Not every Charlotte rides the sleigh into the storm. This one, they say, slipped out of the tale before the ending was written. She is small enough to wander off through a gap in the pages, into a kinder version of the story than the one that everyone remembers.
She lost her arms somewhere along the way. That part is true. Her years of being loved are plain on her. She has a little chip on one foot, soft paint worn thin from a hundred years of small hands holding her. But the cold that took the others never quite found her. She made it through.
She didn't need saving the way the rest of them did. She needed pearls where her arms used to be, and something to carry her the rest of the way. I gave her two tiny faux pearls at her shoulders like new little arms holding her chain, and a small silver angel wing at her side. She hangs from a simple silver curb chain, sweet and minimal, made to be worn every day.
I love her imperfections. They're not the tragedy — they're just her hundred and twenty years of history and love, worn lightly.
