A Witch's Guide to a Good Brew Read online

  “It’s a simple blog. Problem is it takes ages to load and doesn’t really have anything outside of our work hours. Even the menu’s out of date.”

  “If it takes too long to load, it might be you’re clogging up the page with too many images. Or you’re on shared hosting with a sucky company,” said Elise. “As for the second, I’ll see what other cafés have on their website and make some changes.”

  “Great,” said Raul. “Can you work on it today?”

  “What about, you know, running the café? Serving customers?” said Elise.

  “That’s right,” said Raul, tapping his chin. Did he really just forget that?

  “How about this,” he said. “I’ll be done with my calls by lunch. After lunch, I’ll hold down the shop while you two work on the website.”

  “You two? As in, myself included?” I said. I have enough trouble turning on the computer as is! What help would I be in developing a website?

  “Don’t worry, Tessa,” said Raul. He put his hand on my shoulder, providing a little comfort. “I’m sure you’ll be a great help. Just follow Elise’s lead.”

  The lunch rush went by in a flash, and before I knew it I was sitting in the same corner of the coffeeshop that Raul was in hours before. Truth be told, I wasn’t too thrilled about it. Elise would do the work and I would stare at the screen, perennially confused.

  Elise made a few presses, bringing up an ugly website with black and blue letters. To call it an eyesore would be an understatement.

  “Yikes,” said Elise. “The theme, coloring… it’s all so…”

  “Bad?” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  Elise opened the pages of several other small-time cafés. They were all colorful and significantly more readable than the Twisted Cauldron’s. She tabbed between them and a page titled ‘Theme’ that let her change the design of the site.

  “This doesn’t look as bad as I thought it would be,” I said.

  “Choosing the theme is the easy part,” said Elise. “Here. This one seems most similar to that of the other companies.”

  Elise pressed a button, bringing up hundreds of lines of text. I recognized the words and numbers, but they weren’t assembled in a way that made any meaningful sense. Absolute gibberish.

  “Did it break?”

  “No,” said Elise, typing away. “I’m just editing the CSS. Change the color, size of certain fonts… Stuff like that. Have you never seen it?”

  “Oh, that’s good! I, uh, no. Never seen it,” I said. “Is there any way I could help?”

  “There is, actually,” said Elise. “Do you think this looks good?”

  The site she showed me had light purple with black. I could sense that Elise didn’t like it. At all.

  “It’s pretty bad,” I said.

  “You don’t have to be nice about—what? You said you didn’t like it?” said Elise.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I don’t like it.”

  “Me neither,” she said. “I didn’t expect you to have such a strong opinion about it.”

  I didn’t think it looked that bad, but I trusted Elise’s opinion more than I do. That was when it hit me: Elise’s opinion wasn’t important either. What mattered was what the users—customers—would think. In front of us were a dozen of them, all primed and ready.

  “I saw you tinkering with the different configurations,” I told Elise. “What if we showed them to customers and polled them?”

  “That’s… That’s genius, Tessa. Let me load up the different configurations.”

  Elise went to work, moving between windows so fast it almost gave me a headache. I left her to see how Raul was doing.

  “How’s it going?” said Raul. “You know, it’s OK if you don’t get everything figured out today. These things take time. Don’t be too hard on yourselves.”

  “Elise is almost done,” I said, letting the words roll off my tongue. Raul did a double-take before taking a towel and wiping down the counter.

  “That’s good,” he said.

  There was no fooling me, Raul. You were thinking about how you, with your fancy half-done graduate degree couldn’t get it to work.

  “I’m done,” said Elise, her voice ringing across the café.

  “Mind if we ask patrons for their help?” I said.

  “As long as you’re not too pushy, then sure,” said Raul.

  “We won’t be,” I said. There was no need. I could tell from just a few seconds how they felt about the website.

  Elise and I took her computer to the nearest table. He was a middle-aged man with balding hair and wearing a suit. Given how nonchalant he felt, I assumed he was either unemployed or really didn’t care about his job if he had one.

  “Excuse us, sir,” I said. “We’re building a website and would love your input.”

  “Well, as you can see, I’m very busy here,” he said. Just a minute ago he was laughing at his phone.

  “We understand, which is why we’d like to sweeten the deal with an offer for free coffee,” I said.

  “I like that idea,” he said. “I like it a lot. I’m in!”

  “Great,” said Elise. “Now we’ll—”

  “I didn’t OK that!” said Raul as he marched over. I went over to intercept him.

  “This will work,” I said. I used my hand to pat his chest. “Plus, a little incentive goes a long way.”

  “Alright,” he said. “Fine.”

  “And don’t keep such a close eye on us! Don’t you have customers to serve?”

  “I, uh…”

  “Get back to work, pretty boy,” I said. Raul returned to his post. The throwaway compliment sent his mind into a bubbling mess of thoughts. I didn’t need my powers to know that.

  I returned to help Elise. The customer was browsing through the first layout. When he finished, we moved on to the second design.

  “What did you think of each of them?” said Elise.

  “They’re both good,” he said. “But I like the second one more.”

  “Any other comments?” I said. Elise jotted them all down. When he finished, I pulled Elise apart.

