“You know why,” her mother repeated as she held open the closet door. Rose moaned and her features melted into that well-practiced pout her mother was all too familiar with. Her mother glanced over her shoulder as the raucous laughter of men’s voices came up the stairs. “Just try to get some sleep. I will be back before morning—I promise.”

“But there’s barely any room,” Rose pleaded. “And it’s hot…”

“Rose!” Her mother said stamping her foot. “I don’t have time for this.” She tried hard to bite back her growing frustration, and then said more softly, “I will let you have one of the lamps and you can take that book you’re always carrying around.”

Rose sighed, knowing she stood no chance of changing her mother’s mind. She hated spending the night in the closet, more than anything.

“Annie!” came a man’s shouting voice from downstairs.

He sounded drunk. Her mother’s eyes widened and looked pleadingly at her. She made a sharp gesture with her head toward the closet. Rose took up the lamp from the bedside and slid one hand beneath the mattress and retrieved the battered old book. Her head bowed, she shuffled into the closet and plopped down on a heap of clothes strewn the length of its floor. Carefully, she cleared a place to set down the lamp, and then turned the key to raise the wick. Shadows danced around the closet’s interior, filled with many old and mended dresses, a few hanging, but most littering the floor.

“And mind the flame my dear,” her mother said looking down at her with sad and tired eyes. Rose clutched the book to her chest and drew her knees up as her mother closed the door. “I love you,” she whispered, and then Rose heard the key turn in the lock with a loud click.

Rose sighed and fell back against the clothes heaped around her. Her movement making the lamp’s flame dance inside the glass cylinder. The sounds of the party downstairs were more muted now although she could still make out the frequent loud guffaws of the men, or the squeals of one of the girls. She hated when the Hooligan Boys came; they were always drunk and loud. Many of the girls would have bruises or black eyes by morning. They must pay well, Rose thought, why else would Madam Sybil put up with their rough ways? She prayed her mother would bring none of them upstairs to their room. She hated the kinds of sounds they would make.

Rose wasn’t sleepy, so she laid the book out on the floor in front of her and flipped through its pages, wishing she knew how to read. Mollie had taught her a few words, she’d been a governess once, and she could pick out the names of Guinevere, Arthur and his magician Merlin. Even though she couldn’t read the book, it was full to bursting with the most fantastic drawings she had ever seen. She often lay for hours staring at them, making up her own stories for the images she lovingly traced with her fingertips, Arthur and his knights, and always the mysterious Merlin. Rose often shared the stories she made up with the other girls who worked in the house as she did her chores. They would say—her stories were even better than the ones in the book, but most of them couldn’t read either.

She thumbed through the pages until she found her favorite. It was of an illustration of Merlin crouching in the woods, and behind him it looked like some kind of wood spirit watched him from the trees. All around the picture was an intricate border of vines and leaves that almost made her dizzy when she stared at them too long. Her mother thought it was strange of her to like Merlin the most. Mother would say, ‘wouldn’t you rather be Guinevere and be rescued by a handsome knight?’ Rose would shake her head no, if she had Merlin’s magic, she would never need rescuing.

She flipped to a page she had dog-eared, and it was full of elaborate floral designs around the chapter heading. Setting the book aside, she fished out the paring knife she kept secreted in the folds of her apron. She always kept it on her when there were men in the house, and there were almost always men in the house. Rose scooted to the rear of the closet and cleared away the clothes lying on the floor. Beneath where they had lain there were flower designs scratched into the wood floorboards. A dozen or more decorated the floor, her mother would be furious if she saw them, and who knows what Madam would do—but who else saw the back of the closet but her?

She propped the book up against the wall and scratched at the floor with her knife. She smiled at her handy work; with practice, her flowers were looking more and more like those in the book.

Rose startled awake. She clutched the paring knife in her hand, but the lamp had burned itself out. It took a moment for her to remember where she was as her eyes adjusted to the feeble light coming in under the door. She heard a loud thump and prayed her mother hadn’t brought one of the Hooligan Boys up to their bed. It was silent for several minutes and her eyes had grown heavy again. And then someone screamed.

