Trouble at the Tea Leafing Café

The rain had started right around the time that Annie was buttering her second thick slice of homemade toast for breakfast, and hadn’t paused since. Not that anyone could tell. The windows of the café were fogged over, and with every seat filled with happy customers munching on fresh baked pastries or steaming bowls of the delicious soup of the day, it was hardly surprising. Annie looked around the room, finally taking a moment to breathe after the lunch time rush. Her old life already felt like a bad memory, a part of her history, always, but just that. History.

She breathed deeply, the smells of cinnamon, coffee, and old books as soothing as it had been the day she walked into the Tea Leafing second hand book shop and café six weeks ago. Walked in expecting something very different, and stayed having found something she didn’t know she was looking for.

A succession of dull thuds from the shelves at the back of the store startled her from her reverie, and Annie slid out from behind the counter to find out what was going on.

“I’m so sorry Annie, they all came down at once, I was only trying to get this.” Lila stood between the rearmost shelves, a small pile of books arrayed at her feet, and one, a hardback volume of short stories Annie had thumbed through last week, clutched in her hand.

“That’s ok Lila.” They bent to tidy up, their heads side by side as they gathered the spilled volumes.

“When shadow falls, the chasm will be opened.” Annie stopped. Had she heard correctly? Was this whispered voice just an echo in her own head? But next to her, she could feel Lila had stilled for just one moment, had turned her face towards Annie’s ear. She froze, cold sweat and nausea flushing over her body, and when she could move again to turn her head, Lila was already on her feet, sliding the books back on to the shelf, then glancing down at Annie, still crouched on the floor. “I’ll take a flat white and some of that carrot cake if you have any left Annie.”

Annie made her way back to the counter, flicking the coffee machine into action on automatic pilot. Had that really just happened? Lila had been so welcoming. Annie had felt like they were friends almost from the day they met. She looked over at Lila now, sitting on the window seat, shoes off and legs curled underneath her while she rested on the same tapestry cushion she had hugged to her that night she had stayed long after closing, pouring her heart out to Annie over Sam Barber and his refusal to propose. Lila looked as though nothing had happened, already reading in the glow of the lamp behind table four, but Annie was certain she hadn’t imagined it.

“Hey Annie, you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Gabriel McKenzie, damp hair spilling out from beneath the green wool of his hat, stood across the counter from her, raindrops beading on those long curving eyelashes, just begging her to stare. Reluctantly, she pulled her mind away from where it was going.

“Maybe I have. What can I get you, Gabe?”

“Actually I came to see you. We’re taking a couple of boats out on the lake later for the eclipse. Since you’re new in town I figured you might like to come? There’ll be food!”

Annie’s stomach did a small somersault while she tried, with only partial success, to arrange her face to look more dignified cat, and less eager Labrador. But then Lila’s whispered words came back to her. “When shadow falls…” The eclipse.

“Annie? Seriously, are you alright? You don’t look so good.”

“Sorry Gabe, I’m fine. Just tired. I’m really sorry, I don’t think I can, I’m needed here.” Disappointment flitted across his face, and Annie wondered whether he had been being more than friendly in asking her to come. Everyone had been so nice in town it was hard to know, but she found herself hoping this wouldn’t be the last invitation. “Could we go another time? It sounds wonderful, even without the eclipse.”

Of course, she had known the eclipse was coming, everybody had, but now with Lila’s strange words echoing in her mind, she began to worry she might be in for more than a curious astronomical event. If so, she would need to be ready.

*

Tea Leafing had been the last hit in a trail that had taken Annie from a public library in Christchurch, New Zealand, through a floating book shop in London, England, out to a roadside book exchange in Eire, back across the world to a sweaty outback shack selling thumbed paperbacks in Australia’s Northern Territory, into the air conditioned sanctuary of a south Texas library, and at last here, to this café book shop fading towards a Maine fall. She had stepped inside not long before closing, determined, focused, one step away from achieving what she had worked six years for, and within half an hour she had softened to match the mellow gold of the light outside.

The curse was a simple one; six lines from six books, spoken in order, whilst holding the book in two hands. The books, they said, would know your intention. Finding the lines was the hard bit. The books were scattered, and the clues were sparse. Annie supposed it was meant as a failsafe. Plenty of time to change your mind. But she hadn’t. Not until she arrived here. She didn’t know whether it was Giles’ kindness when she passed out five minutes after entering his shop, or something in the twists of cinnamoned pastry he had revived her with, but it was as if a spell had been broken when she fainted. Or a new spell cast.

