Page 20

He takes his time, looking for the right signs that would convey what he wants to say.

“Old burns are harder,” he signs. “Fresh bruises are easy. I wasn’t sure I could do this, so I didn’t try.”

I nod. It’s a reasonable answer, and I believe it. I also consider it beside the closed door of his room, and the papers he stashes away in a box before I can get a look at them. He has given me a true answer with a gap in it. I’ve learned to notice those.

“All right,” I say. “What do I do?”

“Stay still.”

I fold my hands in my lap and sit back in the chair. He doesn’t come closer and doesn’t reach for me. He only goes still, with his shoulders set and his head tilted a little. Behind the grille of his mask, I can barely tell that his lips are moving. I’ve never heard him sing, but I know when he begins, because the feeling from when he mended my wrists comes back, only slower and deeper. It doesn’t stop at my hands.

It reaches into my jaw and along my neck, down my right side, into my ribs, my back, and my thigh. It doesn’t hurt. The tightness that has lived inside my skin for so long that I’d stopped feeling it eases, one inch at a time.

I push my sleeve up past the elbow and watch. The ridged skin along my forearm goes smooth before my very eyes. The glossy patches lose their shine and take on the color of the skin around them. I turn my arm over and back, and wherever I look, the skin is changing.

It takes longer than my wrists took. I can’t tell how much longer, because I have nothing to measure it by except the subtle movement of his lips behind the mask and the feeling in my body. I don’t dare speak in case I break whatever he’s doing. I keep my eyes on him. He breathes rhythmically, his chest rising and falling as he sings.

When the tingling feeling in my body settles, I know it’s over. I don’t wait. I get up, cross the living room, go through my door, and stop at the mirror I’ve walked past with my eyes down since my first night in this house.

In the glass, I see the girl from the posters in Rosemere. Her right temple is smooth to the hairline, her cheek is whole, her jaw and neck are perfect, and the corner of her mouth isn’t mangled. I touch my fingers to my cheek to make sure what I’m seeing is real. The skin under my fingertips is soft, even, and mine.

I pull the gown down, off my shoulders, and look at my neck and my right shoulder. They’re clean. I gather the skirt in both hands and pull it up past my knee, past my thigh. The place where the scar covered half my leg is smooth. I undo even more laces and buttons, until the dress barely hangs to my frame. I twist to see my ribs and as much of my back as I can. I don’t think about anything but looking. I don’t think about the door I’ve left open.

Then I see Mordred in the mirror. He’s standing behind me, in the doorway, and our eyes meet. He came after me, found me half undressed, and I have the feeling he couldn’t look away. He does now. His head bows slightly, then he turns his face away, his hands clutched in front of him.

My face goes hot. I let the skirt fall and pull the gown back up over my shoulders. It’s still undone and I look disheveled, but I can’t stop looking at myself in the mirror, can’t stop running my hands over skin that looks as if it was never ruined.

My legs go out from under me. I don’t decide it. I’m on the floor, with my hands over my perfect face, and I’m crying the way I haven’t cried in front of anyone since the hospital, with my whole body, with no sound I can hear. Mordred finally steps into the room. He bends and offers me his hands to bring me up.

I don’t take them. I reach past them, put my arms around his knees, and hold on.

“Please,” I say into the fabric of his trousers. “If you can do this, you can do anything. Please give me back my hearing. Please. You can, I know you can, please do it now.”

He goes rigid. He holds his hands away from me, wide in the air, touching me nowhere. I’ve gone too far. I know it, but I can’t let go. I feel him tremble in my desperate embrace.

“Please,” I say again.

He lowers himself to his knees so that we’re level, takes my wrists gently, and moves my arms from around him so that I can see his hands.

“No,” he signs.

“You can. You just did this.”

“I tried,” he signs, slow and clear. “When I healed your wrists, I tried. I tried again now. What took your hearing is beyond me. I’m sorry.”

I furrow my brows as I stare at his hands, but they’ve stopped moving. I sit back on my heels. I was told in the hospital that the force of the explosion took my hearing, not the fire. Whatever that force did, it did something a song can’t mend. I believe him. It would be selfish not to.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have asked. I’m grateful. I’m so grateful for what you’ve done. I didn’t expect this. I didn’t expect anything.”

He waits. I wipe my face with both hands and breathe until my voice steadies.

“What can I give you in return?” I ask. “I have nothing, but there must be something I can do.”

His hands start moving.

“Sing for me,” he says.

“Sing?”