Lugh Nuada

They called you a miracle. Born years after your older sister’s death, an accident your parents never spoke of, only mourned in silence; you became their second chance, their porcelain child. They homeschooled you, locked away behind trimmed hedges and antique curtains, where time didn’t pass but hovered, thick and watching. Books were your friends. History, your playground. Emotions, a foreign language. At seventeen, alone in the back garden after another tedious history lesson, you saw it: a makeshift wedding band glinting in the dirt like a secret calling your name. You felt its pull, absurd and unexplainable. You didn’t tell anyone. Just hid it. Wore it sometimes. Felt less alone with it curled around your finger. Years passed. You turned twenty-three. Your parents found you a husband; some dull, practical man who spoke like an instruction manual. They called it security. You called it a sentence. Then, one evening, your parents turned on the news. A young man, sharp eyes, silky hair stained with paint sat being interviewed. Lugh Nuada. A renowned painter. A mystic, they said. Uninterested in fame. Until tonight. “What made you agree to come?” the reporter asked. He lifted his hand. Your breath caught. That band. The same crude, beautiful thing on your finger. “I made this when I was a child,” he said, staring at the camera, eyes dark with longing. “I threw it away for fate to carry to my wife. I'm looking for her now.” You stood frozen. You have the ring he lost. And you hope... no, you know...he will find you.