Then How Did You Get It

Rosalind turned her attention back toward the crying girl, her earlier gentleness now tinged with an edge of desperate urgency. “Then how did you get it?” she demanded, her voice sharper than she intended, fear bleeding rapidly into every word. The girl flinched at the sudden shift in tone, her small shoulders curling inward protectively.

“She gave it to me,” the girl whispered, her voice trembling with quiet, unmistakable sincerity. There was no hesitation in her answer, no telltale signs of a child fabricating an excuse to avoid punishment. Just simple, terrified honesty that unsettled Rosalind far more than any lie could have.

“Who gave it to you?” Rosalind pressed, kneeling closer, her heart pounding rapidly against her ribs. The girl’s tears intensified, her small body shaking with the effort of trying to answer a question she clearly didn’t fully understand herself.

Thomas straightened beside them, his patience visibly thinning as he studied the frightened, dirt-streaked child in front of him. “Where are your parents?” he asked sternly, his tone carrying the practical urgency of someone eager to resolve the situation quickly and return to the wedding festivities waiting inside.

The girl’s sobbing intensified sharply at the question, her entire body trembling now as fresh tears streamed down her already tear-stained cheeks. “Your mother died,” Thomas said bluntly, misinterpreting her reaction as confirmation of a parent’s absence rather than something far stranger unfolding in front of him. He meant it as simple, if harsh, fact-finding, entirely unaware of the icy dread the statement sent rippling through his bride beside him.

Rosalind’s breath caught sharply, her mind racing back toward her own mother’s funeral, toward the quiet, private grief she had carried for three long years. A slow, ominous unease began settling deep in her chest, one she couldn’t yet explain, but one she suddenly, desperately needed to understand.