The doorbell chimed, and Cohen nearly fell back into the rack of crisps. He was furious, his whole body shaking. "Oh my god, what an arsewipe."
"I am so sorry," said Niall, staring at Cohen over the counter. "It's—he was only so rude because you were talking to me. It's all my fault."
"It's not your fault," said Cohen, reaching over to pick up a pack of crisps. He saw what he had been looking for suddenly, a shelf of petrol cans across the shop and he made for them. Niall followed him.
"That was incredibly brave, what you said to him," Niall said. Cohen felt himself glowing a little from the praise, the warmth slowly reducing the shivers and clutch of dysphoria.
"Thanks," he said. "I'm used to standing up to people, I suppose." When he glanced up, Niall still had a look of unabashed admiration on his face. "Oh, stop it," he admonished, but he couldn't help but feel proud of himself as well. "Why was he so rude to you?"
"Oh," Niall shrugged. "Everyone in town is, really. They all think I'm the murderer."
"But I gave you an alibi, they know it wasn't you!"
"Right," said Niall. "Or they think you're in on it."
"Oh," Cohen looked down at the petrol cans, the weight of that fact sinking in. "Well, whatever. I guess I'm not here to make friends. Is this what I need?" He held up a can.
Niall nodded. "I suppose so; I'd have to see your car to be sure. Tell you what," he chewed on his lip a little. "Just, if you wait around a bit I'll be off work and I can drive you back to your place and see that we get your car working."
"Really?" asked Cohen. "That'd be great. I—you're not going to get in trouble, are you? That man said he was going to call and complain about you."
Niall looked out the glass doors to where the man had driven away. "He won't," he said firmly. "And if he does, my manager doesn't care. He's the only one who would give me a job. Here, I'll get it." He lifted the can and carried it over to the counter for Cohen.
"I can carry it," Cohen protested, but Niall insisted on carting for him.
"No offence, but you look about ready to expire," he said. "Go to the café or the bookshop and get some rest before I drive you home."
"Will I meet more of the charming locals?" Cohen sighed as he pulled out his wallet to pay, and Niall merely grimaced.
When Cohen stepped back out into the sunlight, the parking lot was once again empty. He lifted a hand to shade his eyes and squinted in the direction of town. Niall had said that it would be no problem for him to find the café, but Cohen wasn't sure he believed him. Oh well, he was hungry, and in definite need of a coffee. He thought, amused, that maybe his irritability due to lack of caffeine was what had influenced him to stand up to the rude customer.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and began the walk down the road towards town. Although he'd told himself he didn't really care, he hoped fervently that everyone in town wasn't going to be as rude as that man. Well, Myrna wasn't, at least, so he had one friend. And Niall, he supposed, was his friend too, although that relationship was just... strange. He hoped his apparent feelings for Niall weren't clouding his judgement too much, and also that they weren't horribly noticeable. Obviously Niall had a lot on his plate (including a psycho ex-boyfriend) and wasn't exactly in the market for a new boyfriend.
Cohen had never had a boyfriend before, and he'd never allowed himself to think that he might. Liking women was normal for him; he'd identified as a lesbian and had a string of girlfriends before ever coming out as trans. He'd always known he was bi, really, but he'd also always felt like gay men were unattainable to him, like he was an imposter for even being attracted to them.
He remembered his conversation with Niall though, the first night in Witton, before everything had been turned upside down. Niall had sat close to him, and told Cohen that he wouldn't mind dating a man like Cohen. Of course, that didn't mean anything, and Cohen still had to decide whether or not he was interested in dating a guy with such obvious issues, if the option presented itself.
Niall had been right about Cohen not being able to miss the café. It was one of about four establishments as he entered the town centre, and the large weathered sign hanging above proclaimed simply "Café." It had glass windows, but the sunlight was so bright that Cohen couldn't really see in. It really did seem to be the only place to acquire a meal, since the pub across the street didn't look like it would be open until later in the day.
