Clarisse

I told myself that it was a research trip, but it wasn’t, well, not really. I wanted wind and the salt air, and yes, perhaps an archive or two about the Abbey. It was escapism, as it had been time and time again. This is not my first research trip, or so I call it. The truth is, I didn’t want to be on campus today, Thursdays mean seminars. And seminars mean speaking. Out loud. In front of people. Worse: undergraduates. 

One of them, in particular. She sits in the second row, usually with a blue sweatshirt, usually with a pen between her teeth, and always with those hazel eyes. She asked me a question last week and I’ve replayed my answer every night since, convinced I’d sounded both arrogant and unsure. A miracle, really.

I informed the university of my PhD research necessities, and an hour later, the train was well underway. The green outside gloried, soft hills rolled in, and all were draped in the butter of late autumnal sun. So too was my hand, holding my habitual hot chocolate. Every rail journey requires a regional hot-chocolate taste-test, normally the quite awful ones bought at the station – small comforts.

I craned my neck ever so lightly to glance at my fellow passengers, of which there were two. Two backs of heads. A grey-haired gentleman and the soft floral scarf of a lady. I assume, lady. It was a carriage of utter silence.

The repetitive double ticks of the wheels to the track willed my eyes to close, but soon an announcement crackled in for the final stop, and I went to gather my papers. It was a little surprising to see that my A4 sheets were polka-dotted with soft brown spots. My writing was fairly illegible at the best of times, but now it read “Echoes of the Land: Folklo..”

Chocolate

“..Landscape, and the Persistence of Oral Memory in Northern Engla”

Chocolate.

My shirt, which was a nice olive and white striped piece, now had an added pattern to the upper chest. Shame, I had liked this shirt; it was, in fact, a gift from my mother last year. Who says twenty-five-year-olds don’t need clothes bought for them? The biro was sticky, and I was loath to put it back in my jeans pocket.

-

A cry from the seagull gliding above, and the blast of sea air hit me as I emerged from the train door. Whatever papers I had not successfully stuffed into my satchel were quickly sent dancing down the platform.

I looked for them, but the shock of light bursting up from the puddles had me squinting desperately instead. Meanwhile, my two fellow passengers meandered onwards, unaffected by the wind and entirely unaware of a man taking two steps forward, three steps east, then west, turning, and ultimately giving up, patting down his overblown hair.

My boat shoes sank into a puddle deeper than expected, and I squelched towards the station exit.

-

It was Thursday, so the silence of the town made sense, a small van scuttled past, and a few seagulls wheeled around, lazy in the high blue. If this was going to pass for a research trip, I at least needed to find the archives.

Across the road, the very empty road, a whitewashed shop stood crooked. It had a right-side window higher than the left, and the pastel blue door peeled and jutted inwards at an entirely different angle to its frame. I saw the grey-haired man enter, and I followed.

It was one of those dim corner places that sold everything from batteries and bolts to towels and toys. My eyes settled in the darkness, and there I noticed a woman at the till. The man on the train was nowhere to be seen.

I asked and she pointed me up towards Bagdale, where the public archives were housed in a red-brick Georgian building. I couldn’t miss it, apparently.

“Closes at four, my love,” she added, with a warm smile, though her eyes looked past me.

I had time enough.

Reemerging from the shop, the sun had nudged the clouds aside, and the wind had softened to an occasional sigh. I took off my blazer and slung it over my shoulder. Whether it was the latent sugar impact from the chocolate or the relief of the sea, as I inhaled, I was gifted a quiet kind of confidence, temporary, as always, but mine for now.

Turning left, the street descended gently, with the harbour immediately in view. The three masts of a small ship stood proud against the sky with something perched atop.

I eyed a small wooden ice-cream stand by the seawall and hastened towards it. A thick, hairy arm with a fading raven tattoo extended out of the kiosk, handing me the cone, and with a cigarette, still alight, nestled between his clenched fingers.

As I walked along the quay, the small boats knocked gently against one another. I let the sun rest on my face. Licked the ice cream.

I paused. Closed my eyes.

