After that night, after Anaya had finally spoken the words she had carried for so long, after she had confessed the guilt that had weighed on her small shoulders like a mountain, something shifted inside the child.
She began to change.
It was subtle at first, barely noticeable to anyone who did not know her as intimately as Sara had come to know her. The trembling stopped. The way she would flinch whenever a spark leaped from the hearth, the way she would hide her face when Sara reached for a burning log, the way her breath would catch whenever the flames grew too high, all of it began to fade.
Anaya no longer trembled. She did not hide. She stared at the fire with wide, curious eyes, the eyes of a child who was learning, who was growing, who was slowly beginning to believe that the flames could not hurt her. Sara had told her that she was not cursed. Sara had told her that she was human. And Anaya, desperate for something to believe in, had chosen to believe her.
