Nine

A

t my request, Finn and I agreed to meet at Full Belly Deli at the base of Felton Highway. I questioned my brilliant idea of putting a dab of maple extract behind my ears—I didn’t own perfume—when a man on the bus looked at me like he hadn’t had pancakes in years. I scooted closer to the window.

Finn was already at the deli when I arrived, waiting for me at a booth in the corner. He sipped a soda and looked distractedly out the window. I paused a moment, my nerve faltering at the sight of him, unbearably handsome with his full lips and classical nose. But it was the rough of him, the unpolished bits, that made my blood run hot. That messy blue-black hair, the scruff of beard, the spiral tattoo peeking out of his collar that teased me with mysteries carved in stones in the fog-drenched moss of Ireland.

His hand relaxed on the aluminum table, long fingers splayed out on the shiny surface. I could see the reflection of it underneath, like two hands resting together. I wished it were my palm pressed flat against his.

I willed myself to move forward. “Hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

Finn’s head jerked up. A smile tugged at the corner of one side of his mouth, making his dimple show. He stood and ran his hands down the back of my arms, sending warmth through my body, then motioned for me to sit. “Are you hungry?”

“No, thanks. I brought some snacks for us,” I said, hoping it’d be a nice surprise. “There’s something I want to show you.”

We walked outside to the blue Mustang. The top was down. It was a great day for a convertible. The morning mist had burned off, leaving a brilliant and clear late May afternoon. I got in and stretched my arms over my head.

Finn flashed his charismatic smile at my pleasure. “What?” I asked, leaning my head back and looking at the limitless sky. “I’ve never been in a convertible before. And it’s perfect for where we’re going.”

He started the car. “I’m intrigued.”

I directed him up the winding canyon. Sun gave way to shade as a canopy of trees arched over our heads. With the top down, it was easy to smell the shift from the grit of the city streets to the dank, earthy richness of the forest.

Finn’s hand tickled the back of my neck. “I love it when your hair is up like that. You have a beautiful neck.”

Okay, wow. “Not bad on the swoon-o-meter.” I wanted to resist the bait, yet I longed to turn my cheek into the warmth of his palm.

“Turn here,” I instructed when we reached Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. We drove past the wide green meadow of the redwood park entrance. I bubbled with excitement at showing Finn something most people would never see in their lifetime.

We walked side by side to the trailhead. “This,” I said, gesturing to the path that wound through the redwood grove, “is one of my favorite places in the universe.”

He craned his neck back and gaped at the towering sentinels above us. “They’re bloody enormous. I never imagined trees so large. How often do you come here?”

“A couple times a month. But I usually come alone.”

He reached tentatively for my hand so that just our fingertips touched. The small contact sent a delicious thrill through me. “And you brought me. I’m flattered.” He pulled my hand all the way into his. I wondered if he felt the tickling pulse of energy like a soft feather pressed between our palms.

I led him from tree to tree, watching him marvel at their majesty, enjoying his observations of the clay-earth color of the bark, the prehistoric appearance of the branches and foliage, how each trunk looked like enormous beasts had used them for sharpening their claws. Finn stopped to read each and every placard along the trail.

We ducked inside an enormous redwood trunk scarred with a gaping black hole from an ancient lightning strike. In this enclosed space, my senses were heightened. I was aware of the warmth Finn emitted when he stood behind me, the way our auras took up more space than our bodies did. My skin warmed when he gently touched my waist to follow me back out into the light.

“These trees are magical. But there’s a secret in these woods that most people don’t know about. Do you want to see?” I asked, unable to contain my smile.

Finn stopped in the path, a slant of sunshine illuminating his face. The same warmth shone across my nose and cheek as though there was a spotlight trained on us against the backdrop of the forest’s muted greens, reds, and browns. “These trees aren’t the only thing magical about this place.” Finn cocked his head to the side. “What is it about you, Cora Sandoval?”

“Are you being rhetorical?” I worried he somehow knew how different I was. But there was something about him as well. It radiated from him, intense and luminous. His golden-pink aura pulsed and vibrated into an ever-widening and intensifying pool of light. I couldn’t doubt what I could see with my own eyes. Finn was beautiful.

Physically, yes. But it was like I could see his soul. Who he really was. He was easygoing and gentle, soft ripples instead of roaring waves. I couldn’t see the undercurrents beneath his smooth surface, but the danger of his riptide pulled me in. I saw he had fear as well, concentrated in a ball of yellow near his stomach, like it was protecting something inside. I wondered if that’s what a secret looked like in someone’s aura. I couldn’t judge him if it was. Everyone had things they were afraid to reveal. I was keeping a huge secret, and the reason was pure fear.

Finn was strong, too. It showed in the intensity and depth of his colors. I’d seen this blend of colors coming off him before but hadn’t known what it meant. I knew now. He was attracted to me. I didn’t have to guess at it, I could read it. I could feel it with every beat of my heart in my chest.

His colors enveloped me as he drew closer, his eyes never leaving mine except to stray to my mouth and back again. Everything in me ached to have him touch me, to kiss me here in this hushed palace of ancient trees. Both hands reached for me, cradling my face. His fingers curved onto my cheekbones, behind my ears, into my hair. His thumbs ran gently across the surface of my lips to their outer edges.

I opened my mouth to him even before his lips were on mine. When he crushed me with his kiss, it was with an intensity of passion contained for years, not days—it was like we’d waited centuries, lifetimes, to feel each other’s lips.

The unleashed force of connection rushed out of my body toward him.

Finn gasped against my lips and kissed me deeper. Hungrier.

My body responded to his fire by sparking to life. This want was loud, crashing against my skin, burning me from the inside out. Shockingly assertive thoughts swam through my mind. I wanted to pin him against the trunk of a tree, run my tongue along the curve of his upper lip, taste him.