In that moment, it was all there, there on the beach, one of those windswept, too-early spring days. Just me, my mother, and my uncle – her brother. Our yearly visit to the Welsh seaside.

A burst of warm wind hit me, tugging at something from somewhere deeper than mere thought. I recalled my first birthday on that shore where a sharp gust blew my blob of ice cream clean from the cone, landing neatly on my pudgy, sand-coated, four-year-old knees, and my mother laughing, laughing not at me, but with a softness that soothed everything. She had a way of holding still, even in chaos.

I could see her face clearly now, that calmness that had become so rare in my life. I yearned for her.

The boats continued to knock, and one lonely seagull called to another.

I licked again, and for a brief moment, my mouth was under a gentle duvet of past pleasures. I could break the flavour down into its constituent parts. The thick Cornish cream quilting one side, vanilla lapping another, sugar dancing on my tongue, and chunks of salt resting quietly in the corner. I savoured with a smile. Small comforts.

My hair played freely as I turned towards the town.

“And I saw in the turning so clearly a child’s / forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother...” … “Parables of sunlight” … “His tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.”

Or something like that.

“..with October blood”

A young university lecturer with the memory of a sieve.

I looked up away from the sun and into the pitch clouds that crouched, waiting on the hills above. The Abbey hung over the town like a charcoal sketch, a broken, brooding skeletal queen in silhouette. I couldn’t decide if it looked like it was watching or wilting.

With another lick, I turned my attention back across the harbour, where there remained no one save one unmistakable figure – the scarfed lady on the train. She scurried with a plastic bag in one hand and a fishing rod in the other. A deep, purple Rolls-Royce seemed to glide silently behind me, curling effortlessly around the corner and up the hill. Against the solar glares, I could see it stopping next to the lady, who seemed to exchange a few words, leaning through the passenger window, fishing rod perched against the stationary car.

I blinked. Once. Twice. The burst of wind shifted the clouds, and the rays attacked my view. With my ice-cream handling hand, I placed my forearm above my eyes to shield, but both the lady and the vehicle had disappeared. A white plastic bag danced in the air.

Then, the first drop of rain landed on the back of my neck, past the collar, making its way down my back.

A second followed, then the storm broke open all at once, a sudden coastal kind. I ran.

Up cobbled steps, past a shut tearoom, puddles forming faster than they could drain. My hair fell loose over my eyes, heavy with water. I almost slipped once but recovered in a large stride and darted for the nearest open door.

The bell above it rang as I burst inside, the ice cream still inexplicably in my hand. The door caught my heel as it slammed shut with a thud.

Inside, silence. The warm kind. Wooden. Paper-scented. A faint murmuring of a radio somewhere in the back, a few muffled words, and then something classical. I stood dripping on the mat, breathing hard, the ice cream now more soup than scoop.

“Hello?” I ventured, blinded by the locks drooping down.

Nothing. I became aware of the ticking clock, which stood on a white painted shelf. As I wiped the hair from my eyes, I saw many white or cream, perhaps, wooden shelves bowing gently under the weight of books, of all shapes and colours, lined upright, stacked, piled, and crammed in the remaining spaces.

A curtained doorway lay behind the counter, and a figure appeared mid-step, slightly off-balance, slipping and recovering, with arms full of books stacked up to her chin.

“Just give me a … oh,” she stopped, blinking at me from behind the tower of titles.

We stared at each other. She adjusted the pile slightly, which threatened to tumble.

“You’ve... brought pudding,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

I looked down at the cone. Dripping.

“Yes, uh, sorry, I sort of fell into the shop,”

She placed the books down on the counter in two careful batches.

“Well, that’s one way to make an entrance,” she said, stepping forward. She was younger than I expected. Intense, chocolate, curious eyes hung like glass Christmas balls from the loose strands of her curly hair. Hair tied back with a pale-yellow ribbon. That blue-and-white floral dress had definitely seen better ironings. White sports socks slumped calmly around the ankles.

A kettle clicked from the back room.

She regarded me, hands on hips, for what seemed like an eternity. If I was cold from the rain, that was certainly evaporating from the heat of embarrassment. I looked down at the cherry wood floor, parquet no less. I think it was cherry; I quickly shifted focus to listing wood types in my head.

