Five girls. One box of glass beads. The winter that made them sisters.

Cindy Jones is six years old, and she has fifteen cents in her pocket.

It's the last week before the holiday break in Spring Falls, Pennsylvania. The light quits at four thirty. The colored lights are up along Main Street. And in a few days, school will let out and five girls will scatter to five different houses, where the holidays mean five different things.

Cindy can't stand it. She never could.

There's Bree, who reached out one time in the dark and has spent every day since pretending she didn't. Judith, who got bigger when the whole school wanted her smaller. April, who blew into town like good weather and hasn't learned the rules yet. And Marsha, who never stays anywhere long enough for anyone to catch her.

So Cindy buys a box of red glass beads and makes them a promise.

A name. Something to hold onto in the dark. And a place saved for the one who isn't ready yet, for as long as it takes.

Before they were the Ruby Sisters, they were five lonely kids in a small Pennsylvania town. This is the winter that started everything.

A heartwarming holiday short story about friendship, belonging, and the small things that hold a life together. The perfect one-sitting listen for a winter evening—and the perfect place to meet the Ruby Sisters before their story begins in A Last Gift.