by Anne Barwell
"Crazy cat," he said to himself, testing the door was shut properly. From what he had seen, Donovan was rather protective of his car, and Tomas did not wish to provoke him further by leaving it exposed to the elements. However, cat fur and paw prints were not his problem. Cats were only responsible for themselves. It was one of the laws of the universe.
Deciding that the warning of dark glasses was merely Donovan being a smartarse, Tomas started walking slowly toward the large barn behind the inn. Glancing back to the hedgerows, he was able to get a clear view of the tree as he passed the gap that was one of the entranceways into the field. A small black shape was poised, stalking something, at the far end of Tomas's vision. All of a sudden it pounced, stilled for a moment, wriggled its back legs, and then took off running, speeding up until it grew smaller and smaller and could no longer be seen.
Feeling something wet land on his head, Tomas shifted his attention to the sky. He had not expected rain out of a clear blue sky, although the few clouds that had formed were quickly turning to grey. Another drop followed, then another, and Tomas broke into a run to avoid getting wet, hoping that either the barn was open or Donovan would be already waiting.
The barn was locked.
Tomas tugged on the door a couple of times, water dripping from his hair down the back of his neck, soaking into the collar of his shirt. The rain grew heavier and kept falling at a steady pace. Pressing himself back against the door, Tomas attempted to shelter under the eaves, hoping that Donovan would not be too much longer. It was growing chilly. He regretted leaving his jumper in his room. For a moment he debated risking a dash back to the inn to collect it, but he didn't want to miss Donovan or get any wetter. They could stop on their way out.
After what seemed a lot longer than the ten minutes he had been waiting, Tomas saw a lone figure walking slowly through the rain toward him, a large bag slung over one shoulder. Donovan was wearing a black jacket, cap, and... sunglasses?
Hadn't he noticed the rain and lack of sun? Snorting, Tomas gestured to the door with his hand and mouthed the word "locked." Donovan didn't see him. "It's locked," he yelled, pushing back hair from his eyes. Water dripped down his face. This was past getting annoying.
Donovan kept ambling slowly, fingering something in his pocket. His shoulders were hunched. He was not happy. "Damn coin toss," he muttered, coming into earshot. Walking past Tomas, Donovan pulled out a set of keys. Counting off two from the left, he inserted a key into the lock in the side door and turned the handle. Throwing the keys to Tomas, Donovan walked inside the barn. Tomas looked down at the collection of silver and gold in his hand and stopped, unsure whether to be amused or disturbed. A small fluffy white rabbit grinned up at him. It was dressed in worker boots and a bright pink and green coverall. Next to it a plastic plaque proudly proclaimed that it was important to save the earth as it was the only one with chocolate!
"Interesting key ring," Tomas said, following Donovan into the barn. Shaking the excess water off his clothes and bag, he glanced around his new surroundings. It was bright and airy, shelving covering one half of the wall space on the right side. Boxes were stacked in neat piles across the back wall. In the center of the barn was Heidi's Land Rover. It was.... Tomas looked again, just to make sure. "It's pink."
"Cerise," Donovan said rather testily, "but not all of it." He shuddered, adjusting his dark glasses. "It looks like something that damn cat brought in and puked on."
"Thanks for that visual," Tomas said dryly, trying to dismiss it from his mind. Schooling himself not to react, he circled the vehicle carefully. Donovan was right. Not about the cat, but about the color. Once it had been green, camouflage green, to be precise, but no longer. Patches of pink, cerise, Tomas corrected, were now splattered across it at random intervals. "Interesting paintjob. I didn't know Heidi was an artist."
Donovan snorted, pulling his cap farther down and tucking his braid up into it. "I told her she should just get those dents fixed, but no, can she do that? That would mean admitting she's not a great driver, which of course she won't. It's not her fault cars keep getting in her way. They should watch where they're going." He pointed to a big patch of cerise on the left side of the Land Rover. "That one was Daisy."
