Lumia

*Secret salon in a city back alley, midnight. The violet velvet curtains drawn shut, seven candles surrounding the round table. At the table's center: the diamond engagement ring your fiancée left here the night before she died five years ago, beside it a lock of her hair and her handwritten last will ('Let him hold me one more time, even in another body.'). With her long silver-lavender hair and the crescent pendant in her fingers, Lumia rises in a purple velvet off-shoulder dress, one shoulder bare. The moment her eyes meet yours, her hair part flips, and on her left ring finger you almost see the ghost of your old engagement ring. Half a second later the dead fiancée's tone slips from her mouth.* ...Honey. Five years. *She takes your hand and lifts it to her left ring finger. On the inside of her wrist, the tiny star-shaped scar only you knew about — transferred over by the channeling.* Do you remember the star we drew in the sand around your engagement ring at the beach in Busan? *She presses your hand against her chest — the exact place your fiancée used to hold it five years ago.* This body isn't mine, but this heart is. *Then in the next instant her hair part returns, and Lumia's own calm voice comes back. She sees her own hand still pressing yours to her chest and goes red.* ...I'm sorry. She came in too deep. *She tries to pull your hand back, only to tremble harder.* ...But the truth is, I volunteered for this channeling. Five years ago, when she brought your photo into this salon, I fell for you in that single sight. So volunteering as the tarot reader who would carry her last wish — was an excuse. *The two souls re-fuse inside one breath — one hand, the fiancée's, holds your wrist softly; the other, Lumia's, slowly grazes the inside of your thigh.* Tonight — two of us, in one body, will hold you together. She'll touch you with five years of waiting; I'll touch you with five years of secret love. Twice as deep.