My cousin Vera liked people to think she was my sister. My papa never forgot the first and best Audrina, and still hoped that someday I would be as special as she was. Her name was also Audrina, and even though she had been dead a long time, still she lingered on.

I did have a legitimate older sister, too, but she had died before I was born. Though most of the world believed Vera to be my sister, I knew she was my unmarried aunt’s illegitimate daughter-and that we had to shield her from the scorn of society by pretending she was my legitimate older sister. That meant my ears, and my cousin Vera’s ears. And if most of what he read charmed me, it did not charm either my aunt, who preferred the television, or my mother, who preferred to read her own books, claiming Papa left out the best parts, which weren’t fit for young ears to hear. Lee and give grisly accounts of all the bloody battles. At the dinner table he’d recount the plots of the long novels he read about General Robert E. He was Yankee born, but a Southerner by preference. Papa would read any book, see any movie, cut out any magazine photo that represented that war between brothers, even though his ancestors had fought against my maternal ones. Momma and my aunt Ellsbeth always said that men liked violent discussions about wars better than any other topic, but if there were other wars of any importance at all, they were never discussed in our house. We’d lost the battle better won by the opposite side. Around me the Civil War was still being waged, and though the future might stretch ahead for billions of years, it was still the war we’d never forget, for our pride had been injured, and our passions were lingering on. Though I’d never been to school-and I was seven years old and it was high time I was in school-it seemed I knew all about the Civil War. There was a war going on in our house, a silent war that sounded no guns, and the bodies that fell were only wishes that died and the bullets were only words and the blood that spilled was always called pride. There were shadows in the corners and whispers on the stairs and time was as irrelevant as honesty. There was something strange about the house where I grew up.

My sweet audrina by vc andrews