Rose sat bolt up, her eyes wide and her breathing coming in rapid pants. It was a woman’s scream, not a playful squeal, but a scream of terror. Something clattered on the floor just outside the door, and Rose froze at the sound. She was holding her breath now as silence closed in on her again. Was that someone moaning?

She moved toward the closet door, thankful for the clothes piled around her that muffled her movements. She leaned forward; her dark brown eye illuminated by the light coming in through the keyhole and squinted as she peaked out. She could only see half the bedroom through the keyhole; just the bed and the bedside table were in her field of view.There was a man sprawled across the bed as though he was sleeping, or more likely drunk. On the floor, she could see what had made the noise, it was a knife—and there was blood on it. Her eyes scanned upward and back toward the bed, she could see thin rivulets of blood running down the crumpled sheets and pooling on the floor. Her eye fixed on the man again, he wasn’t drunk and he wasn’t sleeping; his eyes were open, but his glassy-eyed stare saw nothing. He was dead.

The dead man’s unblinking stare transfixed Rose. It seemed like he was looking straight at her, seeing her even through the tiny keyhole. She felt her heart hammering against the walls of her chest and she was only vaguely aware of the other sounds coming up the stairs. There were men shouting, and she heard glass breaking, but all of this sounded remote compared to the thundering drum of her heartbeat. Those eyes held hers from across the room, and she could not look away. Another woman screamed from downstairs and it broke her from the dead man’s hypnotic stare.

Her mother?

Rose pounded at the door with both of her fists, shouting as she pulled on the locked door handle. She screamed and screamed until she was hoarse. She threw her shoulder against the heavy door again and again, but the stout wood refused to move. And then she heard a new sound, a dull roar that quickly drowned out any other noise. She smelled something and looked down to see smoke coming in from beneath the door. She dropped to her knees and looked through the keyhole again. Already the colors of the room looked muted through the thick haze of smoke. She screamed again as she fell onto her back and kicked the door with all her might until her feet throbbed with pain.
Her eyes stung, and she coughed as the closet slowly filled with smoke. Hastily, she piled all the clothing she could against the door, and while this stopped the smoke from pouring in underneath, she could still see wisps of it seeping in from the sides and even through the keyhole. The roar of the flames grew louder and in the keyhole she saw flickering shadows.

She blinked repeatedly as she looked through the keyhole; the smoke stinging her eye. Shadows flitted and danced around the room, and while she could not see the flames, she saw the bright glow of them encroaching from the hall. Already, she could barely make out the form of the man on the bed through so much smoke. She tried screaming for help again but the effort only drew more smoke into her throat and she fell coughing and gasping for air.

Having no way to escape the closet she retreated into its deepest recess, covering herself with the piles of clothes and burying her face to block out the choking air. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath and tears were now streaming down her face. She fell into another fit of coughing, so hard this time it made her vomit, and she choked on that too.

Oh God, was she going to die? Was she going to suffocate in this closet or burn to death? Where was her mother? There was a roaring in her ears now she wasn’t sure was the fire. Spots danced in front of her eyes and she couldn’t draw breath. She was going to die.

She felt a hand close over her own and she stared at it, not comprehending. It wasn’t much larger than hers, and she followed along its length until she saw the face of a sandy-haired boy staring back at her. His eyes were the greenest she had ever seen, and she thought to herself, how strange that angels should have freckles on their cheeks.

He pulled her to her feet, but she had barely enough strength to stand.  She leaned against him as he led her not toward the door, but deeper into the closet. A small part of her mind realized this made no sense, and yet somehow there seemed to be a space there where none should be.

“Come,” he said as he tried to pull her along, but her legs gave out.
The boy caught her but stumbled himself, and they both tumbled into the cool space beyond the closet where they were swallowed up by a sudden and startling silence.

