The Uninvited Guest
A crisp spring breeze pushed in through the gap as the door opened. Pine pollen rode in with it, and Clara gave another small cough.
"Achoo...!"
She scrunched her nose, started outside, then turned back. A hand lifted in my direction—a small, light wave. A heartbeat later she startled at herself, at having done something any ordinary girl might do. Color rushed into her cheeks, and she shot straight up into the sky.
"Cute..."
The word slipped out before I knew it. I gathered the plate and empty glass she had left, carried them to the sink, and washed them. The squeak of porcelain and the quiet run of water filled the still room.
Once everything was wiped dry, I crossed to the little speaker in the corner of the counter and switched the playlist to calm jazz fit for a bar after dark. The sun was gone, and even the red afterglow had faded. Any moment now Hina would probably turn up with that heavy minigun on her shoulder and start whining that she wanted me all to herself again. I was idly entertaining that useless prediction.
Creak.
The wooden door's clear chime sounded, and someone stepped inside. A woman in plain, unremarkable street clothes. Her eyes moved quickly over the chandelier's light, the counter, and the neatly kept display. There was none of the particular sparkle Magical Girls carried, and nothing of Shinano's crisp, composed authority. Since the cafe-bar had been remodeled, this was the first civilian to walk in of her own accord.
"Welcome. It gets quite cold in the mountains once the sun goes down. Sit wherever you like."
At the sound of my voice her shoulders jumped. She yanked the camera in her hands up against her chest and stared at me without a word.
"This is the Witches' Gathering. The prices run a little high... The menu's on the wall."
Hikers used to wander in now and then. They would start at an espresso costing twice what a normal cafe charged, then shrug it off—a mountain villa, what did you expect. I wasn't sure this one would.
Her eyes went to the menu on the wall. The instant she saw the prices she flinched, and the sound of her indrawn breath cut through the faint jazz.
"Wh-what? These prices? A cafe in the mountains, more expensive than a downtown hotel lounge?"
She muttered it as if she couldn't believe her own eyes and took a step back from the counter.
"Witches' Gathering? Even the name is pure middle-school edgelord cringe. A ghost shop set up to dodge taxes? Or are you running something illegal?"
Still muttering to herself, she snapped the camera up in both hands. The lens swung toward the menu on the wall and the handsome bar. Click. Click. The shutter went off in a noisy string.
Photos taken, she ducked her head, fished a smartphone from her pocket, and set to tapping the screen with her thumb.
"One espresso. The cheapest."
After staring at the screen for a long while, she fired it off without so much as lifting her head.
"Obviously, if you're charging prices like that, you'll give me a receipt, right? I might need it when I file a report later, so print it properly."
She pulled out the chair at the end of the counter and dropped into it. Her eyes never left the phone, and her shoulders stayed hunched tight. Even so, the fingers on the screen didn't stop. She seemed to have been waiting for me to panic—claim the card reader was broken, refuse a receipt, something suspicious. When I simply worked the espresso machine in silence, her mouth twisted, and displeasure showed plain on her face.
"Yeah. It is a little expensive... Trucks can't get up here, so the owner hauls everything in by car herself."
I set the fresh espresso, the sugar cubes, and the printed receipt on a small tray and slid it across to her. She had probably decided this was a shady secret base, or an illegal meeting place. Hide a tree in the forest, as the saying went. The place was already registered, properly, as a cafe in the mountains. As a part-timer on the books, I had nothing to feel guilty about.
She snatched the stiff slip of paper off the tray with a jerk. Her eyes raced over the business registration number, the owner's name, the line for tax. All that drive to catch even a speck of a pretext lost its footing and wavered in front of a bill that was entirely, boringly legal.
"What... It's just a normal sole proprietorship. The trade name is literally Witches' Gathering Cafe."
She clicked her tongue and flicked the receipt into the corner of the counter. A dissatisfied sigh followed. Then she put her mouth to the cup of black coffee, took a sip—and her shoulders jumped hard.
"Ghk... Ugh, that's insanely bitter. Is this poison?"
Startled by the bitterness, she shuddered and stuck her tongue out. Tears even sprang to the corners of her eyes. In a fluster she grabbed both sugar cubes off the tray at once and dropped them into the cup with a plop. The clatter of a little spoon stirring the coffee rang across the quiet counter.
