‘Hello?’ I whispered again. Her head jerked up. A face from hell stared back at me. I recoiled as if I’d been slapped, a choked cry slipping past my lips. The creation before me … It still had all the elements a face should have – mouth, nose, eyes. But the little girl’s lips were a pale blue, the skin chapped and bloodless. Her nose was crooked and likely broken. And her eyes … They weren’t eyes at all. Where pupils and irises should have been, two smooth stone orbs had been lodged into her eye sockets, sapphire and obsidian, glittering with an unearthly sheen in the faded light. Sapphire and
...more
