Chapter Text
The house was unnaturally still.
Outside, the light had the dull, colourless quality of late afternoon — the kind that suggested the day had already given up. Somewhere in the distance, a carriage passed, its wheels muffled by wet ground. Inside, nothing moved but the newborn child in Maria’s arms.
Emma stood by the writing desk, one gloved hand resting against its edge as if to steady herself. She had not removed her gloves since the news arrived. Her posture was straight, composed, almost severe — yet her eyes kept returning to the infant, to the small, fragile certainty of him.
“He is too quiet,” Maria whispered.
Emma looked at her then.
“No,” she said calmly. “He’s listening.”
Maria shifted the child instinctively, shielding him. Her face was pale, drawn — the look of someone who had not yet understood that grief had already passed into something else.
“You must leave,” Emma said.
The words fell between them without drama. Not a plea. Not a suggestion.
Maria stared at her. “Leave?”
“Tonight,” Emma continued. “Before anyone thinks to ask where you will go.”
“I can’t,” Maria said, almost soundlessly. “I’ve nowhere—”
“You have the child,” Emma cut in. “That is enough.”
Emma crossed the room, her steps measured, and opened the desk drawer. From beneath a stack of carefully folded papers she drew out a small bundle: letters tied with a faded ribbon, a handful of drawings, their edges softened by time.
“What are those?” Maria asked.
“Nothing you need to know,” Emma said.
She did not look at Maria as she spoke. She loosened the ribbon, checked the contents once more — as if confirming that the past was still intact — and then, deliberately, returned them to the drawer. This time, she pushed them deeper, beneath the false lining.
The click was soft. Decisive.
Maria watched her hands. “You’re afraid,” she said.
Emma paused.
“Yes,” she answered. “But not for myself.”
She went to Maria then, resting her hand briefly against the child’s shoulder. The boy stirred, a small sound escaping him before he settled again.
“They will look for explanations,” Emma said quietly. “They always do. And when they find none, they invent them.”
“Who is they?” Maria asked.
Emma’s mouth tightened — just slightly.
“It does not matter,” she said. “What matters is that you do not remain here long enough to become part of their answers.”
Maria’s eyes filled. “You’re asking me to disappear.”
“I am asking you to protect him,” Emma said. “There is a difference.”
Silence stretched between them, heavy and intimate. At last, Maria nodded once.
Emma reached into her pocket and pressed a folded paper into Maria’s hand.
“A name,” she said. “Nothing more. Use it when you must.”
“And you?” Maria asked.
Emma stepped back, already closing herself away.
“I will stay,” she said. “Someone must.”
Maria hesitated only a moment longer. Then she turned and went, the door closing softly behind her.
Emma stood alone.
After a long while, she returned to the desk and opened the drawer once more, her fingers lingering over the hidden letters.
“Not yet,” she murmured.
Then she closed the drawer, locked it, and slid the key into a place no one would think to look.