She averted her gaze to the window, and I did so too.

“Well.., you’re welcome to drip here as long as you like,” she added, as if this were a perfectly usual sort of thing.

The grey outside became greyer, and the consistent strands of raindrops glistened against the light inside.

I opened my mouth to say something, but she spoke first. “Not sure if you actually want to buy books, but you’ll probably be here a while. Radiator’s over there.” She pointed to the wall beside the counter, and where, in front, a leather reading chair sat like a welcome.

I relieved myself of my blazer, which by now was more wet flannel than fabric. She reached out to take it with a quick smile, but as I stepped forward, a loud squelch echoed underfoot.

We both looked down.

-

The central rug, framed by two reading chairs, was soft beneath my bare feet. Between them sat a small coffee table piled with new books with one or two already well-thumbed.

I lowered myself into one of the seats, a towel set between me and the leather. I tried to compose myself. “I…” My voice cracked. I coughed. “I came here to study. To Whitby, I mean.”

“Oh?” she replied, from atop a stepladder, back still turned, tip-toes, and with fingers reaching blindly on the top shelf.

“Well, not to study. To research, actually. I’m a PhD student, you see, I like folklore and local stories, local history…”

There came no reply as she was clearly fixated on reaching a small book lodged just out of reach.

“Pretty boring stuff really..” I continued with a half-laugh.

I could see a tray with a china teapot steaming gently on the counter. The saucer, piled high with thick slices of buttered toast glistening under a slow melt of honey, held my gaze while I spoke.

“Are you… open? I mean, properly open?” I asked, eyes still fixed on the tray.

She stepped down from the ladder with a thump, smoothing her dress automatically, though the creases ignored her effort. “Technically,” she said, lifting the tea set and walking it over to the table between us. “But I’ve had two customers today, both asking if I sell postcards of Dracula. You seem far less annoying.”

“That remains to be seen,” I responded, pining for the toast.

“Arthur’s my name by the way.” Silence. I looked up, and there was no one there.

“Clarisse” came a call. She emerged with another cup and saucer.

We sipped our tea.

“So, why Whitby? Don’t tell me it’s just the Abbey. Everyone says it’s the Abbey.”

I shifted slightly in the chair, as the leather released a quiet groan beneath me, which elicited a brief awkward silence and a visible smirk from her.

“It’s partly the Abbey. I mean, it’s a fairly good reason, right? There’s all that oral history, the local myths and legends..”

“Other than vampires?”

“Yes, other than vampires.”

“But also... I don’t know. I needed to be near the sea.”

“Needed?” Her voice softened.

“My mother, recently...” I swallowed some toast. “She loved the sea, and you know, it kind of reminds me of her, I think. Or maybe I just wanted to feel small again. In a good way.” I chewed. “She also loved toast as it happens.”

Clarisse didn’t say anything straight away. She looked down at her tea, then back at me with a kind of quiet understanding.

“Sorry,” I said quickly. “That was a bit of a mood killer. I actually lecture in York. The truth is, I was supposed to take a class today. I just needed to get out. I have a habit of needing to get out”

She smiled. Her legs swung back and forth beneath her chair, brushing the air across my feet.

I found myself looking at them - her legs - and my mind trailed, absurdly, to the large, hairy-armed ice-cream man. Caught in the drift of thought, I panicked and looked up. She was already watching me and simply curled her lips into another small smile before returning to her tea. We let the silence hang with the rain tapping its thousand fingers across the windowpane.

Then, with a half-smile, and brushing a stray curl back behind her ear, she asked, “So, mister folklore man. Do you believe in ghosts?”

The question hung in the warm, quiet air of the shop, pulling me deeper into the moment.

I finally ventured an answer, “Well, I guess, yes, to some extent, you kno…”

I’d hardly finished when she burst into a brilliantly excited monologue about a book she’d been reading, pointing to it, lying spread apart on the counter.

Thereafter, we discussed ghosts, books, folklore, cooking, and all manner of things for what seemed like an hour or two. Her eyes were wide and fixated on me, and I, oddly, happily glanced back straight into them. A comfortable rhythm settled between us, punctuated by the occasional clink of our teacups.

