She Smashed the Portrait at Her Own Engagement Ball

CHAPTER 2 - A NAME I SHOULD NOT HAVE KNOWN

For one frozen second, nobody moved.

Then everything happened at once.

My fiance, Daniel, pushed through the crowd and caught my elbow. "Elena, step back. The wall could collapse."

But I was already on my knees, pulling at broken wood and torn canvas with my bare hands. Two hotel staff members finally rushed in with tools. Someone called the police. Someone else called an ambulance.

Arthur didn't move to help.

He stood rigid beneath the wall sconce, his gray eyes fixed on the opening as if the child inside were not frightened but dangerous.

That frightened me more than the cry had.

When the gap was wide enough, a paramedic squeezed into the space and brought the girl out. She weighed almost nothing. Dust clung to her tangled light brown curls and tear-streaked cheeks. The moment her feet touched the floor, she flinched from Arthur and ran straight into me.

I wrapped my arms around her.

"It's all right," I whispered, though it wasn't.

She clutched the sequins of my dress in one shaking fist.

Daniel stared. "She knows you?"

"I don't know her," I said.

Arthur's jaw tightened. "The child is confused."

The girl buried her face against me and sobbed harder.

A police officer arrived and crouched to her height. "Sweetheart, can you tell me your name?"

She hesitated.

Then, very softly, she said, "Sophie."

It was such an ordinary name. Yet the room reacted as if she had fired a gun.

Daniel turned to Arthur. "That's impossible."

I looked from one face to another. Several guests suddenly seemed desperate not to meet my eyes.

"Why impossible?" I asked.

Nobody answered.

The paramedics tried to guide Sophie toward a wheelchair, but she wouldn't let go of me.

Then a woman in a server's uniform stepped out from the crowd. She was in her late fifties, pale and visibly shaking.

"I know that child," she said.

Arthur barked, "Be quiet, Marta."

But the woman lifted her chin.

"No, sir. Not this time." She pointed at the torn wall. "Three years ago, I saw her in this house nursery. And everyone was told never to speak her name."