by A L Hart
“You will not take her to your insufficient healing domain where they would treat her as common poultry.”
“Uh.” I wiped the rain from my face, inched the slightest bit closer, was hissed at. I moved closer—
“I won’t let you break her!” she screamed.
I froze, hands up, and pretended I understood what she was saying. “Jera . . . Jera, right? I have no intention of hurting your sister. I’m trying to help her. I promise. Why else would I come all the way out here from the comfort of my shop?” To be fair, I knew it was a little hard to believe after the way I’d treated them in the shop.
“You’re a liar. You’re a cruel being. You will always be cruel.”
I reached.
She snarled, jerking away, but I didn’t have time for this. I grabbed hold of her arms before the fist she’d made could land square with my face. She squirmed, but was surprisingly not as strong as I’d been expecting based off of the snake-like speed and strength she’d exhibited before.
I pressed her to my chest to keep her from flailing—or biting—and frowned at how undeniably fragile she felt in my arms. Her clothes were just as soaked as mine, but her body was hot. Not in that way, but concerningly warm, yet I saw no signs that she’d been struck by the lightning. Sick, maybe. Running a fever of life-threatening temperatures, definitely.
Anger came rushing back as I thought of what kind of people would indulge such a hunt, no matter what the women’s crimes were. And the rage multiplied when I realized it could have been avoided had I not kicked them from the shop.
But what if I hadn’t? The men would have only come looking for them there and likely the three of us would be lying in a pile of our own blood this very moment.
“Release me! I’m not going back! You can’t take us back there.”
“Relax,” I breathed, exasperated. “I’m not taking you anywhere.”
Her struggles doubled.
I reached for the chain around her neck.
Her body went dead still as she peered into the night. Waiting. Likely thinking I was about to strangle her with the chains. I was beginning to understand the word ‘catty’ when describing someone, because in that moment, she reminded me every bit of a trapped, feral cat, waiting for its chance to kick up into a storm and escape.
Unfortunately, gaining her trust wasn’t exactly something either of us had time for if I wanted to do something about the unconscious, possibly dead, woman beside us.
I uncoiled the chains, dropping them beside us. Then, when it was clear she’d given up her efforts, or perhaps trusted I had no intention of killing her, I started on her hands.
“Your sister needs to see a doctor,” I said quietly. “Or she could die.”
Jera shook her head, then sneered, “She doesn’t need human medicine.”
Uh-huh. “So you really are one of those pagan practitioners or something?” I mused. I dropped the chains that’d bound her wrist and she immediately started on the chains at her feet, smacking my hands away when I moved to help. With a sigh, I asked, “Look, do you not care what happens to her?”
“Of course I care, you smear of filth.”
That was a first.
“Then a hospital is what she needs.” I moved to scoop Ophelia into my arms.
“No!” Jera lurched to stop me but fell miserably to her hands and knees. She shook visibly, as if a storm of her own was wearing her down inside, draining her energy. But her eyes never left Ophelia.
“It would help,” I started, slowly urging the unconscious woman’s body into my hold, all under the scrutiny and disapproval of Jera. “If I understood what was going on. Why were those men after the two of you?” I resisted the urge to ask what I was really wondering which was, ‘how much?’ How much did they owe the men and/or how much had they taken. It was clear to see they were on something, because whatever symptoms Ophelia had been suffering earlier was starting to reflect in Jera as well.
“It’s no business of yours.”
“It is if you want my help.”
“I don’t,” she bit out. “I never did.”
“But your sister did, and now she needs it.” When Jera opted for silence and an aloft regard, I assured, “I won’t take her to the hospital. But she has to get out of this weather and out of these clothes.”
Her gaze flared.
“Not like that,” I said quickly, suddenly reminded of how attractive both of the women were, and more to the point, how warm Ophelia’s body was, how her chest was pressed to mine in our hold, and how Jera seemed to be following my train of thought down to how Ophelia’s skirt was riding up from the way I held her . . .
“I’ll kill you when this is over,” she grumbled, managing to drag herself to a stand, and when I say drag, I meant she latched onto my pant leg and clawed herself upright.
I glared at her audacity.
She glared at my existence.
And in that moment, the rain finally came to an end.
Ch. 3
“It’s ridiculous.”
“It’s efficient.”
“Revolting.”
“It’s all I have. Take it or leave it.”
Standing in the middle of my bedroom, arms crossed, dressed in one of my old work shirts, Jera had yet to lift her skeptical gaze from my every action. Her sister lay beneath the blankets on my bed, also clothed with an old, stray t-shirt from a Pink Floyd concert.
Upon arriving at the shop and convincing Jera I wasn’t going to “break” them when taking them up to the warmth of the bedroom, I’d been promptly kicked out after having been pried of information regarding spare changes of clothes. Their old ones had been smoked and shredded.
I’d only just earned reentry, my eyes traveling to the horns still attached to her forehead. “You can lose the getup now.”