Full of apprehension as he was, Cohen took a firm grip on the heavy wooden door and pulled it open. It swung open easier than he expected and Cohen flinched and slipped in awkwardly, hoping he hadn't made too much of a scene. He blinked a couple of times as his eyes adjusted, before managing to identify a staff member, a plump black woman, who was staring at him from behind the counter.
"Oh!" she said. "Hello."
Cohen managed a tight smile, trying not to fidget. "Hello," he replied.
The woman was still staring at him with a confused expression. "Are you passing through, then?" she said. "I don't recognise you."
"Oh, no," said Cohen, his heart sinking. Here it went again. "I'm living here now, in the Coughton. It was my aunt's."
The woman's features rearranged themselves into understanding. "Oh, I see!" she said. "Myrna mentioned you, but," her voice faltered, "I thought Miriam only had nieces?"
Cohen forced his smile to stay in place. "Nope," he said. "My name's Cohen."
If the woman continued to be confused, she didn't show it. "Well, come in," she said, gesturing Cohen forward. "What can I get you? I'm Grace by the way."
As Cohen stepped forward, he became aware that there were several other people sitting in the booths and at the tables around the shop, and all of them were staring at him. Only a few were doing it openly of course, the others glancing at him surreptitiously over coffee and books. Most of them seemed to be middle aged or over. Cohen tried to ignore them, ordering a coffee and a pastry for lunch.
He paid and collected his food, and went to sit in a booth by the window, all the while feeling eyes on him. He wished he'd brought a book or something, but settled for taking his phone out and connecting to the Wi-Fi. Eventually, when he neglected to do anything interesting, he felt the stares recede, and he settled in to eat his pastry.
The door opened a couple of times, people came and went. A few of them sat down to eat, a few simply left with their coffee. All of them stared at Cohen, but luckily none of them spoke to him. Cohen sat with his head down, flicking through websites on his phone and wondering how he was going to get through the rest of the day. He was feeling quite depressed, and more than a little homesick. He longed for the city where no one knew anyone, and he could walk into a coffee shop without getting stared at like he had two heads. Why had he thought moving to a small town would be a good idea?
The door opened again, and Cohen looked up against his better judgement. A thrill of relief went through him as he recognised the new arrival. Myrna was pulling off her heavy blue and yellow coat and striding up to the counter, greeting Grace with a friendly nod. She turned around to glance out the window and saw Cohen, surprise crossing her features.
"Oh, hello!" she said, leaning on the counter as she passed a bill to Grace. "Did you get your groceries?"
Cohen shook his head, aware that everyone was once again staring at him. "Not yet," he admitted. "I had a problem with my car so I walked to town."
Myrna tutted. "And I told you to be safe," she chided. She lifted her head, tilting it to the side a little, and glancing around the shop at the impolite eavesdroppers. "Care to have coffee with me outside?" she asked Cohen, who gratefully accepted.
They sat in the sun at one of the little rusted tables outside, and Myrna sipped her coffee, staring at Cohen over her mug with sharp green eyes. "How are you, then?" she asked. "Feeling all right after yesterday?"
Cohen shrugged. "Yeah, I suppose. I, um..." For a moment, he wanted to tell her about Niall coming to visit him, and what he'd said about Jacky, but something stopped him. H
e suddenly felt very cliché—wasn't this what people in fantasy novels always did after finding out about magical conspiracies? Failed to tell the authorities. But what was he supposed to tell Myrna? It sounded mad even thinking it in his head.
"You..." prompted Myrna, jolting him back into reality. "You said you walked here? Why didn't you call me, I could have picked you up, or put you in contact with a repairman."
"I didn't think of that," admitted Cohen. "I mean, I thought of calling you, but I figured you'd be working."
"Well, I was," said Myrna. "We've been scouring Sandy's apartment for evidence all morning. I found a day-planner confirming that she planned on picking you up at six, so that clears Niall's name a little further."
"Well that's good," sighed Cohen. "Maybe you can inform the locals of that as well, and they'll get off his back."
"Have you seen him since?" asked Myrna, looking concerned.
