Paper Dolls

Rain glazed the windows, streaking the glass in faint silver lines. The morning light didn't make it far into the room, it pressed against the panes like it didn't want to come inside. Most of the candles had burned out early, leaving only a few brave flames guttering at the edges of the classroom.

Ian sat in his usual spot now. Right beside Cala.

She hadn't looked at him when he first walked in, but she had saved the seat. No books were stacked there, no candle stub or note carved into the desk. Just a folded piece of paper, resting in the center like an offering.

He picked it up.

It was a paper doll, creased, careful, delicately folded. Someone had drawn clothes on it with charcoal: a little vest, a sash, boots that curled slightly at the toe. There were eyes too, soft and round, and a barely-there smile penciled into its face.

"Leor," Cala whispered beside him, still watching the blackboard. "That's him."

Ian turned it over in his fingers. The doll was plain at first glance, but the arms had strange, subtle ridges. Folded again and again, like someone couldn't remember how long they were supposed to be.

"Thanks," he said, unsure what else to say.

Cala gave a small nod. Her eyes were a little brighter today. Not sharp. Not glowing. Just… not as far away.

He slipped the doll into the inside pocket of his coat. The paper made a soft sound — not quite a crinkle. More like a breath.

From across the room, Isaac glanced their way. His chin was still propped on one hand, the other lazily flipping pages in a hymnbook. He said nothing.

Isabelle, two desks away, noticed too. She paused halfway through a sentence she was copying, her pen hovering slightly above the parchment. She frowned, just for a moment, then went back to writing.

Cala stared ahead.

The lesson began.

But Ian didn't hear a word of it.

The class broke into soft murmurs as the lesson ended. Papers shuffled. Candles were snuffed. One of the younger boys sneezed, loudly, and the teacher dismissed them all with a wave and a rasped-out reminder about tomorrow's scripture test.

Ian stood to leave, but a hand caught his shoulder.

Tomas.

"Can I talk to you?" he asked, not waiting for an answer. He nodded toward the hallway. "Just a second."

Ian followed him out past the stone arch and into the covered walkway. Rain drummed quietly above them.

Tomas leaned against the cold wall and folded his arms.

"What you're doing," he said after a moment, "is… kind. I guess."

Ian raised an eyebrow. "But?"

Tomas didn't answer right away. He looked out toward the courtyard, where the fruit trees hung heavy with damp leaves. "I used to sit with her too," he said. "Back when they let her come to the earlier sessions."

Ian waited.

"She said the same things then. That her brother was missing. That no one was helping. I asked around. I did what you're doing. And all it got me was a month's worth of silence from the whole village."

Ian didn't respond. His hand instinctively went to his coat pocket.The paper doll was still there, folded and warm from his body heat.

"She needs someone, I get it," Tomas went on. "But she doesn't need to remember. That's what the Church says. That's what the ritual's for."

"There is no Leor," Ian said flatly, like he was testing the sentence in his mouth.

Tomas looked at him then. Not mocking. Not angry. Just tired.

"I don't know," he said. "But if there was… don't you think we'd remember him, too?"

The rain kept falling, soft and steady.

Tomas pushed off the wall and walked away.

Ian stood alone for a long time, watching his shadow ripple in the puddles.

And when he turned to go back inside, he told himself, just for a second that maybe Tomas was wrong.

That maybe you could forget someone real.

If everyone told you to.

When Ian returned, most of the class had settled again. Some students fidgeted with wax crumbs or sharpened their pencils against stone. Others whispered low gossip while pretending to copy passages. Cala had drawn a small star at the top corner of her worksheet. She looked up when Ian sat down and offered him a tiny nod, like they'd agreed on something without saying it.

The teacher clapped once.

"Before we begin," she said, "we have a new student today."

Heads turned lazily. A few boys muttered. One girl yawned without covering her mouth.

The teacher stepped aside.

A boy stood in the doorway.

He was thin. Not just small ,thin, like he'd grown in a place without enough food or space to stretch. His tunic was too big at the collar, the hem frayed like it had been passed down too many times. His hair was dark and flat against his scalp, still damp from the rain.

"This is Cera," the teacher said. "He's joining us from the church. He'll be staying with us until further notice"

Cera said nothing.

"Do you want to say hello?" the teacher prompted.

He blinked once. Then, softly: "Hello."

His voice didn't match his face. It was careful, overly measured like someone learning what a hello is supposed to sound like, not what it is.

The teacher pointed. "You can take the seat next to Ian and Cala."

A pause.

Then he moved.

He didn't walk like a normal boy. There was no shuffle, no bounce, no hesitation. Each step was quiet, deliberate, and strange, like someone walking across ice.

He sat beside Ian and folded his hands perfectly atop the desk.

Cala stared at him.

Ian felt her shift, just slightly, closer to his side.

The lesson resumed, but the room didn't feel the same anymore.

After the midday recitation, the teacher cleared her throat and reached for a folded parchment.

"We'll be closing today with a reading," she said.

A few groans, some slouched shoulders. Ian noticed Isaac straighten slightly. Isabelle tapped her quill against her knee.

