Page 122 of Aftertaste

He repeated the names of the ingredients over and over, the words stretching thin, until the syllables barely made sense.

Nothing.

What had Frankie told him? That every memory carried a particular flavor. A taste. That the Food Hall just needed to know what to serve him.

He tried again.

Cava, he thought.I need Cava. Bubbly. Dry. Slight tang. Acidic, but with a sweet resolution. Warm in the throat.

And this time, he felt it, a voice like honey, coming from somewhere inside him.What does that feel like?

Kostya hesitated for only a moment before offering it up; he hadn’t thought of it in years.

The time he’d gone into Olympia Diner to steal sugar and half-and-half, had been stuffing packets into his backpack when a waitress caught him, a girl he knew, Demi Papadakis, who’d switched schools in sixth grade but remembered him, and instead of kicking him out she’d given him a burger on the house, said sorry about his dad, told him she’d lost her mom that spring.

The Food Hall took it—he could almost feel the way it left his mind, like being sucked through a straw—and a moment later, a bottle of Cava appeared, its bubbles so delicate, impossibly fine.Sweet resolution. Slight tang. Warm in the throat.

The gin took a night he spent camping with his dad, mosquitoes biting through his sleeping bag.

Lemon was when Alexis dumped him, standing there in the threshold, the way she’d yanked Freddie Mercury’s leash from Kostya’s hand.

Luxardo cherry was the first time he had sex.

The patchouli oil was harder, difficult to match until he remembered his first fatherless birthday, the bouquet that arrived—that his dad had scheduled—the way his mother had thrown it in the trash, but the scent still lingered, the smell of decay.

WHEN ANNA APPEARED,it wasn’t in a shower of sparks. Her light was dim now, cast in shadow. Her face hollow. Like there was barely anything left in her to save.

“Please,” Kostya begged, “forgive me.”

He handed her the glass.

Her sips were tentative at first, but with each one, light flooded back into her face. Halfway through, her cheekbones softened, grew less sharp. Her face filled out, to the way it had looked the first time she’d appeared, aghost in The Library of Spirits. By the time she finished, she was beautiful, aglow, all emerald green, and as she set her glass down at his station, he watched his kitchen flood with brilliant, golden light.

It was coming from the windows. A train.

Not the 6, but something else.

Kostya watched her board the gleaming car, ride away through the tunnel. On to her next journey. Her next life.

Then he got to work.

ONE BY ONE,he brought the spirits back.

There were hundreds of ingredients, each a little piece of him.

An angry outburst at his mother traded for Tabasco sauce.

His first day stocking the bodega shelves became saltines.

The lie he’d told Maura—that he’d stopped with the ghosts, one and done—a greasy tin of smoked sardines, marinated in the time his classmates saw him dumpster dive for food.

He was frugal with his ingredients. Saved lemon halves to use again. Pinches of salt. Pats of butter. He tried to keep himself whole for as long as he could. But even so, after a dozen spirits moved along, he felt an emptiness press in, a dim ring haloing the edges of his mind, and knew that it was time. Ready or not. No more delays.

There was one dish he’d avoided out of nerves and insecurities, but it, more than any other, needed him coherent. Comprehending.There.

Because it wasn’t just closure for the spirit; it was Kostya’s closure, too.

When he summoned the ingredients of his father’s dish—his own death, and winning Viktor’s competition, lying in the grass with his dad when he was six, and how it felt at DUH, hearing Maura tell her truth—his breath caught in his throat. He didn’t know if he could face his dad now. If he could handle seeing what his grief, his refusal to let go, had done. Wouldhe be angry? Hangry? A shell of a man, consumed by the Hunger Kostya had unleashed? Did he still carry scars, all these years later, from the words Kostya shouted as he left the house?

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