Mortal Clay, Stone Heart and Other Stories in Shades of Black and White by Eugie Foster

Author:Eugie Foster
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: short stories, fiction fantasy contemporary, eugie foster, awardwinning fiction, fiction fantasy short stories, fiction fairy tales folk tales legends mythology, fiction fantasy historical

A Nose for Magic

I thought I was just being a normal guy when the first thing that dazzled me about Lauren was her fragrance. I would discover it was about as normal as metal-noise-grindcore-ambient music. But working in the computer lab that day, I was transfixed by her scent. It was a floral blend—hibiscus, wild tulip, and honeysuckle—nice, but standard. But as she explained how her pet had mauled a semester’s worth of research papers, all stored on the CD she brandished, I caught a trace of dark chocolate and balsam, and like a memory of sweetness, honey. The combination was so unusual, I barely heard her. I only realized she’d finished talking when she handed me her disc.

Obvious teeth marks stippled and scraped along it. Cat, perhaps? Or maybe a toy poodle?

“I don’t know if I can salvage anything,” I said. “In the future, there’s this thing you can do to prevent losing data—”

“Make backups?” I scented cayenne pepper and cardamom. It matched her tone, arch and rueful. “I assure you, that lesson has been seared into my psyche.”

I grinned. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Ginger and white pepper.

I spritzed the CD with fix-it solution. I had my doubts, but this stuff was the closest thing to a miracle I had. The acrid smell blotted out her perfume, clearing my sinuses like a sluice of ice water.

When I finished wiping the disc, the scarring was gone. “This doesn’t look so bad.” I stuck it in my drive.

Vanilla and fig.

Was she carrying a spice rack? My nose is quirky sensitive, which has its drawbacks when I’m in classes filled with techie geeks who can hack any software program but can’t figure out the proper application of soap. Now it had me good and truly confounded.

“What perfume are you wearing?” I blurted.

“I’m not. Can’t stand the stuff.”

“Huh.” The drive whirred like a trooper, giving its all. It could’ve been singing Gilbert and Sullivan for the life of me. “Do you use a special shampoo?”

She tugged at her hair, auburn and wavy. “Nope. Just some drugstore brand; I think it’s supposed to smell like blueberries. That affects my CD how?”

“Oh, sorry.” My face heated several degrees. “I just wondered.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Huh?”

She tapped my monitor. “Is it working?”

“Uh. I mean, yeah. I’m reading your files.”

“Thank God!” She leaning over the desk and kissed my cheek. “And thank you.”

I lost sensation in my toes and fingers as all the blood vacated my extremities. “N-no problem. Want me to burn you a backup?”

“A thousand yeses.”

I fumbled a blank disc out and stuck it in the burn tray. While the computer hummed to itself, a heady bouquet of wild sage and red wine permeated the air.

“You’ve just saved two lives, y’know,” she said. “I was ready to skin Koushee and then throw myself off the roof of the astronomy building.”

Circulation dribbled back to my brain piecemeal. “Koushee’s your cat?”

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