Dennis’s chest rattled. He swallowed his saliva hoping it would soothe the tickle, but it didn’t and he let out three hoarse coughs. His lungs sounding like two saws rubbing together.
They’d managed to catch the bus just in time. The driver didn’t put the ramp down for the buggy.
‘A newborn…’ Ella shouted as she struggled, dripping wet, to lift it onto the bus alone. The driver, safely behind a screen, carried on looking ahead as though he couldn’t hear. With his beanie hat so low, she was surprised he could even see.
‘Can you believe him?’ She turned to her husband Dennis, but he had sat down in a chair meant for the disabled, trying to catch his breath.
‘Don’t help me and your daughter or anything. Get yourself comfortable first.’ Ella said as though she was chewing on a wasp. Dennis didn’t look up, just coughed that dirty smoker rattle. It made Ella cringe. The bus moved before she sat down, making her wobble backward. The rest of the passengers only stared. Ella settled her sleeping daughter into the buggy area and stood holding the handlebar. There was nowhere close to the pushchair for her to sit. Nobody stood to offer her a seat despite her body language, screaming at them to move.
Ella was still having postpartum bleeding and had edema in her legs. Something she had never had before. It ached worse because she hadn’t slept. Geriatric birth, they told her, that’s why she’d gotten it. Should go by itself, they said. She was 37. She was young. It was her first baby. How could she be like this? She would never have gotten pregnant … if she’d known. She shook her head, hating that her mind went there. Her daughter was perfect; how could she possibly regret it? Of course she didn’t! Sophie deserved a better mum. Ella wished she could … she didn’t know what. She was just tired, so tired.
‘You want to sit here, babe?’ Dennis asked. Ella looked at him as though it was a stupid question and swapped places with him, relieved to be resting her legs finally.
Rain was pissing down outside. She couldn’t see a single building, tree, or anything that indicated they were on earth. They could be flying for all she knew. The Wicked Witch of the West was probably passing them on her broom.
Dennis wheezed and then sucked on his bubble-gum flavor vape. Ella pursed her lips, the smell of it made her nauseous, but she didn’t comment. Apparently, this was the only way he could quit. For the baby, he’d said. Yet he still smoked. He just added vaping into the disgusting mix without cutting down on tobacco. A sign on the bus said no vaping.
‘How long until we’re home?’ Ella whispered to Dennis. She didn’t know why all the passengers were so silent. They reminded her of the Mona Lisa painting because they weren’t looking directly at them, but their eyes followed. Goose pimples appeared on Ella’s arms. They gave her the heebie-jeebies.
‘I’m not sure,’ Dennis said, looking at his phone to watch the route, which was jerking from the movement of the bus. ‘Five stops this says.’
‘What did they say was wrong with the car again?’
‘Something about the carburetor.’
‘I still don’t understand why we couldn’t get a rental.’
‘I’ve already explained…’
‘I know, I just …’ Ella took a deep breath then whispered, ‘I don’t like buses.’
The bus jerked as though it went over a bump or a pothole, waking the baby.
‘Hush now,’ Dennis said, taking Sophie out and putting her head against his shoulder, rocking her slowly and tapping her back gently. It made Ella smile. Sophie routed into her daddy’s shoulder, making Ella and Dennis giggle. Sophie looked so cuddly in her flowery baby grow. Ella put her arms out and then lifted her jumper up discreetly. Sophie latched as though she’d never eaten before. The elderly lady next to Ella, wearing a polka dot rain bonnet, huffed. Ella positioned herself so she could face the aisle. The woman’s overuse of floral perfume, enough to attract a hornet’s nest, was way more offensive than breastfeeding. Dennis positioned himself to cover her.
‘We are now approaching Lower Street.’ The automated voice said.
‘What?’ Dennis said, letting out six chesty coughs because he spoke too fast. He raised his eyebrows and looked at the route on his phone, then wobbled to the bus driver.
‘Excuse me, mate,’ he knocked on the thick plastic screen. ‘Mate, the first stop was meant to be Greenfields. The voice… it said Lower Street.’
The driver looked straight ahead.
‘Is this the one, four, seven?’
The driver, still looking at the road, shook his head. The rain outside was slamming against the bus’s roof so violently that it was as though a hoard of chimps were up there cracking nuts with rocks. Dennis pressed the bell.
‘We’re on the wrong bus. We need to get off. We can catch a cab.’
‘No car seat.’
‘It might be OK.’
