C-TWT-003
Barista: Jennifer Hepburn
Date: Feb-2-2020
Receipt: C-TWT-003
Subject: Witches
After the others filtered out, I lingered. I told myself that all I wanted was answers. But really… I just couldn’t turn my back on Allison █████.
I pressed her on what she said during our introductions. The thing about ██████. About us not being long for this world. She didn’t deny it. Just laughed—low and wet, like bark splitting. Said I was “wise to ask, foolish to want answers.” Par for the course with ███████, I suppose. Assuming Otherworld ███████ work in a similar way to █████████ ███████. But that’s getting bogged down in semantics and presumptions… █████ gave at least a solid enough answer.
According to █████, if I heard her right, our work with the Cafe, this crusade against ████, comes with collateral. It has to. Not the kind we can dodge. She said if we tear down the loom, the threads have to go with it. And those of us who can see them? We vanish too. Not violently, she said. Just… quietly. Like a ripple that never reaches shore. I couldn’t tell if she meant all ██████ disappear, or just our ██████… but she seemed to imply it was the former. She made it sound… inevitable.
I don’t buy that.
I didn’t choose to see ████’s threads.
Sure—Rachel might’ve chosen this path. Jenny too. But Joy? I doubt she ever had a say in what she became. But the point is… We don’t belong to ████. Observation alone cannot determine whether or not we still exist. Our ██████? Sure. Those… those I wouldn’t have expected to keep if we do find a way to defeat ████.
But █████, of course, sees it differently. She said if ████ falls, the world won’t stop. It’ll revert. Back to the “old ways.” Back before any sense of a predetermined outcome. Before the spinning of █████ after █████. Back to primordial, unfiltered, unchained, and unknowable █████ and ████████. She seemed almost pleased by the idea.
…If this path ends with us burning out like dying stars, so be it. Better that than being complicit in ████’s machinations.
…Still. I wonder if she’s right.
Decaffeinate Receipt
“On a wire, in a tree, flying west, diving, pecking, singing, preening…”
Paranormal Trivia | 3 Words