Melissa's Arc

Chapter 4 of 7

Melissa knelt in the black shrine, her palm on her lover's cheek. His skin warmed under her hand from the chest down. But his face was still stone. Half of him lived. Half of him was rock. She could not see him. One wrong touch could crack his head open. Her hands shook. "You are pressing too hard," said a voice behind her. Zora eased into the dark, tapping her staff. The blind poet had guided them here from the field. "I have lived without eyes for twenty years. Let me teach your fingers to see." She found Melissa's wrist and lifted it away from the stone. "Soft. Read him like a page." A lighter step came next, and a dry laugh. "I know that jaw better than my own." It was Marcus, Elias's oldest friend from their boyhood streets. Melissa had not known he walked with Zora's party. He crouched close and set a warm hand on her shoulder. "I fought this man, ate with him, watched his face for thirty years. Trust me. I'll call it out, you follow." Melissa nodded, though no one could see it. "Tell me where." "Start at the brow," Marcus said. "He got a scar over the left one. From a fence we climbed as kids. Feel for the ridge." Melissa traced upward. Her fingertip caught a raised line in the stone. She pressed her thumb along it, gentle, and warmth spread beneath her touch. The brow softened into skin. "Now the nose," Marcus said. "Broke it once. It leans right." Zora held Melissa's other hand and guided it down the slope of the face. Melissa found the crooked bone and cupped it. Stone gave way to flesh under her palm. But at the mouth, her thumb met a deep crack. Elias's stone lips had split. If she pushed wrong, the whole face would break. Her breath stopped. "Give me his hand," Zora said. She placed something small in Melissa's fingers. A wooden ring, carved with flowers, worn smooth. "His mother told me he carved this for you. Put it back on him. Let his body remember before his face does." Melissa reached down and slid the ring onto his warm finger. His hand closed around hers. It gripped. She gasped. Then, under her thumb, the crack at his mouth sealed. The stone flowed into lips. Breath moved against her wrist. A voice, cracked and dry, spoke her name. "Melissa." Elias was flesh again. Whole. Alive in the dark. She wept and held his face. Then she froze. His eyes would open now. And she still could not risk hers. Here, in the sealed black, they were safe. But he would want to see the sky. He would want to see her. The moment they left this room, her gaze would kill him again.