Father Desmond Porter's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

By morning the panel was still humming under the bucket and Elina's leg was worse. Desmond peeled back the strip of cloth above her knee and saw the skin gone dark. She did not flinch when he pressed it. That scared him more than the color. He set the cloth back down and went to the workbench. The wings lay under their sheet where he had left them. He pulled the sheet away and started again from the beginning. He laid the humming panel next to the wings and turned it in his hands. He looked for a seam, a port, a place to feed a wire. He found nothing. He tried the panel against the lead frame at the shoulder joint. He tried it against the base of each violet shard. He held it flat to the ribbing and waited for something to answer. Nothing did. He set the panel down and pressed his palms to his eyes. His shoulder throbbed. Behind him, Elina's breathing had gone shallow. "Desmond." Her voice was thin. He turned. Her head had slid against the back of the pew. Her eyes were half open. He crossed the room and lifted her onto the cot by the wall. Her hand was cold. He said her name and she did not answer. He said it again and got nothing. He stood over her with the panel in one hand and the wings on the bench behind him, and the same idea came at him that had come on the chapel roof six months ago. Not a prayer. A push. Put the panel to the wings. Put the wings in her back. He did not argue with it this time. He carried the wings to the cot. He pressed the humming panel flat against the lead spine where the two panels met, and the hum climbed and locked into a single clean tone. He turned her onto her side. He set the spine of the wings against her shoulder blades and held it there. The lead softened under his hands. The violet shards at the base lit from inside. Thin threads of light ran out from the frame and into her skin. She arched once on the cot and went still. The dark line above her knee faded as he watched. Her breathing filled out. The wings settled against her back as if they had grown there. Elina opened her eyes. She sat up. She stood off the cot without favoring the leg. She looked at her hands, then at him, then at the barred door. She crossed the chapel, lifted the bar, and stepped out into the light. Desmond followed. She stood in the dirt in front of the church with the colored panels spread behind her and looked east. "They are coming," she said.