He was so beautiful then, standing right in the space of the road where a beam of moonlight fell across his face, illuminating one side and casting long shadows on the other. He looked like glazed porcelain, preserved glass. He was a sculptor’s approximation of a person, not human himself. He can’t be real, she thought. A boy made of flesh and bone could not be so painfully lovely, so free of any blemish or flaw.