Sophie didn’t like being suctioned off her meal and wailed. The other passengers stared as though they were employed to make Dennis and his family feel uncomfortable. Ella put Sophie securely in her pram, zipping up her coat onesie. Sophie’s arms writhed. Her cry was all gums and gurgles. Ella had just put the rain cover on the buggy as the bus slowed.
The door opened to the sound of a pour so fierce that Noah was likely to be brought down from Heaven to build another ark.
‘Brace yourself,’ Dennis shouted over the sound. He put up his hood. Ella copied, and together, they lifted the buggy off the bus. They ran for cover under the bus shelter. Dennis looked at the number on the bus as it drove away, the passengers staring at him, their mouths gaped open like ghouls. 336? How did he not spot that as they got on? He felt like an idiot.
Ella took out a distressed Sophie, and the baby carrier from under the pushchair. Once Sophie was secure, Ella slipped her breast over the top of her jumper. Sophie let out a few more whimpers, exaggerating her trauma, tears around her brand new eyes until she calmed from the beat of her mummies heart and latched once again. Ella rocked rhythmically, making hushing sounds, underneath the discomfort of the bus shelter.
‘Are you OK?’ Dennis shouted over the noise of rain so powerful it felt like it would break the flimsy roof.
‘Where are we?’ Ella said, unsure if Dennis could hear over the roaring. She needed to change her pad; it was full, and she felt blood tipping over the edge and running down her leg, but there was nothing she could do about that now. The wind was forcing the rain to hit them even under the shelter. Ella felt it going inside of her trainers. She stepped as far back as she could to avoid it. Dennis looked around, but everything was hazed. He bit the bottom of his lip like he’d burned it with melted cheese. He stared hard at the bus map, which looked like a labyrinth of unfamiliar routes.
‘This is crazy,’ Ella shouted. Dennis nodded.
‘This doesn’t make any sense.’ Dennis shook his head at the bus map and took out his phone.
‘I have no signal.’
Ella took her own phone out of the back of her jean pocket. ‘Me neither,’ she said and leaned against the shelter. How could a bus stop not have any seats? Her feet throbbed. She would do anything to take them out of her shoes and get Dennis to rub them. She wanted to drop into the fetal position, cry, and watch the cheesiest romantic comedy with hot chocolate and…
‘We should go sit in a café.’ Dennis shouted over the rain after burning a hole in the bus map with his confused glare, ‘Log in to the Wi-Fi.’
Sophie had fallen into another one of her milk comas. It killed Ella to lift her off her chest and put her back into the buggy, but the weather was too much for a sleeping baby, and the rain cover gave her better protection.
They took out the crappiest umbrella known to man from the bottom of the buggy. Ella remembered putting it there for emergencies. If she had known this would be the said emergency, she would have invested in something better. This one had been left in her office at work by one of the many interviewees who attended to cover her job for maternity. The maternity was not going as she expected. Relaxed and loved? So far, it was pain and no sleep. She loved Sophie, of course, but it came with endless crippling guilt and worry. They lived in a small flat in London; they needed a house, more money to give Sophie a good start, and child care so Ella could go back to work. Both their parents lived far away and were too elderly to help, so they had zero family support. They were alone and Dennis wasn’t as driven as she was. He was a brilliant father. Ella knew she had chosen well when she decided to find a husband and have a child, but he was comfortable in his career and didn’t feel the need to progress. They would never survive on his wage alone. Ella needed to get back on the ladder fast before someone else took all she had been working towards. She needed to prove to her company that having a baby changed nothing.
‘I can’t see,’ Ella shouted as they huddled under the brolly, holding it at the sides so it didn’t flip out from the wind that was trying to snatch it. The rain was slipping down both their sleeves. Ella stayed close to Dennis, letting him lead. They both held the buggy as close as they could to their chests. They couldn’t see the path or the road.
‘Maybe we should let it slow down before we move…’ Dennis said, aiming to lead them back to the bus shelter.
As he spoke, the storm dissipated as though sucked up by a hoover. The sight of the road and the crossing made the couple laugh with ironic relief.
They were in the middle of nowhere, just a long motorway surrounded by ancient trees. A horde of crows watched them, barking that raspy ‘caaa.’ Ella found the sound as grating as Dennis’s cough. On the other side of the road was what looked like, beyond the drizzle, a service station. It was the only place to go. The road was empty, and they sped up as they crossed, with hot drinks and Wi-Fi on their minds.