Every so often, as we broached a different subject or curiosity, she’d jump up and scan the shelves for books on the matter. The dress twirled with energy as she clambered here and there, a blur of blue and white amidst the muted spines. She moved with a joyful, almost unburdened grace.

It turns out that Clarisse wasn’t local, well, not from Whitby anyhow, but from a village not far. She was here for the year, working and saving. Everyone in town was apparently very nice. She lived above the shop, and the Goodwins, or Judy and Charles (or ‘Charlie’ to her, ‘call me Charlie’) next door, looked in on her most days to see how she was.

With another brush of a stray curl behind her ear, she admitted that she didn’t have any real friends here. This was in fact her parents’ shop and had been in the family for generations, though they now spent most of their time in France.

Then, standing up once more, she thrust an atlas upon my lap, and she told me that she was planning a big trip around Europe next year, to mark her twenty-third birthday. Leaning over my shoulder, I watched as her finger traced from country to country, stroking the paper.

Oh, and Clarisse was a French name.

A pretty name.

Arthur and Clarisse. Clarisse and Arthur... I tried it silently, while she spoke.

I told myself not to be silly; she was far too pretty for me.

She bounced back to her seat, first crossing her legs with her hands supporting her head and then letting them hang down once more. Eyes still fixated on me. She had faint freckles, much like mine, though they only paraded gently above her cheekbones, like fleeting wildflowers. Energy unceasing, she pointed to various plant pots in all directions throughout the shop, explaining the history of each and then complaining about her touch of death for each. Despite, she says, the number of times that she waters them.

The watering can was bright yellow and sat by the door, with an umbrella emerging from it.

Glancing down at my shirt while taking another sip of tea, I noticed that the hot-chocolate drops had faded into soft blobs. I looked up at the clock perched on the shelf behind her, above “Fictional authors P-R”. It was already 3 minutes to seven. So much for the archives.

Swiftly, my attention returned to her voice, which bounced cheerfully from sentence to sentence, and the topic had progressed on to the wild, rare, life-giving plants of the deepest jungle. Or so she had read about.

I nodded along, caught somewhere between her words and the slow rhythm of her socked feet swinging just above the patterned carpet.

Then, for no reason I could name, we both stopped.

A pause. Not awkward, not quite. Just... mutual.

She sipped her tea and looked into the middle distance, as if she too had suddenly remembered the shape of the day outside the shop. Though it was now night. I followed her gaze. The rain continued to knock, tapping ceaselessly.

From the radio in the back room, a distant sound drifted in, faint and crackling. Voices cried gently, perhaps a small choir. I could recognise the song. Not the lyrics, but the rhythm. One of those Northumbrian folk pieces my uncle used to play from dusty cassettes in his car. I was lulled into unease, the sharp, harrowed tones of young women wound their way around my spine, placing jagged, uneven fingernails gently against my nape.

Clarisse tilted her head slightly, listening. “That’s an old one.”

“Local station?”

“Yes, it chimes in now and then. I usually have it on Radio 2, but when the weather turns around, the frequency goes all off kilter and we get this stuff.”

I glanced at the pitch of the window, which only reflected the room back in.

“I should probably think ab..” I noticed a change in form as something moved across the glass. A similar hunched form to the scarfed lady on the train.

A moment later, the high beams of a car grazed the view, driving past.

I met her eyes.

“I umm should probably head off, do you know when the next train leaves?”

“Not a clue, but I’ll go an’ knock next door, they’ll probably have a timetable or something hanging around”

She got up and stretched extravagantly, arms and legs going one way, the body jutting out the other.

We both smiled, she laughed, short and soft.

“It’s so late.”

The door chimed behind her. I took this moment to stretch myself and sank into the seat. The towel flopped to the floor as there came the muffled knock of the next door. Behind me, my shoes, socks, and blazer cooked gently on the radiator.

My comfort was ended abruptly.

-

The door chimed again. She returned with the same, lilting walk, drying her hair with a sleeve. Socks soaked.

