The churchyard was drenched with the kind of soggy autumn rain that soaks right through your shoes, the sort only an English October can conjure up. Muddy brown leaves stubbornly plastered themselves to the earth as if theyd just given up, and the bare-branched trees leaned over the crooked rows of old grey headstones like nosy neighbors peering from behind curtains.
In front of one mossy grave, a mother was quietly disintegrating. Her black wool coat was as sodden as her spirits, and her face disappeared into trembling hands. Her shoulders quivered with the effort of trying not to let the whole world hear her cry. Beside her, her husband knelt awkwardly, his dark suit sharply at odds with the muddy ground, his stare as blank as the sky, fixed on the grave of their two young sons.
Inset into the old stone was a faded black-and-white photograph: two beaming boys, so alive it broke your heart. Lost. Or so the story went.
Just as the mother squeezed her eyes shut, she sensed someone else was there. She looked up slowly. On the far side of the gravestone stood a tiny barefoot girl, pale as the ghost of Christmas past. Her wild blonde hair seemed to have taken the brunt of many a gusty wind, her face was streaked with dirt, and her little cotton dress was more tear than gown.
The girl was pointing at the photograph. Not shy. Not puzzled. Absolutely sure.
Her voice, all barely-there and odd against the chilly morning, cut through the silence. The boys in that picture… they live at the Elmfield orphanage with me.
Time itself seemed to stop for a cigarette break. Even the breeze couldnt be bothered.
The mother’s hands fell, her eyes wide and uncomprehending, as if someone had switched the BBC to a foreign channel. The father’s head jerked up, a desperate light flickering for the first time in days.
Sorry, love, what did you say? he managed.
Unblinking, the girl jabbed a grubby finger at the stone once more. They sleep in the beds beside mine.
The mothers mouth dropped open, but all she could manage was a strangled gasp. The father staggered up from the muck, his complexion somewhere between fog and oatmeal.
Thats not possible… he breathed out, more to himself than anyone.
The little girl let her hand drop. Wet leaves did a half-hearted shuffle in the wind. She glanced from the photo, to the father, to the mother, then took a tiny step closer on bare toes.
Her voice grew even softer. One of them cries at night.
The mother broke, her fingers flinging to her lips as fresh tears pooled beneath her blue eyes. The father flicked his gaze between the child and the headstone in wild disbelief, as if replaying a match he simply couldnt believe theyd lost.
The girls eyesstark, tired, far older than her yearsremained fixed on them. He says your name when he wakes up, she murmured, her words hanging in the air.
Now it was the fathers turn to tremble. The mother clung to his sleeve like he was the last sturdy post on a sinking ship.
The girl studied the grave a final moment, then looked back at the devastated parents. Her small voice was as calm and haunting as ever.
They asked me to find you, she said, as matter-of-fact as if she were inviting them round for tea.
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