This story appears as part of our annual Halloween Fiction series on Sprudge.
You have been walking and walking all morning, and every day you’ve had off from your new job, uneasy in the city, its unfamiliarity as uncomfortable as borrowed shoes. Even a few weeks in, you are still trying to commit the streets to memory.
Over the car fumes and the heating vents and the autumn air, you smell it: rich, freshly roasted, welcoming. Why not, you think, why not rest and rehydrate. Why not take twenty minutes’ break from worrying about this place not feeling like home yet. You follow the smell to its origin, down a side street, stopping in front of a store with steamed up windows.
Why not, you think again. Your rent is expensive but surely the point of paying it is to be able to go out and spend more on having good coffee in your neighborhood. The point is to be able to go out and wonder at the little tucked away places you’ve discovered. This place looks cute, and you feel a thrill of victory that you weren’t led to it by an Instagram reel or a Tiktok review.
It shocks you then, that there are no other customers when you step inside. No one occupies the low sofas or the artfully mismatched chairs. The exposed brick and quiet muzac go unappreciated. There’s only the barista behind the counter, restocking napkins. He has dark hair and horn rimmed glasses. When he sees you, alerted by the bell above the door, his pupils go wide and black, like a big cat’s when it spots prey.
Does he know you are new to town? His nostrils flare as though taking in your scent.
Though it feels like a mistake, you go to the counter and order. It would be too awkward to leave with the place so empty. He watches you while he makes your flat white, not looking down once, not even as he steams the milk. When he smiles and hands over the coffee, you try to remember how many teeth adults typically have. Surely not that many.
“It’s on the house. Come again.”
You back towards the door. For a moment, the handle doesn’t open. Then the bell jingles and you are out in the fresh air, gasping. You do not stray on the way back to your apartment. You do not drink the coffee.
Hetty Mosforth lives near Glasgow and works in publishing. This is Hetty Mosforth’s first feature for Sprudge.
Read more Halloween Fiction on Sprudge.
