Page 78 of The Shadows Beyond
“Did you ever see her parents? At the roadside, or in the garden?”
“No. They both survived the crash.” Well, their bodies did, at least. With their only daughter dead, however…
“And how did the slip end?”
“I remember watching Emma swing forward and back, forward and back. And like a pendulum, I started to feel sleepy. My eyes started closing for longer and longer, and eventually, they stayed closed.”
Noir’s furious scribbles dashed across the page. “And how did you return?”
“To my mum shaking me.”
“Shakingyou?”
“Yeah, because I was asleep! Well, I was to her, anyway.”
“I would have thought she’d have got a paramedic to look at you, as you were unconscious.”
“I don’t know, maybe she did!” After a breath, Cinn consciously returned his volume to normal to continue, “I woke up, and we went home.”
“Did the police want to talk to her about the crash?”
“What? That’s got nothing to do with this… record,” Cinn said, gesturing to Noir’s book.
With a snap, Noir closed his notebook. “Quite right. I suppose, what I really wanted to say, was that you shouldn’t carry any guilt with you about that girl’s death, Cinn.”
“I don’t!” A sour taste arose in the back of his mouth.
Two bushy eyebrows flew up in time with two palms. “Alright, quite right. I think we should leave it there for today, then. You’ve got plenty of reading to be getting on with, anyway.”
Cinn half stood, but then sat down again. He’d almost forgotten something. Something very important, ahead of their next attempt to contact Béatrice tonight.
“Before I go, I wanted to ask you what you knew about how shadowslippers bring spirits back to this realm with them. Like I accidentally did when those four people died.” He bit his lip. He still wasn’tcompletelyconvinced his secret plan to find a way to bring Béatrice back to talk to the other three directly was the best idea. Although, it did hold a certain appeal—the look of elation on Julien’s face for one, plus then Cinn needn’t panic about asking her all the right questions.
“You shouldn’t need to worry about that, not with your warding device.” Noir nodded at Cinn’s wrist.
“I know, I know, but say Iwantedto bring someone back, for a short amount of time—” He cut himself off at Noir’s rapid blinking, his pipe frozen on the way to his mouth. “I mean, completely theoretically. Before, you said you’d do some research into how exactly I was able to bring spirits back, the very few times I’ve done it.”
“I am still in the process of that research.”
Great.He’d alarmed Noir for no reason.
“It seems that very, very few shadowslippers have ever experienced that particular quirk. In fact, there’s only one record of such a person.”
For a moment, his heart inflated with the hope of meeting someone else like him. Then he remembered he was the only shadowslipper currently alive.
“Shall we reconvene tomorrow, hmm?” The old man appeared deadly serious as he reached forward to grasp his arm. “I hope you’re taking care of yourself, Cinn.”
After promising that he was, Cinn freed himself and let himself out, rummaging around in his rucksack for his A Tribe Called Quest cassette. His hand paused, however, at a shadow slinking out from behind a corner. Cinn fought to suppress a smile. This was the third day in a row—making iteveryday since their return from Paris—that Julien had been waiting for him when he’d finished with Noir. And just like those other times, Julien had in his hand a black coffee from Curio Café Collective, ready to pass to him.
“Thanks,” Cinn said, beginning the long walk down the many sets of spiralling stairs. He still avoided the so-called ‘elevators’. Surely they weren’t suitable for coffee carrying, anyway.
Cinn wasn’t sure what sort of message Julien was trying to communicate with the coffee, exactly.
‘Yo, I’m your friendly coffee-bringing buddy who can one hundred percent be just friends with you?’
‘I didn’t want to kiss you when we fucked, but now I’ll bring you coffee every day to fuck with your feelings?’
Except he couldn’t quite get animage out of his head. A snapshot of the expression Julien had worn on his face moments before Cinn left him alone in that alleyway in Paris. Surprised, yes, but underneath it, the unmistakable hint of despair, and even regret.
