Third Person POV
The carriage began to move.
Helen stood on the steps and waved. She watched the carriage roll down the long drive, wheels turning slowly at first and then picking up their pace. She watched it grow smaller. She watched it reach the curve in the road where the trees closed in on both sides, and then it was gone, and the drive was empty, and the morning was very quiet.
Her arm dropped.
Her eyes were wet and she did not do anything about it. She stood in the morning light with her free hand on her belly and the goodbye sitting in her chest, heavy and real, and she did not move.
Something cold touched the back of her neck.
The kind of cold that did not come from the wind. She reached up before she had thought about it, and her fingers found a chain. Thin and delicate, and at the end of it, resting against her collarbone, a small pendant. Silver and smooth, shaped like a teardrop, warm already from the brief contact with her skin.
