The Weight of the Shovel
The rain at St. Jude’s Home for Lost Girls did not fall; it attacked.
Every drop felt like a cold needle piercing Sister Beatrice’s habit as she struggled with the weight of the iron shovel.
The garden behind the grand stone orphanage was a place of forgotten things.
It was where the broken statues of saints were discarded and where the weeds grew tall enough to hide a man.
Tonight, it was the site of a burial that officially did not exist.
Beatrice was forty-five years old, and her face was a map of weary devotion and hidden sorrows.
She had served the Order of Silent Mercy for two decades, believing every word of their holy mission.
But the white bundle resting on the mud beside her had shattered her faith into a thousand jagged pieces.
It was wrapped in a fine silk cloth, a stark contrast to the rough burlap of the orphanage uniforms.
A yellow ribbon, frayed at the edges, held the package together.
Beatrice wiped the sweat and rain from her eyes, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
"No one will ever find you," she whispered into the soil.
She wasn't talking to a person, or so she desperately tried to convince herself.
She was talking to a legacy, a bloodline that was never supposed to have survived the winter.
The Secret of the Yellow Ribbon
Three weeks ago, a girl named Elara had arrived at the gates in the middle of the night.
She was seven years old, with hair the color of harvested wheat and eyes that seemed to see through walls.
The Mother Superior had taken one look at the girl’s birthmark and turned as pale as a shroud.
Orders were whispered in closed rooms behind heavy oak doors.
Elara was not to be recorded in the ledger.
Elara was not to speak to the other children.
Beatrice had been assigned to be her sole guardian, a task that quickly turned into a bond of forbidden love.
The girl had called her "Mama" within the first hour, a word that was strictly prohibited within the convent walls.
Beatrice had not corrected her.
Instead, she had tucked a yellow ribbon into the girl’s hair, a gift from a life Beatrice had left behind long ago.
Then, the "fever" had swept through the orphanage.
The Mother Superior claimed Elara was the first to succumb.
She told Beatrice that the body had already been cremated to prevent the spread of disease.
But Beatrice knew the smell of a furnace, and the chimneys of St. Jude’s had remained cold.
She had found the bundle hidden beneath the floorboards of the Mother Superior’s private chapel.
It wasn't a body inside—it was something far more dangerous to the Church’s reputation.
The Voice in the Rain
Beatrice thrust the shovel into the earth one last time, creating a shallow trench.
She reached for the white bundle, her hands shaking with the realization of her treason.
If she was caught, she wouldn't just be expelled; she would disappear into the black cells beneath the city.
She lowered the package into the hole, the silk staining instantly with the dark, hungry mud.
"No one will ever find you," she repeated, a mantra to keep her courage from failing.
Suddenly, the wind died down, leaving a pocket of unnatural silence in the garden.
The only sound was the wet thud of her own heartbeat.
"Mama, what are you doing?"
The voice was light, musical, and unmistakably Elara’s.
Beatrice’s entire body locked into a state of primal terror.
She did not move for five seconds, convinced that her mind had finally snapped under the pressure.
The voice had come from directly behind her, not five meters away.
Slowly, agonizingly, Beatrice turned her head.
The lantern she had hung from a low branch flickered, casting long, dancing shadows across the garden.
Standing in the center of the path was Elara.
The girl looked exactly as she had the day she arrived, wearing the glowing white lace dress.
The yellow ribbon was tied perfectly in her wavy blonde hair.
But the most terrifying detail was the rain.
The storm was still raging, the downpour heavy enough to drown a fire.
Yet, as Beatrice watched, the raindrops seemed to curve around the girl.
Not a single drop touched her skin or dampened her lace sleeves.
She stood in a dry circle of light, her hands resting calmly at her sides.
The Two Truths
Beatrice scrambled backward, her boots slipping in the mud until she fell against the edge of the open grave.