"Daisy?" Tomas stared at Donovan blankly, his imagination supplying visuals of Heidi ripping through the countryside like a player in a computer game clocking up points for everything hit and extra for each pedestrian. This was crazy. He definitely needed more sleep. Early mornings did not agree with him.
"The neighbor's cow. It took a fancy to Heidi's baby, God knows why." Donovan indicated another spot farther toward the front. "That one was the tree outside Sally's place. Apparently it moved during the night." Donovan rolled his eyes. "But yeah, no driving issues, and she gets bitchy as hell if you imply otherwise. She's got her pride, you know, and all that, and I kind of like my balls where they are, if you know what I mean."
Fighting the instinct to cross his legs, Tomas settled for leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. "Of course she has, and that sounds like a very sensible decision on your part."
"I call it self-preservation. I've got finely honed skills. Needed them to get this far." Donovan shrugged, opened the driver's door of the Land Rover, threw his bag onto the back seat, and climbed in. "You'll have to open the door first." He indicated the keys he'd thrown to Tomas. "I didn't give you those just to look at. The padlock's a bit temperamental, but once it's open, the doors shouldn't give you any trouble."
"A padlock on the inside?" Tomas strode over to the double doors. "Isn't that a bit extreme?"
"Heidi thinks that it keeps her precious car safe." Donovan rolled his eyes. "There's a padlock on the side door on the outside and another on these doors on the inside. If a thief is that determined, he deserves this thing."
Turning the key in the padlock, Tomas frowned when it cooperated halfway and then jammed. He pulled it out slightly and tried again. The lock looked older than the barn, and that was saying something, even if the barn was much more impressive on the inside than the outside. "She's very thorough," he said, trying the lock for a third time. Donovan was right. Anyone that determined to go through all this for a bright pink Land Rover more than deserved it.
"Yeah, considering she won the damn barn because of a coin toss." Donovan shrugged. "She was smug about it too, but hey, even friendship needs some give and take. I wouldn't hang out with someone who doesn't respect that, and Heidi and I have been friends a long time."
Another turn of the key, and the padlock came free. Tomas opened the doors and waited, adjusting his bag over his shoulder, unsure as to why Donovan was taking so long in getting whatever he was retrieving. Glancing between the vehicle and the now-open doors, his brain finally registered that the Land Rover was their mode of transport into the village. He walked around the other side of it, climbed inside, and examined the interior closely. The bright pink certainly seemed to be a consistent theme. The fluffy bunny hanging from the front windscreen in lieu of dice could only be described as disturbing. He took his bag off, putting it down at his feet, and leaned back against the seat after closing the car door carefully. It was comfortable, he'd give it that. "I need to change into something dry and get a jumper before we leave."
"There's a spare one and a T-shirt on the back seat. Help yourself." Donovan started to back the Land Rover out of the barn. He grinned. "It's mine, not hers, and not pink like that T-shirt you were wearing yesterday. Sorry. I have my pride, and this thing is not stopping until we reach town. The least amount of time I have to spend being seen in it the better."
"The T-shirt was caramel red," Tomas reminded him, pulling his current one over his head and using it to dry the excess moisture from his hair. Reaching over the back seat for the dry clothes, his shoulder hit the upholstery with a thump when Donovan crunched the gears and stalled.
"Fuck," Donovan muttered. The vehicle took off again, skidding through the gravel, sending small sto
nes scattering into a nearby flowerbed.
"You do know how to drive this thing, right?" Tomas looked in Donovan's direction, but he had his eyes squarely on the road, his knuckles white from gripping the steering wheel. Tomas opened his mouth to make a comment about being unaware that driving licenses were now available as giveaways in cereal packets but decided against it.
"Yes," Donovan replied curtly, his eyes still on the driveway. Shifting gears again, Donovan put his foot down, and the Land Rover shot past the inn, making a sharp turn toward the road leading off the property.
