Inside, in a room that never changed, where time had folded in on itself, Irene sat in her lace-covered chair. Her hands, still elegant, held a ribbon once tied to a little girl's braid. Twenty-four winters had passed. Twenty-four birthdays gone uncelebrated. And still, Irene waited.
Elias, her husband, entered without a word. He always moved like a man bearing storms inside his chest, but never letting them fall. He had money enough to buy silence from the world, and violence enough to keep it—but not enough to bring back a lost child.
"I've had the vineyards swept again," he said gently, placing a hand on her shoulder. "The search will resume tomorrow."
"You say that every day," she whispered, her eyes still on the snow.
"And I mean it every day," he replied. "One of them took her. And someone, somewhere, knows."
