Between Shifts

TW: although this story is at best speculative, it vaguely references death and loss, so please be mindful. I'm not trying to upset anyone during the festive season. :)

Four-hundred years was long time between meetings, Rhys had to admit. The last time he’d seen her, no one in this country even knew what hot chocolate was, let alone how to make it. Thankfully, the acne-scarred kid behind the counter seemed to know what he was doing so Rhys let his thoughts drift. It was hard, he admitted, trying to ignore people’s auras. As the kid behind the counter boiled the milk, Rhys couldn’t help but peer into his future. He would die in a bus accident—Rhys could see the angry glow of his death aura, a carnivorous red. Red because it would be a young death but then everyone seemed young to Rhys.

“Did you want cream and marshmallows?” Rhys flinched. He turned to the kid behind the counter who would die in the next six months and said yes, he’d love some whipped cream, he’d love some marshmallows. He tipped the kid an extra sixty-quid and smiled as his eyes bulged like toadstools.

Rhys took the hot chocolate and sighed. He felt little of its warmth but then he wasn’t here for the warmth or the ambience. He was here because it was the same spot they’d agreed to in 1596. A coffee shop just happened to be here and he just happened to buy a hot chocolate. He didn’t dare order one for Mary in case she turned up late or failed to show – the bosses kept her busy these days. Liked to post her in war zones. Still, he’d heard things. In the recent storms, Mary had been spotted by his colleagues. In Essex and London, they’d seen her hard at work, cataloguing drowning victims.

Rhys sat. He chose the sofa by the window and stared out into the street. People were running, their heads tucked into their coat collars against the wind. Late minute shoppers, Rhys decided. In his hands, the hot chocolate steamed. He peered into the gloop, counting the marshmallows. The cream had already begun to melt; it sat in woolly clumps on the surface. He should have ordered a large. He glanced back at the counter where a queue was forming. Rhys settled. He couldn’t bring himself to wait in that queue. The thought almost made him laugh. Slowly, he sipped.

“Starting without me? I expected much better from you.” Rhys spluttered. Half the drink ended up on his lap. It didn’t hurt but he scrubbed at his jeans anyway—after all, they were brand new.

“I don’t know why you care so much about those things.” Mary stood above him. No, she didn’t stand so much as hover. In her hand was a large cup of gingerbread hot chocolate. Rhys smiled. He could remember that night in the tavern, Mary chewing gingerroot, trying to understand why she’d had to watch a man die of a heart attack whilst herding his cows. Even now, Rhys could see the shadows in her eyes. Instead of prying, he cleared his throat.

“Care about what? My appearance?”

“The clothes.” Mary brushed by him and sat down.

“I can’t very well walk around naked. What would people say?”

Mary shrugged.

“You’re not exactly much to look at. Besides, you could always make them forget,” she pointed out. She set her hot chocolate on the glass table. Her fingers curled like dinner knives under hot flames. All liquid skin, hair coiled atop her head in a lonely crown. Unlike him, she wore the uniform: a grey jumpsuit which resembled medical scrubs. Easy to hide, easy to blend in.

Rhys pushed the hot chocolate to one side; it was already cold. He thought to order another when Mary shot him a look. She never reached for him, never touched him—not if she could help it. Given the way she’d died, he couldn’t blame her. He could still remember the thatched roof he’d perched on, watching from above. The thud of boots and bare feet. The sound of her last breath as she was trampled by villagers trying to escape a fire they’d started. Rhys had been in his nineties then – young by their standards – but Mary had been a mere girl, a footnote, a smudge. He’d given her a second chance and he’d stood by her ever since, even when she got him into trouble.

“There was a child,” Mary said slowly. She clutched the hot chocolate to her chest. Eyes hooded, lips parted. Pale pink like a sunset. “She must have been about eight, nine years old.”

Rhys frowned.

“You know exactly how old everyone is.”

Then,

“Oh,” he said. “She wasn’t one of yours. You didn’t try to stop them, did you? You’ll face a disciplinary committee.”

Mary shook her head. Wisps of dark hair pooled around her shoulders. She took another sip of hot chocolate before offering the cup to Rhys. Rhys shook his head. Mary clutched the cup to her chest.

“Don’t me give a lecture,” she whispered. “Just let me sit.” Rhys did. He picked at his fingers. It was the same habit his mother used to scold him for. It was a strange thing, Rhys thought—to remember your mother’s words more than her voice, her scoldings more than her face. After all this time, he supposed he was lucky to remember her at all.

Mary set down the now empty cup.

“I’ll get us another,” Rhys said. “My treat.” Mary looked up.

“You should save up. I know that man-purse of yours is Gucci. I may be old but I’m not stupid.”

“Man-purse? It’s a wallet.”

“Semantics,” said Mary. She smiled, her lips small and tight.

“I’m older than you,” Rhys said but he took out his man-purse and he paid for two caramel hot chocolates even though he didn’t much like caramel. It got stuck in his teeth. He paid in cash, much to the annoyance of the kid behind the counter, and Rhys stared at a large woman with a nose ring as she whizzed the concoction to perfection in one of their machines. Rhys had never bothered to learn the names of things human made. He glanced back at Mary. She was a mistake, one he’d pay for in the years to come.

“Here you go,” said the woman with the rose ring. Rhys took the cups and returned to the window. Mary was leafing through a notebook. Rhys frowned. It was pink and covered in a fur like a pet.

“It’s her diary,” Mary told him as he sat. He held the steaming cups as if they were two beating, pulsing hearts.

“You took something?”

“No one has to know.”

“She wasn’t yours to be taken in the first place. Who was working on her?”

“The new guy. Reuben something.”

“You’re lucky he didn’t report you.”

Mary shrugged. She set the diary on the table. Sunlight travelled through her.

“She spoke to us.”

Rhys sat forward.

“What?”

Mary nodded. She said,

“The little girl; she saw me. Saw us. Reuben lost his mind. He started crying. I had to finish the job.” Rhys flinched. He might have spilled the hot chocolates if Mary hadn’t steadied him.

“How’d she even know you were there? How’d she have the strength to talk?”

“I don’t know.” Mary glanced at the diary. “She wanted to be an artist. She wanted to go to Paris and see the Mona Lisa.”

“She’s not missing much.” Mary glared.

“We should have made her one of us. She could hardly breathe. She was in so much pain.”

“We’re not babysitters. Children cannot do this job—and for good reason. Most days we can hardly do this job.”

He set the cups on the low hanging table. Leaned back and rubbed his neck. He had a long day tomorrow. A long day at a school in Florida. He could already feel the death auras building. He could see the gun. But he didn’t know when – or where – he’d see Mary again. He asked,

“Do you ever resent me? For making you this way? Everyone told me I should never have converted you. But I remember how hard you fought. How much you wanted to live. You were so excited at first—there was this whole new world to explore. You never did anything I told you to. You used to call me Old Monster—do you remember that? I bet you do. You remember everything. But I took your choice away—you must hate me. Do you hate me?”

Mary looked him up and down.

“Just drink,” she said.

They drank in silence, listening to the shuffling of the queue in a coffee shop where no one knew who they were and what they did for a living.