The Sisters: The Curse of Gabriel's Gardens

The Christmas Mystery

Diane rolled her eyes. "I was expecting that Annie would come up sooner or later."

"I'm sorry," Alexis blushed. "I know how miserable you have to feel... lately, I'm all about Annie and I feel that I'm overlooking you. Once again, I apologize."

"C'mon, Lex, I meant it as a joke," Diane calmed her down. "We both love Annie, don't we? Only in different kinds of way. I would actually love if she came to celebrate Christmas with us."

Alexis' eyes brightened. "You know what? This year, I want to make all-family Christmas. Like during the good old days. We'll place a tree in Father's church and we can celebrate it everyone together - you, me, Father, Annie and Gus. I think that Annie and Augustus are also tired of celebrating Christmas on their own. I guess they're mostly remembering their parents and are more sad than happy."

"You know what? I love that idea!" Diane smiled. "Why being two, two and one when we can be five? You'll get to spend time with both me and Annie without leaving Gus on his own."

"Let's make it a surprise," Alexis smirked.

"I agree."

The girls completed decorating their own tree and spent a while appreciating their work. They also used small angel-shaped decorations they purchased during their trip outside Gabriel's Gardens; the city prohibited selling anything with religious motives. Owning and using such things wasn't illegal, but the girls felt the pleasant rebellion anyway.

"I think we did good, right?" Diane said.

"As always."

"Time to get some rest," Diane turned on the TV. During the Christmas time, the girls were careful with TV, radio and other medias. The shows were drowned in endless blocks of annoying Christmas ads, usually stupid and intrusive. One of such was on air when the TV screen came to life. It depicted two young children, a boy and a girl, in Santa hats merrily singing an annoying song:

Bring me a gift, bring me another,

Come and make us happy, money don't matter!

Their parents were right beside them, handing them numerous toys with wide smiles on their faces. The ad promoted a huge shopping centre in Icaria.

"That's it. This bullshit is too much for my nerves," Diane uttered and shut the TV off again.

"Besides that, there's more interesting thing to watch," Alexis smiled, looking at Dante who entered the room and curiously stared at the Christmas tree. He carefully approached it and started to wiggle his tail. He haven't seen something so interesting and shiny in his entire life.

<<>>

The girls decided to walk Dante instead of watching the horrendous programme the TV offered. They had to wear jackets; the temperatures were sinking, but there was no snow despite the location of the city in the northern part of California. Every time there wasn't any snow on Christmas, Alexis felt a sting of disappointment. They experienced white Christmas a few times when they were little. There was nothing more magical than seeing the city covered in innocent white; it seemed to cover all the sins.

"I was thinking," Diane said. "And yes, I know it's a dangerous thing to do."

Alexis smiled. "Yes? About what?"

"When we talked about family Christmas," she said. "No matter if we bring Father, Annie and Gus, we'd still be incomplete. You know what I'm talking about."

Her sister's expression changed to serious. "Our mother."

Diane nodded. "You promised. Promised that once we settle things with Kyle, we'll start looking for our mother. And now, it's two months and we still managed to do nothing. I understand that lots of things happened. Your condition after you had to do... you know what. Then you started to date Annie. But I want to know, Lex. Who was she? Why did she leave us with Warren?