“Well,” she said, tilting her head, “bad news. You missed the last train, left about ten minutes ago.”

“Oh.” My stomach dropped. Because for all my independence and my quiet craving for solitude, I still clung tightly to structure. It was within the external routine that I found comfort. Strip it away, and I was adrift. Not simply lost, but unmoored, swept out by some quiet tide I hadn’t seen coming. Panic lapped in small, cold waves.

“Good news is…” she watched my lost, darting eyes. She was balancing and attempting to remove one wet sock after the other.

“The good news is that the Goodwins will drop by later with a sleeping bag, if you like.”

I blinked. “That’s... very kind.”

“They insisted,” she said. “Or you could simply walk back to York. You’ll be home in time for tea on Saturday. And I hear the taxis here have bankrupted wealthier men than you for a trip to the local shops.”

She grinned, but there was a flicker of hesitation behind it. She perched herself on the edge of the counter, one hand cupped around her mug.

“You’re not secretly a serial killer or anything, are you?” Asking lightly, then raised both hands in mock surrender. “I mean, you did spend half the afternoon telling me about obscure burial customs.”

I laughed. “Only the very old, very dusty kind. Hardly threatening.”

“Good,” she said. “Because Charles, or ‘Charlie’s’..” She emphasised ‘Charlie’ with fingered speech marks and a roll of the eyes“.. well, he’s a light sleeper. And probably armed with some terrifying World War Two bits and bobs.”

She sipped her tea. “Still, just so you know, I lock the door upstairs.”

-

I was shown to the shower, which was hot and a little too steamy for the narrow upstairs bathroom, but I let it run longer than I needed. The rain still knocked against the window, distorted now by the haze of condensation. My mind drifted. A day that had started with archival intent had somehow slipped sideways into something altogether different.

A soft knock at the bathroom door, a scrape almost, and then her voice, half-shouting upward from the stairwell, “Arthur? If you want, I can chuck your chocolatey shirt in with the wash! There’s one of Dad’s spares in the laundry basket. Bit crumpled, but clean.”

I thanked her through the door, wrapped the towel round my waist, and padded across the narrow landing into the dim spare room. Two wicker baskets sat by the dresser, both chaotic, overflowing. Shirts, socks, a striped scarf, some brown trousers, a single glove.

I reached in and pulled what I assumed was the shirt, white, linen-like, with long, slightly puffed sleeves and a soft collar. It smelled faintly of rose. Odd, but clean. I put it on, tucked it tightly into my jeans, and rolled the sleeves a little. Loose. Frilly. Definitely not her dad’s.

Emerging, I saw her standing in the kitchen, just behind the curtain to the shop, she was staring out of the window. She looked up. Paused. Then squinted.

“Arthur…”

She bit her lip, trying and failing not to laugh. “I said one of Dad’s. That’s mine.”

I looked down. The shirt did have a curious floral touch to it.

“Well,” I said, tugging it tighter, “your taste is excellent.”

-

I followed the smells of cooking tomato down the stairs and into the kitchen. There was something rich, enveloped in garlic, with a touch of sweetness. The shop’s lights were off now, but a glow emanated from the back, bathing the centre of the browsing space. I knelt down at the small coffee table she’d cleared earlier, now home to two mismatched plates and an old bottle of red with wax on the cork, which she poured generously into flat-bottomed glasses. Every surface of the kitchen space was apparently taken up by items waiting to find the sink, so here in the shop, we’d have to eat.

“Cheers,” she said. “Or ‘Santé’, as we say in France”

I raised mine. “To generous shopkeepers.”

“You know it’s tradition to look into each other’s eyes when we clink glasses.”

So we did.

The wine was unusually strong, dark as ink in the shadows, with the occasional glint of a red precious stone, and it was almost spiced as well. Like the slick of oil, it coated my mouth and slipped effortlessly down.

“Did you know that my great-great-grandfather made this, yes, this very one,” she said, taking a sip. “Our family still runs the winery, down in Burgundy. Small operation, but quite old. Very old, actually.”

“Your family makes wine?”

