Page 111 of Persephone's Curse
I found out later that the lightdidtouch everything, sweeping down alleyways and snaking down avenues and crawling through open doorways and windows.
The news would write about it.
MYSTERIOUS LIGHT BAFFLES CITY OFFICIALS
BRIGHT FLASH OF LIGHT LASTS TEN SECONDS BEFORE DISAPPEARING
DID ALIENS VISIT US ON CHRISTMAS?
But the light was Henry, somehow. Henry expanding, Henry releasing.
The light was Henry, growing, stretching, building, soaring, floating, rising.
The light was Henry, and it grew wider and thinned out to cover the tear in the sky perfectly, blending in so seamlessly that no one ever noticed it.
Except us.
We noticed it.
Every time I looked up, I could see it.
The thinnest, subtlest whisper of gold.
Like the Japanese art of kintsugi.
Like anything torn apart and glued carefully, lovingly back together.
Delicate stitches along the seam of a beloved dress.
A stuffed animal hugged every night for years and years until the stuffing starts to leak out of its ear and your mom fixes it, mends it, makes it good as new again.
Your grandmother’s gold watch, once shut in a car door, glass replaced, worn forever and ever on the wrists of one sister, then another.
An eye blackened by a fist, hair tangled in gum and cut short to grow again, a broken heart, a broken piano string, a canvas with one black gash across the perfect winter sky, a journal stuffed with so many thoughts, so many words, that it becomes exponentially heavier than when you bought it.
And then Henry.
Henry, above us.
Henry, saving us.
Henry, always, always with us.
The brightest light I had ever seen.
A closet door.
A thousand games of Monopoly.
Our mother, asking who Henry was.
The rich, syrupy smell of jasmine.
And then the light went out.
XIII
Does Persephone know intimately every soul that has ever passed through her kingdom, every baby yet to be born, every old and weary traveler ready for a rest before they are put back in the game?
