A Trace of You

Jack wandered aimlessly through the narrow aisles of the old bookstore. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular – he just wanted a quiet corner to himself and this bookstore was the perfect place to find it.

It reminded him of happier and simpler moments in time. Moments where the brush of her hand made him blush, the excitement in her eyes when she picked out the perfect book for their picnic by the beach, and the moment where the words “I love you” accidentally slipped out of his mouth.

The memory made Jack’s eyes water as he made his way down the horror aisle. He never understood why she loved that specific genre; his interests leaned more toward the fantasy kind.

As he was absently trailing his fingers along the spines of the books, that’s when he saw her. She stood at the end of the aisle, flipping through the edges of worn pages with the kind of reverence that made the air around her seem almost sacred. Then Jack froze.

It shouldn’t have been possible. The curve of her jaw, the same faint dimple on her left cheek when she smiled, and the way her ears formed a slight point at the top making her look like a forest elf. It couldn’t be. He had buried her in memory; her face burning a permanent scar behind his eyelids.

Something about the way she turned the pages unsettled him. Her fingers barely grazed the paper, yet the book seemed to move soundlessly on its own. He held his breath, the edges of reality blurring at the sight.

Jack steadied himself against the shelf, his hand trembling. The movement made the woman move her face toward him, but only just a little bit to make Jack realize that she knew he was standing there.

“Lyra?” His voice came out as a whisper, tinged with hope, despair, and disbelief. The whole bookstore grew quiet that you could potentially hear a book being dog-eared.

At the sound of his voice, she looked up at him slowly, deliberately, as if she had been waiting for Jack to make the first move. As their gazes met, she tilted her head to one side, a knowing smile touched her lips. Her icy-ocean eyes pierced through him as she opened her lips to speak. “Cassiel, actually.”

Her voice was airy and melodic, like notes carried in the breeze along a forest path.

Jack’s heart dropped and his chest tightened. It was not her. What he would have given to run toward her, to feel her warmth in her embrace, to undo the past that echoed through in his memories.

It could not possibly be her. The woman he knew had eyes that reflected a forest on a cool summer day. The woman he knew, Lyra, was lost forever. This woman, Cassiel, standing here before him, was someone else entirely.

“Sorry, I thought you were someone I once knew,” Jack apologized as he tried to calm his pounding heart. “You look just like her.”

Cassiel stared back at him with curiosity, a smile forming on one side of her lips.

Jack broke the intense gaze, looking at anything else in the bookstore but at Cassiel. He felt self-conscious under her stare, as if she were scrutinizing his every movement. He looked back at her, meeting her eyes once again. The fact that she looked exactly like Lyra, except for her eyes, eerily drew him in.

“I’m sorry. I’ll leave you to it,” he spoke trying to snap out of her hypnotic stare. He could not stay a moment longer. Her face was Lyra’s. And every glance flooded him with memories he wasn’t ready to face.

As he hastily made his way out of the aisle, he heard her ethereal voice again. “Who is she? This… Lyra?”

Jack stopped in his tracks. How did he respond to that? How was he supposed to answer this complete stranger who donned the face of his past lover? Why even did she look exactly like her? Even that quirky goofy smile she gave him.

He turned his head to look back at her. “She’s… she was my wife.” The word wife splintered in his throat, cracking his voice. It hurt him to acknowledge the finality of it. Cassiel tilted her head again to the side and looked at him somberly; she looked at him curiously as if probing him to continue. Something about the way she moved and the way she rarely blinked made him think that she could not be real. Maybe Jack was hallucinating. It was eerie, the way she kept looking at him. It sent shivers down his spine.

“A-are you real?” Jack blurted out.

She glided toward Jack and gave a light chuckle, breaking the heaviness that filled the atmosphere. “I’m as real as the ocean is deep and the sky is endless.”

Unconsciously, Jack mimicked the way Cassiel had tilter her head earlier. “I don’t understand.”

Cassiel smiled at him warmly, the first gesture that made her seem less unearthly. Stopping only inches apart from Jack, she lifted her hand to cup his face. “What’s there to understand?”

At the touch, Jack was surprised to find that her hands were soft and warm. The tension that had built up inside vanished; he couldn’t explain how or why. As if Cassiel’s touch calmed the chaos in his mind – the same way Lyra had calmed his anxieties. Could it really be?

Before Jack could reach up to touch her hand that rested on his cheek, she dropped it gracefully and sauntered her way toward the front door.

“I’m Jack,” he called out before she could exit the store. Cassiel spun around, tilted her head, a knowing smile played on her lips. She did not speak a word. “Will I see you again?” His amber eyes wide with hope.

Cassiel tucked a strand of icy blonde hair behind one ear. “Only if you choose to.”

And with that, she left the bookstore, leaving a trail of violet aura in the air. Jack ran out after her, but she had vanished without a trace. This left Jack wondering if she was an apparition, the ghost of Lyra, her own person, or something entirely inhuman. He was so confused; she had felt so real. One thing he did know, his love for his deceased wife was undeniable, but he could not hold on to her forever.

The encounter with the mysterious woman had lifted something heavy from his chest, leaving him lighter, finally able to breathe again. Cold night air filled his lungs as he whispered, “Cassiel.” And in that single name, hope and wonder intertwined, lingering long after she had gone.

The End.