The teacher smoothed the page and began.

"Once, there was a girl who spoke to the river every morning.

She said the water remembered her brother. That he'd drowned there.

She spoke to the current. To the fish. To the rocks.

But no one else remembered him.

So the girl built him from driftwood and string.

Gave him a name. A story. A grave.

And only then did the river quiet.

Because the dead cannot linger in places they were never born."

Silence.

No lesson followed. No commentary. Just that quiet, acidic stillness.

Ian felt his hands curl into fists.

The teacher looked up.

"You'll all remain seated. Elder Gaius will be arriving shortly for the grief ritual."

Whispers rippled like wind through wheat. The phrase alone made some students shift uncomfortably.

Isabelle looked at Ian for the first time that day. It wasn't anger, not pity either. Just something unreadable, like she was trying to decide whether or not to speak.

She didn't.

The door opened behind them.

Gaius entered without announcement, his robes heavy with rain and still somehow immaculate. His presence silenced the room before he even spoke.

He looked at the class, eyes moving slowly from face to face.

"Grief," he said, "is not a shameful thing. But grief unmoored from truth? That is how rot begins."

No one moved.

"Today," he continued, "we will honor loss. Even the imagined kind. Sometimes that is enough."

He produced a scroll. The class roster.

He began to read.

Each name was spoken aloud with a pause in between. A candle flickered at the front of the room. After each name, a strip of paper was dropped into the flame.

Ian felt his chest tighten.

Then came the gap. The place where Leor would have been.

Instead,

"Cera," Gaius said, calm as a blade's edge.

Cera lifted his hand. "Present."

Gaius nodded and moved on.

The scroll burned to ash.

Then, gently, he turned toward Cala.

She sat upright, silent, face pale.

"There is no shame in remembering," Gaius said, his voice low, like a hymn echoing through fog. "But we must bury what never lived."

He stepped forward and placed a small, carved stone on Cala's desk.

It was smooth and pale, with no name etched into it. Blank.

A placeholder for a soul the world refused to admit had ever been there.

"Say goodbye," he said.

Cala didn't move.

She stared at the stone, eyes unblinking, hands clenched so tightly her knuckles had gone white. Her lips were parted, but no sound came out.

Gaius waited. Patient. Almost gentle.

"Go on," he said, quieter now. "Say his name, one last time."

Cala flinched.

Her breath hitched once, then again, and suddenly she shoved the stone off her desk. It hit the floor with a sharp crack.

"No," she said. It came out like glass, high and thin and brittle. "I won't. You can't make me forget him."

A rustle spread through the room like wind through dry leaves.

"Cala," the teacher warned softly, "this is for your healing-"

"He's real!" she screamed.

The room fell silent.

Her chest rose and fell in sharp, irregular beats. She looked at the blank stone on the floor like it had betrayed her, like the whole world had decided to erase her heart and call it mercy.

"I remember how he held my hand when I was scared," she sobbed. "I remember his laugh. I remember the stupid song he made up to help me sleep—how can you say he wasn't real?"

No one moved.

Gaius didn't stop her.

He let it rise. Let it echo. Let it break against the walls and hang there like incense smoke.

And when her voice cracked into quiet, wet gasps , when the fight gave way to shaking he only looked down at her with something unreadable in his eyes.

"There is a difference," he said, "between grief and possession."

He stepped away. "Let us pray she finds the strength to tell them apart."

The ritual ended. Not with peace, not with silence.

But with the sound of Cala crying into her desk, alone , and the rest of the room quietly pretending not to hear her.

Ian didn't move for a long time.

He just stared at her. At the stone on the ground. At the place where her brother should have been.

And then the class was dismissed.

As the students rose and filed out in quiet pairs, some whispered to each other, some just stared straight ahead. Isabelle passed by Ian without a word. Isaac lingered, then gave Ian a look, not accusatory, not even cold. Just tired. He followed her out.

Only Ian stayed behind with Cala.

Her hands were clenched in her lap. The stone still sat on her desk, untouched. She hadn't said goodbye.

She didn't even look at it.

"I don't care what they say," Ian said. His voice was shaking. "He was real. You remember him. That's enough."

Cala didn't nod. Didn't speak. But her throat worked like she'd swallowed something she couldn't spit out.

Gaius watched from the front of the room. His expression unreadable.

"Young man," he said, gently. "Grief is loudest before it leaves us."

Ian turned sharply. "You're wrong."

Gaius didn't respond. He simply stepped out into the hallway and left the door open behind him.

The classroom felt colder once he was gone.

Cala stood and followed the others. Her movements were stiff, automatic.

Ian remained seated. The stone still sat beside him.

And then,

A chair scraped.

Cera was still in the room.

He hadn't left. He stood at the edge of the desks, staring at Ian with that same quiet, practiced stillness.

"You're not supposed to be here," Ian said, blinking.

Cera tilted his head. "Neither was he."

Ian stood.

"What do you mean?"

Cera took a single step closer.

"I'm Cala's brother," he said, calmly.

And then he smiled not wide. Just enough to unsettle the corners of the room.