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  Two blocks over, we arrived at the scene. The ambulance was stopped in front of a towering apartment building. Surrounding it were two cop cars, their lights flashing all the same.

  “I think we might’ve stepped into something here,” I said.

  “Ugh…” said Tessa, her grip tightening.

  Three cops left the marbled lobby. They walked in step and led a handcuffed man in front of them. I recognized the blond with sharp features as the same customer from this morning.

  “Hey, isn’t that the guy who—”

  “Make it stop!” said Tessa. The girl had her knees on the floor, both hands holding her head.

  “What’s wrong? Tessa!”

  “I can’t… My head is…”

  I put my arms around her. I didn’t know what was happening. Was it something we ate at the restaurant? That couldn’t be, right?

  “Do you want me to take you to the hospital?”

  “I can feel their pain. The hate. An empty room. Solid black with… one way out.”

  “Who are you talking about, Tessa? The police? The guy?”

  “No,” she said, gripping her brunette locks. “The person… in the ambulance.”

  My heart skipped a beat. I had no idea what was going on. The blond was pushed into the police car. His face was pale and blood dotted his disheveled jacket. Whoever was put in the ambulance was a victim.

  “The tears… followed by relief. Glad he finally did it! Glad he’s been… caught,” said Tessa.

  The ambulance left, followed shortly after by the police cars.

  “Tessa, we need to get you to a hospital. Can you walk?” I said.

  “I’m fine now,” she said, struggling to stand. “Head doesn’t hurt as much anymore, at least.”

  Tears rolled down her face. She took a step away from me and wiped her face.

  “I’m sorry you had to see me like that,” she said.

  “What just happened?” I said.

  “Let’s just go home, alright?” she said. Tessa walked in front of me. It took me a few seconds, but I followed her. I felt lost and utterly useless.

  Chapter 3

  I got up at my usual time, turning off the alarm as quickly as I could. A few feet away from me, Tessa laid in the bed. Her chest heaved ever so slightly, and her face looked like a portrait of tranquility. It was a far cry from the girl who screamed bloody murder the night before.

  That was when I decided that I would close the café for the day. I ate my cereal in silence. Tessa’s panic attack yesterday, if it could be called that, was burned into my brain. The witch was in pain and there was nothing I could do to help. It made me realize that I knew nothing about her at all.

  I welcomed her into my home and spent the better part of 48 hours with her, but Tessa was still a mystery to me. I had learned much about her past, but that was nothing in the grand scheme of things.

  The street was empty, as it was on every other Saturday at 7AM. I unlocked the doors to the Twisted Cauldron and taped a message I wrote at home on the door.

  “Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Twisted Cauldron will be closed today. We apologize for any inconvenience. Please come see us tomorrow at 8AM!” it said.

  I locked the door behind me and wandered around. Was this the best course of action? Saturdays were our slowest days and few regulars dropped by. I’d hate to disappoint regular customers, so today was as good a day as any to close. It wouldn’t do much to our bottom line.

  I walked down the street to a consumer electronics store. Half an hour later, I crossed the street to the grocery store. In all, I was done by 8:50AM.

  “What do people do for fun again?” I said aloud. It hit me that this was the first day off I had given myself since my uncle dropped the coffeeshop on me.

  It was a beautiful day. The perfect mix between hot and cold. The birds agreed as well. Grey finches sang their hearts out a few feet above my head. If Tessa felt well, we could go out to the park. Maybe I could convince her to show me more of her magic.

  Would she want more time alone? The packages on either hand were for Tessa, but maybe all she wanted was space to think. Living in a shared studio apartment takes away a lot of that space. I paced up and down the concrete slabs of sidewalk for several minutes.

  I would let her decide. Ask Tessa if she wanted me to leave the house for a bit and respect whatever her decision was. That sounded right.

  The door to my apartment cracked open as slowly as possible. To my relief, she was asleep. My foot got tangled with one of the dining tables, causing it to slide a few feet and screech the whole way. But the girl did not wake up.

  She’s still alive, right? The sound was enough to wake up the neighbors. Certainly me if our positions were reversed.

  I used my laptop to surf the web until she woke up. Tessa yawned.

  “Feeling rested?” I said.

  “I am,” she said, jumping out of bed and stretching. “What time is it?”

  “It’s 10:30AM,” I said.

  “What!? But the café… who’s at the café!?”

  Tessa started stripping off her pajamas and using magic to summon her work clothes.

  “I closed it down for today,” I said, looking away. Tessa really is an act-first, think-later person.

  “Why? Because of me?” she said. When I looked, she was dressed in her black skirt and tights.

  “No,” I said. “I wanted a day off, is all.”

  “You’re lying.” She walked to the door, her pointy hat in hand.

  “It’s done,” I said, following her to the door. “I put a sign in front. Who knows how many customers have seen it already.”

  “What about Elise?”

  “I told her too,” I said.

  “Fine,” she said. “But I’m changing back into my pajamas.”

  The girl went to the bathroom. A few seconds later, she emerged in her cotton button-up and pants, as promised.

  “What do you want for breakfast?” I said.

