Free Forged in Grace by Jordan E. Rosenfeld Page A

my palms against my cheeks, and take a deep breath, wondering if I’ll feel that serpent-like energy again.
    Marly circles her right wrist with the fingers of her left hand with a suddenly wistful expression. “Oh,” she says softly. “It’s gone.”
    “ What?”
    She looks up at me with ocean-dark eyes. “Oh…it’s stupid.”
    “ Well now I want to know for sure.”
    “ I had a scar from the fire.” She sounds afraid of what I’ll say.
    “ I always wondered if you had any, if you were burned.” A laugh, slightly hysterical, wants to escape but I bite it back.
    She keeps rubbing the skin, as though burnishing a piece of silver. “It was a part of me I was used to. But it’s gone now.”
    There ’s something more under the surface that I can’t read, but I’m so shaken by what’s happened I can’t begin to sort out her unspoken feelings, too.
    I stand there for several minutes, breathing in and breathing out, trying to clear my mind. If I could, if I did remove Marly ’s scars, what could I do for my own body? I hold an image of my cheeks as they were before…smooth and freckled, my eyelashes long and reddish-blonde. I’d thought myself plain, especially in comparison to Marly. Now, I’d consider myself a supermodel to look that way again. Foolish as I feel, I place my hands on my face. After what must be ten minutes I feel something—the strain of holding my hands up to my face. My shoulders ache and I drop them with a sigh.
    Marly looks at me, hopeful.
    “Nothing.”
    “ It was real,” she says, “what happened. You can do it again.”
    Her certainty makes me uncomfortable. I want to put our feet back in the real world. “ Whatever happened, you do realize we have no proof now that Loser attacked you. There’s nothing to take to the police.”

Chapter Eight
    Of course I know that the women swimming in serene circles in the blue-tinted water of the “mermaid grotto,” are not magical, but even so, I’m spellbound. They’re scantily clad in shiny, shell-shaped pasties and eerily realistic fish tails that move effortlessly through the water. They hold their breath for a stupendously long time, as they swirl and swoop, blow kisses and press their gleaming cleavage to the tank’s glass. They look real. They look capable of dragging a man underwater and enchanting him.
    “ Is it hard to do?” I press my face to the tank. A short man cranes behind me on tiptoe to get a better look, but I’m not moving. The tank bottom is tiled in mosaic blue and greens, and all through the water, long green ropes sway and wave like algae. Tiny iridescent fake fish “swim” on clear wires through convincing coral displays, and little cave-like alcoves emanate colored light. A mermaid weaves in and out of this underwater grid, displaying her wares to the glass, wiggling her tail and torso suggestively, then grasps a rope of “algae” and swings herself up to catch a breath of air. The way she breathes is seamless: her head disappears into a silvery-gray “sky” that can’t be seen from the tank level.
    “ That tail weighs ten pounds alone, and you have to seriously work your stomach muscles. While holding your breath and trying to look alluring,” Marly whispers.
    “ They pay well for this?”
    “ Well enough for the girls. I’m in charge of the team—scheduling, hiring, firing, payroll. So I make a good wage with health benefits. Tips make up for the rest.”
    One of the mermaids winks at Marly, who chuckles. “Fern—gotta watch out for that one. I think she’d like to parlay this gig into a topless affair if she has her way. It’s something in the Vegas air, I think. Makes exhibitionists out of us all.”
    As if Marly needs any help in that department.
    “What you can’t see is the ‘beach,’” Marly waves at a phantom landscape outside the tank. “There’s an area where mermaids go to ‘sun themselves’ and that’s where patrons can stick cash into little nets. But if you don’t