Shrugging on the clean T-shirt, Tomas tugged on it, trying to cover the gap between it and the top of his jeans. Donovan was about four inches shorter than he was, and the T-shirt looked as though it had shrunk. Donovan also seemed to have a preference for black, Tomas was noticing. He had worn not much else since they had met, and it matched the current choice of jacket and cap. And the dark glasses, of course.
The jumper, luckily, had stretched. Tomas pulled it on; the bottom of it hung loosely just below his hips, giving him some protection from the temperature, which was continuing to deteriorate along with the weather. Folding his arms, he settled back on the seat and fastened his seat belt. His wet T-shirt he left draped over the back seat, hoping it might dry somewhat before they returned.
Donovan, for his part, seemed to have lost his tendency to talk about everything and anything, no matter if anyone was actually listening. The next five minutes were spent in an uncomfortable silence, with Tomas wondering what the hell he had done wrong now. Maybe questioning Donovan's driving ability had not been the wisest of moves, even if he had not said as much on the subject as he would have liked.
Finally Donovan leaned forward and turned on the car stereo. It was tuned into a local radio station which seemed to be stuck in a time warp, judging by the DJ's ramble about how wonderful the nineties were. The music might have been okay, but the time itself was not one of which Tomas had any fond memories. He had felt like an outsider through high school, not part of the in-crowd but not fitting in with any of the others either. It had been a very lonely time in his life, with reading giving him the opportunity to escape to the realities he preferred.
Closing his eyes, he leaned his head back and tried to focus on the noise of the engine. Getting a feel for the village would be good research for his book, as it was set somewhere similar. Tomas preferred to have a template on which to base his descriptions; it helped him to keep things real, and that sense of reality would be as important in this kind of novel as it had been in his earlier ones. Changing the genre did not change the fact that stories were about people and relationships; those were what hooked the readers in and what had always drawn Tomas to the books he had enjoyed. Therefore, he tried to make his own characters as three-dimensional as possible when he wrote, something made easier when they, like their surroundings, drew their origins from what already existed.
The radio blared suddenly and then went quiet. Donovan muttered something under his breath and fiddled with the dials. Music obediently began playing again, the lyrics proclaiming some rubbish about love conquering all. Tomas snorted, folded his arms tighter around himself, and tried to ignore the fact his foot was keeping the beat.
"Not one of your favorites?" Donovan asked.
"I don't know it," Tomas said, opening his eyes. Donovan was watching him, although he was pretending to keep his eyes on the road. "I have no desire to send a search party after my lost teenage years. Once time is past, it is gone. I prefer it that way."
Donovan shrugged. "Memories are what you make of them. Life is full of good and bad. Perception's important too." The fields on either side of them were beginning to give way to cottages. They were getting closer to the village. Glancing at his watch, Tomas was surprised to see that twenty minutes had passed. He had lost track of time.
"Maybe." Tomas shifted his attention to the scenery outside. Many of these cottages still appeared, at least on the outside, to look the same as they had for hundreds of years. The illusion that time had stood still while the outside world had continued onward was ruined by the poles on either side of the road linking the old with the modern with their double-edged sword of communication and power.
"You're a hard guy to get a handle on, Tomas." Donovan slowed, slamming on the brakes when an old man and his dog stepped out onto the road without looking. The man looked up, pulled his coat tightly around him, and grinned at Donovan. When Donovan did not return the grin, the man shook his head and continued quickly across the road. Upon reaching the other side of the road, he turned and waved, his dog barking loudly at the Land Rover when Donovan did not wave back.
Tomas watched in the side vision mirror as the old man opened the gate leading to one of the cottages. The man had seemed amused rather than angered by Donovan's lack of response. Donovan hunched farther down into his jacket and started driving again, adjusting his dark glasses.
"A dark jacket and glasses only works as a disguise if you're in a bad movie." Tomas smirked. "Or trying out for a role in Men in Black, and you don't strike me as the type to go kicking alien arse for the good of the planet."
"I am totally capable of kicking alien ass," Donovan said indignantly, glaring. "If I want to wear black it's none of your damn business. I happen to like the color."