She nodded, picking at the bread she’d sliced between us. “Since the 1800s, maybe earlier. Shipping routes ran through the Channel, back when it was all clippers and crates. They used to supply a few select places in England.”

“And now?”

She shrugged. “It’s still running. Mostly private buyers. There’s a cellar beneath the shop. Some of the older bottles are... well, they’re not for just anyone.”

There was something in the way she said it. Not guarded exactly, but careful.

“And you said your family owns this place too?” I asked, glancing around the book-plastered room.

“Mmhmm.” She dipped a piece of bread into the oily tomato juice surrounding the meat. “My great-aunt opened it. Said it was a perfect front for her reading habit. I think she just wanted an excuse to stay near the port.”

“The port?” I echoed.

Clarisse smiled but didn’t elaborate.

“Port, harbour, whatever you call it”

She poured us both more wine, and we ate for a while in comfortable quiet. There was a faint clink of cutlery and the steady hush of rain beyond the thick shopfront glass.

“Funny thing is that I was supposed to head down to Ladoix this year for the harvest, but I chose to stay here, in wet Whitby. Odd choice, come to think of it,” She mused on that thought as she chewed.

I nodded, not entirely sure what to say. The wine was heady, but instead of things floating about in cranial headspace, it sharpened my concentration, narrowed my focus. My peripheral vision became a mere shadow, not that it wasn’t already due to the lack of light.

Then, almost as an afterthought, she added, “They say wine remembers everything. Every hand that’s touched it.”

She looked at me. “Do you believe that?” Half laughing

I took another sip. The warmth spread slowly, then settled. “I don’t know,” I said. “But this one tastes glorious.”

She topped us up once again, slower this time. The wine left a dark trail along the inside of the glass, almost like it clung to itself. The glug of the liquid and the ticking of the clock in temporary unison.

“So, tell me, what do you really taste?”

I raised the glass again, swirling. “Pressure,” I said, half joking. “But fine. Let’s see…”

The scent was earthy, warm, as if the garden had caught a brief summer’s shower. I inhaled again. Looking at her

“This is where we get technical, is it? Listing fruits and herbs and whatnot.”

She nodded.

I closed my eyes. “Well, there are certainly cherries. Yes, definitely a dark cherry or two. Something else, it’s a bit pungent, like, like damp bark.”

I wasn’t sure, but she seemed moderately impressed. “That’s a good start.

I wavered a little with my next suggestion, “Umm, I’m getting… spice, like, clove? Or is that just me?”

“No, it’s not just you, that’s good. How did you know?”

“Well, Christmas, it’s the smell of Christmas”

Clarisse said nothing. I pressed my nose to the glass. “Don’t people always mention leather? Well, it’s definitely there, like old leather, but soft. Like… like the inside of a jacket collar, or..”

I reached into my pocket for my wallet, lifted it to smell it, and then returned to the glass once more. “Mhmm, similar”

Her gaze rested on me, steady now. “That’s a good one.”

I felt I was getting carried away and checked myself, clearing my throat. “And there’s this sharpness,” I added. “Not bad, though. Like biting into the skin of a plum.”

She leaned forward, elbows on the table, chin balanced on her hands. “Skin,” she echoed, then let the word hang there for a moment. “Isn’t it funny how all these things, cherry, plum … tobacco..” Her eyes darted to the glass as if it were an obvious miss.

“None of them quite explain what it does to the mouth? You have to start talking about skin. Or salt. Or touch.” Her voice tailed off, softened on the final syllable. I nodded.

“It’s the texture that does it,” I said. “The way it coats. There’s a kind of… silk to it. A pull across the tongue.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “It’s not just the flavour. It’s the way it moves.”

We both sipped again, slower now, like we were drinking warmth itself.

“Here’s one,” she said, leaning even closer. “Some say a good Pinot Noir finishes like lips.”

I looked up. “Like lips?”

She nodded, her voice lighter. “Soft. A little dry. Not sweet. But tender.”

I smiled. “That’s… rather specific.”

“Is it?”

I looked back at my glass, then at hers, and then at her bottom lip. “No, perhaps not.”

