Had I really… been overthinking this?
That evening, Emma turned to her father with a laugh just pointed enough to cut. "Dad, you'll love this. Mom bumped into some blind girl on the street today and actually decided I must be a fake. Her own daughter—an impostor. Isn't that hilarious?"
My husband Eustace blinked, then turned to me with a sigh.
"Stop letting your mind run wild. She just got pregnant. She needs rest. Don't say things like that and upset her."
"We raised this girl with our own hands. How could we possibly be wrong?"
I nodded. "Maybe I've been reading too many novels lately. I was overthinking it."
And that was the end of it.
But the unease wouldn't leave. It sat in my bones. More than once, I caught myself already on the road to Saint Mercy Monastery before I'd even decided to go.
Hoping to run into that blind girl again, just like the last time.
But I wasn't so lucky.
I sat there from sunrise until the last light bled out of the sky.
She never appeared.
Then one day, while I was out shopping, I saw her again.
She was just as agitated as before, limping toward me, making desperate sounds that weren't quite words.