Rough bark scratched my knuckles. I opened my eyes. Finn’s were wide open and wild. I had done exactly as I was thinking. I had him pressed, captive, against the tree. His fingers dug into my hips. My silver aura flared from my hand against his neck, blending with the heat from his skin. A mystical merging of our colors.

I pulled away, breathless, sure my face was as flushed as his, my lips as pink and slightly swollen. “Is that how—how it’s supposed to be?”

Finn smirked. I spun and tramped down the path, feeling noticeably colder with every step away from him. I heard his footsteps jog up behind me. “Cora, wait.” His words bubbled with laughter. He slipped his arm around my waist.

“You’re laughing at me!” I tried to slip from his grasp, though I didn’t actually want to.

“No. No, I’m not laughing at you.” His face turned serious and his voice soft. “If that’s how it’s supposed to be, Cora, then I’ve never had a true kiss before today.”

I peered into his eyes, seeking the lie, but found only sincerity.

“This is strange for me, to be so drawn to someone.” His brown eyes looked startled when he said that. “You affect me, warm me.” His fingers touched my cheek. “I don’t know of anyone who could feel this and not want more of it.”

I sighed, agreeing completely. It was strange to be so drawn to each other. The sudden intensity of our attraction and connection was inexplicable, but I couldn’t deny it was there. I’d be the last to demand that everything make perfect sense. So much of my life, lately, didn’t. “You’re only here temporarily, right? Are we stupid to get involved, knowing that?”

“Choices, luv. We either regret the experiences we have, or the ones we were too scared to have.”

How could I argue with that? My entire life had been ruled by stop signs. My father didn’t trust me to make my own decisions about dating, but wasn’t it time I trusted myself?

My fingers wound over his warm hand on my cheek. He kissed my forehead and sealed an internal truce within me. I’d choose the experience. I’d allow myself to have this, which I thought was a colossal act of bravery on my part.

Finn was the first thing I’d ever done just for me.

“C’mon,” I murmured, ducking under the split-rail fence intended to keep people from treading on the delicate ecosystem of the redwood forest. “We’re out of bounds, so be careful and step exactly where I do, okay?”

“Out of bounds? Are you a closet rebel, Cora?”

I looked back at him conspiratorially. “I got permission from the park to break this one rule. I told them I was doing a story for school.” I led him through the forest undergrowth, around large sword ferns, wild ginger, and redwood sorrel that looked like clover on steroids. “But my dad has lots of rules. No dating is the new one on his list.”

Finn gave me a deep, inquiring look.

“My dad is overprotective. That’s the short answer.”

“And the longer, more interesting story is?”

I nudged his rib. “My mother abandoned us when I was five. I think it made him scared I’d disappear on him, too. Sometimes I want to be mad at him because he doesn’t trust me. Won’t give me the freedom to, I don’t know, even try to blow it. But mostly I feel bad for him because he lives so fearfully. I don’t want to go through life being so afraid of losing things that I never allow myself to enjoy them.”

“So, there’s your fear again.”

“Yes. I guess. But look how great I am at ignoring my fear today.” I bit my lip, quelling the unexpected emotions. I hadn’t realized how heavily my father’s sheltering weighed on me. It was like he trained me to be afraid.

“We have something in common,” Finn said. “When I said I couldn’t date you, it wasn’t some load of tripe. My parents are bloody overprotective as well. Makes no sense to me, but there you have it. Sometimes, I wish I had some brothers or sisters just to take the focus off me, you know?”

“I do know. I’m an only child, too. It’s unnatural to be the sun that your parents revolve around. Well, parent.” I couldn’t believe how easy it was to open up to him.

“What was it you wanted to show me? I can’t wait to see why we’re fence-hopping in a state park.”

A few feet away, sprouting from the base of a redwood, was the awesome secret I wanted to share with him. “It’s an albino redwood.” I pointed to a pure white tree in front of us. “It’s extremely special and rare. Some people say there are fewer than thirty albinos in the entire world.”

Finn reached toward it, but I stopped his hand. “They call them ‘the ghosts of the forest.’ I wanted to show you because you spoke about the ghosts inside us.”

“What makes them this way?” he asked, staring at the milky-white stems and needles. Surrounded by the world of green, the plant looked like a phantom. Eerie and beautiful. A cloud at eye level.

“Albinos are offshoots of the larger tree, the same in their essential genetics, but no one knows why they’re pure white,” I answered.

Just like I don’t know why I’m different.

I wondered: were some people made with pure white auras the way I was made pure silver? A mutation from what’s normal? I suddenly wanted very badly to talk about it. I even opened my mouth to begin, but I couldn’t admit how abnormal I was. I didn’t want to scare away the most sweet, the most normal thing in my life.

Faye had said, It’s a risk you shouldn’t take. No matter how much you trust them…

We reached the fence and ducked back under, walking out of the grove hand in hand, both of us lost in thought. It was quiet, with only the sounds of birds, the gentle hum of insects, and the occasional plod of a runner jogging past.

Above the San Lorenzo River, we ate the sandwiches I brought while I told Finn how I liked to come here during rainstorms because I had the park to myself. My own private Eden. He told me about his Eden—the eastern coast of Ireland—and I listened raptly. He loved to sail and talked about his boat like it was a lover. I learned his father was an army medic and gone most of the time. His mother, also a doctor, worked in a large hospital in Dublin. He planned to attend Trinity College in the fall. His parents expected him to go into medicine. “It’s the family occupation, but I want no part of it,” he confessed. “Music is my passion. To them, it’s just a hobby. To me, it’s air.”

We stopped talking and sat side by side, our shoulders touching, and watched the sun set through the giant trees. I gave him a chocolate-dipped strawberry. He gave me a kiss that tasted like spring.