MTU: Hard To Look At - Chapter 13 (Patreon)

How could this be? She had been holding the lifeless bird statue when I petrified her and some of her life force was now in the bird. How much had been drained from her? The bird had had no life force for over a week.

I looked at the place where she and the bird were in contact and I could see some of the red inside her moving into the bird. I grasped the bird and was able to remove it from her hand. The bird's life lines were still very faint. At least now the essence was no longer flowing from Marie to the bird.

I carried the bird into the house and sat down at the kitchen table.

“Where's the young lady?” Mom said.

“I had an incident.”

“What happened?” Daddy said.

“You remember me telling you about this bird?”

“That bird is just a statue now, isn't it?”

“Not any more. Marie was holding it when I zapped her. I went about working and three hours went by before Daddy called me to dinner. Well, this statue now has a very faint life essence. And Marie's life essence has dimmed slightly. It'll probably be a few hours before she turns back to normal.”

“We have to call her parents,” Mom said. She ran out of the room.

I just nodded.

“This wasn't your fault,” Daddy said. “In fact, this is good news.”

“It is?”

“It means if you were to accidentally drain someone to permanent stone, they could be revived.”

“That assumes the bird will eventually revive.”

“True. But, it does give you hope that it works that way.”

I ate dinner. Mom came back into the kitchen. “They were rather calm about it,” she said.

“What did you say?” Dad asked.

“I said Marie was with Medusa and she accidentally got zapped so she would be late coming home.”

“Ellen, her mother, said Marie had told her she was sleeping over tonight.”

“She said what?”

“Then she asked if I meant Marie would be late tomorrow and I had to tell her I didn't realize Marie was sleeping over. I said, never mind then, since she should be fine by tomorrow. Ellen thanked me for calling and then we talked about some parent's club school stuff before we hung up.”

“Can't really ask her anything until she's no longer stone,” I said. “But, I will get to the bottom of this.”

“I'm sure you will,” Dad said.

After I ate, I went back out to the garage. No reason to waste the added time she was a statue. It was another five hours before she moved.

“Wow, that hour seemed to drag out forever,” she said.

“It was more than an hour.”

“Did you zap me more than once?”

“No, there was a weird trick accident. It's almost one in the morning.”

“Really? I was a statue for like seven hours?” She said with glee. “I thought you said it had to be only an hour. Oh, wow, that looks so cool.”

“It's ready to be fired. I'm glad you think it came out well.”

She walked around the bust and looked closely at it, careful not to touch it. “It's an uncanny likeness.”

“So, why does your mother think you're staying the night?”

“Oh, I didn't say that. I said I might stay the night. I was hoping we could get this done in one sitting but you had implied it might take a few weeks of sittings.”

“You got your wish.”

“I got two wishes. You finished the hard part of getting the bust done in one night and I got to be a statue.” She yawned. “Can I stay the night? I'm really sleepy.”

“Sure, I guess. Let's go inside. Daddy probably stayed up to make sure you were okay after your extended petrification.”

We went inside and Mom and Daddy were both in the kitchen. Mom was eating her midnight load of carbs.

“How are you feeling, Marie?” Mom said.

“Tired. Like, really rundown.”

“You can stay here tonight. Do you want to stay in the guest room or make it a sleep over?”

“Sleep over, if that's okay with you, M?”

“Em?” I thought, then said. “Sure. Are you hungry or too sleepy?”

“Let's go to sleep.”

“G'night Mom and Dad.”

“Good night, Mr. and Mrs. Harrison.”

“Good night, Marie.”

When we got to my room, I said, “You can take the bed.”

“We could share it. Just to sleep, of course.”

“Okay, sure, of course, right.”

She took her book bag into the bathroom and changed into pajamas that she had brought with her. I was already in my pajamas when she returned. I went to the bathroom and she was in my bed, taking up the half against the wall when I returned. I got into bed next to her.

“Can you make me a statue for an entire day?”

“I don't know. I haven't explained to you what happened tonight.”

“That will have to wait until morning,” she said with a deep yawn. Several of my headsnakes were very close to her. She cupped one under the chin and said, “Good night,” to it. It flicked its tongue at her.

“Good night,” I said. But, she was already asleep.

* * *

There was a knock at my door and, half-awake, I said, “Come in.”

It was Mom. “Elliot is here. Are you two still asleep?”

I looked over at Marie still sleeping. “What time is it?”

“Nine thirty.”

“I'll be right down.” I got out of bed as gently as I could without disturbing Marie. No luck.

“Is it morning?”

“Yes. Elliot is here. You can keep sleeping if you wish.”

“Okay.” She rolled over and her breathing indicated she was asleep.

I quickly got dressed and went downstairs. Elliot was eating breakfast with Daddy. “Morning,” he said.

“Morning.” I kissed Daddy on the cheek and gave Mom a hug before sitting down.

Elliot looked like he was about to say something about missing out but instead said, “I heard about Marie and the bird.”

