Chapter 1
She’s always loved Boston in the autumn, the way the air smells like pulpy decaying leaves, rich apple cider, and the freshness of waiting snow. The afternoon light slants through the trees of the Public Garden as Tally checks her watch for the fourth time in the last 30 seconds. She should still have time.
She rounds the corner, running her fingers absently along the bright purple alliums along the pathway and something tickles in the back of her mind like a fly beating against a window trying to get free. There isn’t time for this; she swats the feeling away, and takes the descending path toward the willow and sighs in relief as she spies a solitary figure on the bench beneath the weeping branches, absently plucking bits of crust off the sandwich in her lap and tossing them to the ducks.
She’s still here.
Her hair is down, the dark waves pulled over one shoulder, so Tally can see the sharp line of her profile, the way her eyes are soft and unfocused, staring across the water.
The anxiety thrumming in her limbs as she rushed through the park to get here has condensed into a riot of butterflies in her stomach. No matter how many times they meet like this, or how many years they’ve been colleagues, no one has the power to make her stomach flutter or her heart race like Dr. Alder.
Now that she knows she’s made it in time, Tally takes a moment to smooth her hair and tug down the hem of her sweater where it's ridden up in her haste. She cups her palm and exhales into it quickly, scrunching her nose at the stale coffee sourness. That won’t do—she fishes a wintergreen polo mint out of the pocket of her tweed jacket and crunches on it quickly as she crosses the final few feet, hoping it will be enough to banish the worst of her breakfast lingering on her breath. This is as presentable as she’s going to get.
“Dr. Alder, I’m glad I caught you,” she says as she reaches the end of the bench, cursing herself for how breathless she still sounds.
Dr. Alder looks up from where she’s seated, smile tight in a way that doesn’t meet her eyes. “Professor. Please, join me,” she gestures to the empty space on the bench next to her as she wraps up her sandwich and sets it aside.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d still be here, or not.”
“There’s still some time before my next appointment, and it’s such a nice day.”
Tally hums in agreement and they sit in companionable silence for a moment watching the swan boats paddle back and forth, students stretched out on blankets in sunny patches of grass with picnic lunches and piles of textbooks, harried dog walkers rushing past with a few too many pooches for one person to contain—all the usual characters for an afternoon in the Public Garden. It’s almost like a scene snipped out of a movie, a bit too perfect, too planned.
“I read your latest paper; I found the conclusion especially interesting.”
“Did you really come here to talk about work?” Dr. Alder asks, lifting one brow in challenge. The autumn breeze blows a bit of hair over her face and Tally has to resist the urge to reach up and tuck the wayward strand behind her ear. That tickle is in the back of her brain, but it’s more aggressive this time, insistent.
Autumn. Her fingers running along the alliums.The dark cascade of hair in the autumn breeze free of their usual braid. Alliums don’t bloom in the autumn.
“Professor, are you alright?” Dr. Alder asks, worry pinching her brow. No, not Dr. Alder—
“ Sarah ,” she breathes her name like it’s a revelation and the mirage they’ve been wading through for the past eternity of wasted time fades away.
“Hello, Talia,” Sarah says, with a small genuine smile, blue eyes softening at the wonder of finally being seen.
“Goddess protect, that took too long,” Tally grouses, eyes raking over Sarah, drinking her in now that she knows to look through the illusion. She’s thinner than the last time she saw her, tired, but she doesn’t seem too worse for wear. But then Sarah always was good at hiding the things that hurt.
“You always see through the illusion quickly. It usually takes the others much longer to realize we aren't awake. That this isn't real.”
“You never wear your hair like this for me in person. You're never this soft.” She reaches up and toys with one of the inky curls, coiling it round and round her finger before finally tucking it behind Sarah’s ear.
There are other things that give it away, but they feel too raw to say out loud. Too precious to voice in the bubble of whatever space they have before Tally wakes and has to try and remember the scraps of Sarah she can paste together from these few stolen moments. Like the way she always smells wrong in these spectral visits. It's disturbing how close it is, the heady gardenia sweetness floating on a breath of petrichor, like the aftermath of a summer storm. She’d know the intoxication of that scent anywhere, but there's a poisoned wrongness to it in these visits; the bitterness of coppery blood and cold iron that cuts through the usual comfort it brings that reminds Tally she's not really here, that this isn’t her Sarah. She's goddess knows where, wrapped in chains and collars that suffocate her magic enough to keep her body bound, battered, and bleeding or she would have come back to them all by now. Come back to her a traitorous part of her heart whispers.
“There must be more to it than that,” Sarah scoffs.
“Probably because I’m a knower, or it could be a remnant of—” Sarah’s hand flashes out and grabs her thigh just above her knee, blue eyes wide with a fear so acute and sudden it stops the sentence cold in Tally’s throat.
“Sarah, what is it?”
She just shakes her head sharply, a clear indication that this isn’t something they should talk about, not here.
Tally nods, an agreement to let it go. For now. But as Sarah begins to withdraw her hand, Tally snags her fingers and tangles them together, keeping her from pulling away, her thumb drawing soothing patterns along Sarah’s wrist until some of that fear fades from her eyes.
“How's Ana? Your sisters?” Sarah asks after a moment.
“Don't distract me, Sarah. We don't have time for small talk.”
“I don’t get many updates these days, it’s only polite. And I do want to know how they are; I miss them too.”
“Let us bring you home and you can see for yourself.” Tally presses, tugging on their joined hands until Sarah is fully facing her. “Where are you?”
“Hopefully somewhere you'll never find me. Please stop trying.”
Beep beep. Beep beep.
From the other side of the bench the mechanical beeping of a watch alarm breaks into the conversation.
“No! It’s too soon,” Tally cries, glaring at the watch like it’s wronged her.
“Talia, it’s time to wake up.”
“I have until the sixth alarm—”
“It’s not worth the risk and we both know it. Go. Now.” Sarah pulls her fingers away from Tally’s hold, folding in on herself like a collapsing house of cards.
“I’ll see you again soon.”
“We both know you’re too stubborn not to.”
“We’re going to find you, Sarah.” I’m going to find you , she promises silently, pressing it across what’s left of the bond they used to share that Tally still feels sometimes like a phantom limb.
Beep beep. Beep beep.
There is a look of resignation on Sarah’s face that cracks something in Tally’s chest that leaves her feeling hollow and cold. Sarah’s hand comes up and cups her face, her thumb lazily grazing her cheek a few times before she uses the hold to tip Tally’s face so she can lean down and press a kiss to her forehead. The touch lingers, long enough for Tally to feel the chapped roughness of her lips that are normally plush and smooth, to notice the way Sarah breathes deep before pulling away, as if she’s trying to memorize the smell and feel of her even in this facsimile of a moment. “I hope you don't, darling, for both our sakes. Go. ”
Tally wakes with a gasp in the familiar grey bowls of the necropolis, the warmth of Sarah’s lips lingering on her forehead, the smell of petrichor, blood, and a hint of the harbor still there before her next breath steals it away.
“Well? Anything? Did it work? Did you see her?” Anacostia’s questions come rapid fire from her left, voice anxious under the authority.
“Give her a moment to catch her breath Ana,” Izadora’s admonishment comes from her right.
But Tally doesn’t need a moment, not now, not when they might finally be making some progress. She sits up in the padded leather lounger, face split in a fully dimpled smile bright enough to call the sun to the darkness of the necro lab. “It worked. I think she’s somewhere in Boston.”