Laila reached up and felt the plait with careful fingers. “Will you tell me about her?” I can’t, he thought. It’s too big; it’s too much. He’d buried her so deep he’d surely fall in if he looked a little too long. But the braid in his hand was a rope back to sunlight and solid ground, so Jean said, “She liked blackberries and sandcastles and ladybugs, but faerie tales most of all.” He’d read them so many times he didn’t even need the books anymore, but Elodie loved staring wide-eyed at the pictures as he spoke. “She prayed for a dragon to save her.”
