Chapter 3 The Café
three
The Café
Iwas outvoted on the decision to pack the three-foot rubber plant.
The damn thing mocks me for six hours straight, sending its haughty energy my way until I nearly pull over on the highway to dump it.
Finally, after hours of it blocking my entire rearview, we make it to Lennebunk.
It’s dark, like creepily dark. I’m so used to streetlights—flickering or not—and there are none here.
“Are we even in the city?” I ask.
Ace’s face lights up in the passenger seat. “Says we’re in the city limits. We’re coming up on the exit in like a mile.”
A mile…shouldn’t there be lights?
We cross over a bridge with train tracks running underneath and I see the sign for our turnoff illuminated by my dingy headlights. The turnoff is long and meandering, but finally there’s a light. The trailer on the back jostles as we pass a Dough Dome with its signature red roof.
“Could get a slice or two,” I suggest.
“Yeah, I’m starving!” Ace says.
“You wouldn’t be hungry if you’d eaten your sweet potato!” Nai Nai admonishes.
“I had three, Lao Feng,” he teases. “I need something more substantial. I’m a growing man!”
I pull into the Dough Dome and die a little inside when I see the “Open” sign is dark. I maneuver us around back to the main road.
Zixin gives a dramatic sigh.
“I suppose I’ll just waste away.”
Nai Nai chuckles. “I’ll get the rice cooker going as soon as we get there. You’ll see. We’ll have a meal before you’re done unpacking.”
There’s not much to unpack, but I don’t doubt her ability. I just hope the place is move-in ready because it’s way too late and dark to find a hotel. If the Dough Dome is closed, it’s a pretty bad sign for anything else in the city.
The streets are gray and quiet with the occasional splotch of orange streetlight.
When we reach Main Street, I get a partial view of what the town looks like through the fog.
It’s mostly three-story buildings that look like old Colonial houses, painted in white, blue, and yellow.
It’s so quaint. The café has only two levels, and for that I’m grateful.
We don’t need any upstairs neighbors stomping on us.
The building itself is in a bit of disrepair, in desperate need of a new paint job.
The white siding has flaking paint and mossy concrete at the base.
But the bones themselves are great. Huge windows at the front are pasted over with newspapers, but none of them are broken.
There’s beautiful trim design, and colorful shutters for the upstairs apartment. It’s nice.
Except for the awkward neon sign.
The sign reads “The Cosmic Café” with a ring like Saturn’s around the “O” of Cosmic, which is fun. But also, neon is so ’80’s.
Looking at the businesses to the left and right, I know that sign is going to have to go. They all have cute, artsy wooden signs that hang on chains over the eave above the door. I don’t want to go too against the grain out here, but also, a neon sign for coffee doesn’t have the right vibe at all.
Honestly, I like it. I mean, it’s not a permanent dwelling, but as far as hideouts from mob bosses go, this one is pretty sweet. At least from the outside.
There’s not a lot of street parking, but I find a spot in front of the building that’ll probably get me a ticket if I leave it there too long. There’s a chill in the air that feels unnatural for this time of year. But maybe it’s just Maine.
There’s a real estate guy in town who was going to meet us with the keys, but he texted when we were halfway here that he had something to do. So instead, the keys are in a lockbox on the handle.
I help Nai Nai out of the back of my rusted SUV and walk with her toward the building. There are manicured sections of flowers along the walkway that contrast against the tarnished building. We’ll get the outside looking good enough for this street soon enough.
The closer we get to the front door, the warmer the air becomes. I’m baffled by how their buildings retain so much heat into the night, but whatever, maybe it’s different building materials than in Boston.
I open my phone and get the passcode from the real estate guy’s text. Inside the box is the set of two keys, and I jingle them merrily at Ace to quiet his random bellyaching.
I turn for the door and grab the knob to hold it steady for the key. The metal strikes me with energy like a branding iron. I yank my hand back on instinct and my senses go on alert. I push my consciousness beyond the door but find it empty inside…no living presences.
I touch the handle again and the same energy meets me, but instead of a hot jolt, it’s a warm, steady flow. I’m not familiar with buildings that have a magical presence, but this one seems to have one.
The key slides in easily, and I turn it until the bolt clicks. I open the doors to our temporary new digs and it is…
Dark.
Dusty.
Disheveled.
Yikes.
“Has anyone been here in twenty years?” Ace asks.
A valid question. Given how old the furniture looks, and the thickness of the dust layer, I doubt it. There are several tables of different sizes and shapes, and a few chairs that look like they match, but then a bunch that don’t. Eclectic.
“Doesn’t look like it. That would explain the funky name,” I say.
“Funky smell, too,” he says.
“I don’t smell anything,” Nai Nai says as she shuffles in, her cane tapping on the boards.
