Sea Haven 02 - Spirit Bound

sisters. I can’t even trust my ability to read auras. I’m left with my own truth. Will you do it? Make the scope? Be certain, Thomas, because you won’t be able to hide from me,” she warned.
    He had never opened up to anyone, but if he made the kaleidoscope himself, she would see inside of him—just as he’d seen inside of her when he’d looked into her dark scope. She was giving him this one chance. For her, he knew he would close his eyes and step off the cliff. He held out his hand to her and nodded.

15
     
    “YOU can sit right there in my work chair and I’ll lay out bins with beads, charms, wire, glass and crystals for you to choose from. You’ll have to start with a mirror system,” Judith explained. “This one is five-point and is a standard star pattern. This is one I like to use and it’s a six-point. This one here, is a seven-point system. A seven-point system creates a more complex mandala. A mandala is the image created when looking through the mirror system at the cell.”
    Her studio was soothing to her, a familiar place where she spent hours of happiness, designing scopes and knowing people in other countries, people she didn’t know, would look into the world she created and get comfort or joy through her work.
    Judith kept an eye on Stefan as she pulled out bins of charms and glass, spreading them out in a haphazard manner, adding the colorful crystals and wires for him to choose from. Stefan carefully examined each mirror system, looking from every angle, studying them as if committing each to memory—and maybe he was.
    Stefan was a very intelligent man, there was no doubt in her mind about that, and he’d spent a lifetime reading people and giving them what they wanted to further his own agenda. He might try to choose things he would think she would approve of, but with so many choices, eventually his true nature would be revealed, he wouldn’t be able to help himself.
    Her heart pounded and she tasted fear in her mouth. She was baiting a tiger and this could go wrong very fast. Her world would come crumbling down if he chose all the wrong things, but she had no real choice. She wanted this man. She wanted to be that woman he lived for, the one he built his life around. She wanted to belong to him. Her element had chosen him, and then her body, long before she’d ever had a chance to think clearly. She was already freefalling, it was up to him whether or not he caught her.
    Stefan studied the mirror systems, intrigued by the idea of constructing his own kaleidoscope. Until he’d looked into the one in Judith’s dark studio, he hadn’t really considered what a kaleidoscope could actually do. Most people thought of them as a child’s toy, and he had inadvertently fallen into that category. Even when she’d told him that kaleidoscopes could lower blood pressure and aid women in childbirth or help an autistic person, he still hadn’t realized what the colorful instrument could do. When he’d looked into Judith’s scope, there in her dark studio, he knew he was seeing into her soul.
    He looked over the long table with charms, beads, wire and crystals everywhere and knew whatever choices he made would give Judith that same glimpse into him. Essentially, if he did this, he would be revealing his true self to her. There were thousands of options laid out before him. Those tiny bits of metal and crystal would give Judith every reason to run from him, but he refused to cheat. Either she could love him as he was, broken and twisted like the metal, or they wouldn’t stand a chance.
    The seven-pointed system appealed to him. He glanced at her as he handed it to her.
    Judith nodded. “You’re a complex man and I imagine choosing the seven-pointed system means far more to you than just the complexity of it.”
    “I’m one of seven brothers. Although they separated us, our lives mirrored one another. Are there choices for the outside of the scope?”
    “I have wraps for the outside, or you could powder-coat it.”
    “I would prefer to powder-coat it,” he said immediately. He wasn’t a fancy man. In fact he wanted it plain and the powder-coating could look like gunpowder . . . “Or . . .” He spotted a scope already made at the end of her table. “What’s that?”
    The scope sat on a tower made of what looked like stained glass. The scope itself was powder-coated, yet around the edge was that same stained glass look that appealed to him. The glass seemed to shimmer and