Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
ALL EYES ON ME
The moment I step into the Cackling Hen, the noise hits me like a physical force, a wall of sound that seems to vibrate through my bones.
With Sir padding silently on my heels, his fur bristling with tension, I melt into the background, pressing myself against the corner of the café where the worn wooden walls meet in shadows that offer little comfort but at least keep me out of the immediate line of sight from most of the crowd.
Voices overlap in a tangled rush of panic and confusion, each word bleeding into the next until they form one continuous stream of distress.
Chairs scrape loudly against the weathered wooden floors, their legs catching on the uneven planks.
The usually warm, earthy calm of the café, feels stretched thin beneath the weight of it all.
The familiar scent of coffee and fresh pastries lingers stubbornly in the air, Lin’s morning batch of scones and Toni’s famous cinnamon rolls still warm in the display case, but their comforting sweetness does nothing to soften the sharp edge of fear that has fallen over the room like a suffocating blanket.
At the center of it all, surrounded by a loose circle of concerned townspeople, sits a couple who clearly do not belong here.
The man stands halfway out of his chair, his expensive-looking button-down wrinkled and his tie hanging loose at his collar like he’s been tugging at it in distress.
His hand braces against the small round table, as though he needs the support to stay upright.
His dark hair, probably perfectly styled this morning, now sticks up at odd angles from running his fingers through it, and his eyes hold a kind of disbelief that borders on terror.
The woman beside him grips his arm so tightly her knuckles have gone bone-white against his sleeve, her perfectly manicured nails digging into the fabric. Her breath comes in short, uneven bursts.
“We were just driving,” the man says, his voice cracking as he looks from one face to another, searching for something, anything, that makes sense in a world that has suddenly tilted sideways.
“We were on the highway. Route 2, heading west. There was nothing there. The map is clear, I checked it three times this morning. I’ve driven this stretch of road countless times for work.
There’s no town, no turn, nothing here, damn it.
I’m not crazy.” His voice rises on the last words, almost pleading.
“All of a sudden this place just. . .appeared.”
“We almost crashed,” the woman adds, her voice rising to match his panic as she clutches his arm even harder, but the man doesn’t even flinch at what must be painful pressure.
“One second we were on open road and there was this flicker of light, the next we were surrounded by buildings that shouldn’t exist. Cottages and streetlamps and people walking around like this is perfectly normal.
Where are we? This place should not exist. It’s not on any map. It’s not anywhere.”
Lin kneels beside the woman’s chair, her flowing rainbow skirt pooling around her as she settles onto the floor. One weathered hand wraps gently around the woman’s trembling fingers, her voice dropping into that soft, steady tone that usually calms even the most rattled nerves.
“You’re safe now,” Lin says. “What you’ve experienced is quite traumatic, and I can only imagine how disorienting this must be. But I assure you we can get this all cleared up and you can both be on your way home safely. There’s always a solution to these things.”
Toni weaves through the crowd of worried townspeople with practiced efficiency.
She sets a tray of mugs down in front of the couple without asking what they want, the rich scent of her strongest blend, curling upward in delicate spirals.
The vines she’s encouraged to grow along the exposed ceiling beams shift subtly overhead, their leaves rustling in a way that has nothing to do with any breeze, responding to the thick tension that has settled in the air like fog.
The couple notice the movement immediately, their heads snapping upward in unison, and both shriek in surprise and disbelief, the woman’s hand flying to her mouth.
“What. . .what. . . did you see that, Marvin?” the woman asks, her voice shaking as she pries her white-knuckled hands from his arm to point at the gently swaying greenery. “Those plants just moved. On their own. There’s no wind in here.”
Toni tsks under her breath, shooting an exasperated look at the ceiling as if the vines are misbehaving children. “Pay no mind to the plants, loves, or they may do more than just sway at your aggravation. They’re a bit sensitive to strong emotions, that’s all.”