“It was an accident.” I added, “Thanks,” as Mom gave me a plate of food.

“A happy accident,” he said. “You can't really kill someone by accident any more.”

“Maybe. We won't know that until the bird turns back to flesh.”

“True,” he said. “She's still here? I want to ask her about being a statue for seven hours.”

“At the time, she said it had seemed longer than an hour. She wasn't sure. But, I haven't even explained to her what actually happened. She was really tired when she changed back.”

“She's still sleeping?”

“She just rolled over and went right back to sleep when I got out of bed.”

Elliot occupied the conversation, speculating about applications of this life-energy transference. Marie entered the kitchen an hour later, dressed in different clothes than she’d worn to school the previous day. She must have expected to stay the night.

“I can't believe I slept so much,” she said.

Mom put a plate of food in front of her. “You are probably starved.”

“Oh, god, I am.” She sat down and wolfed half of it down almost as fast as Mom could eat. “I feel like a pig. Why am I so hungry?”

“Probably because you donated some of your life-force to a dead bird.”

“I did what?”

I explained how the bird was purely a statue until the accident. I went into detail about how I can see these life-force energies and how I feed on them. And I explained that the bird now had life-force energy again.

“I jump started the bird.”

“Or the statue somehow stole your energy and the bird is still dead. We won't know that if and until the bird comes back to life.”

After an awkward pause, Elliot said, “Now, can I ask Marie what it was like being a statue for seven hours? I've spent more than seven total hours as a statue but not for more than an hour at a time.”

I shrugged.

“It was amazing,” she said. “You've been zapped multiple times? You're so lucky.”

Elliot started describing our experiments and Marie bombarded him with so many questions she heard about every experiment in excruciating detail.

“I want to help,” she said at the end. “You zapped Elliot's brother without hitting Elliot. You probably need a lot more practice with that.” She was looking at me expectantly.

“That would be great. Although you seem to want to be a statue more than not.”

“Really?” Elliot said.

“I do,” Marie said. “I want to be a statue at an art show or something. Spend a day or a week in one spot being looked at by passersby. It would be so cool.” She sighed.

“I suppose we could practice the transference and find out how to time it so you would know how long the resulting stoning would last,” Elliot said.

Daddy looked like he was going to interject, but said nothing after I said, “I don't know how comfortable I'd be with that.”

“We don't have to start there,” she said. “It's not like there's an art show waiting for me to be exhibited there.”

“You should call your mother,” Mom said. “I may have scared her last night.”

She got up from the table. “Okay, I'll make the call and then meet you in the garage?”

“Okay.”

Elliot and I left the kitchen. Daddy cleared the plates.

“She's interesting,” Elliot said.

“I know.”

“This looks great,” he said, indicating the bust.

“Thanks. I'll fire it after our first experiment. Speaking of which. Go out into the breezeway. I want to take a look at the bird.”

“Gotcha.”

When the door closed, I opened my inner eyelid and inspected the bird. Its colored lines were improved from last night. It was a little disconcerting, I thought, to think this bird was tied into an alternate dimension now. And that link was filling it with life.

There was a knock at the door and I closed my inner eyelid.

“Ready, M?”

“Come in.”

“Are we going to experiment with the bird?”

“No, I was just looking to see what it's life force looked like. It's better. No idea how long it will take to fill up though.” I put the bird back on a shelf, out of the way.

“A selective petrification experiment, then?”

“When do you have to leave?”

“Mom wants me home by four so we could do four or five experiments if we get started right away.”

We started with me trying not to turn either of them to stone at I approached them. I managed to get within five feet of them before she transformed. I was startled when it happened and Elliot was transformed as well.

I spent the hour getting the bust glazed and ready for the kiln.

“Your eyes look so cool when you do that,” Marie said.

Elliot transformed back to normal as she spoke. “I never mentioned that, did I? But, it true. There's like a green glow to them but the vertical yellow color pierces the glow.”

“Thanks, I guess. I suppose I'll never get to see it.”

We tried that experiment for the next few hours. I was able to get within two feet of Elliot before he was petrified the final attempt. But, Marie always was petrified before he was.

Marie reluctantly drove home as it was nearly four o'clock. She returned on Sunday for more experimentation. She always volunteered to be the one who got petrified.

That morning before she arrived, there were some spots of blood in my underwear. I almost panicked until I realized what this probably meant. Welcome to womanhood, me. When I went down to breakfast, I must have had an inquisitive look on my face.

Mom immediately asked, “What's wrong, honey?”

“I think I have to put to practice the mother-daughter talk we had.”

She disappeared and reappeared even faster than I thought was possible for her. She was holding a small pink box from a store aisle I was not use to being in.

“Did you notice any discomfort last week? Feeling bloated or tenderness?” She said.

“Maybe. I'm not use to how I feel like this normally.”

“I'll ask you next month. You should start to bleed tomorrow or Tuesday.”

“Great.”

“Sarcasm is an excellent coping mechanism.”