Chapter 9 - STONE CAN STILL FEEL
Sheriff Ortiz did not believe me.
I respected her for almost six seconds.
Then I wanted to shake her.
“You’re telling me,” she said, standing in my kitchen at three in the morning, “that an antiquities collector kidnapped your husband because you are descended from Medusa.”
“Yes.”
“And the man missing from Ridgeway Mart is a statue.”
“Yes.”
“And your eyes did that.”
“Yes.”
Ortiz pinched the bridge of her nose.
Deputy Katie Monroe stood near the door trying very hard not to look at me like I was insane.
I took off my glasses.
Both officers reached for their weapons.
“Don’t look at me,” I said.
They looked at the floor.
I turned toward the black microwave door. My reflection stared back.
Gold irises. Thin black ring around each pupil. Not glowing. Not beautiful. Just wrong enough that you knew they didn’t belong in a human face.
Ortiz whispered, “Jesus.”
“I’m putting them back on.”
“Please do.”
I did.
Katie exhaled shakily.
Ortiz said, “That proves your eyes are unusual. Not the rest.”
“Good. Stay skeptical. But Noah is missing.”
That got us moving.
We traced his truck, tire marks, a camera from a feed store, a black sedan without plates.
At 5:40 a.m., Ortiz received a call.
A storage unit rented under a shell company had been found open outside town.
Inside were medical crates.
Old photographs.
And a video player.
The tape loaded automatically.
My mother appeared on the screen.
I almost dropped into the folding chair.
She looked older than I remembered. Hair cut short. Bruise under one eye.
“Mara,” she said.
My name in her voice broke something in me.
“If you are watching this, Adrian has found you.”
Ortiz and Katie exchanged a look.
My mother continued.
“I lied to you about many things. I told myself every lie was protection. Some were. Some were cowardice.”
I couldn’t breathe right.
She explained that petrification did not kill immediately.
The body stopped moving, but the mind remained active.
Hours. Days. Sometimes weeks.
“I discovered this by accident,” she said. “I wish I hadn’t.”
My stomach turned.
Eli.
He was still inside there.
My mother’s eyes, hidden behind black lenses, seemed to look straight through the camera.
“There is a reversal. But it requires the same Medusa who caused the transformation.”
Hope hit so fast it hurt.
Then she said, “And every reversal damages her.”
Katie whispered, “How?”
On the tape, my mother answered as if she had heard.
“Vision. Memory. Eventually, life.”
The screen flickered.
Then my mother leaned closer.
“Adrian doesn’t want your gaze because it kills. He wants the reversal. Imagine what rich men will pay if death itself can be paused.”
Ortiz swore softly.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph loaded.
Noah tied to a chair.
Eli’s statue beside him.
Underneath, a message.
COME ALONE.
BRING YOUR EYES.
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