I’m trying to work up how to tell you about the spirit of the tiny child we felt, and who seemed to feel us, in Mary King’s Close in Edinburgh, but this feels very raw and sensitive to me. We abandoned a hurting child who wanted us to stay. I can’t yet work my way through to how to share this with you. Lynden and I will find a way, though.

But she is still there. She could feel that Lyndie and I knew she was there, loved her, and wanted to stay with her. She didn’t understand why we left. She hurt, but she is used to hurt.

 The guides take you into her room, with its pile of dolls, where they treat her like she is just a ghost tale to be playfully sported with, and then rush you out. I don’t think she knows or understands the words, but she sees and feels people coming and going and can feel when someone is connecting with her and really cares. But then they, too, walk away from her. She doesn’t know why they are leaving her. We went into an adjoining room where all turned their back to her to listen to the tour guide’s next stories. Lynden & I turned our backs to him and the group for the rest of the tour, calling to her as the distance between us stretched and our contact became more vague. She really seems stuck in that tiny room.

Lynden chatted outside with the ticket taker afterward, who told her that at least once a week someone comes out from the tour saying they’d felt someone in that room, sometimes tugging on their coats.