A mustard-colored building, which looked like it was constructed in the 1950s but was neat and freshly painted, had two plant pots containing pretty but unusual plants on either side of the automated door. With elongated stems baring a spike of white flowers each with six petals. They gave off a sweet honeysuckle scent. The doors opened as they stepped in front of it and warm air stroked Ella’s’ face. The ache to sit deepened.
‘You go on ahead,’ Dennis said fishing in his back pocket for his tobacco. Ella’s nostrils flared. She couldn’t believe he was letting her go inside alone after all they’d just been through.
As the doors closed behind Ella, the sticky heat made her want to take off her coat. With saturated trainers and icy skin, warm air should’ve been a blessing right now, but there was something… off about it. It was a heavy kind of heat. It felt solid and stifling. Ella started with the baby, taking off the rain cover and her coat onesie. Sophie stayed sleeping, in her little bubble of heaven, like the little cherub she was.
Ella looked around. So many people were sitting at the tables, yet nobody was queuing up to buy food and drink, and there was no chatter. Ella shivered. She could feel many eyes on her, but whenever she looked at an individual, they all were facing forward.
Instinct told her to wait for Dennis. She knew this fear was irrational, probably just the hormones, but it stunted her. While she took off her coat and hung it on the handlebar of the pushchair, she looked around the shops, but she couldn’t see any familiar chains. She spotted one coffee shop with pictures of those strange flowers that were in the pots outside on its logo. Lethe Tea, she read in white letters amongst an ash-colored board. She could see the server waiting, wearing a black apron. Stood there like an NPC. Ella licked her lips despite the pressure on the back of her neck. She wanted one of those frothy coffees with caramel and oat milk. Dennis appeared behind her. Ella wrinkled her nose at the acridness clinging to his clothes and skin.
‘Jesus, it’s hot in here,’ he said, and he took the pushchair, sensing her irritation. Ella hated smokers. He’d hidden it from her when they first met. She wrote non-smoker on her dating profile, and he thought lying would be a good way to stop. He had every intention of quitting, but then she caught him. He’d taken too long taking the bins down. Dennis remembered the look of betrayal on her face, five months pregnant with his baby. They’d just moved in together. Dennis could’ve handled it better, but instead, he said, ‘Well, the cat’s out of the bag now, isn’t it,’ and that was it. He smoked less when he hid it as well. Now, he was back on almost 40 a day, especially when at work. All the lads he worked with were the same traits of a tradesman, weren’t it? He came from a family of smokers; his dad was seventy, and he was all right. No point in giving up now, was there.
Ella and Dennis walked together towards the Lethe Tea Room.
‘Go sit down,’ Ella told him. She was the one who earned more. It had become a habit for her to pay whenever they went out. She also didn’t want to listen to him drone on about the cost of her frothy coffee.
Dennis took Sophie to one of the many tables. The dining area looked like a school cafeteria. He couldn’t understand why the people were so silent, sitting at the tables facing forward. Why weren’t any of them eating? Why were they so still?
Ella stared at the exposed muffins, which were £6.00, and fruit flies landed on them. She looked into the eyes of the server; he had bags under his eyes. Maybe he ached for sleep as much as she did.
‘Do you have oat milk?’
It felt like the server was looking through her. He scratched his greasy black hair as he shook his head. Ella heard a blue bottle buzz in her ear. It made her jump.
‘Any dairy-free?’
The tips of his hair rubbed against his shoulders as he shook his head again. She couldn’t read the writing on the menu; it was too curly like a doctor’s prescription.
‘Do have syrups, like caramel?’
The tips of his hair rubbed his collar.
‘OK… Um… Can I have a pot of tea and an Americano, please?’
‘£6.60,’ he said, sounding as though three different men spoke at the same time. His teeth were yellow with white scum in the corner of his mouth. Bile rose in Ella’s throat, but she held her card against the chip and pin.
The server worked robotically. Ella stretched her aching limbs while she waited but stopped when she felt eyes on her. When she looked around, nobody was watching. Dennis waved, letting her know where he was, but he didn’t need to. He was easy to spot in the crowd, being the only person animated. All other customers continued to face forward. They could be dolls at a tea party.
The server handed Ella two mugs.
‘Milk and sugar?’ Ella asked. The man pointed his long finger toward the self-serve station. The dirt crust under his nails made her feel nauseous.
‘Two sugars for Dennis,’ Ella mumbled to herself and sniffed the milk inside the steel pitcher before she poured it. It didn’t smell off, but she didn’t like the smell of milk regardless. She couldn’t have her coffee black, so she put in a splash and added half a brown sugar.
