Sky Meridian's Arc

Chapter 7 of 6

Storm and Celeste left at dusk. Sky stood alone with the pinned dress and the whole night ahead. She could see the rainbow now, red flowing to violet around her body. But the pins held it. She had to sew each seam by tomorrow. Then she looked down at herself and understood the trap. The panels were pinned to her. She could not sew a dress while wearing it. And she had no dress form to hold the shape once she took it off. She unpinned one panel to test it. The whole gradient sagged. Flat on the table, the colors read as guesses again. That was why she'd needed a body in the first place. Without something shaped like a torso, the panels would collapse the moment she stitched them. She had one night and nothing to hang them on. Sky sat down hard. On the shelf across the room sat a stuffed penguin, soft pastel rainbow feathers, round belly, a gift she'd never known where to put. She had bought it for its colors. Now she stared at its curved chest and stiff, upright body. It stood on its own. It held a shape. A knock. Celeste came back through the gate, a spool of thread in her hand. "Forgot to leave this," she said. Then she saw Sky on the floor, the panel loose in her lap. "What happened." "I can't sew it on me. And I have no form." Sky's voice cracked. "The second I take it off, it dies." Celeste crossed the room. She did not soften it. "Then build one." She followed Sky's stare to the penguin. "Not that. Too small. But you're right about the idea." Celeste pulled the seat cushions from the couch. She stacked them, bound them tight with a belt, then wrapped a folded blanket around the top until the bundle swelled into a rough chest and waist. "Same trick as your body," she said. "A curved shape. Something to pin against." She set the penguin on the shelf beside it, upright, watching them, and almost smiled. "He gave you the idea. Let him keep it." Sky pinned the red panel to the bundle. It held. Orange curved after it, then yellow. The gradient wrapped the fake torso and stayed. She stepped back. The rainbow lived without her inside it. "Now sew," Celeste said. "Panel to panel, in this order. Don't lift them off till a seam is closed." Sky threaded the needle. She ran her first seam slow, red to orange, keeping the curve. The stitch held straight. She started the next. By the time Celeste left again, three seams were sewn and the shape stood on its own bundle. Sky had a form. She had a needle moving. But five seams remained, dawn was coming, and one crooked line would show under the judges' lights.