“Are you all right?”

She could scarcely make out the boys face in the gloom, she tried to answer him but the sound she made was only a dry croak. Her throat was raw from screaming and now burned from the accumulated smoke. When she didn’t answer he drew one of her arms over his shoulder and wrapped his other around her waist, helping her to stand.

She hadn’t realized he’d been wearing a hat before; it was tall and made of shabby felt, and he wore a long green coat. He looked only a couple years older than she. She looked over her shoulder and saw no sign of the closet she’d been in, no fire, and not even a wisp of smoke. She couldn’t see much of anything in the shadows, but she had a sense of being surrounded by walls. Carefully, he led them through what she could only guess was another part of the building. Was this some kind of secret passage she’d never known about?

“Where?” She croaked.

“The In-Between,” was all he said as he led them through twists and turns that belied the amount of space that the building she lived in could have contained. Their footsteps made no sound, and there were no echoes from what she was sure were walls, just out of sight. Even the floor, while firm, was not but blackness beneath her feet, and she felt like they were walking in the gaps between the stars.

She was unsure of how long they travelled through those dark corridors; it seemed to go on for sometime until at last she saw a light ahead breaking up the omnipresent gloom. As they grew closer to the light, she felt a cool breeze on her face, looking up she saw that there were stars overhead and she could smell the city, or at least the Thames to be sure.

Rose realized in shock she was no longer indoors, but rather stood high on a rooftop somewhere. She could see the city laid out all around her and the silver slash of the distant river cutting through the landscape. In front of her was a fire, set in an old washbasin, and around it sat several other children looking back at her and the sandy-haired boy to whom she still clung. She turned to look at him and as she did the children vanished from her peripheral vision. When she whipped her head around to look for them, they were there again, regarding her with what looked like amusement.

Gently, she pushed away from the boy and stood on her own shaky legs. With a fright, she realized that when she took her eyes off him, he too would vanish from the corner of her eye.

“It’s all right, you are with friends.” The sound of his voice helped her find him again, and she fixed her eyes on him, not daring to look away.

“What are you… ghosts? Am I d-dead?” She rasped.

He smiled as he approached her, holding his hands out in a gesture showing he meant her no harm.

“You are not dead,” he said resting his hands on her shoulders, as if reassuring her he was real. “And we are the shadow puppets.”

“Shadow puppets?” Rose replied, but a fit of coughing prevented her from saying more.

“She needs water,” said a girl who suddenly appeared by her side, holding out a dented tin cup.

Rose jumped at her sudden appearance, and would have fallen but for the sandy-haired boy’s quick hands. The girl had long chestnut colored hair, and she wore a dress that was old, not just for being worn and ragged, but of a style out of fashion by a hundred years or more. She looked of a similar age as Rose.

“Here,” she said again as she held out the cup. Rose downed it, and the cool water was a balm to her tortured throat. She didn’t stop until she’d finished every last drop.

“Thanks,” she said with at least a little more substance to her voice beyond a ragged whisper.

“You’re welcome,” the girl said with a smile. “You can call me Lilly.”

“Thank you Lilly,” She repeated. “¬My name is R—”

“No!” The boy had grabbed her by the arm, and Lilly’s hand had shot forward to cover her mouth. Rose panicked, but they released her as soon as she tried to shake them off.

“I’m sorry,” Lilly said, her face anguished at having frightened her.

“You must never tell us your true name,” the boy added with his hands in the air again, showing he would not touch her. “You can call me Dandelion.”

Rose shook her head in confusion, “I — I don’t understand.”

Lilly reached out and took Rose’s hands in her own, squeezing them reassuringly. “We will explain everything, all of us have been through what you are suffering right now, but you are among friends—I promise.”

Dandelion stepped forward and pointed at the others, “Let me start by introducing you.”

