The Girl who spoke through Grace

Faith first heard the laughter through the bathroom door.

She stood at the sink, gently pulling apart the twists she had set the night before. Her coils—lush, brown, tightly wound—sprang back with their usual defiance. They framed her face the way they always had: full, thick, a crown she still wasn’t sure she deserved.

She met her own reflection and looked away.

The giggles came again—high and bright, like bubbles rising from a creek. But this time, the sound doubled. Not one child laughing. Two.

“Grace?” Faith called, stepping out of the bathroom.

“In here, Mommy!” her daughter answered from the bedroom.

Faith followed the sound. The hallway was dim, lined with slanting rays of afternoon sun. She paused before opening the door, because for a moment her stomach flipped with an old, familiar panic—the kind that lived in her from childhood. The kind that whispered ugly, dirty, too dark, too much.

She exhaled slowly, then pushed the door open.

Grace sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor, her homework forgotten beside her. Her brown cheeks glowed golden in the sun, and her braids danced as she turned toward her mother.

But the room was empty except for her.

“Who were you talking to?” Faith asked.

Grace smiled brightly. “My friend.”

Faith lifted a brow. “Your friend? Baby, you don’t have anyone over.”

“She’s right there,” Grace said, pointing to the corner near the window. “You just walked in too fast. You scared her a little.”

A cold rush moved over Faith’s skin, raising every tiny hair.

“What’s her name?”

Grace considered this. “Her name is… Faith.”

Faith’s heart stuttered.

“Like me?” she asked, forcing a laugh.

“No,” Grace giggled. “Like little Faith. She told me that’s what people called her. Little Faith.” She tilted her head to the side, thoughtful. “She looks like me kind of… but she looks like you. But younger.”

Faith’s pulse thumped unevenly. “And what does she look like?”

Grace lifted her hands around her head in a circle. “She has hair like a big fluffy cloud. And brown skin like mine.” She squinted. “But she said she used to want different skin. She said she thought she wasn’t pretty.”

Faith’s breath hitched.

“She said that?” she whispered.

“Mm-hmm. She’s sad about it.” Grace looked back at the corner again, her face softening the way it did when Faith sang her to sleep. “She says you won’t be mad if she talks about it.”

“Talks about what?”

Grace’s eyes were suddenly too old. “How people were mean to her.”

Faith felt something deep inside her ripple open.

Over the next week, “Little Faith” became a regular presence in their home.

The air always felt a little thicker when Grace talked to her. A little cooler. A little more aware.

“Little Faith says you used to cry in the bathroom at school,” Grace told her one evening. “She said girls told her her hair was ugly.”

Faith dropped the plate she was drying. It clattered into the sink.

Grace kept going, innocent. “She said they told her she was too dark. And that she wished she could peel her skin off and get new skin like theirs.”

Faith’s throat closed. “Grace… baby, why… why would you say that?”

Grace blinked up at her. “I didn’t say it. She did.”

Faith knelt down and held Grace’s face gently between her palms. “Did I ever tell you that?”

Grace shook her head. “No. She did.”

Faith felt dizzy. She gripped the edge of the counter and inhaled shaky breaths.

She remembered.

God, she remembered.

Not the exact words but the feeling. The longing. The shame. The belief that something was fundamentally wrong with her. The way she would stare at pictures of lighter girls in magazines and wish she could trade faces like stickers.

And she remembered her one terrible thought when she was a teenager—

If I ever have a baby, I want her to be lighter. So she doesn’t feel this pain.

She had hated herself as soon as she thought it.

And yet… Grace had been born with deep brown skin, curls full and wild and perfect. When the nurse first placed her in Faith’s arms, she cried not out of joy but guilt. She had apologized silently into her newborn’s soft hair.

I am sorry I ever wished you were someone else.

She had sworn she’d never let her daughter feel the weight she carried.

But ghosts had a way of finding you when you refused to face them.

Three nights later, Faith woke abruptly.

Not from a sound—but from a presence.

The room was dark except for the soft glow filtering in from the hallway. She sat up slowly. Her heart thudded.

Something stood near the end of her bed.

A small silhouette. A child’s outline.

Her breath jammed in her lungs.

“Grace?” she whispered.

No answer.

The figure stepped closer. Just a foot. Not enough to reveal a face, only a shape.

Then Faith blinked, and the room was empty.

Her heart rattled like a loose coin in a jar.

The next morning, she confronted her daughter gently.

“Baby… when you talk to Little Faith, is she… really a friend? Or is she pretend?”

Grace ate her cereal thoughtfully. “She’s real.”

“How do you know?”

Grace shrugged. “Because she knows things I didn’t know. Like how you used to hide your hair under hats. And how you didn’t want to take pictures because people would say things.” She tilted her head. “She says you still don’t like looking in the mirror sometimes. She says you pretend to be okay but you still get scared that if someone says you’re beautiful, they don’t really mean you. They mean ‘beautiful for a brown girl.’ ”

Faith felt tears gathering behind her eyes, hot and humiliating. She turned away to wipe her face.

