"Will I go to the bad place?"

"What does it mean to die, Mother?"

Theodora bent down beside Marion and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. As she tucked away the fringes of her daughter's hair, Theodora noticed the misty blue of Marion's left eye and remembered the steely grey of her husband's.

"Did you go see the cats again?" she asked, her voice heavy with a mother's love and concern. Marion fleetingly squirmed beneath her scrutiny, aware that she had broken the rule. She knew better than to venture beyond the back of the kitchen where the secret exit lay hidden but hadn't been able to resist with her older brother, Doris, urging her on.

"Only for a few minutes!" Marion admitted. "I wanted to see if their bones were as many as it said in our textbook." Theodora sighed heavily and stroked her daughter's hair. Beyond that secret door lay a small graveyard—their family pet cemetery—and she had forbidden this exploration until they were older.

"Death—" Theodora slowed her words, delicately broaching the subject to an impressionable young child. She preempted Marion's curiosity, this had not been the first time the young girl wanted to open the conversation; this time, Theodora chose to indulge her. "Physical death is when your body decays and your soul leaves its container. Your father and I believe that a loving God watches us and that one day he will take our souls back into his Kingdom."

"But what if the Kingdom is too full?" inquired Marion innocently.

"A soul's final destination differs from each person; we would want to believe we all join the Creator. The Church teaches a separation of Heaven, the good place, and Hell, the bad place. But I also believe in reincarnation— we will only stay with the Creator for a while, and when the time is right, we will be born again."

"Do you think I would go to the bad place, Mother?"

Theodora looked at the 9-year-old, reflecting the child's curiosity that poured itself onto her.

"Why do you think that, dearest?" Theodora tenderly cupped her daughter's cheeks. "Have you done something wrong?"

"Before you became my mother, my previous mother told me I would because I look just like my father and even sound like him."

Theodora and her husband looked at Marion with adoration in their eyes. They almost couldn’t believe that circumstances had led them to meet this shy, five-year-old girl who had been orphaned by tragedy. 

They wanted to protect her from the hurtful reality of her past - for now, all they could do was offer her love and care. The family never mentioned what had happened to Marion's parents, though she seemed aware; however, when she was old enough, they could talk about it together.

"You look and sound like your new father now. Do you think he will go to the bad place?"

"A little," Marion didn't even pause to think.

Theodora bit her laughter back. The honesty of a child was not as tasteless as an adult's. She hoped to tell her husband about it, but he was not yet home. He was— as she tells her children— busy changing history, to which Doris would reply, "'Going to war." Theodora nodded.

It could be a pain raising two bright, quick-witted children.

Theodora reached out to cup Marion’s face, her tenderness unmistakable. “I assure you your father is doing his best to go to the good place, and so am I, and so will you and Doris."

Marion's gaze fell to the floor; she hesitated before speaking. “What with all that I've read about Heaven, it seems too perfect, too boring. Don't I have choices?”

Theodora smiled softly and ran a hand through her daughter’s hair. "Boring, you say?"

"What's the fun in getting whatever we want without having to work for it?" Marion peered at the flickering candle on her nightstand. "I don't want to be stuck there forever."

"You still have much of life ahead of you." her mother coaxed, brushing away errant strands of hair from Marion's forehead. 

"Maybe you won’t come to feel that way in time; the decision will be yours alone to make. For now, I need you to promise me you'll travel with us. Will you do that for me, Mari?”

"Okay," Marion acquiesced.