(Cameron)
“We just came from there. She took her last breaths in front of us.”
“So easy to leave her? No mourning for the dead?” Her voice twisted and changed, and it was the old woman’s again.
“She sent us to you.”
“Then what is my name, pet?”
“Esmerelda,” I replied.
A moment passed, and then the door swung open. I led Nisha forward, the same quiet settled over the place. Not completely silent but an echo of the sounds that were just around us.
The woman was sitting on the chair she inhabited last time. She looked frail and tired.
“What happened?” she asked before we got a chance to sit. “And what’s wrong with her?” She pointed to Nisha with a bony finger.
“Soleil,” I explained, an answer to both questions.
Esmerelda showed no inclination of shock, just nodding a few times
