Immortal Memory (Iris' Atlantis 1)

2: Tattoo

Timothy

I stared at a small porcelain angel and in my mind counted, slowly, from twenty to zero. In Mandarin Chinese. Last week I had been to my aunt's to reconnect a cable that she had misplugged after a proper dusting. And this week my sister had decided to share an image, or a collection of images, via a drive link. Which, naturally, my dear, old Aunt Chime hadn't found (because her email had labeled the link as spam) or dared to click after I had instructed her where to find it.

Plus, she had decided to call me at six thirty. She found that a perfectly respectable time to rise from bed. I found it closer to my definition of in the middle of night. Yet, here I was, the clock hardly eight.

I suppressed an urge to crash the nearest ornate vase filled with hand made paper flowers and instead smiled up at my aunt benignly as she exclaimed:

"Oh, so, how did you do that? I didn't see, you were too fast!"

So I repeated the process, slowly. First, going over the fact that even as the message was labeled spam, it was absolutely safe to click a link it contained (Yes, even against the computer's warning) since we knew the sender, and consequently knew to expect the message and the link.

"Oh, my God, but that is so confusing these days. I just don't know what to trust!" She told me afterwards.

As a thanks, I got some of her delicious cinnamon cookies.

I walked toward the train station with my box of sugary delights and admitted to myself that I hadn't gone through the trouble for nothing. I wouldn't tell that to Mimosa. My sister deserved to think I was furious with her. Why couldn't she have compressed the images to some reasonable size and sent those as an attachment? Why go through the trouble of giving our old near sighted Aunt Chime the full resolution? I wouldn't have been surprised if her computer had crashed over the immense information overload it had just received.

Then again. My sister saw Aunt Chime rarely. Once or twice a year didn't leave a strong impression of anyone's persona. Or technical skills. Not if you weren't a vampire at least...

And I did have a box full of academic motivation to share with Lavender and Clover. It had become a habit for the three of us to have lunch together. Sometimes Valentina showed as well, but she was rather busy between her self defense club and Master's Thesis on her plate. She also assisted a class to my understanding. Which one, I wasn't sure, but I thought it had something to do with semantics, maybe... Or was it lexicography? Something to do with the meaning of words. I wasn't really into grammar and preferred the study of texts. Credits for reading and analyzing novels felt almost cheating. Even in French.

Especially now that I had friends to study with. Even Clover's weird amulet permeated presence didn't feel half as bad. She was nice company. Even for a witch.

Witches... I had seen a few in my years of absence. They had their own way of living that set them often a bit apart of the rest of the society. Even vampires melted in better, despite our diurnal slumber...

Their diurnal slumber.

I made my way to the university in my thoughts and with a slight frown. I was a human. There was no doubt of it. Was there? Sometimes... Sometimes I felt... I was more aware of people's auras. The feeling wasn't acute. I couldn't instantly tell what people felt. But I definitely felt presences. And could still distinguish between them. Somewhat at least. I could most certainly tell Valentina and Lavender apart without looking in their direction. I knew if one of them was behind my back.

I stopped in my tracks.

I slipped the cookie box to rest in the crook of my arm. Took off the glove in my left hand. And pressed two naked fingers against a warm spot in my own neck. I felt the veins bulging and releasing the pressure, in a steady rhythm. A pulse beat in me.