"He was at the station where I went to get petrol. There was a man there." Cohen felt his face scrunching, his anger flaring up at the memory. "He was really rude to Niall, and to me. I guess he doesn't believe that Niall's not the murderer, and he thinks I'm in on it."
Myrna gave a frustrated sigh. "I'm sorry about that," she said. "What did he look like?"
"Just an older man," said Cohen. "Sort of a grey face, dirty hat."
"Mm," Myrna nodded. "That's Clinton Soch. It was his niece that was murdered last month."
"Oh," Cohen immediately felt sick. "That—I didn't know."
"It doesn't excuse him being rude to you, of course," said Myrna, shaking her head. "I wish you'd come here before all this, the locals..." She glanced at the window. "They weren't always like this. It used to be a nice tourist town, beautiful views, honeymoon destination." She chuckled. "There are some ancient stone circles in the countryside that 'rival Stonehenge' according to the tourist guide, right on the way to your house, to the west. But..." She sighed again. "You know how it is, everyone is frightened now. And I feel—" She broke off, staring guiltily at Cohen. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to bore you with all this."
"Oh, you don't!" Cohen reassured her. "Really, I don't mind, I'm a good listener. It's part of being a writer."
"Is that right," laughed Myrna. "My daughter is dying to meet you, you know. Would you like to come over tonight?"
Niall was driving him home tonight. Cohen immediately felt guilty that he rated that prospective visit higher than dinner with Myrna. "Ah, well I've got to get my car fixed," he explained. "I mean hopefully it just needs petrol but... How about tomorrow night?"
Myrna smiled, the harsh lines of her face becoming softer with it. "I'll cook dinner for seven o'clock," she said, pulling out her notebook to write her address down. "You shouldn't have too much trouble finding it," she assured him, and Cohen thought she was probably right.
*~*~*
Myrna left shortly after that and Cohen sat, finishing his coffee and feeling guilty. He really ought to have told her about Niall. She'd been kind to Cohen, and was obviously competent, and he felt like he was purposely keeping her out of the loop. But then again, he would feel just as guilty, if not more so, revealing to Myrna what Niall had obviously told him in the strictest of confidence. He just didn't know enough to gauge what the right thing to do was. Niall hadn't really told him anything, and it was still possible that he was completely crazy, in which case telling Myrna would definitely be the best thing to do.
He should press Niall for more information tonight. Then he could decide what the best course of action was. He'd make him do something else magical, to prove that it was real.
He threw away his rubbish and folded his hoodie over his arm. Myrna had told him that there was shopping a short walk north, so he headed off in that direction. He felt strangely let down. His entire childhood he'd wished magic was real, dreamed that he'd meet someone with magical powers, or develop some himself. But his eleventh birthday had come and gone with no Hogwarts letter in sight, and he'd come to realise that it was probably for the best. Magic was all fine and good for a child, but in the real world, things had consequences, and magic definitely wasn't synonymous with wonder. What a child might use as a toy, an adult would use as a weapon.
He hated the disillusionment. It made his skin crawl. But he couldn't decide which option was worse, that Niall was crazy, or that magic (in all of its grim, fatal glory) was real. The former was the easy way out, but the latter was strangely tempting. Especially because of Niall. Cohen didn't want him to be crazy. And part of him hoped that beyond all the horror and grim reality, a spark of that wonder still lay.
People are dead, he reminded himself sternly. Magic or not, it's a serious situation.
And there he was back to feeling guilty about not telling Myrna everything he knew. He was going around in circles and getting nowhere. He wouldn't get anywhere until he talked to Niall tonight. That was, if Niall was even interested in talking to him.
He decided to get a vegetarian option for dinner just in case. The shop was easy to find and nice enough, in a quaint, dusty sort of way. Cohen thought that Niall's petrol station might have had almost as good a selection. He wondered if the shop had better business now that Niall was a suspected murderer.
The only other person in the place was the clerk, an old man with a bald head and little round glasses. He was sitting behind the wooden counter reading a newspaper, and completely ignored Cohen when he entered except to give him a quick, withering glance and return to his newspaper.