  “The old guy’s lying to us,” I said.

  “Why would he lie?” said Elise.

  “To make us feel better? Not sure. But I got a sense that he disliked the first design you showed him a lot.”

  To say that he disliked it was an understatement. The first layout reminded him of earlier times. Of an age where he had a steady girlfriend, a steady job, and no medical bills.

  We continued down the café. Every person had some personal reason that made them like one design over the other. Sometimes they were honest about which design they liked and why, but most of the time their responses were generic. It was up to me to extract the real information.

  By closing time, we had done 30 interviews. Not too bad.

  “We finished designing the website,” Elise told Raul. “I’ll send you an email with details on some of the stuff. Added a few plugins you might find interesting.”

  “You two work insanely fast,” he said.

  “It’s all thanks to Tessa,” she said. “She has a knack for reading people. Almost like magic, really.”

  Elise left, leaving Raul and myself to finish cleaning up. We locked the door to the Twisted Cauldron behind us and headed home.

  “Almost like magic, huh,” he said.

  “That’s right,” I said. I took hold of his arm and tugged. “It’s getting late. We should hurry home.”

  “Don’t change the subject!” he said.

  “You worry too much. I didn’t cast any spells. I just read off their emotions.”

  “And you won’t get in trouble for using your magic to help me?”

  He had a point. The rules in the colony weren’t very explicit about using magic for monetary gain, but that was because witches didn’t really own any businesses outside the colony. Still, I had no regrets. I used magic to help the Twisted Cauldron, and in my eyes there’s nothing I would
rather use it on. Plus, it made Raul happy.

  “I won’t,” I said.

  “That’s good,” he said, smiling. “I think I have another idea.”

  “Really? What is it?”

  “Cascara,” he said.

  “Pardon?”

  “It’s the name given to drinks made with coffee husk. Ground up the husk and blend it with sugar. Then you can mix that with syrup to make drinks with it. I think our suppliers might have some available.”

  “Coffee husk? I do magic, but that’s just crazy,” I said.

  Chapter 7

  “Tessa, let me go through,” I said.

  “No! Not today!”

  She was rooted in front of my apartment exit.

  “Someone needs to open the Twisted Cauldron.”

  “I have the keys right here,” she said, dangling them in front of me. I reached out to grab them, but she yanked them away too fast. “I told you: today is your off day.”

  “I don’t take off days,” I said. I gently pushed her arms out of the way. Big mistake. My body was lifted off the ground thrown into the sofa. I ended up with my head at an awkward angle, looking at her from upside down.

  “But I can make an exception,” I said, rubbing my head. “Why are you so insistent?”

  “Because you work too hard,” she said. “In the month and a half I’ve been here, you’ve done nothing but work. Work, work, work, work! There’s more to life than that.”

  “How can I be sure that you won’t burn down the entire place?” I said. “When I go back to Twisted Cauldron, will it still be there?”

  “Don’t worry. I’m a highly trained professional.”

  “That’s…” I followed a learn-as-you-go approach, so Tessa’s training was a little less than complete. Of course, I couldn’t tell her that. Tessa had done an admirable job so far.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I said I’ll take the day off. Let you and Elise handle it.”

  “Wow,” she said, putting her hands to her hip. “You went down easier than I expected.”

  Once again, the witch bested me.

  Tessa left through the front door at our usual time, leaving me to eat my toast in silence. Most people get two days a week off. I just had to do whatever it is they did for fun. Easy.

  I browsed the streaming site that Tessa loves so much. Hundreds of shows about cops, high schoolers, and every other trope under the sun. None of them interested me. Next step was the movies.

  My phone displayed a list of all the currently airing shows as I walked to the strip mall. It was the same strip mall that I took Tessa to. Now that I understood my feelings for Tessa, I couldn’t deny that it was anything other than a date.

  I stopped in front of the theater, with its neon-lit sign towering dozens of feet above me. Generic Action, Generic Romance, Generic Drama, and Generic Comedy stood before me. None of them immediately appealed to me, leading me to search for more information. The Generic Romance had the best reviews, but I went for the second-best, the Generic Action.

  Two hours later, and I was back to where I started: alone and bored. This can’t be me. I used to find weekends so exciting. I would play video games until my eyes went numb. Or I would go to a bar with friends. Now I scarcely owned any games and all my friends moved away.

  At least I knew coffee would always bring me joy. I made my way to the establishment with the best coffee in town, passed the familiar chime of the door bell.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “What are you doing here?” said Tessa. She crossed her arms and looked down on me, like a friend who disapproved of your habits and knows you tried indulging in them.

  “Chill,” I said, putting up my hands. “I’m just here for some espresso.”

  I saw that the café was bustling. Elise was sitting by a table, probably to get a quick break. Everybody looked happy, lively.

  “This is your day off. Shoo! Your business isn’t wanted here,” said Tessa. She turned me around and pushed me out the door.

  “This is no way to treat a customer,” I said. “I taught you better than that!”

  “Well then,” said Tessa, leaning up to my ear. Her breath tickled my ear, making me blush. “Do you want me to toss you out like I did this morning, only make it hurt ten times more?”

