Lucy's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Lucy sat on a mossy log deep in the Norwegian wood, a small purple stone balanced in her palm. She stared into its violet facets until her eyes ached. Pressure built behind them, the same pressure she felt around people, but the stone gave back nothing. She needed a living soul to read. Without one, her kaleidoscope eyes would stay a locked door. She followed a winding path until the trees opened around a wild, swirling house painted in every color. Travelers gathered on its bright steps, pointing at the curling patterns, lingering as if the walls had hooked them. Lucy chose a man resting by the door and fixed her gaze on him. He smiled, thinking her eyes only pretty. The pressure rose. The world went still. An image struck her clean and certain: a child's grave, fresh dirt, his hands shaking. Then it passed. Lucy stepped back, breath caught. She had held the gaze. She had seen. But she did not know what the picture meant, or what to do with a stranger's buried grief now sitting inside her chest.