"Hello!" said Cohen in his most chipper voice, because he was getting tired of being stared at over the top of newspapers, but the man continued to ignore him.
Well, at least he hadn't asked Cohen where he was staying.
By the time he'd gotten his entire order together, it was nearly five o'clock. The sun was hanging low in the sky and warm light was filtering through the small, dusty windows of the shop. Cohen squinted as he loaded his shopping onto the counter and waited while the clerk rang them through the ancient register. The price was outrageous, of course, but his mother had warned him that groceries would be more expensive out of town.
He chose paper bags, intending to recycle them and impress Niall, and then loaded them all into his arms and hobbled to the door. The clerk followed him, all the time not saying a word, and watched him leave, slamming the door shut behind Cohen. Cohen glanced at the hours printed on the window, and noted with a sinking feeling that the shop closed at five. That meant that not only had he kept the man at his shop past closing, but he was going to be late meeting Niall.
He clutched the bags to his chest in a panic and began to race back down the street to the petrol station. By the time he arrived, he was sweating again, the bags were crumpled against him and his arms were stiff from holding them. He didn't see Niall's truck right away, and for a moment he worried that Niall had left without him, until he turned the corner and saw the blue truck parked behind the station. Niall was leaning against the door in the sunlight, and he smiled when he saw Cohen and straightened up to wave. He'd unbuttoned the front of his uniform a little and the flash of his muscled torso that Cohen caught nearly caused him to drop all of his bags.
"Are you okay?" Niall asked, lunging forward to help Cohen. "I could have brought you to the shop."
"It's fine," gasped Cohen. "I should have gotten bags with handles, I was just trying to be economical..."
Niall smiled, and Cohen noticed that his eyes crinkled at the corners when he did so. He took the bags from Cohen, still grinning, and glanced back at him as he loaded them in behind the seats. "Get in," he said, jerking his head at the passenger seat, and Cohen complied, glancing back to see that Niall had already loaded up the petrol, and that useless bag of crisps he'd bought.
"Thank you," Cohen said as Niall slammed the back door shut and jumped into the driver's seat. "You've done so much for me."
Niall laughed again. He started up the ignition and leaned back to reverse out of the lot. Cohen tried not to look at the sliver
of muscles showing down the front of his unbuttoned shirt as he reached over to look back, but it was difficult. His face felt hot, and not just from the exertion. "Well, I owe you," said Niall as they pulled onto the highway. "I'd be in jail if it weren't for you."
"I guess," said Cohen. Niall drove them out onto the road and the bushes and fences began to whip by. Niall rolled down the window, and the warm air blustered in. Cohen could feel it stirring his hair into wild curls. He reached up, desperately trying to settle it, but it was futile. Niall noticed and leaned forward to roll the window up a bit.
"Sorry," he said. "I'm always too hot."
"It's okay," Cohen reached up to pull down the visor, but found that the mirror there had been completely obscured with masking tape.
"Don't," said Niall softly as Cohen reached up to touch the peeling swaths of tape.
Cohen glanced at him. "You don't like mirrors. Bad luck?"
Niall shook his head. He was smiling, but the crinkle in his eyes was notably absent. He stared at the road, but didn't say anything.
The trip back to the Coughton was over in a ridiculously short time considering how long Cohen had walked. Niall inspected Cohen's car for a few moments and confirmed that the petrol had indeed evaporated, and Cohen needed a new cap for his tank to avoid it happening again. He poured the new gas into the tank and checked to make sure the car started while Cohen took the groceries into the kitchen.
"You're all set," he said, tossing the keys back to Cohen. "Don't fill the whole thing up until you can get to the shop to get that replaced, or it'll happen again, in this heat."
"Okay," Cohen said, nodding, and then blurted, "Would you like to stay for dinner?"
Niall looked surprised. "I... Cohen, I shouldn't."
"Why not?" Cohen desperately wanted him to stay. He needed to find out more about what was going on, and also he just desperately wanted Niall to stay. "I mean, you said I'm in danger. Isn't it sort of safer if you stay?"
To Summon Nightmares Page 9