Tap tap.
I’ve made my peace with today’s technology, but I have only known it for a very small proportion of my existence and there’s a part of me that yearns for the simplicity of the pre-digital age. That said, my aim isn’t the best, so digital pebbles it is.
Ok, I admit that it is kind of convenient.
QUINN
I’m coming down.
I smile at my phone, but there’s a part of me that wanted him to pop out of his window like usual, half-naked and bed-headed. I know I shouldn’t be thinking like that, not if I don’t want my heart to get obliterated again, but there’s nothing I’ve found that stops it.
Quinn would be a ten in any era.
He proves me exactly right when he appears at the door, barefoot and still buttoning his forest-green shirt. I catch a glimpse of the light dusting of hair spanning his chest and have to look away. Instead, my eyes find his face, and that’s also a mistake.
The glasses.
Good God, theglasses.
‘Come on,’ I say, feigning irritation so he won’t guess I’m having impure thoughts about him. He ups his pace, pulling on socks roughly and hopping into his shoes. He rolls up his sleeves as we start to walk, as if I needed another part of him to actively avoid looking at.
‘Where are we going?’ he asks, as we duck through the alley and emerge onto Flowergate, but I just smile. No need to worry him ahead of time.
I lead him over the bridge and through the narrow streets, smiling a small, secret smile to myself as he complains about the 199 steps again. We head along the road at the top of the cliff until we reach the lowest section of wall. I stop in front of it and he flashes me a grim expression.
‘Ok, cool,’ he quips. ‘You brought me back to the haunted abbey to scare the living shit out of me again.’
‘No,’ I say, looking up just as faint hues burst into a riot of colour above us, a trail of vibrant green swirling overhead as streaks of red and purple dance alongside it. ‘I brought you back to the haunted abbey to seethis.’
He gasps audibly as he follows my gaze upwards. They really are magnificent, the Northern Lights. I must have seen them hundreds of times, but every time takes my breath away just as much as the first.
‘How are…?’ he trails off, mouth falling open as he follows the trail with his eyes. ‘Whoa.’
‘Good, no?’
He nods slowly. ‘I’ve seen them through my phone camera a couple of times, but never likethis.’
‘Come on,’ I say, tugging at his sleeve. ‘I know a good place to watch.’
He accepts my leg-up this time without me even having to prompt, and I half drag him towards the abbey, finding a spot against the nave, facing north.
‘I don’t know exactly how much you can see,’ I say, as we sit, our backs against the scratch of the sandstone wall. ‘When you turn, your sight is heightened– we see parts of the spectrum the human eye can’t detect. I think even humans would be able to see some of these colours tonight, but I’m willing to bet that yours is a little better than that.’
He blows out a breath of a laugh. ‘It’s not done much for my short-sightedness.’
‘Not yet,’ I say, so that I don’t say that when it happens–ifit happens– I willmournthose glasses. In reality, his shortsightedness probably won’t change all that much. Cam’s certainly hasn’t. ‘What colours can you see?’
He looks back to the sky. ‘That huge ribbon of green, obviously. And the purple.’
‘Can you see the pink?’ I ask, and he frowns a little.
‘No.’
‘Here.’ I shuffle closer to him, pointing to the streaks of colour in the sky. ‘There’s a whole section there that’s deep pink– huge arcs of colour that come down almost to meet the green.’ Before I’ve thought it through, I lean across him to point out the place where the other section of pink is. I don’t realise how close we are until I hear his breath catch in his throat. ‘There’s also a bit there,’ I mumble, trying to play it through, but not before I’ve caught a whole lungful of his scent. It throws me off completely.
You get used to the differing smells of humans. It’s almost subliminal when you’re human too, just your immune systems signalling to each other that they might be a good match. But when you’re undead, that manifests as a scent as unique as a fingerprint. Then there’s a further layer of intentional scents– shampoo, soap, fragrances– and the background smells they’ve picked up through the day. An odour of food, maybe, or grass, or smoke, or fresh paint.
But there’s something more, right at the core. It’s almost like you can smell their emotions, and they each have a distinctive note. Sadness smells almost metallic, euphoria as sweet as sugar, anger is thick and acrid. And then there’s desire. That smells like nothing I’ve ever known, a heady, enticing fragrance that draws you in and steals your breath.