She had almost forgotten about the other children, and she did not see them until Dandelion had pointed them out. She saw that as soon as her attention was focused on someone else they disappeared again. She experimented with this peculiar effect by turning her head, watching them appear and disappear as her eyes slid over them, one to the next.

“How is that possible?” She whispered as they gathered in front of her, close enough to each other she could see them all at once.

“The little one is called Briar,” Dandelion said, patting a young boy of maybe six or seven on the head, which the small boy shrugged off. He had a thick tangle of red hair, much of it haphazardly crammed into the cap he was wearing, and he was cleaning his fingernails with a small knife.

“—And we call the twins Thorn and Thistle,” he indicated a boy and girl a couple years older looking than Briar. They stood holding hands with identical hair so blonde as to appear almost white. They too wore ragged, out-of-date clothing, and no shoes at all, even in the chill night air.

Looking past them, Rose could still see the city stretching out beneath her, and she shook her head as though she could somehow physically dislodge all the rapidly accumulating strangeness.

“How can we be so high up? We never went up any stairs, and the way here never rose. We were at St Giles before, and now after only a short walk it seems like we are—” She looked around trying to get her bearings, and saw a bridge over the river in the distance. “That’s Victory Bridge, we’re in South London, so how did we get across the river?”

“We got here through the In-Between,” Dandelion said as he handed Rose another cup of water.

“In-Between? Shadow puppets? None of this makes any sense, it all feels like a dream.” Rose said, thinking of magic and Merlin as she sat down next to fire, sipping from her cup. She felt a tug at her sleeve and Briar appeared next to her, he was holding out half an apple speared on the end of his knife. She thanked him and took a bite, the sweet flavor helping to banish the taste of ashes from her mouth, although swallowing it was painful.

“Haven’t you seen a shadow puppet show before?” Briar asked through a bite of the apple’s other half.  

“Yes, I have,” she replied. “I saw one last year at the Bartholomew Fair. I liked it much more than the Punch and Judy shows.”

“That is what we are,” Dandelion said. “You can only see us with the bright light behind us, throwing our shadows on the screen—but move us out of the light and we disappear.”

Rose’s brow furrowed with confusion, “I can’t see any of you unless I am looking straight at you.” She said this as she turned her head left and right, panning her gaze across them. “Is that what you mean?”

“Exactly,” Dandelion replied. “And now you too.”

“What?” Rose’s eyes widened, and she dropped the apple she’d been eating. “What do you mean… me too?”

Dandelion leaned forward and picked up the fallen apple, he wiped it on his sleeve and offered it back to Rose. When she shook her head, he shrugged and took a bite from it. He was still chewing on it as he spoke.

“You have been forgotten. There is no one left in this world to remember your name. You have fallen between the cracks and into the In-Between—just like us.”

Dandelion was smiling and had opened his arms to encompass everything around them as though he were somehow bestowing it upon her. She was quiet for several moments as tears welled up in her eyes.

“My mother,” she sobbed. “What happened to my mother?”

Dandelion’s smile vanished.

She saw the way they all glanced at each other and her heart sank. No one wanted to speak, and Rose felt herself growing angry.

“Where is she?” She demanded.

“I—I don’t know,” Dandelion replied without meeting her gaze. “We—”

“I want to go back,” Rose said coming to her feet.

Dandelion stood, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder she brushed away. “We will go back, but we need to wait until the fire’s out and the police are gone.”

“She could be hurt,” Rose pleaded as tears trickled down her soot-stained cheeks.

“You wouldn’t be here, unless—”

“No!” Rose shouted, freezing Dandelion where he stood. “She can’t be dead, she can’t…”

She looked away, all the anger evaporating from her as her shoulders slumped and she suddenly felt alone.

“We don’t know anything yet.” This time it was Lilly who spoke as she produced a handkerchief she used to wipe the tears from Rose’s cheeks. “All of us here have lost our families, our friends, everyone we knew before this life. Trust me when I say, we all know how you feel.”

Rose looked at each of them and could see the truth in their sad eyes.

