He swallowed and swallowed, one hand still clenching the wrench. Was his sense of taste back, or was this just a trick of the mind? Was he only remembering the flavor of Juicy Fruit? He spit the gum into a far corner and went scrabbling into the cigar box. His fingers shook as he unwrapped a Tootsie Roll. He held it to his nose first. Nothing. No. Wait. A low fudgy note, here and gone, like a flirtatious tap on the shoulder. He bit off one end, closed his eyes and chewed.

Yes. No… Yes.

Like the scent, the chocolate taste came and went. Shyly touched his tongue and ran away.

It wasn’t back.

But it was coming back.

He opened his eyes and the room blurred hot and wet. He picked up an oily rag nearby and sniffed it. Nothing. He dug into a coffee can of washers and held the handful to his nose. A little puff of metallic rust. He trawled the workbench, loopy with the need to put anything and everything to the smell test. He needed to get the world back into his mouth.

That was when a blast of cold air swirled behind him. He turned to see Astrid slip inside the boathouse, close the door and lean back against it. Windblown. No coat. She held his journal to her chest.

The Way He Wrote It

They stared.

Faintly, across the space between them, a clean, bright scent beckoned. Tantalizing and elusive. Kennet took a step, wanting it.

Then it was gone. But Astrid was here.

He breathed in and swallowed. “Whose little girl are you?”

Her returned gaze made him feel hot all over.

“So, Captain Fish,” she said, “are we doing this the hard way or the easy way?”

In one dizzying swoop, the blood drained from his head and pooled below his belt. Harder than he’d been on the battlefield, harder than he’d ever been in his life, he answered, “Easy.”

She opened the notebook to a page marked by her finger. She walked toward him, reading aloud:

I am, honest to God, blushing right now.

Oh what the hell, I can write it here. I’m not long for this world so I can tell you everything in these pages. You’ll never know.

But maybe you will. Maybe you, future Asta, is reading this last entry of my diary, because Hook sent it to you after I was killed tomorrow.

In which case I hope, honest to God, you are blushing too, as you read these words to the last and learn the truth: joining the Army helped put you behind me, but war has only confirmed that I will love—