Her hand followed my gaze to one of the curled pieces protruding from her head. It was about as long as her hand and as thick as two of her fingers. Her mouth turned as she peered at me with scrutiny. “You truly must have become ignorant in your time here with mortals.”
I took a deep breath and told myself to level with her. I wasn’t big on cults or particularly knowledgeable of their practices anymore than I was familiar with the Quran, but I did wonder briefly if I’d been looking at this all wrong. The men could have been after them for religious reasons. If so, I found myself curious just what religion it was they practiced so I knew to steer clear of any of their recruiting pamphlets.
“Fine, wear them,” I said as I finished screwing in the replaced light bulb at the desk. “If it makes you any less leery.”
“I’m not leery. I’m aware. Always. Especially of someone like you.”
“You keep saying that and I keep telling you I have no idea who you are or what I’ve done to earn your nasty looks. But the least you could do is thank me for my hospitality.” Not to mention saving your life.
She scoffed. “You call discarding two helpless girls into the scary night while holding a pathetic stick weapon up at us hospitality? I’d hate to see your idea of hostility.”
I opened my mouth but nothing came out, because it was the same guilt trip I’d asserted over myself earlier. The one that’d sent me out into a thunderstorm and caught me up with whatever bad mess had trailed in their wake. I skewered my lips closed and looked around the room.
Ophelia was still out cold but she was breathing. Jera had refused to allow me to inspect the woman for burn marks, saying, “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, you pervert,” or do virtually anything beyond the grunt work of carrying and delivering her sister to the bed.
The bed in which, just then, she was climbing into.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I demanded.
She was crawling and curling beneath the blankets, making me grit my teeth and glance away when the shirt that just barely passed her waist threatened to offer a glimpse.
“What does it look like? I’m preparing for sleep to face whatever wretchedness you
bring upon us tomorrow.”
A muscle ticked beneath my jaw. I hadn’t considered having the two women sleep at my shop throughout the night. Not only because it increased the chance of the weapon-toting men returning, but also because I did have a business to run that didn’t involve two strange females disrupting the morning routine. But I couldn’t well kick them out when one of them was unconscious and worse for wear.
“And where am I supposed to sleep?” I bit out. It’d always been apartment jumping and staying with old friends before, but since inheriting the coffeeshop, I’d done just like Dad, moved in upstairs, keeping a vigilant watch over the business and never thinking to expand my residency. This room was all I had.
Shifting aside a bit, I thought Jera was about to invite me beside her.
She merely threw a pillow on the floor and gave me an expectant look that dared me to objectify.
“I’m not sleeping on the floor,” I said sourly.
“As you wish. It matters not to me if you sleep on the floor or a pile of needles.” And then her eyes were slipping closed, her body sidling closer to her sister like two huddled dogs. Meanwhile, I considered maybe I could throw them back on the streets.
Jera, anyway.
Glowering, I snatched the pillow from the floor and considered the backroom, but quickly shut that idea down. It was where all of my family’s stuff was stored; the things I couldn’t bring myself to discard, afraid I’d be ripping away memories of them, and the things I couldn’t bring myself to utilize, afraid I’d be resurrecting memories of them. I neither wanted to lose them or find them.
Maybe, since it was just this night, I could sleep downstairs in one of the booths. And maybe I’d be tired enough to not think about how this was the second time tonight I’d been circumstantially removed from the comfort of my own room.
I went to collect earlier’s untouched soup and bread.
Jera was staring at me, a floating head, the rest of her body snug beneath the plush blankets. “I’m cold,” she stated, gray eyes unwavering.
“You’re under the blankets and the heat is on. You’ll warm up.”
“I’d do so quicker with something warm to drink.”
I regarded her blandly. “I don’t run a charity.”
At that, she looked at me a moment longer, then turned away and wrapped her arms around Ophelia’s form, pressing her forehead against her sister’s back. She didn’t say another word.
Seeing them there like that gave me a feeling of sonder, a word I’d learned from Liz’s journal. The realization that those around you had lives all their own. The world did not revolve itself around me. The little churning machine of my daily routines was but one tiny cog in the grand machine. What were these two women’s lives?
I didn’t believe in fate. I believed in random chance, galaxies spiralling and heading nowhere. We were all one great big accident. But seeing the image of these women, practically indiscernible from one another if not for the drastic difference in hair length, I had to wonder why it was their paths had crossed with my own. Why had they stumbled in here of all places? Was the coffee shop simply the closest shelter they could find or had Natalie’s insistence that I find a girlfriend been so strong, she’d altered the course of the universe?
I clicked the lamp off and left the women to the dark.
*****
Downstairs, I drew the drapes over the windows before flicking the lights to the lounge area off. Setting the pillow begrudgingly on the nearest booth seat, I inspected my surroundings, surprised my skin wasn’t crawling with paranoia of being stalked. It was a marvel in and of itself how calm I felt. The scorch mark on my chest remained, but the pain? It’d dissolved completely sometime when walking the dark path home. It was no less bizzare than the vanished men or the lightning exploding from the woman.
Tomorrow, after work, I told myself, I would get the mark checked out, but for now . . .