“Wait until morning,” Dandelion said as he squeezed her hand. “Then we will go back and learn everything we can—we will all help you.”

They all nodded their heads and smiled at her. She knew none of them, and yet Dandelion had saved her life, and the others were willing to help her even though she was a complete stranger to them. Their kindness moved her, and she realized that if… if her mother really was gone, then she was all-alone, and the thought terrified her.

“In the morning?” She said in a small voice, realizing a part of her dreaded to know the truth.

“Of course,” Dandelion replied. “As soon as the sun is up.”

Rose gave him a tiny smile and used the back of her hand to wipe the remaining tears from her face. She cleared her throat and drank the water still in her cup. She tried hard to think of anything but her mother.

“What is the In-Between?” She asked.

“It is where all the lost things finally end up,” Dandelion said with a wink. “Like us.”

“Is it a place?” Rose said scratching her head.

“Sort of…” He seemed to ponder this idea for a moment. “It is a thing that more rightly connects places, and things, and sometimes even people that have been lost and forgotten.”

“Like us,” Rose repeated, trying to get her head around all of it.

“Exactly,” Dandelion smiled at her. “Lost things know their own.”
Rose’s brow only furrowed deeper.

“Maybe it would be easier to just show you.” Dandelion knelt beside her and took each of her hands into his own. “Have you ever lost something special? A thing that meant something dear to you?”

Rose gave it some thought, she and her mother had rarely owned more than the clothes on their backs. Her eyes widened as she suddenly remembered something. When she looked at Dandelion, he was nodding, urging her on.

“A music box,” she whispered. “It had been a Christmas present from my mother. When you turned the tiny crank, it played the loveliest waltz, and we danced to it all Christmas morning. There was even snow that year…” She wiped another tear from her eye with her sleeve.

“My mother had been trying to make a living in the rag-trade, but she wasn’t much of a seamstress. She was desperate to keep us from the workhouse, and she swore she’d never wear the yellow dress. But we fell behind on the rent, and when ole’ Black Monday rolled around the landlord threw us out. But not before he took what he could find, telling us he’d have to sell it to make up for the rent we owed. We had enough to sleep in the dosshouse for a little while, but soon we were on the street—and I never saw the music box again.”

Dandelion nodded his head as she told the story, and he squeezed her hands as she finished. He was staring at her with those brilliant green eyes when he spoke.

“Now, close your eyes and picture the music box in your mind. Hold it there and remember how it looked, how the wood felt in your hand, even the way it smelled. Try to remember the way it sounded, the music it played, how it—”

“I can hear it,” she gasped. She had opened her eyes for a moment but quickly squeezed them shut again. “I can hear the music,” and she smiled.

“Good,” he said and gently pulled her to her feet. “Let it guide you, let the music lead your way. Don’t think of the rooftop, or the distance, or anything else, let the In-Between take you there.”

Rose walked hesitantly, taking small cautious steps as she pulled Dandelion along behind her. She had that sense again that she was no longer outdoors, but in a different place. With her eyes closed she let the notes of the music guide her, growing more and more confident with each step. She never stumbled, nor did she run in to any walls, no matter how many twists and turns she made. She only followed the music.

“Open your eyes,” she heard Dandelion whisper.

When she did, she found herself in long shadowy room full of row upon row of crowded shelves. Every inch of the place seemed to be crammed with all manner of what looked like junk. She realized she was in some kind of secondhand shop. It was closed for the evening, and the curtains on the windows were pulled tight.

She could still hear the feint notes of the music and she let it guide her to a particular set of shelves near the shops counter. She removed a battered breadbox and then a cracked teakettle, and reaching into the dark recess behind them, and withdrew a small wooden box.

Reverently, and with renewed tears in her eyes, she opened it and saw the carved rose her mother had made on the inside lid. She ran her fingers along its edges and remembered how much care her mother had made in carving it. She sniffed and turned the tiny crank that filled the air with the same music that had brought her here.