  “Can I have cereal?”

  After I served her the bowl, she sat across from me at the table. There was a long silence.

  “Did you go to the store?” she said, eyeing the bags I left on the sofa.

  “I did. Some of it is for you. Want a look?”

  She nodded. Tessa wasn’t in a good mood, but I could understand why.

  “Here, open it.”

  I gave her the bag from the electronics store. She pulled out a flip phone.

  “What’s this?” she said. “A phone?”

  “Yup.”

  “Don’t you have one of these already? You know, for a guy that works at a café, you sure spend a lot of mon—”

  “It’s yours.”

  “It’s mine?” she said.

  “Yeah. Not as fancy as a smartphone, but it can take pictures and you can use it to talk to whoever you want,” I said.

  “This is...amazing,” she said. “I’m still mad at you, though.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “I don’t expect the cookies to fix anything either.”

  “There’s cookies?” said Tessa. She ran to the other bag and took out a dozen freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies.

  “Thank you,” she said. Tessa put both things down on the table. Her eyes fixed on them. “About last night…”

  “Tessa, you don’t have to say anything. We all have secrets to hide.”

  Her eyes locked into a point behind me. There were hundreds of things I could say, but I had a feeling none of them would make the situation any better. Tessa closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  “I’m an empathy witch,” she said. “That means I can understand people’s emotions. More than that. I take their feelings and make them my own. When I’m close enough to someone with really strong emotions, it’s even worse.”

  “Can you… resist it?”

  I thought about yesterday. There was no doubt about it. She sensed whatever the person in the ambulance felt, none of it good.

&nbs
p; “I’m so sorry,” I said. “Is there any way you can make it less intense?”

  “I can try. It’s easier when the emotions aren’t as powerful. By when someone is really happy, or angry, or sad, then I can’t do anything about it. After we turned into that street, the scene sort of… played out in front of me. I saw how the two people were having dinner. Then they got into an argument and the color around the man turned bright red. He slapped them across the face. Pinned them to the wall.”

  Tessa brought her soft hands to her cheek.

  “Then he…!”

  “Tessa,” I said, walking to her side. “It’s OK. Everything will be alright.”

  She grabbed my shirt and pressed her face to it. Muted sobs echoed through my body. Tessa trusted me through and through. I didn’t deserve that. All I did was offer her a job and a shelter. What was I to her but some stranger she met two days ago?

  If that was how I felt, then why was I on the verge of tears? I don’t understand anything.

  She separated from my shirt a minute later, leaving a damp spot where her face was.

  “Do you feel better?” I said.

  “A bit,” she said, wiping the last of her tears away.

  “Want to go to the park?”

  “If it’s OK with you, I’d rather stay inside today.”

  “No problem,” I said. “Want some coffee?”

  “Only if you add extra chocolate,” said Tessa.

  “No problem,” I said as I went to work on the espresso machine. At $100, it was nothing compared to the $10,000 brewer in the Twisted Cauldron, but it worked. Humility has its own sweet taste.

  “Did this kind of thing happen often in the witch colony?” I said.

  “Not really,” she said, surveying her phone from all sides. “Witches are very good at keeping their feelings under control.”

  “Sounds like my kind of place.”

  I regretted it as soon as I said it.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she said.

  “Just forget it,” I said, putting a cup in front of her. I held out my hand.

  “Need some help?”

  “I can read the instructions in the box, thanks.”

  I served myself some coffee and watched her spread the instructions out on the table. Her gaze darted from the phone to the instructions and back. I would be lying if I said I didn’t find it amusing. Hopefully she can’t sense that.

  But still, a human with the power to understand other people’s emotions. There’s only so much you can get by using visual cues. Tessa can put herself in their shoes and understand them at a distance. I can think of a million ways that could be abused in the wrong hands. Every little thing I learn about Tessa pulls me further away. I understand her less, in a way.

  “I see you preprogrammed your own phone on here,” said Tessa.

  “In case you need it.”

  “I think I’ll delete it.”

  “Then you’ll have no contacts. That’s sad, you know,” I said, taking a sip of my drink for added dramatic effect.

  “I’ll ask Elise tomorrow,” she said. “What else do you do on your days off?”

  “I don’t have any of those.”

  “None at all?” said Tessa, putting down her phone.

  “Nope,” I said.

  “Then what do you usually do when you come home from work?”

  “I read the news and do chores. Taxes and cleaning, mostly.”

  “I was expecting you to have some more… interesting hobbies,” she said. “But you don’t even own a television! What kind of person are you?”

  “If you’re that interested in watching something, I have an account for a streaming site,” I said.

  “A what?” said Tessa. Figures she didn’t know what they were. I went to the site I was subscribed to on my laptop. Hundreds of shows and movies popped up, all organized in a myriad of different categories.

  “You can watch this many!?” she said. The flip phone brought her to the early 2000s, and with this I dropped her straight into the next decade.

