It was exactly one year since Mary’s stepfather had died. But it wasn’t until now that the funeral would take place. Mary stood at the corner of the grand church, alone, as she wished to be.
She held something in her hand. A charm that she got from her mother not long before she died two years ago. It contained two very small pictures. The first one was a picture of her mother, on the other one she could see the happy faces of her two older sisters.
A tear fell down on Mary’s face. She put the charm back around her neck and squeezed it hard. Both her big sisters were dead too. They died one year before their mother and two years before their stepfather. This day, three years ago.
Mary was now eight years old, but she was so short and pitiful that many people thought she was not more than five.
Since the loss of her stepfather she had lived with her old, sick grandmother while she was waiting to be placed in a foster-home. But her grandmother wasn’t here today. She was too weak to go outside the house.
So today Mary felt more alone than ever before.
She was just going to get back to the ceremony when she heard some tempting music coming from the graveyard. It was like it was calling just for her.
“Mary, Mary, my beautiful girl, come to me,” the song went on. Like charmed she followed the tones until she was standing in front of a little grave all covered with overgrowth and dirt. She leaned over the gravestone and removed all the vegetation that shouldn’t be there.
Soon she could discern a name and some dates. But when she understood who’s grave it was she flinched back.
“Mary, Mary, my beautiful daughter,” the person in the grave sang to her. “Lay down with me for a while.”
Mary was scared. She wanted to get back to the funeral, but it was like if someone else was in control of her body. Carefully she huddled down into her fathers grave, and before she knew it she fell asleep to the tones of his dull voice.

They never found Mary’s body, but what they did find was a charm laying next to a headstone in the graveyard. In it they found two pictures. One of them was a portrait of Mary herself. The other one was a picture of an older man. They were both laughing. They had the same smile.