The Price Guide to the Occult(36)

“Quite a change from a few months ago, huh?” Reed continued. “Now it’s almost like they’d come last fall to say their good-byes.”

And maybe they were trying to convince us to leave, too, Nor thought. “They could just be running late,” she offered lightly.

“Maybe we should wait out here for them a little longer then,” Reed said, smiling. “Just in case.”

Typically, most especially in the early stages of spring, with winter and all its shivery consorts still breathing down their necks, nights on the island required a jacket as well as a scarf, mittens, and sometimes even a warm wool hat. But every time Reed looked at her, Nor swore the heat of her cheeks could warm the oceans.

Nor sat on one of the fallen logs along the beach and watched Reed build a fire. As it roared to life, bright flickers of orange and red danced against the darkening night sky. Bijou settled happily on the warm coils of Nor’s discarded scarf.

“I haven’t seen you around much,” Reed said.

Nor blushed. Was that a nice way of calling me out for avoiding him these past few months? “I’m sorry,” she muttered lamely. “I’ve been — busy.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Reed shrugged. “I’ve been increasing my mileage just in case you’ll join me on a run again.”

“Really?”

“No,” he admitted. “That last run almost killed me.”

“What?” Nor laughed. “You didn’t seem to be struggling to keep up.”

“I’ll attribute that to adrenaline and bravado,” Reed said. “I was trying to impress you.”

His hand brushed against hers. Nor’s breath caught when his fingertips grazed the scars on her wrist, peeking out from the cuff of her sweatshirt. Her first inclination was to pull her arm away, to run away as fast as she could. But she didn’t.

He took her hand. “Can I ask if it ever helped?”

“It didn’t,” she finally admitted softly. “Not enough.”

Not even on the days when she hadn’t stopped at one cut or when she’d cut too deep. Like the time Apothia had found her in the bathroom, blood gushing through her clamped fingers. She remembered the desperate rasp in Apothia’s voice when she’d screamed for Judd. She remembered how that pain had come out of her as an effluvium that burned Nor’s lungs. Thanks to Judd’s quick work, that cut hadn’t left a scar.

But try as she might, Judd could do nothing about the pain Nor felt on the inside. So Apothia took her to someone who could. Three times a week, she took Nor into the city for her therapy appointments. It wasn’t so bad. Most of the time, they’d stopped for a bowl of pho or clam chowder at Pike Place Market before heading home. They’d always brought home those little salted caramels that Judd pretended not to love. And eventually, Nor had gotten better. She wasn’t any less afraid than she’d been before; it was more that the desire to carve out the parts of herself that scared her had become easier to control.

The ocean waves lapped gently against the beach, picking up pebbles and ribbons of algae. The water glittered with the bioluminescence of tiny phytoplankton. Another unnatural occurrence, it being too early in the year for its appearance, but it felt like an otherworldly gift just for the two of them. As if a constellation of stars had plummeted from the heavens for their amusement alone.

“You up for a swim?” Nor asked suddenly.

“Are you out of your mind?” Reed groaned. “It’s freezing out there.”

“That’s the fun part.” Before she could lose her nerve, Nor jumped up and unzipped her sweatshirt. She dropped it and the rest of her clothes in a heap near the fading fire as she raced down the rocky beach and, feeling the satisfying weight of Reed’s eyes on her, plunged into the ocean.

The icy water pulled the air out of her lungs and numbed her skin. It hurt but not in a bad way. Her voice suddenly rushed to the surface, and she was laughing so hard she was screaming.

“It’s not that bad,” she hollered between chattering teeth. “Come in.”

Reed shook his head and remained seated, warm and dry on the log. “Sure,” he called. “It looks downright tropical out there.”

“Okay, it’s freezing,” she admitted. “But the water is so beautiful, it’s easy to ignore.”

“Beautiful things tend to have a distracting effect,” Reed said.

A slow grin pulled at the corners of his mouth before he stood and took off his jacket, then stripped off his T-shirt and jeans. Nor diverted her eyes until he was immersed in the water. His golden-brown skin glowed in the moonlight.

Their treading feet startled a few herring out of the water. It was reassuring to see there was something in the sea besides the two of them. The small fish twinkled like blue fireflies against the night sky. Nor sliced her hands through the waves in a smoky turquoise streak. The marks on her arms stood out purple and impervious in the water.

She reached up and brushed her fingers against Reed’s shivering lips. He dipped backward, and the glow of the plankton illuminated his head like a halo. “It’s starting to feel a little warm to me,” he said.

Nor laughed. “I’m pretty sure that’s what hypothermia feels like.”

They hurried back to shore, stumbling over the rocks and into each other in their haste to get away from the icy water. They got back to the fire, their clothes, and Bijou, asleep on Nor’s scarf. Reed wrapped them both in his jacket. When he kissed her, Nor could taste the ocean on his lips. When they got back to the Tower, it was dark and quiet with sleep. With Reed, the silence didn’t feel like something that needed to be filled; rather, it felt like something to be shared. Like a secret. Or a kiss.