Hurston!" Beatrice shouted as she stormed across the court.

"No."

"Take it back!" Beatrice was now in his face.

"Never, never nev—" WHAM the racket hit his face sending him to the ground with grid marks in his skin.

Beatrice stood back as he rubbed his flesh and glared up at her. She grabbed her books

"You'll regret this, Beatrice Winters,"

She turned and ran out of the tennis court fence.

"You'll pay for this!"

She ran across the park.

"I'll get you, you sorry mulatto!"

She ran up the street looking over her shoulder as she rounded the corner. She fell against the wall, her chest heaving. She bent forward, the coarse brick wall snatching at her hair. Her hand was still gripped firmly on her racket and all she would see was it smashing Matthew Hurston square in the face.