She lifted the girl into her arms.

She reached out and took the seventh jar from Scarlet's unresisting fingers.

"Give me your silence," she whispered. "Your last secret. The one you've never told the confessor. The one that keeps you kneeling at 3 AM, begging a God you're no longer sure is listening."

She opened her mouth.

"Where am I?" the child whispered.

"And neither," she said, smashing it against the stone floor, "are you."