Chapter 3: The Ghost of the Orphanage
Chapter 3: The Ghost of the Orphanage
Seven hours earlier, before the chaos began, the world had been quiet.
Emily had arrived at the hospital in the early hours of the morning. Boston was wrapped in a thick, freezing layer of mist. She wore an old, frayed brown coat and carried a small paper bag containing hot porridge she had bought from a shop down the street. Eleanor hadn't been able to tolerate solid food in recent days, but whenever Emily brought this specific porridge, the old woman still tried to swallow a few spoonfuls.
“You’re here,” Eleanor had whispered, her voice so weak it almost disappeared beneath the rhythmic, mechanical hum of the heart monitor.
Emily placed the bag on the nightstand and forced a bright smile, blinking back her tears. “I’m here, Mom. How are you feeling today?”
Eleanor looked at her for a long time, her faded eyes tracing Emily's features as if trying to memorize every line of her face. “Better now that I can see you.”
Emily turned away quickly under the pretense of throwing away a paper cup, because she did not want her mother to see her bloodshot eyes. Ever since the doctors admitted that Eleanor’s illness was terminal, Emily had barely left the building. She slept on the hard, narrow benches in the hallway, ate dry bread in a hurry, worked grueling night shifts at a local flower shop, and rushed back to care for her mother.
Eleanor was not her birth mother, but for the past sixteen years, she had been the only person in the universe who called Emily her daughter with true, unshakeable tenderness.
Emily had been adopted when she was nine years old.
Back then, she was a thin, painfully quiet little girl who spent her days sitting alone in the darkest corner of the orphanage. Families who came to adopt always gravitated toward the younger children—the sweet, obedient ones who smiled easily and ran into strangers' arms. Emily was older, silent, and fiercely guarded. She didn't know how to perform for affection.
But Eleanor had been different.
She had walked into the orphanage wearing a pale blue wool shawl, her silver hair neatly pinned behind her head. While the other children gathered around her begging for candy, Eleanor walked straight past the crowd, stopped in front of Emily, and looked down.
“What are you looking at out that window?” Eleanor had asked.
Emily had answered softly, not looking up: “I’m waiting for the snow to fall.”
“Why is that?”
“Because when the snow falls, it covers all the ugly things.”
Eleanor didn't offer pity. She didn't ask intrusive questions. She simply sat down on the floor next to the little girl and said:
May you like
“But after the snow melts, if someone is standing right beside you, the world won’t look as scary as before.”
A week later, Eleanor came back. And she took Emily home.