“Mommy,” Grace said, climbing off the chair and wrapping her arms around Faith’s waist. “Little Faith says she isn’t here to make you sad. She’s here because she’s sad. And she wants you to come get her.”

A tremor went through Faith.

“Come get her where?” she whispered.

Grace leaned her head on her mother’s stomach. “She says you know.”

That night, Faith dreamed.

She stood in front of a mirror she had not seen in years.

It was tall, old, and warped at the edges—the mirror from her childhood bedroom. The wooden frame was chipped, the glass smudged from little fingerprints that belonged to a girl who had cried in front of it more times than she could count.

In the reflection stood a child.

Not a stranger.

Her.

Little Faith.

Her hair was a wild, frizzy halo. Her brown skin glowed like polished wood. Her dress—a faded, pale pink with fraying edges—hung awkwardly at her knees.

She looked exactly like the photographs Faith used to hide in drawers.

“H-hi,” Faith managed.

Little Faith tilted her head. “You don’t remember me?”

Faith’s voice cracked. “I remember. I just… didn’t think you’d be real.”

The girl smiled, but it was a weary, trembling smile. “I’ve always been here. You left me in this mirror a long time ago.”

Faith stepped closer, her hand lifting instinctively. “I never meant to leave you.”

“Yes, you did,” Little Faith said softly. “You wanted me gone. You thought you were ugly. You thought I was ugly.” She touched the glass. “You told me I made your life harder.”

Faith flinched. “I was a child.”

“So was I,” Little Faith whispered. “But you listened to them. You believed them.”

The words landed like stones in Faith’s stomach.

“I’m sorry,” Faith said, her voice shaking. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know how to love you. I didn’t know how to protect you.”

The girl’s lip trembled. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.

“You hated my hair,” she said, touching her puff gently. “You wished it would lay flat or curl softly. You wished our skin was lighter. You wished our nose was smaller. You wished for a daughter who wouldn’t look like me.”

Faith sank to her knees.

The mirror blurred behind her tears.

“I know,” she whispered. “And I hate myself for that. I hate that I let them hurt you. I hate that I believed them instead of you.”

Little Faith slid her small palm against the inside of the glass.

“I didn’t come back to punish you,” she said. “I came back because you’re still hurting. You keep trying to forget me, but I’m part of you. And Grace… Grace hears me. She sees me. She told me you would listen.”

Faith pressed her palm to the glass where Little Faith’s hand rested. The reflection trembled under their touch.

“I am so proud of you,” Faith whispered. “You made it through everything they said. You survived. You grew. You created Grace. You brought joy into the world. I love you. I love you so much.”

The girl’s face crumpled.

“No one ever said that to me,” she choked out. “Not like that.”

Faith pressed her forehead against the cool glass. “Then hear it now. Hear it every day. You are beautiful. You are worthy. You are precious. And you deserved love—back then and now.”

The mirror glowed softly where their palms met. The glass warmed beneath her touch, melting like sun-softened ice.

Little Faith stepped forward.

And walked straight into her.

A rush of warmth filled Faith’s chest—joy, sorrow, laughter, pain, memories long buried and newly forgiven. She felt small arms around her. She felt her own voice at age eight whisper, “Don’t leave me again.”

“I won’t,” Faith breathed. “We heal together now.”

The glow faded.

Faith woke with tears on her pillow—and a peace she had never known.

The next morning, Grace ran up and hugged her.

“Little Faith says thank you,” she said simply.

Faith crouched down. “Is she still here?”

Grace shook her head. “She doesn’t have to be. You brought her with you.” She touched her mother’s face. “She said you’re beautiful just like her.”

Faith’s breath caught. “Do you think so, baby?”

Grace’s eyes widened like she was baffled by the question. “Mommy, you’re really pretty. Your skin is pretty. Your hair is pretty. Everything.”

Faith pulled her into her arms, sobbing softly into her daughter’s braids.

“Then I’m going to believe you,” she whispered. “From now on.”

Healing wasn’t instant, but it was real.

Faith stopped rushing through mirror moments. She stopped tugging at her hair in frustration. She started moisturizing her skin slowly, gently, as if learning to cherish it for the first time.

And she started speaking.

Not only to Grace—but to the world.

She recorded a short video one afternoon. Her voice shook, but she posted it anyway.

“To every beautiful brown girl,” she said, looking straight into the camera, curls wild and free around her face, “you don’t have to look like anybody but you. And if no one ever told you, I will: your skin is magic. Your hair is a gift. Your features are art. You are perfect.”

The video got ten views. Then twenty. Then a hundred.

Then thousands.

Mothers wrote to her. Girls wrote to her. Women who had buried their own Little Selves wrote long paragraphs telling her they felt seen for the first time.

Grace would sit beside her as Faith read the comments, smiling proudly.

“Those are all the other Little Faiths,” she’d say.

Faith would kiss her forehead. “We’re going to help all of them, baby. Every single one.”

And every time she looked in the mirror—whether brushing her hair, taking off makeup, or simply passing by—she caught a glimpse of a little girl in a fraying pink dress smiling back at her.

Not haunting her.

Not hurting her.

But finally home.

Finally loved.

Finally found.