‘Almost £7.’ She told Dennis as she put the mug of tea before him.
‘You’re kidding!’ He replied, absentmindedly rocking Sophie’s buggy.
‘Charging £6 for a muffin too, covered in flies they were.
‘Where the fuck are we?’ Dennis asked and put his phone on the table. ‘Dead,’ he said. ‘Can I use yours?’
Ella took a sip of her coffee. Despite her feeling grossed out by the place and the server, it tasted nice. She really needed it. Dennis took a sip of his tea too, and felt it was spot on.
Ella took her phone out of her pocket, too. It was on 5%. ‘That’s impossible,’ she said. It was a brand new top-range iPhone with a good battery. The last time she checked, it was fully charged. ‘I can’t access my data either.’
Dennis scraped his chair standing up. He walked over to Asphodel Meal-doe. The server looked more like an undertaker. Dennis wondered who was working in the kitchen, the smell of burned toast made his stomach churn.
‘Excuse me, mate, do you have a Wi-Fi code?’
The man wore a hair net so low it almost covered his eyes; he lifted a stubby finger and pointed toward a board with a series of numbers on it.
‘Thanks.’ Dennis said, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got an iPhone charger we can lend, do ya?’
The man scratched his unkempt beard, which was also covered in a hair net, and shook his head.
‘Chatty around here aren’t you.’ Dennis wheezed and let out barks of chesty coughs. The man looked right through him. Dennis felt a million eyes watching. He looked around at the other customers, sure it was them staring, but they still sat at their tables, facing forward. Ella’s eyes were wide, and she waved her mobile, ‘4%.’ The sound of her voice echoed.
Dennis took the phone from her, trying to put in the code, still feeling like he was being watched. He couldn’t make out the numbers; the writing on the board was like a toddler’s Christmas letter. The things he tried failed to process, and just as he was about to ask the server to do it for him, the phone died.
‘Fuck in hell!’ Dennis shouted. The word hell, echoed back to him three times.
‘It’s dead, Els,’ Dennis told her on his way back to the table. He asked a few people if they had a charger, but they all ignored him as though hypnotised. Dennis saw an information stand near the door. Another worker stood behind the desk, staring ahead as though she were nothing but a mannequin.
‘Hi, my wife and I got on the wrong bus. We want to get to Green Street. Do you have any idea how we can get there?’ Dennis fully expected her to look right through him and not speak, but she smiled and picked up a leaflet with a list of the bus times. She circled something and passed it to him.
‘The nine, nine, one will be leaving at station eight at eleven minutes past four.’ Her smile was too wide. Dennis looked at the clock above her head; eleven minutes passed eleven, counting under his breath that the next bus was in five hours.
‘Where is station eight?’
‘It is just outside on your left.’ She sounded like Siri.
Dennis creased his forehead and walked to the exit poking his head outside, rolling another cigarette as he went. It was still raining, but it was not as hard as it had been before. He could see six bus stops and read the information on each of them as he sucked in smoke, letting it burn away the tickle. How had he not noticed these bus stands before? He walked to the one the woman told him about, the 991 to Green Street. This was it. Dennis tried to match the other bus to this number, but he couldn’t remember what it was. God knows how they ended up here. It didn’t matter. At least they knew how to get back; they couldn’t wait five hours, though. They’d have to take a cab. Ella’s hormones were sure to make her hysterical any minute now. Dennis finished his fag, coughing up green and black phlegm in between tokes. His head was throbbing. He ached to have another sip of that tea, before it got cold.
‘Excuse me love,’ he said to the information lady. The woman gave a mechanical wide smile.
‘Don’t suppose you’ve got a number for a taxi service, have ya?’
‘You can find the number for a taxi on the back of the leaflet.’
‘Do you have a phone?’
The woman lifted a manicured nail and pointed towards a payphone. Dennis shuffled over to it. What bloody phone needed coins in today’s age? Ella was rocking Sophie’s buggy as Dennis, zombie-like because of heavier by-the-minute limbs, arrived back at the table. He took a sip of tea as though it was a starved breath.
‘Do you have any change?’ He asked Ella, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘No,’ she sniffed. Her nose was blocked like it always did when she felt run down.
‘I better find a cash point then,’ Dennis said, yawning, necking down the rest of his tea while it was still warm, ‘so we can get a cab home.’
