Later that month a snow storm settles over the convent. I wake in the night to find Paris kneeling over her bed saying the rosary. Her fingers twirling over the beads, the crucifix at the end dangles near the floor. The walls shake and moan in the wind outside. I'm not afraid, and none of the other girls seem to wake up, or notice at all. By morning the convent is coated and layered with white powder. The water in the fountain by the gate freezes and the white smoke from the factories blends in effortlessly with the gray sky.

Rabbit and I are in heaven. We leave the dorm early and go out to explore unattended. We, and the rest of the girls in the wake of Rose's death, have started to do this. It's not that I dislike Paris, but I do not see her as a mother, or even a sister.

"Can you believe this?" Rabbit exhales. She is wearing the white knit cap that I made her and her hair falls out of it over her shoulders. Her fingers spread wide as she tried to scoop up the snow and toss handfuls at me.

It has snowed here before, but rarely like this.

We are lying in the thick of it, slashing our limbs about, and trying to make snow angles when Rabbit stops abruptly. I watch her body slowly rise up from the ground, her previous giggles silent.

"What is it?" I ask, but as I rise up onto an elbow I can see what's distracted her. A man in a waist coat and top hat strolls across the sidewalk on the other side of the fence. On his arm is a young girl in a long white jacket who strolls along with him. He does not look our way, but from our position on the ground we notice that the girl is watching us. Her skin is bright and vibrant like she lives somewhere where the sun is always shinning. She is so beautiful that I can hear Rabbit's breath catch in her throat.