Free Forged in Grace by Jordan E. Rosenfeld

trance, my hands move toward her belly; I want to reassure the baby inside that someone is looking out for it. When my hands make contact with Marly ’s skin, a sizzle that is at first as painful as always, becomes more like a vibration, as if I’ve laid my hands on the hood of a running car. At first, I chalk it up to the complex biology of pregnancy—all that extra blood and fluid, but rather than my usual urge to pull away, my hands want to keep moving, like a command ending directly in my finger tips. The images ripple, too fast to fully understand: the beat of feet on cement; a glinting sharp steel edge; a foot kicking a gray metal door, a smell of sulfur and then just a dark gray watery surface. My hands move, smoothing across her belly in soft strokes, then up toward her face. When I cup her cheeks and nose in my palms she sighs and melts into relaxation.
    My hands continue down the sides of her ribcage, following this trail of energy that is serpent-like in its movement. It feels…other than me, though familiar, is the only way I can explain it to myself. She sighs, closes her eyes, and her heartbeat steadies, so I keep it up, as though pulled by an invisible cord, no idea how much time passes. Eventually though, fatigue rushes at me like a sudden tunnel and I collapse inside it, too tired to bother going to my own room.

    Marly’s shriek of alarm wakes me. I am alone in her bed, still in my clothes. On her night table sits the bowl I cleaned her face with, the bloody water now a murky brown. Marly shrieks again, the sound coming from the bathroom. My leap is so fast that the skin of my right leg stretches painfully in indignation. In the bathroom she is turned sideways inspecting herself in the mirror.
    “ Don’t look. It makes it hurt worse when you look.” I know exactly what it’s like to wake up totally changed from your former self. I can remember Adam as a young resident in training, holding a mirror tilted upward at a careful angle so that all I could see in it were the tiny pinhole dots of ceiling tiles—a galaxy of symmetry. Thirteen years before I raised that mirror with terror, bits coming into view as foreign as if I had stepped off the plane onto Mars. There was no me in this view, only raised, raw, red mounds of flesh. C hewed, ruined, scourged, masticated, swollen, raw.
    “ What did you do to me?” she says now in a tight, low voice.
    Why didn’t I call 911 and make them take her to the emergency room? What kind of a friend am I? “I’m so sorry Marly. I just didn’t want to fight you…”
    Slowly she pivots toward me.
    “That’s…not…possible,” I say when I see her.
    No bruises. No swelling. No traces of blood. Her few chicken pox scars are gone and her skin is truly glowing. I am grateful to have so few hair follicles, for those remaining are all standing painfully on end. Marly walks toward me and I have the urge to back away, like she has been made undead.
    “You healed me, Grace.” Marly’s eyes are wide and bright. They unnerve me.
    “ That’s ridiculous.” My voice is a barely audible whisper. “That’s impossible.”
    “ Grace, I’ve r ead about this type of thing. Marly runs her hands across her face. “I looked like Mike Tyson’s handiwork last night. There is a bowl of bloody water by my bedside, so you can’t tell me it wasn’t real.” She runs a finger down her smooth cheek. “You have a gift, Grace.” She sounds euphoric, like she is about to fall at my feet and kiss the hem of my skirt.
    I ’m not saying it’s possible but…How? Why now?”
    The top of her head seems to grow taller with the widening of her eyes. “What do you mean ‘why now!’ Grace, you always…always saved my ass.” She bows her head, and I have a bright and unwelcome flash of memory: Marly in a yellow dress, smeared with blood. “You’ve never tried until now, have you?”
    I stare at her, forming a protest. Of course not! Touch is painful to me. I close my eyes, rest