  “Have a pleasant day!” I said, running out of my own business. I went to the second-best coffee shop in town, located a dozen blocks away. It was called the Marigold. As its name suggests, it was a café decorated in bright yellows and oranges. Painted in the wall behind the cashier were the words “Life is an adventure: go get it!”

  It made me grit my teeth.

  “Hello,” said the barista behind the register. “How can I help you on this fine day?”

  “Can I get a double macchiato, please?”

  “Excellent choice, sir! We will bring that right out.”

  I paid and even dropped a few dollars into the tip jar. I could recognize good service when I saw it.

  While the cashier took another order, a team of baristas behind the counter, all dressed in bright yellow aprons, went to work. An army of potted flowers formed the bulk of the café’s decor, exuding a pleasant aroma.

  The coffee was as good as I remember it. It was sugary without sacrificing any of the taste underneath. I looked around, confirming that not much had changed since I last came here.

  Since my mother passed away.

  It was mid-May and I had just finished my first year as a doctorate student. I had arrived home a few days before. On that day, I accompanied my mom on some errands.

  “Why are we here again?” I said.

  “You told me you’ve developed a thing for coffee while you were away, so I thought I would bring you to my favorite place in town.”

  We sat by a window booth. Her brown hair had been freshly blow-dried while I waited outside, scrolling through my phone. We both held cappuccinos in our hands. I took a sip of mine and had to do a double-take. I didn’t know coffee could be that good.

  “You like it?” she said.

  “I do. It smells very… flowery in here.”

  “That just adds to the appeal, doesn’t it?”

  “I guess… Doesn’t Uncle Joe own a café too?” I said. My mom’s hands tensed.

  “That’s... I like this one better,” she said.

  “Mom, I know you don’t like Uncle Joe all that much. But as the last living member of dad’s family, I think it might be nice to visit once in a while, right?”

  I entered dangerous territory. My father died when I was only months old, so I have no recollection of him. His brother, Joe, appeared in my life from time to time, but never for more than a few hours. Bringing up any conversation about my father made her act nervous.

  “Why don’t we go somewhere else? There’s a few more places I want to shop at,” she said.

  “Don’t dodge the question, please,” I said. “The last time I suggested we visit Uncle Joe, you flat out said we couldn’t do it. Why don’t you want me to go to the Twisted Cauldron?”

  “You’ll understand one day, sweetie. Please don’t push this now. Please…”

  I balled my hands into fists. I was twenty-two years old. Old enough to know whatever it is I couldn’t know. I hated this. Hated not knowing.

  “I’m driving back home,” I said. “Call me when you’re done and I can pick you up.”

  “That sounds good,” she said, relieved that I put the issue to rest. We left the booth and walked our separate ways, unaware that it would be the last time I ever saw her alive.

  I stared at the booth, now empty. I pictured my mother and younger self. There were so many things I would say.

  I drank the last of my coffee and walked out, leaving the fresh lavender smell behind. I then made my way to the edge of town, to a large plot of land that housed a cemetery. Since my mom was buried here, I only visited it once, on the anniversary of her death. I hadn’t changed much by then. Now,
however, I felt ready.

  I stopped by the tombstone designated for Clara Casilla, my mother. There were a few families milling about, but they were dozens of tombstone rows away. I was alone.

  “Good afternoon, mom,” I said, biting my lip. “It’s been a while. I’m sorry I haven’t visited that often. Between work and… That’s no excuse. Last time I came here, I told you about how Joe had given me his café to run. He said he needed to attend to some stuff, and that nobody was better at running a coffee shop than a PhD dropout. But now, I think I understand things a little better. Passing the café on to me was a way to inject meaning into my life. The truth is… I’ve been really lost, mom. For the longest time I thought I was going through the motions, even before you died. Now, though, I think I finally have a purpose.

  “You see, I met this girl. She’s really sweet, maybe even to a fault. Her name’s Tessa and she’s a little on the weird side. Uncle Joe gave me the task of taking care of her but I think she’s the one taking care of me. Tessa’s one of the sweetest women I’ve ever met, and by far the most beautiful. She’s been helping me turn the café into something wonderful. It’s so great, mom, that even you might be interested in visiting it. I’ve been with the girl for two months and every day is a new discovery. Just yesterday, I learned that Tessa hates fish. Kind of weird for a girl from Maryland, don’t you think? That made me laugh.

  “I miss you a lot,” I said. I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. They streamed down my face, disappearing into the grass beneath my feet.

  “Not a day goes by where I don’t replay the last few minutes we talked in my head. If only I had agreed to stay with you and driven you to the store instead of making you walk. Maybe then you’d… I know I can’t change it, but damn it, do I wish I could. I wish I could’ve acted less like a know-it-all and more like a son. Wish I could’ve given you one last hug. But that was my mistake. I’ll never take another moment for granted any more. I’ve got a lot of friends now, not just Tessa. I hired Elise a few days after we last talked, and she’s been at the Twisted Cauldron ever since. There’s also a few customers that keep a close eye on me, like Don and Julie. I guess what I wanted to say was this: I’ll be fine, mom. Love you, and I’ll see you again soon, OK?”