  “What sounds interesting to you?” I said. She took the mouse and scrolled through the different categories. Some of them, like Horror, made her hiss. Others, like certain action categories, made her grin. Her favorite category was Long-Haired Women Who Kick Ass Using Guns. It was oddly specific and piqued my interest. I would soon learn that introducing her to this was a grave mistake.

  We watched the first episode of a show from the comfort of my sofa. Then one episode turned to two. Two turned to five.

  “I think it’s about time for lunch,” I said. I struggled to scrape my butt of the couch.

  “You can do that,” she said, holding her hands to her knees. “I’ll start the next one.”

  I gave her a dirty look, but she ignored me. The next episode started with a loud bang, followed by a roaring shout from the protagonist. But I could not watch, for I had lunch to make.

  “Television is really powerful,” said Tessa.

  “Can’t say I disagree,” I said as I washed the dishes. Dinner transpired in the same way that lunch did. I cooked while Tessa watched her show. By late afternoon, Tessa had had enough. Two bags formed under her eyes. She laid flat on her bed, levitating her phone and socks over her hand like some supernatural juggler.

  “Had enough?” I said.

  “For today, at least. How can people get anything done when there’s so many interesting things to watch?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. There was something pleasing about the way Tessa interacted with the world around her. To her, everything had a purpose. She made it her job to discover what it was.

  We went to bed shortly after that. I was woken up at my usual time by the pleasing aroma of freshly-brewed espresso. Tessa stood by the kitchen, pouring milk foam into two porcelain cups.

  “Morning,” she said with a smile.

  “Good… morning,” I said. The witch had put on her working clothes and done her makeup.

  “What motivated you to wake up so early?”

  “Just a desire to be helpful,” she said. “We want the café to be a place where people can go to smile, right? That’ll only happen if we put in all our effort.”

  “That’s right,” I said, reciprocating the smile. I took the saucer in my hand and drank from the cup. It was sweet with acidic undertones. A thousand feelings erupted inside me, all of them as brilliant as the girl in front of me.

  “How is it?” she said.

  It was, without a doubt, the most delicious cup of coffee I had ever had.

  Chapter 4

  “Are you excited to see your sister?” said Tessa. She and Elise manned the counter while I did some miscellaneous tasks.

  “I guess I am,” said Elise. She fixed her eyes on a poster next to the door. The name “Moka” was written in bold pink letters, followed by “Poetry Slam”. Getting an up-and-coming artist to show up at your café isn’t easy. Getting one to show up for free is next to impossible… unless one of your staffers is family.

  “Got a new invention?” said Don. He and his wife had been regular customers for years, but after Tessa joined they came with more frequency.

  “My sister’s coming to lead a poetry night tonight,” said Elise. “Probably not your style, Don.”

  “Probably not,” said Don, laughing.

  “Good morning girls,” said Julie.

  Elise took Don’s order and passed it to Tessa. The witch scanned the receipt and went to work.

  She brought the orders to Don and Julie’s table.

  “It’s so good to see you,” said Don. “And the sandwich isn’t vegetarian this time.”

  “She hasn’t made that mistake in two weeks dear,” said Julie. “You’ve gotten so much better in the last three weeks.”

  “You’re too kind,” said Tessa, bowing her head. “Raul’s been making sure I do the best job I can.”

  As soon as I heard that, I winced. Don’t make me sound like the bad guy, Tessa…
>
  “Raul!” said Don. I dropped what I was doing and walked over.

  “Don’t be so hard on Tessa,” said Don. “The coffee tastes a lot better when she prepares it. Maybe she should be the one to teach you a thing or two.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. Tessa and I walked away. She nudged my shoulder.

  “Don likes me more,” she said.

  “Sure he does,” I said. For all the flak Don gave me, there was no denying that Tessa had improved. It had been exactly three weeks since Tessa nearly collapsed on me in the sidewalk. She hadn’t experienced any similar attacks since.

  Our customer volume also increased. It was hard to tell if something as intangible as Tessa’s witch allure was what brought about this increase. Regardless, I couldn’t rest. The Twisted Cauldron couldn’t compete in price, so I needed to find something else to attract customers.

  We closed the café at 6 PM to prepare for the poetry slam. This meant mopping the floor, rearranging the tables, and bringing out more food. Tessa had a jump to her step as she helped with the preparations. She was more chipper than usual.

  “You seem excited,” I said.

  “I’ve never done poetry,” she said. “To express your thoughts in a way that cuts off the excess… it’s very unlike anything witches do.”

  “You’re free to recite your own piece,” I said.

  “I can’t. I mean, I don’t have anything written. And I’ll be working…”

  “Elise and I can handle it if you decide to participate,” I said. Given how eccentric Tessa can be sometimes, I would be interested in hearing what kind of piece she would come up with.

  The door opened, unleashing the loud ting from the bell above. In walked a dark-skinned woman with long pink dreadlocks.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hello,” I said, shaking her hand. “It’s so nice to see you.”

  “You’re Raul, right?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “And this is Tessa. And over there is—“

  “Hello Moka,” said Elise. She walked up behind me with her hands crossed.

  “Ellie,” said Moka. She went to hug her sister, but Elise stepped back.

  “You’re looking well,” said Elise.