Only after another mouthful of the espresso, now thick with melted sugar, did she seem to settle. She seized the phone in both hands again.
"Stuck out in the mountains selling coffee, and all you do is put on atmosphere. Obviously some rich layabout opened it as a hobby, chasing that social-media look. The menu prices too—textbook gouging."
For all the complaints she tossed out, her thumbs on the screen moved with a strange lightness. In the real world she was helpless against one bitter cup of coffee, yet inside that little screen she looked every bit the crusader about to indict the world.
I met the eyes that were waiting for an answer. The raised voice, the strained suspicions stacked one on another—I had a fair idea. A third-rate reporter hunting a scoop, most likely. Or the kind of influencer who lived and died by views.
"It's not one of those places that opens once a month because someone wanted a villa. It's just a cafe."
Back when aesthetic cafes were in fashion, even a spot this far out of the way would sometimes make the rounds. But in a grim world where Aberrations ran wild, people sentimental enough to seek out a cafe this deep in the mountains were rare. And late in the evening, in thin flats caked with dirt—for someone devoted enough to coffee to claw her way up a mountain path, her reaction to that espresso had been far too pathetic.
"Ha. You're going to insist to the bitter end that it's just a cafe? That's the line you're taking?"
She picked up the phone she had left facedown on the counter. A few taps brought something up, and the screen's bluish light fell across her face.
"I came here knowing everything, you know? I went through the anonymous boards. Anyone who knows, knows. This is a back door Magical Girls sneak in and out of in secret, isn't it? There's more than one or two tips saying you hide the ones who cause trouble and run, and that it's a hideout where they get together and act like delinquents."
She preened as if the cheap tabloid scraps she had dug up were some grand truth.
"People who are actually awake, like me, have a right to know. Playing the hero in public, then gathering in a shady mountain hollow like this to scheme who knows what. I don't know if you're a part-timer or a front, but you'd better talk before you get pulled into a police investigation."
She snapped it like an interrogation. Her lips must have been dry; she reached again for the espresso. Then, perhaps remembering the bitterness of the black liquid left in the bottom, she grimaced, pulled her hand back, and glared straight through me.
"I wouldn't know. I'm just the part-timer... Want me to call the owner? Or—exercising my rights—I can refuse a problem customer and throw you out, can't I? For the record... there are bears on this mountain."
The words had barely left me when both thumbs, busy hammering the screen, stopped dead in the air. Her eyes darted uneasily between my face and the window. The lights made the room feel warm, but beyond the glass it was now a pitch so black you couldn't see an inch ahead.
"B-bears...? D-don't joke! These days—what, are you trying to scare me on purpose?!"
She flinched, drew in on herself, and shouted.
Whoooosh... rattle!
Right on cue, a rough wind coming down the ridge shook the window as it passed.
"Eek!"
She let out a short scream and, startled at herself, dropped the phone onto the counter.
"Y-you think I'll actually get thrown out? If I walk out of here and a bear bites me to death, you'll be arrested on the spot! You know that?!"
She yelled it in a rush, dragging in legal liability no one had asked about. The force with which she had been grilling me like a suspect only moments ago was gone without a trace. She couldn't even pick up the phone lying on the counter. Half off the chair in an awkward crouch, she started watching my face.
"And climbing a mountain at night in flats makes sense?"
At that she flinched, shoulders jumping, and reflexively tried to tuck her toes under the chair.
"No car. Not even dressed to hike... Anyone looking at you would think you came up here on the run after committing a crime."
Someone throwing a tantrum needed a firm hand. I stepped to the wall behind the counter, reached out, and slid aside the cafe display that took up one side of it.
Srrk. The shelf of coffee beans, syrup bottles, and teacups glided smoothly along its rail, and the fine bar cabinet hidden behind it came into view.
"H-eek...!"
She half-rose off the stool, body drawn tight. She had clearly already decided that beyond that secret door lay illegal weapons belonging to Magical Girls, a torture room, or the hidden base of some mastermind poised to shake the world.
If she had been expecting a grand weapon or a secret facility, she was going to be very disappointed. All that waited there was fine whiskey gleaming amber, cognac that had kept long years, bottles of liqueur in every color, and cocktail glasses.