She was young, so young that even when she should have been sad, she was happy. At least that’s what everyone thought and why no one questioned her keeping such good spirits even after her mother passed. They just assumed she didn’t know how to be sad yet. They had no notion of the truth.

“Your mother is an angel now,” the adults would say in that sweet, sing-song fashion often reserved for just such dismal occasions. This young girl knew angels first hand though. So she wasn’t sad, because she knew she could see her mother again.

To this end every day after school, she rushed home to don an elegant, green dress which her mother had bought long ago. It was far too old for the little girl – made of green silk that flowed against her skin like water and swallowed her whole – but the way it stood stark against her ghostly, white skin and emerald green eyes (just like her mother’s) left her father unable to keep her from wearing it each day when she went out to play in the forest behind their house.