Her body swayed back and forth as the music soothed her, and she remembered dancing with her mother as the snowflakes fell. Lilly appeared beside her and held out her hands. Rose passed her the music box, which scarcely missed a note as Lilly turned the crank in her place. She felt a tap on her shoulder.

She turned to see Dandelion give a very exaggerated bow, even doffing his felt cap as he did so.

“May I have this dance?”

Although shy by nature, Rose could not help take his arm as he smiled at her with such warmth and reassurance. He pulled her into the open space in front of the counter and placed one arm behind her back.Neither of them had any idea how a real waltz was danced, instead they let the music move them as it willed. Lilly continued to turn the key on the music box, and even Thorn and Thistle joined them in their dance. Lilly swayed back and forth to the tune while Briar ignored them all, content to carve something into the countertop with his small knife.

Although there was a part of Rose that was still afraid, Dandelion and his friends had made her feel safe. She enjoyed Dandelions closeness to her and liked his smile. Lilly playfully experimented with playing the music box faster, forcing all the dancers to move more quickly, laughing when they could not keep up. Now she played slowly, winding down to the end of the small loop of music the box repeated. As it came to the end, Dandelion smiled and dipped Rose low in his arms, and for just a moment she thought he might kiss her as their faces drew close. But when she looked up at him; she screamed.

His face was gone. Instead of those bright green eyes and freckles, she saw a pale featureless void. Beneath his felt hat and sandy hair there was only a smooth expanse, devoid of any feature. She saw it tilt its head quizzically as she lay there on the floor where she had fallen. When she looked around the room, she saw in horror that the others had become faceless creatures as well.

Terrified, she backpedaled away, scuttling along the floor like a crab on her hands and feet. She collided with something and realized it was someone. Lilly was looking down at her perplexed, her brow furrowed and her eyes narrow, not at all the faceless creature she had glimpsed a moment ago.

“Are you all right?” She asked, offering a hand to her.

Rose hesitated for a moment, but then accepted, allowing Lilly to help her to her feet. She continued to stare at her face, wondering if her features might vanish again at any moment.

“What is the matter?” Dandelion said as he appeared beside her, and he saw the strange look she gave them both.

“Y—you had no faces, none of you had any faces,” Rose said in a shaky voice, still feeling the remnants of the panic she’d experienced. “It was horrible, your faces were… they were gone.”

Dandelion and Lilly exchanged uneasy glances before turning back to Rose.

“Someone, somewhere—is remembering your name,” Dandelion explained with a hint of sadness in his voice.

“My mother,” Rose gasped. “It has to be…”

“Perhaps, but—” Dandelion tried to interject, but Rose cut him off.

“We have to find her,” she exclaimed as she snatched the music box from Lilly and tucked it under her arm. She could see the doubt written on each of their faces. “Please.”

For just a moment she saw Dandelions features fade, and she took a fearful step back and shook her head. When she looked up again, his features flickered but then reappeared.

“What is happening?”

“Only the forgotten can truly see the forgot, and you are being remembered,” he looked away as he spoke, the sadness in his eyes growing deeper. “And soon you will forget about us too.”

“I don’t want to forget about you,” Rose cried. “You are my friends…” She choked off with a sob.

Lilly reached out to cup her cheek in her hand, “And because we are your friends, we are going to help you find your mother.” She finished and looked at Dandelion who nodded his head and then reached out to take both her hands in his.

“Close your eyes and think of your mother, just like you did before with the music box, all the detail you can; her voice, her smell, fill in every detail.”

Rose closed her eyes and concentrated. This time it was not a sound that guided her but rather it was a smell. She remembered making soap with her mother in Madam Sybil’s house for her and the other girls, mixing palm oil with tallow and then adding the essence of cinnamon, bergamot, and sassafras for scent. The cinnamon in particular would cling to her, and she hadn’t realized how much the smell made her think of her mother. She could smell it now as she sniffed the surrounding air, and she let it guide her into the In-Between.

