The Lost Girl

After the prayer, the Prophet sat down with the short red faced woman in his temple, holding her trembling hands as she sat across from him. 

"It will be okay, Beylee," he whispered, trying to quell her fears. 

"Where could she have gone? She's just…disappeared out of thin air. I don't understand how this could've happened."

"Sometimes…the marsh gets greedy. It takes what it wants. It's one of the things we cannot control."

Beylee wiped away tears. "I always told her to stay in the village. Not to go out wandering. But she never listened. She had such an adventurous side, that one."

"Don't give up hope yet, my beautiful disciple. Hope is all we can have in this cruel world." The Prophet tried to add sympathy into his voice.

He'd never met Beylee's daughter in person, and neither did he care much about her. But his people needed to see him as sympathetic.