SCOTLAND 2054
IT WAS LEóN CAZARES ’ S first day as a barista-in-training, serving up an unholy quantity of pistachio-milk lattes to the patrons of Waterstones, Edinburgh.
Unfortunately, he was not particularly good at it.
He was good at clothes.
He’d spent his twenties studying fashion at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Barcelona, travelling the world with a backpack and an empty suitcase, hoarding the most curious and unusual vintage garments from far-flung lands, and interning under many of the fashion greats (and several overhyped frauds) before eventually launching his own luxury line. Casa Cazares had been slow to get off the ground and initially bemused critics, what with its eccentric collation of historical cuts and intricate beadwork, strange textiles and mishmashed styles, but León didn’t especially care. Acclaim had never been his purpose; only joy.
Everything had changed, however, when a BAFTA-winning actress had worn Casa Cazares to the Met Gala.
Gracie Blythe was precisely as eccentric as her choice of raiment. The gala’s theme had been ‘troubled sea’ and, rather than opting for the ethereal oceanic satins of her peers, she’d chosen a scarlet silk gown adorned with a startling array of buttons, coupled with a cropped damask waistcoat and a chunky gold cross necklace – a look closely inspired by a Golden Age pirate called Le Joli Rouge.
When she’d made best-dressed lists around the globe, Gracie had sent a personal thank-you note to León, which had made him cry quite profoundly, though he couldn’t say for certain why.
He didn’t know why watching her act on screen was such a comfort to him, or why her voice spread warmth through his chest every single time he heard it, or why he often lost entire days to watching her press junkets. She had legions of similarly devout fans, of course – she was playful and hilarious, cruel-tongued and spiky, and she could make anything sound interesting. She bled charisma.
But it wasn’t just charisma that drew him to her. Their connection felt strangely intimate, and not in the unbalanced parasocial way of her other obsessed fans. It was as though he missed her, on some level, even though they’d never met. The personal note had felt curiously like a full-circle moment.
León was no stranger to these peculiar existential tugs . Sometimes he’d visit a new city on a buying trip, only to be overcome by the sense that he’d been there before, and not just as a tourist – no, he had lived in the intimate seams of the place, had known them like his own heartbeat.
There was also the vague sense that he was searching for something – something ephemeral and elusive, as powerful as it was intangible. Perhaps that was the real reason he was drawn to foreign lands. Perhaps that was why he’d become so hell-bent on establishing Casa Cazares in every major capital in the world.
How could he ever find it if he stayed in one place for too long?
Upon arriving in Edinburgh several months ago – ostensibly to open a new boutique on Princes Street – there had been a profound click of the world slotting into place, like a magnet’s north pole finally finding south.
‘You’re doing it wrong,’ said the blue-haired barista beside him. She was short and round, with as many piercings on her face as there were freckles. Her apron was covered in cake crumbs.
‘Oh,’ said León cheerfully, brushing his dark curls out of his face, not too troubled by his failure.
In fact, he didn’t really understand why he’d taken the job in the first place, other than some vague, inexplicable instinct. The shifts would distract from his now world-renowned fashion line, of course, and the people he worked with thought his little sabbatical was almost certainly a sign of complete psychological breakdown. His personal assistant and closest confidante, Madge, had been rather vocal about it.
But a little over a month ago, he’d come to the Waterstones cafe to grab a book of photography and a pumpkin spice latte – his taste in coffee had never been especially sophisticated – and within a moment of walking through the doors, he’d been overcome with a sense of rightness . The utterly illogical and entirely absurd suspicion that this was an important place to be, in that grand and nonsensical search of his.
And so he’d followed the instinct, just like he’d followed the peculiar urge to open a shop in Edinburgh instead of Lima. There was a fairly high chance Madge would assassinate him at any moment, but he didn’t care much.
This mattered. Somehow, it mattered.
Hope flickered in his chest, bright and strong in the cupped hands of his ribs.
I still believe.
He did not know what the internal words pertained to, exactly, but he felt them so often, so viscerally, that they were a familiar comfort, a perpetual lighthouse beckoning him home, a mantra and a faith and a purpose.
Outside, the day was cloudy and autumnal. The castle on the hill was circled in gold and bronze foliage, and shoppers bustled up and down the pavements in puffy coats and plaid scarves. A tram glided past, whipping up a sudden gust of wind and red-brown leaves. There was the distant sound of bagpipes bleating at tourists, as well as the clatter of cups and saucers, the soft turning of pages. Just as León’s eyes were drifting back to the now-burnt pistachio milk in the brushed-steel jug, his gaze snagged on something.
Or rather, someone .
A tall, broad-shouldered man of around León’s age, with short ginger hair soft enough to run fingers through. He wore tortoiseshell glasses and a cream cable-knit sweater – dotted with several climate action pins – and carried with him a neat oxblood satchel, which he looped over the back of a seat by the window.
León dropped the milk jug to the floor with a metallic crash, heart bucking fiercely in his chest.
The redhead lowered himself into the chair, and arranged his teapot on the table. The steam swirled up from the spout, illuminated by the pale-grey light filtering through the window. Then he sank a ringless hand into the leather satchel and pulled out a fountain pen and a notebook.
A notebook.
And then, from the shopping bag on his lap, he withdrew another book. Black cover, gold lettering. Ten Hundred Years of You . Author unknown.
Everything in León soared.
He couldn’t explain it, why the sight of this book was a thunderclap, why this entirely unknown person made him feel like melting into a puddle on the ground, made him feel like running out into the street and whooping for joy, made him feel like confetti cannons and streaming banners, like an orchestra reaching a crescendo.
Why it made him feel like a lifelong search had finally borne fruit.
His heart had always felt like fallow ground; barren, haunted by something that had once flourished there but had since wilted. And yet, at the sight of this perfect stranger, that fallow ground began to stir, ripen, as though new life were sprouting from ancient roots.
Ignoring the blasphemy streaming from his supervisor’s mouth, León stepped out from behind the counter and walked, dazed, towards the stranger with the notebook.
As he approached, the stranger looked up, and their eyes met with an impossible lurch, and the whole world grew still and silent, the very axis of the earth tilting in some fundamental way.
An eternity sprawled out between them, acres and acres of emotion and hope and grief, a force so powerful it stole the breath from León’s lungs, almost made him bend double at the waist, or burst into a lifetime of unshed tears, or something, something –
‘Excuse me,’ he said, breathless. ‘Have we met before?’