And so we’d done the rituals. We’d made the offerings. And all along, she’d been just some poor dead girl who’d dreamed of escape just like we did. I picked up a string of beads, flinging them angrily away from the skeleton. We’d turned her into this thing, an altar for our own unhappiness. We’d never treated her like a person. Like someone who would be mourned and missed. If we’d told someone what we’d found, her family might have answers by now.
