Sacrifice In Stone

Mara’s fingertip stroked his forearm,
tracing the hard bulge of the muscle. Finally! After five excruciating years of
searching, she’d found him. The knot that had been a fixture in her chest for
so long unfurled and she breathed deeply. Her fingers played along his wrist
and then down the hand. She couldn’t help touching him over and over.

“Wow.” Her friend Lucy spoke at Mara’s
side. “He’s magnificent in all his naked glory—well, semi-naked anyway.
Too bad the sculptor didn’t lose the pants. I bet the rest of him is wow to the
second power.”

 
“Yes, wow,” Mara said absently, barely registering her
friend’s bubbly tone.

A statue of a man, with a body rivaling
Michelangelo’s David, was positioned in profile, a block of marble at his back.
His outstretched right hand grasped at the air. A dagger was gripped in his
left hand at waist level. Below the knee, the figure’s legs were mired in
marble. The figure seemed to strain to emerge from the block, as if at any
second he would step out and continue to walk across the room.

Displayed in a dimly lit back corner of
the art museum, far from the traffic of patrons viewing a visiting exhibit, the
statue stood virtually hidden. A spotlight shone down from the overhead track,
illuminating the shoulder.

Only by a chance reading of a magazine
article extolling the little-known tourist sites in Savannah, Georgia, had Mara
figured out where he was. Even then, she had not been certain she’d found him
until five minutes ago when she’d walked through the door.

“‘
Sacrifice
in Stone
. Unfinished sculpture in marble. Age unknown. On loan from an
anonymous private collection.’” Mara read out loud from the plaque on the wall.
She knew Mr. Anonymous was her uncle, the patriarch of her wealthy family,
Hobart Rushworth.

“Now what?” Lucy asked.

Good question. Mara couldn’t bring
herself to tell even her best friend the crazy tale of how her obsession with
this statue had begun.

“Now we go back to our hotel.” Despite
her words, Mara couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. “I grew up with the
statue at our family’s estate. Then one day he was gone and my uncle wouldn’t
explain what had happened to him.”

After a few moments of silence, Mara
glanced at her friend. Lucy was staring at her with a glare that screamed, You
are so full of it.

“Really,” Mara said for emphasis. “I just
wanted to see
Sacrifice
again one
more time.”

“Come on. Try to sell that line to
someone who doesn’t know you.” Lucy perched her hands on her hips. “You didn’t
drag me all this way just to look at a statue for five minutes and then go
home. You’re up to no-good. You’ve got ‘caper’ written all over you.”

Dang. She should have known she couldn’t
bullshit her best friend.

“All right,” she said. “You’re going to
go back to the hotel. I’m going to hide in here and stay overnight.” This was
Sunday and the place would be closed Monday. Time enough to accomplish what she
wanted to do.

“Kumquat.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lucy said. “I thought we
were just spewing out nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense. The security in this
place is minimal. They don’t even have interior motion detectors.”

“How do you know?”

“Do you see any mounted in these rooms?
No. The only sensors are on the doors and windows. I won’t get caught.”

“That’s not the point.” Shaking her head,
Lucy pulled Mara to a seat on a bench at the center of the room. “Spill, girl.
I’ve waited a long time to hear what it is about this thing that fascinates
you.”

“You’ll think I’m crazy.”

“No I won’t. I may think you’re brave,
loyal, compassionate, caring, and that you can be reckless and foolhardy when
you’re trying to protect someone you love, but I won’t think you’re crazy.”

“Yes. You will.”

“Have I ever said you were crazy for
standing up to your uncle? That guy is a monster.” The feeling in Lucy’s eyes
touched Mara. “I saw the bruises he left on you after your parents died and he
became your guardian. I promise I won’t think you’re crazy.”

Mara ignored the choking sensation
thinking of her parents could still raise in her throat.

“Okay then. Here goes.” She took a deep
breath. “When I was seventeen, I think I saw
Sacrifice
—at least part of him—come to life,” she
blurted.

“You were right. I think you’re crazy.”
Lucy placed her hands on her hips. “In fact, you’re the mayor of crazy town.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Sorry, but how am I supposed to believe
this?”

“I know, I know. Don’t you think I’ve
wondered if I imagined the whole thing? Some sort of delusion brought on by
wishful thinking? Congenital insanity? Some explanation other than a statue
came to life?”

“I vote for wishful thinking over
congenital insanity,” Lucy said wryly.

“This explains where
Sacrifice
came from.” Placing the oversized messenger bag she
carried onto the floor beside her, Mara opened the flap, extracted a journal
and handed it to Lucy. The journal’s brown leather cover was worn and cracking
with age. Opening it to the center, Lucy ran a finger over one of its parchment
pages covered in calligraphy-style writing in a reddish-brown ink.

Flipping back to the first page, Lucy
read the title aloud. “
Transfero Vita
.”
Slamming the volume shut, she handed it back to Mara. “Just tell me what it
says. You know I didn’t pass Latin class.”

“Maybe a demonstration would be better.”
Mara jumped off the bench and strode to the statue. Glancing around to assure
herself she and Lucy were still alone, Mara scraped the palm of her hand along
the tip of the marble dagger gripped in the statue’s hand. Blood welled in the
cut.