I flick the light switch beside the door and nothing happens, as expected. I forgot to transfer the electric bill to my name in time to have the service guy come out and check everything. They’re worried it’s not up to code, and I’m now worried that a lot of things aren’t.
“Candles it is,” Ace says as he whips out his lighter.
He flicks it to life and something in the room moves. Not something I can see with my eyes, but something I feel with my astral body. It was behind the bar, and it went into the back room.
Nai Nai knows about my powers, but sometimes she overreacts, so I try to keep shit to myself until I’m certain I know what’s what. I’ll have to check it later because now I need to get Nai Nai comfortable.
And that stupid rubber plant…
“Ace, the rooms are upstairs.”
I toss him the keys and he nods, then takes Nai Nai by the arm to lead her up.
I run out to the tiny 4x8 trailer hitched to the back of my car and open it up to a catastrophe of falling items. I do my best, throwing out arms and legs to catch things as they careen toward the pavement, but, in the end, most of it falls.
I let it all go and just accept that this is what’s happening.
I find the bedrolls, pillows, rice, rice cooker, and Ace’s heavy-duty power bank to run it, and a half-full box of tealight candles, then wrap them all in a massive wad.
One end plops open and the rice falls out, then a pillow.
I yelp and yank the pillow off the concrete—five second rule—but then the rice cooker starts to fall.
I abandon the wad and catch the rice cooker with a huff.
Fine. Two trips.
I wrap as much as I can in the first blanket and toddle toward the stairs. They’re narrower and more treacherous than I’d like, but there’s a handrail and a light that will one day work, so there’s that.
My family is standing in the kitchen when I reach the top.
It’s not a terrible place, at least in the glow of Ace’s lighter, and it does look like they had someone do a once-over with a broom up here.
It’s somewhere between three-star hotel and getting fileted by a mob boss and left in the gutter to bleed out, so I’m pretty happy with it.
My brother grabs the food and the candles from me, and I head back down for the second load.
Once I’ve got all the essentials in the apartment, I head to the bedrooms. I flop everything down with an ungracious whoomph that makes the candlelight dance.
I stare around the room as I take a deep breath.
All wood floors that have been scuffed over the years, windows older than me, and cobwebs that are probably about my age hanging from the ceiling.
It’s more open than our apartment in Boston, which is nice.
Nai Nai can hang her warding lanterns, and I’m sure she’ll adopt some hanging plants no matter how short I tell her the stay will be.
The same presence from downstairs makes itself known in the room with me, and I whirl around, hunting for it. The candle makes shadows into demons. Horns and wings paint the walls, but there’s really nothing there. At least, nothing here, on this plane.
It moves downstairs in a rush and I follow it much slower.
“I’m going to check the shop,” I say vaguely as I pass the kitchen.
Ace and Nai Nai are arguing about how much rice to make and don’t reply. I would grab a candle so I could see, but my eyes aren’t going to do much except spook me more than I already am. No need to pee my pants before we get the clothes unpacked.
I actively extend my senses with my astral spirit and gasp as a hotbed of activity comes back to me. There is something bonkers going on here.
I take the stairs two at a time and follow the source of energy.
It’s not entirely hostile, but it certainly feels…
grumpy. My hand guides my steps as I move through the coffee bar.
There are cups stacked on the shelves that look almost fresh among the dusty containers of straws and the old espresso machine.
The energy leads me back to the storage room and I follow. It’s so dark here without even the light of the moon to help my eyes. I should’ve brought a candle.
When I sense I’m near the pinnacle of astral essence, I close my eyes and allow myself to pull away from my body. Light bombards me immediately and my senses are overwhelmed. A creature made of blue sparks passes through me and then stops, looking back for a second before shrugging and moving on.
There are crates stacked high with glittering containers of green and gold, spherical purple things that might be fruit, and red wheels of what is unmistakably cheese. I would know cheese on any plane of existence.
I reach out and feel the shape of it. Touching it filters the senses through to me and I smell old feet, but taste something like parmesan.
If I can interact with their plane this strongly without being in it, there must be a breach somewhere nearby.
I wonder if C. Monty gave this place up because it was haunted.
Some of the beings, smells, and senses from their world are slipping through to ours, and it would definitely seem like ghosts to someone not knowledgeable in these things.
A sudden heat fills the room. Not just for my astral body, but my physical one. I whirl around and the sight stops me cold. A fiery creature, seven feet tall with horns, wings, and wicked claws, is reaching for my body!
I rush forward as my spirit and shove it back. The demon staggers, then turns its head. I can feel its eyes on me. No, I can see his eyes on me. They’re black all the way through with orange irises that dance like fire.
“What are you?” he asks.
His deep voice penetrates through my astral body, making my real knees quake. There’s something positively electrifying about it. It reminds me of the hot jolt that met my hand when I touched the door.
He reaches for my real body again and I rush back into myself. I open my eyes, whirling on the spot to see—
Fire.