‘Do you mind watching Sophie a bit babe? Just let me lay my head on the table for five minutes… just… to rest… my…’ Ella didn’t hear Dennis reply, but she knew he didn’t mind. She knew he would keep Sophie safe. She’d only shut her eyes for a few minutes.
Ella couldn’t get up the hill. She kept climbing, glad she was wearing hiking boots but every time she took ten steps up, thinking she had a firm grip, she’d slip back down again. It didn’t help that it was raining. Ella landed, bottom first into a puddle at the bottom of the hill. She let out a huge wail but got up and climbed again. She was going to make it to the top. She just had to keep going. She was covered in mud, but she knew everything she wanted was up there waiting.
‘Want to get up there, do you?’
Ella jumped out of her skin. She thought she was alone here. A man was leaning against a tree; none of the rain that pounded against her was hitting him. He wore a tuxedo, like he’d just come from an elitist event. He was the most good-looking male she had ever seen in her life, as though he’d been chiseled out of the brightest star in the sky. Ella’s mouth hung open; he knew it was because his gorgeousness stunned her. He gave her a flirtatious smile and licked the bottom of his lip suggestively. The sight of it made her weak at the knees, and she tried to neaten her mud-infested hair. He muted her. Her mother told her many times if a man incapacitated you to the point that you couldn’t even speak in their presence that, it was an adrenal response. That it was the body’s way of warning you that something about that person was predatory. That real love was like finding friendship. In real love you will be able to speak. Ella never listened to her mother’s advice in her early 20s. Back then, she thought that feeling was love, but she’d learned her lessons well.
The man leaned against the tree, looking like a masterpiece, waiting for her to answer. When she didn’t, he asked again.
‘I can help you get up there. I’ll carry you there myself if you want me to?’
Ella looked at the top of the hill. She instinctively knew if she let him, she wouldn’t feel this uncomfortable anymore because everything she wanted was there waiting, but something gnawed at her from deep within. A warning, the reason she was frozen in the fright mode her mother warned her about.
‘What are the conditions?’ Ella barely whispered, shivering. The rain pounded down harder, washing away every foot mark on the hill from the effort she had already made.
The man let out a lyrical laugh, which would be the envy of all songbirds.
‘Clever girl aren’t you, only one. You give me your soul when you die, and that is it. Then you can spend the rest of your days at the top, living the life you’ve been so desperately aching for.’
Ella ran at the hill, away from his words, anger from his offer fuelling her forward. She took ten steps up and fell straight back down. She looked like the muddy version of Steven King’s ‘Carrie,’ but she didn’t care. The man’s lyrical laughter while she struggled only made her work harder. She screamed as she ran, grunting like a tennis player and ran up the hill but slipped every time she got to the middle.
‘Offer’s there Ella. You can come and be with me when you die. You only have to say yes.’
Tears poured from her eyes harder than the rain. She screamed at the man, letting out every bit of frustration she had ever felt.
‘I would never give up my soul. Never! You hear me. I’d rather live here at the bottom of this hill, uncomfortable and in pain. I am a good person. I work hard at being a good person, and my soul belongs to…’
Ella’s head shot up from her hands, and she pushed the chair back from her sitting position. She was in that strange service station. Her face was covered in sweat and tears. She was breathless and she looked at Dennis, his head was on the table his eyes were closed too.
‘Sophie?’ Ella shouted out loud and she peeled Dennis’s hand off Sophie’s pushchair. Sophie was sleeping soundly. Ella sighed. Tears were falling down her cheeks. She wanted to take Sophie out of her buggy and hold her close. Nothing else mattered.
Dennis was in a hospital bed, waiting for them fucking doctors to come round. Nurses said they’d be here at ten. It was almost three. His chest felt tight; the CPAP machine forced him to breathe, but the bridge around his nose was soaked with sweat, and his skin had broken down where it had rubbed. His tongue felt like sandpaper but was glued by the thick sputum to the roof of his mouth. His throat felt like a billion pins were stuck in it. He desperately wanted to cough, so he shakily grabbed the brown vomit bowl. He lifted the mask, and each cough felt like boulders landing on his frail chest. Blood clots the size of his fist came out with each hawk and heave. He couldn’t stop… sharp, heavy pain, everywhere. He gasped, tears fell, the room was spinning, he was going to faint. He put the mask back in place to breathe for him, wheezing, waiting for his breath to settle; his chest sounding as though it was a washing machine full of coins.
‘You’re dying Dennis.’
