“I’d like to…” he stalled, struggling to speak, “to bless you.”

She rolled away slightly from the man who had approached her on the sidewalk. “What sort of blessing?”

He sighed. “You think I’m trying to play you.”

“No, I—”

“‘It’s fine,” he continued, breath labored. “I don’t blame you. So how about this, just let me touch your wrist, and if nothing happens, then you’ll know.”

“My wrist?” Shifty and shaken as this man seemed, there was something adamant in his gaze that made her feel brave. “Fine. Let’s see this blessing.” And so she held out her arm.

Relieved at her change of heart, the man knelt beside her chair, reached out and laid his hand on her wrist. Immediately, her skin began to glow.

“Holy shit!” she exclaimed.

“Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. “Yes, that’s exactly what I am.”

“What?”

“Any harm I do to someone must be repaid as a blessing, or else I suffer it too. I’m a curse as much as a blessing.”

“So if you’re blessing me, that means.”

Then, for the first time in a decade, she felt her legs.

No small miracle.

There were tears running down the stranger’s face.

* * *

Story by Gregory M. Fox