I rolled my shoulders and twisted to get at a kink between my shoulder blades. If anything, I was stiff, and that impact with the ground post-blast must have done a number on my back. It would definitely be a crutch in the morning.
Benching myself was the last thing I needed two weeks before I was set to lose my best employee. Then I might actually have to take Natalie up on her advise and finally put up that loathed help-wanted sign.
I sighed and sat down slowly. The booth was much too small, but at least the leather was forgiving.
Across the room, I spied the shop’s phone behind the counter, its receiver light blinking red in the dark. Taunting. It’s not too late to call the authorities, it said. Turn the women over to them and have one less headache.
But for some reason, just the thought of it made me . . . uneasy. Calling in authorities to disrupt the image I’d left behind of them huddled beneath the blankets, having their placidity stolen away. I couldn’t say why, but something told me it’d been a long, hard while since they’d gotten to sleep without disturbances. Without fear of being a target by whoever those men were.
And while I was ruminating and staring off into the dark, I also had to wonder, what was one drink? One free drink. It wasn’t like Jera had put in an order for a full course meal. Was it being an ouroboro to give one drink on the house or was it a small kindness that ultimately gave back to the world?
Just as I didn’t believe in fate, I didn’t believe the little saying ‘what goes around comes around’ or that you could sow your seeds of good karma. But I knew some people believed the world was out to screw them over at every turn unless they screwed it first. No handouts. No bleeding hearts. Was I one of them?
The answer had to be no, because I was standing and heading behind the counter in the next instant. In the kitchen, I started the tea kettle and opted for the shop’s best roasted rice tea stock.
Being a good person is caring for others when you least desire to, Ma used to tell me, another version of Dad’s motto. As I filled the mug with the bronze brew, dropped two sugar cubes and two drizzles of honey, I thought of change. How easily we peel away from the stem we originated, become our own person, and how sometimes, witnessing and coping with death catalyzes that peeling, that change. We’re so eager to find and become ourselves, yet when we lose those we care for the most is when we scramble back to the stem. But you can’t unpeel an apple any more than you can undo death and the change it ensues.
I’d wanted to be close to all of my family, yet as I stood gazing into the hot beverage in the dark kitchen, I acknowledged that while I may have taken on my family’s old habitual tasks, I’d shed myself of the emotional attributes that made my family unique and favored by nearly everyone.
Or rather, I’d never possessed the kind nature they did. Before I ever did anything kind, I always hesitated, contemplating the action, looking for ways to see if it would be unbeneficial for myself. It was selfishness parading around as benevolence.
I placed the mug on a glass coaster.
I could mimic my family’s kindness with perfect execution, but as I ascended the stairs, I accepted I was not them. Giving this woman tea wouldn’t change that.
Upstairs, I knocked on my room door.
No answer.
I cracked the door slowly, peeking inside to see if maybe she really had gone to bed shivering, having come to terms with her predicament.
What I found was Jera wide awake, far from shivering as she sat at my desk, lamp on, reading my journals.
This unabashed woman didn’t even bother to look up.
I all but threw the tea on the desk’s edge and snatched for the journal.
It happened again. She moved with that uncanny speed. One moment, sitting at the desk, ankles crossed as though enjoying a guilty pleasure novel. The next, she was across the room, having not lifted her head once.
“The days, they’re getting grayer,’” she read from one of the entries. “‘The sunrise, it’s beginning to resemble last night’s moon.’”
“Give me the journal,” I dema
nded, feeling the edges of calm begin to chip.
She kept reading. “‘I always thought the coming of achromatopsia would be when I was much older and had already started a family—not when I’m only twenty-four and trying to get over those I’ve lost. But this gray, this gray . . . it is me.’” She assessed me a moment. “A little sappy, isn’t it? I’d recommend a change of literature, immediately.”
Irritation flooded over whatever kindness I’d decided upon before. “Put the journal down,” I whispered.
“Well, which is it? Give it to you or put it down?”
Teeth gritting, hands clenching, I glared. “Put it down.”
She did, and for the third time this night I noted that unrecognizable anger simmering at the depth of my stomach. And even though the journal was placed upon the desk once more, the ire lingered, coiled itself around my peace of mind until I didn’t trust myself to remain in the same room as this invasive female.
I grabbed the book—and the other that was in the desk drawer—and made for the door in record timing.
“Wait,” she said.
A muscle bunched along my jaw. “What?”
There was a pause, then, “Is that for me?”
I turned and followed her gaze to the tea. “Sure, whatever.”
Another pause. Hesitation as she took to staring the mug down.
“I didn’t put anything in it,” I snapped, prepared to take the drink back and leave her here with nothing.
She shook her head. “That’s not it,” she murmured, tilting her head, inspecting me closely and long enough to deepen my glower. “You really don’t know who we are, do you?”
With immense, trying patience, I clipped my head ‘no’. “Not a clue. I’m just a man who runs a coffee shop and am now stuck housing two women for the night—one in which is quickly overstaying her reluctant welcome.”