Her cool knees glanced against mine beneath the table, and neither of us moved. She looked down, brushing away remnants of crumbs. “You know, I’ve always thought it tastes like a bruise,” she said quietly. “Just clinging under the skin. Still warm.”

We drank again, and the bottle was now half gone. The rain tapped softly outside. She stretched slightly, arching her back, the light catching along her collarbone, then dimming again. The silence wasn’t empty; it pulsed.

She spoke again, softer still. “Do you want to know something strange?”

I nodded, though my voice had caught somewhere behind my throat.

“This vintage?” she said, tapping the bottle with one elegant nail. “It was made1897.”

-

Clarisse leaned forward and swirled the wine gently in her glass. “Close your eyes and sip again,” she said.

I did.

“What do you taste now?”

I sipped. It was darker, deeper, almost tannic.

“Something more raw,” I murmured. “Like… blackberry skin.”

“And underneath?” Her voice was just beside my ear. Behind my ear. In my head.

“Salt,” I said. “Like skin.”

“Where?”

I opened my eyes. Her face was inches from mine, her breath warm. “The neck,” I answered, before I could stop myself. “Just under the jaw.”

She didn’t smile, didn’t blink. Only moved closer, until her nose grazed mine. “That’s where the wine breathes best,” she whispered. “Where the scent lingers longest.”

I couldn’t breathe. My chest felt tight, solid. I could only feel.

She slowly swept past me, deliberately, as if studying. Her fingers brushed my wrist, lingering, then moved, by accident or intention, along the inside of my forearm. I felt everything, every pore in my skin reaching toward her.

“This ripe…meaty thing lingers,” I gulped for words, “Like when you cut yourself and you tast…”

I trailed of. Behind her shoulder, something flickered. A movement. The window.

The face of an old woman in a scarf, pale, as though pressed flat against the glass from outside. Her eyes were unblinking. Watching. I blinked, and it was gone. Just the rain again, melting the reflection into streaks.

I turned back to Clarisse. She hadn’t noticed. Or perhaps she had.

She sat back and held up her glass to the light of the doorway

“My family’s been trading for centuries. It’s actually the story of how we came to these parts, long ago. Our ship, I mean a ship carrying barrels of our wine, encountered another vessel. Derelict. Adrift in the English Channel. Supposedly, it was heading to Whitby.”

She moved forward and hushed her tone. Her fingers grazed my chest now, tracing the fabric of the loose blouse I still wore, her blouse. “The crew were gone. Nothing left but crates. And… coffins.”

She sat back again, looked at me, and let out a shrill, single childish cry of laughter as if I’d fallen for her joke. She looked around the room. The fine form of her face, her body, silhouetted. It had an innocence, a youth that I still panged for, the very thing that I had lost two months prior.

The room shifted. Rotated, blurred in a split second. My skin prickled.

Clarisse suddenly leaned in until her lips nearly touched mine. “They took the barrels anyway. My ancestors. Brought them ashore.”

“What was in them?” I asked. My voice felt foreign to my throat.

She smiled faintly. “The wine. And something else. We don’t talk about that part.”

The floor swerved beneath me. Her hand moved to my jaw. Gently. Fingers pressing, forcing themselves between my lips, winding their way in, tracing each bottom tooth.

I saw the back of a man’s head. The man from the train. Still. Facing the bookshelf. I closed my eyes, and the warmth of her fingers parted along my tongue. I could hear the leather footsteps fade away.

I wanted to pull, I wanted to push forward. I did neither.

Clarisse withdrew her hand and touched her lips to mine. Just once.

I tasted the wine again, but not in my mouth, on her skin. In her breath. It was iron-rich and warm. Like something freshly spilled.

I could feel the presence of two white faces, on either side of my own, their breath, odourless but warm, regular as the seconds. The Goodwins. I couldn’t see, but I knew. Wide eyes, wider, longer than most, stretching eyes. Mouths ajar. Motionless.

Clarisse pulled back slowly. “It’s a gift,” she said. “To still feel so much.”

She licked her fingers.

I didn’t know whether she meant the wine, the kiss, or the thing that was now breathing down the back of my neck.