Phantom Limb

She place the stone onto my hand. It was far heavier than its size let on. I hefted it a few times and thought about its purpose. Who could have created such a thing? Was it a weapon? Or was that just what people thought when they held something of great power? Was that the first thought when anyone's mind regarded important things? Could it be a weapon?

I decided it best to just admit that I did not know what this thing was. I looked into her eyes trying not to imply my question. Just to stare into her grey eyes and thank her for the gift. She smiled and I could feel the stone change. Perhaps becoming a little heavier, or a little denser or more important. It was not of my experience, this stone. It had the importance of a deep secret, once revealed, forever to spread, mouth to ear, again and again like wild-fire, consuming. But this thing, this small, dense thing crafted by the hands and keen mind of some other. It had something more than importance. That I did not understand at the time.

She took my hand and, one by one, peeled my fingers, so tightly wrapped around the stone as to leave bruises on my palm, and flattened my hand so that the little, important stone sat perched upon it. Her eyes lock onto mine and a wry smile crept about her lips and warmness with it.

She held both her hands under mine, cupping it like something fragile, a bird's egg in a nest, perhaps. Then, still looking into my eyes, her lips contracted into a tiny O, with beautiful crease-lines all around them. With the gentleness of a fire-starter, bringing an ember to life, she breathed soft and warm upon my palm. The stone began to react. Its color changed from grey to blush-red. Her soft breath was long and uninterrupted. A vibration emanated from the stone.

She refilled her lungs in a long, steady inhale. The stone still shone reddish but the vibration ceased. She blew again, a little harder, as if the ember had established itself and was no longer in such delicate peril of extinction. The vibration returned and along with it a hum, similar to a whetted finger caressing the rim of a crystal glass. Again, the stone became brighter and what had been a hard thing, a weapon in my savage mind, was beginning to reveal itself, yellow and white in patterns that swirled and promised.

With the completion of her second breath, the world became silent, calm, the eye of some great cleansing storm. I could feel her hands below mine, both fiery with power and cold from the giving of her energy. Surely she was no weapon, I thought. Surely no one would try to use her as such. Her power was her own, not to be bought or sold or commiditized by the power-hungry.

"Do you love me?" she asked, eyes still locked on mine. Eyes no longer grey but alight with deep molten fire. Fire that could melt the steel core of a man's evil heart.

I could not answer her, my mind and mouth made mute by this thing in my hand, this spirit in front of me.

"You are ready." she closed her fiery eyes and breathed in deeply through her nose, held the breath deep in her lungs for a long moment. A satisfied smile took over her long, lovely face as if on the edge of some ecstatic precipice, about to let the pull of gravity gently coax her into its clutches. The volcano and the willing sacrifice.

She blew warm power, gale-force wind, the eye of the storm past us now. The vibration, the hum, the light! The stone was changing. It was sinking into my hand and the feeling was as if a limb I did not know I had lost was being returned to me by some half-surgeon, half-magician. The limb probed and searched for nerve endings with which to re-entangle, neuro-pathways to re-engage. It sent signals throughout my body in search of its rightful position. It sought my memory for the last time we had been whole. Years! Decades! Lifetimes! So distant was our separation that the world itself had changed since.

I feared that too much time had passed. I feared there was no chance of wholeness. As if a sibling had been taken away during the blissful ignorance of youth only to be returned in the midst of a mid-life crisis. No way to reconcile all those long gone years. I began to weep. A sense of regret swept through me and I could not control my sadness. It was profound and complete. The limb had failed to graft and I was empty.

Then she opened her eyes. "Do you love me?" she asked again.

"I do! I do!"

"Then you are whole again." softly the words drifted into my mind, were welcomed and made at home there.

She saw the sadness and confusion in my eyes and smiled very calmly.

"The limb has found its home." She raised her finger to my brow. "It is here, behind your left eye, your receptive eye. It will take much time for it to heal and establish itself. You must not push too quickly. This, like all things, will take time."

She kissed my cheek and caressed the brow above my left eye once more. Then she left me, slowly, but all too soon.

I closed my right eye and began to look around my world. Funny, I thought. I did not know that I had a 'receptive eye'. Or perhaps I did know but it had been so long that the memory of it had withered with age.

Nearby, alongside many average ones, were scattered six perfect stones, almost completely disguised among their companions. But I saw them.

I picked them up, placed them in my pocket and began the long walk out of the scruff desert.