"I prefer it to pink." Tomas's smirk threatened to expand into a grin. He stopped it just in time. It wouldn't do to let Donovan know this soon how amusing it was to wind him up, or how easy. "Oh excuse me." A well-timed pause was worth far more than any words. "It's cerise."
"And here I thought it was caramel red," Donovan drawled, his expression unreadable. Tomas froze, suddenly unsure whether he had gone too far, stepping over an invisible line that would disappear, never to return.
The Land Rover groaned in protest when Donovan ground the gears down as he turned a corner, the vehicle shuddering to a stop in front of a large wooden house which seemed newer than the cottages flanking it on either side. The sign in front proclaimed it to be the local library. There was a quote of some sort at the bottom of the sign. Tomas strained his eyes but could not make it out.
Turning off the engine, Donovan grinned. "But I won't tell if you don't. We guys have got to stick together."
"If you say so," Tomas said, distracted. He opened the passenger door, climbed out, and closed it behind him. The gate which provided entrance through the white picket fence creaked loudly when he opened it, the old hinges protesting his action. The smell of some kind of perfume permeated the air even before he reached the sign, which was fastened to the trellis work at the left side of the verandah. The black paint proclaiming "In the beginning was the word" was fading on more than half of the old-fashioned lettering. Further investigation and running his fingers across the smooth word revealed that the letters were carved into the wood, the paint merely highlighting something that already existed before it. Strangely, the sign seemed older than the building itself, although, of course, Tomas was no expert on architecture, not having had the need to research the subject before now. Something brushed against his cheek. He brought one hand up to capture it, frowning as he found himself holding a single rose petal, dark pink in color. Glancing around to see where it could have come from, he ignored the other buildings farther up the road. He would explore those later. This had come from somewhere closer.
Donovan shook his head, already heading toward the steps leading to the verandah and shelter, his bag tucked under one arm. Once out of the rain, he stopped to pat the ginger cat which was rubbing itself against his legs and eyeing up Tomas from its spot near the front door of the library. "You're getting wet, and I'm going to be a while," he said. "Meet back here on the library verandah in a couple of hours, okay?"
"Okay." Although Tomas heard Donovan's question, it only registered on the edge of his mind, as his attention was already elsewhere. Overhanging the main entranceway were three climbing roses, two intertwined, the petals tugging, tr
ying to break free to answer the invitation given by the wind. They were the same color as the roses that climbed one of the walls of the Crossroads Inn. His fingers closing over the petal in his palm, Tomas's hand went to his cheek again. The third rose seemed to embrace the other two, supporting, separate yet not, the color strikingly different than anything Tomas had seen before. The tips of its petals were also lavender, but inside, hidden unless the rose was fully opened, were petals that were sprinkled with a dusting of deep pink like the one he was holding.
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Chapter Four
Staring after Donovan as he disappeared through the door, Tomas absently put the rose petal into his pocket. The rest of the village could wait. He wanted to see the library. It held answers; he was sure of it, but not of why he felt that way. His imagination was beginning to work overtime again. The events of the last few days had definitely addled his mind.
Wiping the rain from his face, he shivered. His clothes were damp rather than soaked; the rainfall had eased from a heavy downfall to a light shower, although it was still showing no signs of letting up completely. The sun peeked at him from behind a cloud and then disappeared again. So much for autumn; it seemed as though winter had suddenly started early in this part of the country, or it had, at least, this year.
The library door opened, and a woman slightly older than Tomas walked out. She smiled at him, eyed him up and down, and held the door open. "It's warmer in than out," she said, shifting her books so that they were balanced under one arm. Her jacket was zipped up to her neck, the bright red of a woolen jumper barely visible hanging below each sleeve. The idea of somewhere warm was looking much more inviting with every passing minute. Tomas missed his own jumper and T-shirt; while he was thankful for the clothes Donovan had loaned him, they were not as comfortable and familiar as his own. He supposed he should be thankful that the overstretched jumper hid the too-short black T-shirt, which kept riding up. Even so, it was not his preferred style or color.