Echoes in the Willow
The silence in the room stretched thin, brittle enough to shatter at the slightest breath. The groom’s gaze darted between the pale, trembling woman he was supposed to marry and the small child shivering against the plaster.
The little girl took a hesitant step forward, her voice no louder than a rustle of dry leaves.
“In the garden,” she whispered, pointing a small, shaking finger toward the tall French doors that led out to the overgrown estate grounds. “By the weeping willow. She said you would be angry. She said you’d think I took it.”
The bride’s knees gave out. She collapsed into the velvet vanity chair, the broken gold chain spilling through her knuckles like spilled coins. The groom lunged forward, catching her shoulders as she began to hyperventilate. He looked down into the open locket.
Inside the small gold frame, where the portrait of the bride’s mother had resided for decades, the old photograph was gone. In its place was a freshly torn scrap of parchment, bearing a line written in a distinct, elegant cursive they both recognized instantly.
I never left you, my sweet girl.
“It’s impossible,” the groom muttered, his own voice cracking as the chill in the room seemed to seep into his bones. “We buried her. Two years ago, Clara. I stood beside you.”
“She had the same dress,” the flower girl offered softly, tears finally spilling over her lashes. “The one in the paintings downstairs. She told me to bring it to you before you walked down the aisle. She said you needed to know the truth before it was too late.”
Clara looked up, her eyes vacant, stripped entirely of the fury that had consumed her moments before. She looked out the window, where the afternoon fog was just beginning to roll over the grass.