PART 2: The Sister She Believed Was Gone

For a second, the woman couldn’t speak.

She just stared at the boy, her hand still pressed against the pin on her coat, like touching it might somehow prove this wasn’t real.

“What is your mother’s name?” she finally whispered.

The boy hesitated. His lips trembled. “Lena.”

The woman’s breath broke.

It was so small a sound, but it came from somewhere deep. Her knees nearly gave out. She took one unsteady step backward, then another forward, like her body didn’t know whether to run or collapse.

“No…” she said, and tears started filling her eyes. “No, Lena is dead.”

The boy shook his head fast. “No. She’s alive.”

The woman covered her mouth with one hand.

The boy looked over his shoulder, then back at her. “She told me to find you under the lights. She said you still wear the pin if you never stopped loving her.”

That shattered something inside her.

She dropped to her knees right there on the sidewalk so they were face to face. The crowd around them faded into nothing.

“Where is she?” she asked, her voice breaking. “Where is my sister?”

The boy pointed weakly across the street.

At first, she saw only reflections in the glass storefronts and people moving past.

Then she saw a woman standing in the shadows near the corner.

Thin. Pale. Wrapped in an old dark coat. Watching with tears already on her face.

The elegant woman stopped breathing.