The doctor was leaning against the door, wearing black scrubs and a stethoscope. He was too at ease. No trace of empathy on his handsome face. Why was this guy so intimidatingly good-looking? Dennis had spent his entire life feeling inferior to men like him, and now he had to have one looking down at him while he was knocking on death’s door. Dennis had no energy to cough, but another fit took over his body, making him heave and shudder.
‘How,’ Dennis wheezed, ‘long,’ his voice was hoarse, ‘do…’
‘How long do you have left?’ The morning star interrupted, ‘Minutes, hours. You will die at any moment.’ The doctor looked at his nails and pushed himself up from the wall, and stood next to Dennis’s bedside. ‘… but I can make you better if you like?’ He drummed his fingers on the bedside table, not bothered by the bowl full of clots and phlegm. ‘I can give you sixty more years.’
Dennis turned away from him and looked out of the window; it was raining outside. He liked the sound of rain. When he was small, when he had his Holy Communion, he was allowed to pick a middle name. Swithin he picked. He remembered liking it because it was theorized that if it ever rained on Saint Swithin’s Day, it would rain for 40 days more. He told his mum, and she told him she liked it too. Dennis didn’t trust this man. He turned back to look in his eyes.
Dennis lifted his mask up and tried to speak, but his tongue was stuck. He reached out for the jug of water, his hand trembling. He knew the doctor knew what he wanted, but he didn’t offer help.
‘Yes or no, Dennis?’ Do you want to watch your daughter grow? Do you want to be there when she takes her first steps, rides her first bike, and has her first day at school? You can be there for all of it, with your health. You just need to say yes.’
‘You…’ Dennis wheezed. ‘Want…’ his lungs crackled. ‘My…’ he wanted to cough again but he swallowed what little saliva he had left. ‘Soul?’
The man smiled, making dimples appear. He looked even more angelic than he already was.
‘Yes.’ The doctor said simply. ‘… but that will be in sixty years. Only then will you come to me.’
Dennis cleared his throat, picked up the sick bowl, and spat out a mouthful of blood without breaking eye contact with the handsome doc. He behaved more stoically than he felt. ‘Never…’ Dennis wheezed. ‘I…’ cough, ‘belong…’ cough, cough, ‘to…‘God!’ Dennis shouted, sitting up fast. The table where his head lay had a pool of drool on it.
‘Good morning,’ Ella said with her eyebrows raised.
‘Sophie?’ He looked into the buggy panicked. Ella was feeding her on the breast.
‘It’s four O’clock,’ Ella told him. ‘I’ve changed, Sophie; we can head off in a minute; the bus will be here soon.
Dennis rubbed his eyes, and mouth. His tongue tasted of iron. ‘I’m sorry, I drifted off. You are the one who should’ve slept.’
‘It’s okay. I did, too. We are not great parents.’
Dennis looked around; no, they weren’t, both of them falling asleep in this place. He looked around; all the muted visitors were gone. He couldn’t even see the servers. The shutters were up at the restaurant and the coffee shop. The information stand was just a table. Ella secured Sophie in the baby carrier.
‘My phone’s back on,’ she said.
‘Mine too,’ Dennis replied after he fished it out of his back pocket. ‘With data.’
They got outside the service station. The sun was out, and the sound of the trees swaying with the gentle breeze was like music. The birds, too, were celebrating the feeling. Dennis’s addiction told him to smoke, but for some reason, he didn’t want to. They could see the 991 waiting for them at the bus station. Ella had an urge to run to it. The bus driver grinned at them brightly as they got on, and a twinkle from sunlight bounced from his horn-rimmed glasses. ‘I’m glad you didn’t miss us. This was the last bus.’
Ella and Dennis smiled weakly, thanking him, and touched their card on the reader.
‘What a weird day,’ Dennis said.
‘I know.’ Ella replied, sitting in a chair close to the buggy. ‘For some reason, I feel like I want to go back to church.’
‘Me too.’ Dennis sat next to her. He coughed seven times into a napkin from his pocket. There was blood on the tissue.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Penny Newcombe is a 35-year-old MA student in creative writing at City University London. Who has the ambition of becoming a traditionally published novelist.
When she is not working long hours in the hospital as a registered nurse or taking care of her two small children, she can be found writing in any quiet place that doesn’t throw her out for overstaying her welcome.
Her writing tends to be as fast-paced as her ADHD. In Penny’s spare time, she can be found haunting museums, archaeological sites, and nature spots, and she constantly has stories on the go. They are her addictive habits.
About the Author
