I sat very still. It was too ridiculous to believe. A surge of something—not hope, not belief, but something I’d no name for—rushed through me. I felt as if my heart had begun to beat again, as if air filled my lungs after a long denial. I wanted so desperately to believe Bee might still be alive. Belief burst through any wall of rationality or caution I possessed. ‘Three candles,’ I said weakly. I wanted to weep and to laugh and shout. Three candles meant that my daughter still lived.