Lucy gasped.

Mara squeezed at the cut, forcing out
more blood.

“Stop,” Lucy whispered furiously as she
leapt from her seat and raced to Mara’s side. “You’re hurting yourself.” Lucy
tried to grab Mara’s injured hand but she jerked out of reach.

“No, let it bleed.” The bright red
continued to well and flow. Mara turned her palm and grasped the statue’s stone
hand, smearing the blood on its surface.

“We’ve got to get you to a hospital…a
mental hospital,” Lucy gasped.

“Patience,” Mara said, inclining her head
toward
Sacrifice
. “Do you see his
hand?”

“I see a bunch of your blood all over
it,” Lucy muttered.

“Really look at him, Luce.”

The tips of the tapered fingers of the
statue went from rigid alabaster to a pink and then took on a healthy golden
complexion. The color change gradually spread from the fingertips back across
the hand to the wrist and then up the forearm. As it spread, Mara’s blood
seemed to seep in and disappear.

“I must be crazy too,” Lucy said with a
sputter.

Mara smiled. “Feel his skin. It’s warm
and alive.”

Just then, the dagger dropped, clattering
on the hardwood floor. “You’ve broken it,” Lucy said, scooping up the weapon.

The fingers on the statue’s hand moved,
jerky and uncoordinated. Then his fingers turned to caress Mara’s hand. The
caress turned into a grasp.

Lucy screamed.

Instinctively, Mara jerked her hand from
the grip of the statue. “Shhhh,” Mara said. “Do you want us to get caught?”

As she said the words, a woman entered
the room. “What’s going on back here?” The middle-aged matron in sensible heals
had a voice only a couple of octaves higher than James Earl Jones. “Oh my.
You’ve cut yourself.”

Mara glared briefly at Lucy. She was
relieved to see her friend had at least the sense to hide the stone dagger
behind her back. Mara turned her attention to the woman. “Yes. I’m afraid it
startled my friend.”

“Can I get you a bandage?”

“No, I’m all right,” Mara said.

“Really? It looks like a nasty cut.” The
woman’s gaze abruptly fixed on the statue. “Hmm. That’s strange.”

“What?” Lucy croaked, earning herself a
glare from Mara.

“I could have sworn this statue was
holding a dagger in his left hand…and his other hand was in a different
position.”

Mara glanced at
Sacrifice
and saw the hand, now returned to marble whiteness, had
fixed with fingers open and palm up. As the woman stared at the statue, Lucy
thrust the stone dagger into Mara’s hand. Mara shoved it into the deep pocket
of her cotton dress.

“It couldn’t have moved,” the matron said
almost to herself.

“Ha,” Mara tried to laugh and failed. “He
couldn’t have moved. That would be unbelievable.”

The matron turned back and centered her
gaze on Mara. “Don’t I know you?”

“I don’t think so.” There was something
about the woman that made her want to back away, but she stood her ground.

“I’m Eliza Allen, the museum’s director.
Are you certain we haven’t met before?”

“No. I mean, yes I’m certain.”

A flutter of change crossed the woman’s
expression. “Ah yes. I remember now.” The woman smiled but it didn’t reach her
eyes. “Hobart showed me your photo. Does he know you’re here?”

Damn and crap. Mara had no idea this
woman knew her uncle. This could seriously undermine her whole plan. “Yes, of
course.”

Of course he didn’t, but she couldn’t
tell this woman that.

“Uncle Hobbie and I are like this.” Mara
twisted middle finger over index. “You know? My uncle did tell me about you. He
said to say hello and give you his best regards.”

The woman blushed. “He did?” Smiling, she
straightened her skirt. “Maybe I should give him a call.”

Double crap with chocolate on it. Mara
didn’t want a phone call, at least not yet. “You definitely should call him.
He’d love to hear from you. But I would wait until Tuesday. He’s negotiating a
business deal until then.”

“All right.” The woman giggled. “Let me
know if you change your mind about that bandage or if I can get you anything
else.” The director walked out of the room with a schoolgirl grin on her face.

Mara returned her stare to the statue.

Lucy placed a hand on her arm. “Let’s get
out of here.”

“No, Lucy. I’m staying. I’ve got to free
Sacrifice
.”

“You really think there’s someone in
there?”

* * * * *

Garrick heard the voice called Lucy
speaking from where he was trapped inside his stone prison.

“Yes, and his name is Garrick Lawson,”
Mara said.

Mara knew his name. His Mara. Garrick had
clung to thinking of her as belonging to him in the last years. Years when he’d
been locked away in this museum.

He’d heard Mara for the first time when
she was just a child. She’d been playing a game of tag with her father. He
heard them laughing as they ran around him.

“How do you know?” Lucy asked.

“That’s what it says in the book,” Mara
answered.

He heard them open the
Transfero Vita
and page through it.

“Where did that book come from?” Lucy
said.

“I found it years ago in my uncle’s study
where the statue was kept.”

Garrick remembered the moment Mara found
the journal, because at that instant something changed after more than two
hundred fifty years. He was still trapped inside the marble. His skin was still
petrified, still solid stone. Yet something inside quickened and came alive.