A metamorphosis has taken place. What Nessa is now, I can’t be certain. She’s still changing, not fully formed. What I see is beautiful. Some things are the same—her kindness, her creativity. She was a running stream, sparkling in the sunshine. But her water runs deeper by the day. She’s becoming a lake, and then an ocean. I see her, and she sees me. I was death, and she was life. I thought I’d had stolen her, brought her down to the underworld. All the while she was waking me up. Stirring the blood in my veins. Breathing air into my lungs.