The smell of cinnamon faded to be replaced with that of antiseptic, and other, less pleasant odors. In the darkness, she could hear voices speaking nearby, two women talking in hushed tones to one another. A sudden sliver of light cut a vertical line through the darkness. She could see that Dandelion had cracked open a door, which dimly illuminated what looked like a supply closet around them. She tipped-toed forward to crouch next to him, while the others hung back in the shadows.

The room was painted a faded green color and was Spartan and sterile looking. It held only two small beds and a small, shared table between them. On the far bed she could see the outline of where a figure lay, a sheet drawn over it all the way past the head. Rose watched and could see no movement from it, the chest neither rising nor falling. Her eyes then flicked over to the other bed but her view was obscured by the two nurses standing there, and she could hear them whispering to each other as they went about their tasks.

“—This one was much luckier than the other girl,” one nurse said as she nodded toward the other bed. “Everyone thought she was dead too, but somehow the doctor got her to come back around, said she was a fighter, this one.”

The other nurse said something in return but Rose could not hear it. The door opened wider, and she saw Dandelion slip out into the room. Rose felt panic rising, and she hissed in alarm.

“They will see you!”

“No,” he said as he offered his hand. “They will not see or hear us unless we draw attention to ourselves.”

Dandelion was right it seemed as she joined him in the center of the room, just past the nurses—who spared them not even a single glance. The others remained lurking in the doorway behind them.

“Is it your mother?” Dandelion asked.

Rose circled in a wide arc around the nurses so she could see the occupant of the other bed. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the mass of wavy black curls so much like her own. She took another few steps and could see her face, one she recognized despite the bandages encircling her eyes and brow. It was her mother!

She almost ran to the bed but Dandelion laid a hand on her arm and she realized it would take her into the nurses’ fields of vision. She waited while they completed what they were doing and at last left the room. As they departed, she rushed to her mother’s side.

Her face was smeared with soot, and the bandage wrapped around her head and over her eyes had an ugly red stain seeping through at one temple. Her dress was in tatters, torn in some places and burned in others. In contrast, there were stark white bandages wrapped around both her hands, and where her fingers peaked through, they were black. She watched transfixed by the slow rise and fall of her mother’s chest; she was breathing, but it sounded rasping and labored.

“Mother, mother,” she called several times but was too afraid to touch her, for fear of her injuries. “Can you hear me?”

Her mother moaned something incoherent and then grew quiet again.

Rose looked at Dandelion with tear-filled eyes as he came to stand next to her.

“Will she be all right?” Rose pleaded, but she could see by his expression he didn’t know any better than she.

Rose’s body shook as she sobbed, leaning against the bed as her tears fell. She clutched her mother’s hair in her hands, too afraid to touch her mother’s damaged skin. She jumped when something clattered to the floor and realized the music box had slipped from beneath her arm.

Dandelion knelt and picked it up, handing it back to her.

Rose laid it on the bed beside her mother, delicately lifting the lid. She turned the tiny crank and its cheerful melody seeped into the room.

Dandelion reached over and laid an arm across her shoulders, and she leaned her head against him.

Her mother gave out a cough followed by a dry rasping sound, and then a moment later she rasped again. Was she trying to say something? No, Rose realized, she was humming. Rose jerked up and looked at Dandelion expectantly, turning the crank much faster now as the music poured from the box.

There was more coughing and her mother took several moments trying to catch her breath. When at last she could breathe easier, she probed the surrounding air with one bandaged hand. Rose took it tenderly into her own and then reached out to touch her mother’s cheek with the other. Her mother’s cracked lips parted in a slight smile, her body relaxing as she whispered.

“My dear sweet Rose.”

Rose smiled even as the tears ran down her face, “I am here mother.”

Your name is Rose,” she heard a voice behind her say just as she felt the faintest of kisses upon her cheek. But when she turned, the sandy-haired boy had vanished.