The fainting wasn’t new. Eight years ago Annie had been thriving, by all conventional measures. Climbing the ladder fast at the publishing company, working hard, but gaining a reputation that was beginning to open doors. Until it opened the wrong door. She knew that there were parties in the city that could get wild, but she had been naïve to think that everyone who was invited was a guest. There were eleven young women there that night, and at least a hundred men. Annie had only faint memories of what happened that night, glimpsed faces, rushes of sensation, an unintelligible jumble of noise that still filled her ears when she smelled whiskey or vomit or sweat. And sometimes, still, when a sound or the feel of the air in a room dredged a memory towards the surface, the fainting saved her and kept her from remembering more. Still, she remembered enough to know she had to stop this from happening again, and she knew enough to suspect that any legal path to bringing these men down would fade into open desert five steps in. So she did what so many disempowered people had done before her; sought to borrow power from somewhere else.

As simple as it was, the curse sounded pretty devastating. Six lines, six books, six demons from the chasm to unleash horror at their master’s bidding. Annie had thought it would do perfectly. The trouble was, it felt like half the world was after it, like a treasure hunt where the prize was the power to destroy. Annie wasn’t deterred. She figured she was at advantage, with the right kind of knowledgebase, the right kind of contacts, and the time and money to chase down the books wherever they were. And she was right. As far as she could tell from the forums online, she was the first person to have found the fifth book, and when she arrived at Tea Leafing, she had been confident that the curse would be hers to wield. But then something had happened, and she hadn’t wanted to keep fighting any more. She hadn’t wanted anything anymore, except the warmth of the café, the gentle intimacy of her budding friendships, quiet moments with the books, and yes, Gabe McKenzie. That first night, Giles had fed her, made her up a bed in the little office behind the shop front, insisted she stay, and in the morning offered her work, and a place to sleep while she got herself sorted out, “you’d be doing me a favour” he had said, “I’ve been wanting to visit my brother in Toronto”, and Annie had forgotten why she had been in such a hurry, had forgotten to want anything at all apart from to be right where she was. But Lila’s words earlier had reminded her why she had come. Reminded her, she feared, too late. Something had changed, and someone was going open the chasm.

*

Annie shut the shop early. The whole town was down by the lake for the eclipse now the rain had stopped, and muffins, iced buns and cream cheese bagels had sold out by 3 PM. Though it was still bright outside, Annie drew down the blinds and locked the front and back doors. She knew which book was needed. She had known since the day she came, but she had left on the shelf. She had no choice in that, each book was warded so that it could only move within a couple of feet of its location. She had tried to disguise it, putting the dust cover from a different volume over the greenish brown linen of its spine, tried to pretend it wasn’t there, tried not to think about it at all. Which had been easy when Lila and Martha and Simon would come by after closing and play scrabble at the big wooden table. Easier still when Gabe was leaning on the counter, chatting about the restoration he was working on while flaked pastry lingered on his lower lip. But now she paced the aisle in front of the book, feeling its existence like a detonator strapped to her chest.

On the one hand, she could still claim the curse. Open the chasm herself. Nothing had changed, not really. Those men, they still needed to be brought down. But on the other, how could she know what would happen after the demons had done her work? Would she control them forever? Would they retreat back to where they came from? Or, promise kept, would they wreak untold havoc on the world? She had been so focused on completing the curse she hadn’t thought all this through, but time at the cafe had softened that focus, made space for doubts.

Her other option was to guard the curse. If she could stop someone from finding that last line, she could stop them from opening the chasm. But if she couldn’t? The forums were full of people who wanted to bring down the world. Was it Lila? And if it was Lila, what would she do with it? Maybe they could reason it out, they had been friends, after all?

The sky was still a crystalline blue, invisible in the darkened interior of the shop when Annie heard the door handle turn and the door rattle against its lock. She peered around the edge of the blind. Not Lila. Simon.

“Annie, open the door! I know you’re there, I saw you. Please, Annie, Lila is coming and I need to get inside. Please!”

Annie froze. Did Simon know?

“Annie, please. She’s got a knife, she tried to stab me, please! Look. Look at my arm if you don’t believe me!”

Annie opened the blind. Simon’s sleeve was wet with blood, dark against the denim.

“Why Simon? Why did she stab you?” She heard the note of challenge in her voice, but Simon didn’t flinch.

“I know, Annie, I know about the curse, please, let me in, she’s coming.”

Annie fumbled for the lock, turned it, and stepped behind the door as Simon spilled through the gap, dripping blood on the floorboards. Behind her, she did not hear a second lock turn, or a second door click shut.