“You’re not helping, Toni,” Lin hisses through gritted teeth, her usual serenity cracking slightly as frustration bleeds into her voice. With a roll of her eyes, she takes the mugs from the tray, offering them to the couple who immediately shy away like the ceramic might burn them.
Near the table, Maceo stands with his arms crossed over his broad chest, his presence solid and unyielding like a mountain weathering a storm.
One hand rests against the back of an empty chair as he watches the couple with the careful focus of someone trying to assess a potentially dangerous situation.
Lucien lingers just behind him, composed as ever despite the chaos, though his eyes track every movement in the room with the quiet intensity of someone who sees far more than he lets on.
Ezra stands near the edge of the crowd, slightly apart from the others, his attention fixed on the couple with that particular expression that tells me he’s already trying to figure out the magical mechanics of how this could have happened.
Sir jumps onto an empty chair beside me, his substantial weight making the old wood creak softly. His tail flicks sharply against the chair back, the sound like a metronome counting down to disaster.
“This is decidedly not good,” his voice cuts through my thoughts, low and tight with the kind of restrained agitation that means he’s working very hard to maintain his composure.
“If what these people are saying ever got out to the wrong ears, our carefully hidden town will be exposed. Not only ours, but every hidden magical community from here to the West Coast. This situation is growing rapidly out of control.”
The crowd presses closer despite Lin’s gentle attempts to keep breathing space around the table, curiosity and concern overriding common sense. Murmurs ripple outward, quiet at first, then growing louder as fear begins to settle into the spaces between words.
“This has never happened before in all my years here. . .”
“How did they even get through? Surely the wards would prevent unauthorized entry. . .”
“Something’s definitely wrong with the protective barriers. . .”
“But what? How could they fail like this?”
“The timing is awfully suspicious, don’t you think?”
A fragment of a sentence reaches me as someone shifts past my shoulder, their voice dropping to what they probably think is a whisper but carries clearly in the acoustics of the small space.
“Well, in my opinion, this town has been perfectly fine until she. . .”
The rest is swallowed by overlapping conversation and the scrape of chairs, but I feel those unfinished words land in my chest like a physical blow, settling heavy and cold in the space between my ribs.
My stomach drops with the weight of that hanging insinuation. None of this would be happening if I’d never come to Ruby Springs.
Before the tension can stretch any further, before someone finds the courage to voice what’s clearly being thought, the front door swings open with enough force to make the little bell above it ring frantically. The shift in the room’s energy is immediate and almost tangible.
Councilman Montgomery steps through the doorway, and I recognize him immediately from his visit to Thorne Curiosities a few weeks ago, a tall man with graying temples and the kind of understated authority that comes from years of managing magical crises.
His presence cuts cleanly through the chaos, bringing the noise level down exponentially just by existing in the space.
His expression remains composed despite the faint strain lining his features and the subtle tightness around his eyes that suggests this situation is testing even his considerable experience.
He pauses just inside the door, offering polite nods and reassuring smiles to several townspeople as he scans the room once, assessing the scene with the efficiency of someone trained to handle supernatural emergencies.
His attention stops on the couple at the center of the disturbance, and I watch his entire demeanor shift into what I can only describe as professional crisis management mode.
“Everyone,” he says, his voice carrying the perfect balance of firmness and calm authority, just loud enough to command attention without seeming aggressive or panicked.
“Let’s give our unexpected guests some breathing room, shall we?
There’s no need for a crowd gathering like this.
I’m sure everyone has places to be, things to attend to.
Let’s get back to our morning routines, nothing unusual to see here. ”
The effect is almost magical in itself, though I suspect it’s more about years of practiced leadership than any supernatural influence.
People begin to move, slowly at first, chairs scraping and feet shuffling, then with more purpose as his quiet authority settles over the room like a calming blanket.
The crowd starts to disperse, though not without lingering glances cast in my direction, looks filled with curiosity now threaded with something quieter, something more uncertain and pointed.