✶✶✶
“THE cookies were a hit,” Raymond said. His cookie sack, now empty, was slung over his shoulder, and for some reason, his hair was a mess.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Sophie replied.
“I played cat’s cradle with the kids. They were all so adorable,” Claire added, smiling like she could still taste the moment.
As the trio made their way back to where they’d left the carriage, they passed the narrow lane where the beggar woman had been. Sophie curiously glanced down it to see the woman still there, collapsed on all fours, panting hard like she was in pain.
“Excuse me! Are you quite all right?!” Sophie called out before she could stop herself.
The woman looked up, startled. When she recognized Sophie, she let out a strained grunt and dragged herself forward, not unlike something out of a horror movie, which made Raymond and Claire step in front of Sophie, shielding her.
“I was…trying to write…” the woman rasped.
“Write?” Raymond tilted his head, peering down at her.
In one burn-scarred hand, she clutched a scrap of rough, brown paper covered in pitch-black scrawls. A large hole had been torn through the center like it had been ripped open by a rock. From her trembling other hand, a piece of charcoal slipped and fell to the ground.
Sophie quickly put it together. The woman hadn’t been in pain—she had been sprawled on the ground, trying to write something with the charcoal.
“Were you…trying to write a letter? To me?” she asked.
“Yes,” the woman replied. “But my fingers… The skin is pulled so tight… I can’t… I can’t…”
She clutched the scrap of paper to her chest as if ashamed of it, and her frail, emaciated frame began to shake.
“I know I should just be grateful for what you’ve already given me. Someone like me…would only be unwelcome in a place like yours. But I just couldn’t… Couldn’t give up the hope…”
She curled into herself and cried. Not loudly. Just soft, stifled sobs, as if she’d learned that even in grief, she wasn’t allowed to take up space.
The tears carved thin, clean lines through the grime on her face, revealing patches of raw, scarred skin beneath. Sophie could see it clearly now: the burns marked her face just as they did her hands.
“The estate is very far,” Claire said gently. “On those poor feet of yours, with your stomach half empty…the journey might take days.”
“I… understand that,” the woman replied. “But I’ll make the journey. I’ll crawl if I have to.”
“If you crawl all that way, you’ll wear yourself down to nothing and die,” Raymond added.
“Even so…” she whispered. “I must… I must…”
Claire and Raymond looked at Sophie. Sophie met their gazes in turn and nodded sharply.
She stepped forward and gently took the paper scrap from the woman’s hands. “Your letter is well received,” she said. “However, the day is already getting late; it may be evening by the time we return to the salon.”
Interpreting this as a rejection, the woman scrunched up her face in pain, and her gaze fell to the ground.
“Thus today,” Sophie continued, “the salon shall come to you.”
The woman looked up, stunned.
“I’ll see if I can’t find something for us to sit on,” Raymond said.
“And I shall find a bit of food and drink,” Claire said.
Sophie smiled warmly.
“My name is Sophie Olzon. May I hear your story?”