“Close the blind, she’s coming” Simon ordered, but it was too late. Lila was there, bloodied knife clasped in her fist as she hammered at the door.

“Annie, open the door. Annie.” But Annie just stood, frozen in shock. “Annie please, I’m not here for you, please, open the door.”

It was a simple curse. Six lines. It did not take long to say, and even less time to work. No longer than the time it takes for trust to crumble, or a friendship to crack apart. Annie stared through the glass at Lila, blood splattered across her dungarees, pony tail askew and cardigan torn, and she reached for the lock again. If Simon had been quick enough, Lila would never have made it inside, but Simon was watching the back of the shop.

*

Giles had moved quietly through the stacks. For him, the sixth piece of the puzzle had been easy. It was the fifth he couldn’t find, but Annie had led him right to it. Not there and then of course. No, she was more careful than that. But later. Later, when he had seen her searching the stacks of his shop, intent in every muscle movement. Later, when she had triggered his little trap and fallen into his arms. Later, when she had told him all he needed to know without being aware what she was doing. He had been waiting for someone like Annie for years, and he had been ready. Now his plan was about to come to fruition, and he would take charge of this fetid world and make it serve him for a change.

Giles paused, confused for a second by the dust jacket. Great Expectations. No, that was wrong. But his fingers were wiser than his eyes, and he relaxed with the familiar heft of the volume, discarding the jacket on the floor. A second was all Lila needed. Simon clawed at her back, too late to catch her, as she ran through the shop, hurling her knife down the aisle between the shelves. It hit, and Giles folded over the pain in his flank. No matter, he had the book. Lila was upon him a second later though, the force of her leap toppling him to the ground and sending the book skidding across the floor.

Annie flew across the room, Simon beside her. They lunged for the book together, colliding in mid-air, and landing heavily, Simon pinning Annie to the floor beneath him. Simon screamed, his injured arm crushed between their bodies, but Annie didn’t pause. She reached out with both hands and took hold of the linen cover. She had tried to ignore, tried to forget, but the words came as easy as her own name, and she shouted the sixth line of the curse into the wood of the floor.

Giles screamed too then, rage filling him with strength to shake Lila off, and Simon curled around his wounded arm against an onslaught of kicks from Giles. Lila just stood, horror etched across her face. For a moment, nothing happened. Annie got to her feet, oddly numb.

“Annie, what have you…” But Lila’s words were cut short. Before them, the boards began to strain and splinter, and the shop groaned like a ship on the rocks as the chasm appeared. A broiling slit of reeking blood gashed the ground, and from it six forms of slick muscle and sinew slapped wetly onto the floor. They stood, like flayed giants, eyes pricks of black in the oozing red of their faces. They did not wait for instruction.

Two were on Simon before he could move. They seemed to be peeling him, splitting his skin from his crown, exposing the skull, then the ligaments of his neck, his shoulders, down over his chest, revealing his liver, his stomach, the fat coming away with the skin and leaving his intestine, pink grey and gleaming, revealed to the light. Down they went until they reached the feet, then they tugged, softly, allowing his body to slither over the slick of blood on the floor, pulling him inch by slow inch into the simmering crimson pool of the gash.

Giles tried to flee, but it was hopeless. The Demon extended its tongue, prising open Giles’ lips with muscular flicks and extended again, on and on, a pink snake undulating into his body while Giles gagged and writhed, until there it was again, that muscular point, protruding now from a hole torn in his trousers. Skewered, Giles began to deflate, like he was being hollowed out, and Lila and Annie watched as he melted to nothing, even his clothing just whisps clinging to that mighty tongue.

The demons turned towards the door, and for the first time Annie and Lila became aware that rooted to the spot, watching it all, stood Gabe. With horror, they watched as the beasts bounded towards him, long, fleshy limbs covering the ground fast. But then they were past, spilling round him like a rock in the stream, and flowing out the door, turning South, towards the city, and the men Annie had thought about all these years, vanishing down the street as the fissure closed over behind them.

Annie’s legs buckled beneath her, but Gabe, pale and shaking as he was, was beside her already, catching her in his arms as she sank to the ground.

“I came back for you”, he said. “I thought maybe if you couldn’t leave the shop, I could…what the Hell was THAT?”

Annie looked at Lila, then pulled her friend into the embrace, the three of them an uneven pyramid on the floor.

“It’s a long story. And I think I have a lot of work ahead. Will you help me?”

Lila squeezed Annie’s hand. “Always”.

Gabe nodded. “I’ll get the coffee on then.”