The Echo

Pulled from the collapsed reliquary wall of a chapel that had no name and no door. The face sits framed in vortex-carved scrollwork, a wreath of calcified roses grown through the stone around it. Filigree runs the length of the cranium in ridged bands, beaded and rosette-crowned, the work of a hand that took years. The jaw hangs open at full stretch. Skeletal fingers curl in from both sides and grip the skull at the temples, holding the mouth apart. Whatever they wanted out of it, they wanted it loud. The chapel was a listening room. Grief was carried in, spoken once, and pressed into bone so the living could set it down and walk back out lighter. The keepers were sanctioned to hold the jaw open for as long as it took. Every relic on that wall still carries the last sound it was given. This one has not finished releasing it. Every layer line is a ring in the bone, laid down slow and left visible. The build marks stay in because they belong to the object now.