Chapter 3
Present Day New York
“I wish you’d focus on carving more angels for clients, especially ones like this gorgeous male angel you’ve just finished. I can’t stand that demonic sculpture you’re obsessed with restoring,” said Phoebe Larson’s agent and best friend, Rachael Ryan.
“I don’t see him as a demon. Anyway, look who’s talking about obsession. Running your hands over that angel’s body won’t bring him to life, you know.” Phoebe laughed at Rachael who was staring up at the sculpture’s face with abject fascination as she tenderly caressed his wings.
“He’s perfect in every detail. He looks like he might spread his wings and take flight,” Rachael said, her voice full of awe. “I don’t know how you get such lightness yet that intensity in your sculptures.”
“I see them that way.”
The Prince, his face full of fury mingled with despair, faced off against the angel as the angel’s wing enclosed her. The repetitive snapshot that haunted Phoebe's dreams and she didn’t know why.
Phoebe studied her agent, appreciating the faith she had in her work. Rachael was a curious mix of Irish and Jewish heritage. From her father she gained her wild red hair and fair skin, which burned easily and turned to freckles. From her Jewish mother, she had business acumen, an arresting rather than beautiful face with cut-glass cheekbones and a sharp nose. From both she'd inherited her fey instincts, superstitious nature, and passion for art.
The studio in New York’s Meatpacking District was filled with light, a mix from the full moon and various lamps, which gave the room an ethereal glow. Phoebe pushed her hair from her face and continued polishing the marble torso of the old sculpture, easing any stains from the intricate carving on the breastplate, her fingers caressing the lines and planes of the mythical warrior she dreamed about so often that he seemed real to her.
“I think this is my best work, even if he took me a year. Even though I’m not creating my warrior from scratch.”
Rachael walked from the angel sculpture and came to stand by Phoebe. She put out her hand but didn’t touch the marble, instead letting it hover over the stone.
“Old pieces carry energy and that marble holds blackness. Evil. I can feel it in my bones. I don’t know how you can touch it.”
“It’s stone, Rach.” Phoebe gave the torso a pat and Rachael winced. Phoebe knew her agent expected her to take her psychic feelings seriously and, to be fair to Rachael, her friend of twenty years, all of her predictions had come true, even when they had seemed unlikely.
“It’s more than that.” Rachael waved her hand over it again, concentrating on the torso and frowned. Her eyes widened and she stepped back. “I’m afraid to open my senses when I’m close to this statue. I haven’t dealt with this before but it feels like an ancient evil. Something horrible happened here. Something unjust.”
“I’m not being disrespectful about your gift because I’ve seen your predictions come true, but I don’t get how you can obsess about a bit of antique rock.” Whatever Rachael said, nothing would deter Phoebe from her urge to restore the piece she’d felt compelled to buy from an antiquities dealer. It was the only way to fill the emptiness inside her so that it didn’t open like a bottomless well in her chest.
Slowly, through the cool fall months and the icy winter, she’d carved a face, arms and legs. In spring, she’d meticulously inserted rods into the neck, shoulders and thighs of the marble torso and in summer, as the studio grew hot and her New Yorker friends left for vacation, she’d joined the pieces so that he was finally whole. She was proud of her statue, whose face haunted her dreams. His hair was shoulder length, his brow furrowed and his gaze piercing over his sharp nose and sensuous mouth. The torso of marble she’d bought had wide shoulders and the warrior wore a robe over his back, a breastplate and a tunic underneath. On his feet she had carved marble sandals. It had been tricky to get the dimensions of his head, arms and legs right so that all the pieces fitted together.
