Hidden Light

"Are you deaf or just plain old stupid?”

The words felt like jagged glass sliding down Alyssa's back. She blinked hard and rubbed the fabric of her apron between her fingers. She took a deep breath, smiled and replied, “Sir, I would appreciate it if you would refrain from insults to the staff.”

“Well, I'd appreciate a cup of coffee made the way I asked for it. Large, hot, black, and four sugars! No synthetic sweetener! I can taste the difference." He slammed the cup down on the counter so hard that some of the coffee spilled out of the lid and onto his hand. "God damn it! Look at what you made me do!”

Alyssa took one more deep, calming breath and then smiled. "Sir. With all due respect. I think you will find that I cannot make you do anything. Much like how I will not be making you anything else” Alyssa ran her hands through her short black hair twice, then put them flat on her apron and smoothed it down. Her fingers started making small but noticeable movements.“Sir, I will be declining your patronage at this establishment today and…”

The customer tossed the cup behind the counter. Alyssa closed her eyes and braced for the worst as the hot black liquid left the cup. The coffee parted through the lid so two even pools of coffee landed on either side of her body, missing her by inches.

Alyssa opened her eyes. 

Her hands were in tight balls on top of the apron. Her two index fingers curled and pointed like crooked sevens. Her hands felt like they were on fire as she relaxed them. 

Shivering with fear, she stood there and watched the coffee pool at her feet in a perfect circle around her before she let loose her grip on the apron.

Another man in line in a tight-fitting blue suit grabbed the customer around the neck and pushed him against the counter.

“Ok, fella.” his thick Irish accent hit Alyssa like honey hits hot tea. "I had about enough of you when you cut in line, but I said nothin' because I didn't have anywhere to be this mornin’, so I said I’d let it be. I was also polite while you were ranting because I assumed you, like many individuals including myself, are a bit cranky before we get that first cuppa in us.”

The man was squirming to get loose, but the Irishman in the blue suit kept him still, pushing him harder against the wooden counter. "But throwing hot coffee on a woman because you think she got your order wrong!”

"She... She did!”

"I don't give a rats arse if you personally watched her wring out mop water in the cup before handing it to you. Who in the hell gave you the right to throw something at another human being?”

“I..."

"Oh, you shut your mouth, boy-o.”

The other baristas on shift had come to the front counter to see what was happening. Myke, Alyssa's best friend being one of them.

"What's happened?" Myke looked down at the hot coffee ring surrounding her. "Did you... did he?”

Alyssa shook her head, “I did. He didn’t.”

Myke had been Alyssa's friend for nearly her whole life, and he knew exactly why the coffee at her feet was pooling in a perfect circle.

Myke nodded, moved forward and put his hand on her shoulder. "Who's your friend?”

Alyssa looked down at her feet and watched the coffee start to move again. It touched the soles of her shoes, and she looked up and said, "Another customer in line.”

"Seen him before?”

“No," Alyssa shook her head and then stepped out of the puddle of coffee.

"I... I just can't have synthetic sweetener it's bad for my heart!" The customer pleaded with the Irishman.

"Bad for your heart? Pal, you're in a fuckin' cafe, and you just ordered the largest, legal triple shot espresso I have ever seen. With four sugars. Which you then throw at this lovely girl behind the counter... What's your name, sorry love?”

“Oh... A... Alyssa" The sudden attention from the Irishman brought a flush to her cheeks.

"Alyssa. How old are you, love?”

“Seventeen.”

"Seventeen. You were going to scold a seventeen-year-old girl because she got your order wrong. How old are you?”

”I don't see how…”

The Irishman grabbed the customer's arm and pulled it behind his back and slammed his face into the counter. Everyone in line took a few steps back when his head hit the counter. The people closer to the door took this moment to leave without being seen. 

”I said how old are ya, you deaf bastard!”

"Thirty-eight!”

"Thirty-eight, blimey, you could have fooled me you look awful. I'd have thought you were closer to fifty-eight.”

A quiet chuckle came from one of the other baristas on staff that couldn't be stopped.

"You're thirty-eight years old, and what is it that you do that is so important that you need your order perfect”

"I... I... Work for the Inquisition Department!”

This stopped the chuckling from the other barista as well as all other sounds in the building.

The Irishman put his head down and whispered into the customer's ear. "Buddy. You could be The King him fuckin’ self for all I give a shite. You threw a hot cup of coffee at this young lady who is so young in fact she is not able to vote in this next election. So you are going to apologise and leave this place and never come back, because if you do I will come back. And if I come back, I will find you, and you don't want to know what will happen if I find you. Do we have an understanding?”

The man nodded, "OK, I'm sorry, I’m sorry!”

"Not to me, you fool! To Alyssa, that lovely young lady you miraculously didn't hit at point-blank range with your coffee you threw on her!”

The man looked over to Alyssa and with big, wide eyes said, "I'm so sorry. It's never going to happen again. I swear I'll never come back. I'll go somewhere else, I promise!”

The Irishman looked over at Alyssa. "That good enough for you, love?" He smiled and gave a playful wink at her.

Alyssa felt her face turn warm for a second time, and she smiled, “Yes… I think so.”

The Irishman nodded and then pulled the customer off the counter, escorted him out of the store before taking his place back in line.

Myke pulled Alyssa into the back room, and another barista took her place to serve and clean up the coffee that was now cooling in the cold winter air.

"Did he see anything?" Myke asked as soon as they were behind the door. "You didn't say anything out loud, did you?”

“No, I did it in my head," Alyssa sat down in the office chair and shook her head, "He couldn't have seen anything. It happened too fast, and I was too close for him to see anything.”

Myke sighed and sat down across from her. "One day. Someone’s gonna notice.”

"What was I meant to do, Myke‽ Take a cup to the face‽”

"No!" Myke put his hands up, "I'm not saying you shouldn't have protected yourself. I'm saying... It was a bad one to need to use a spell on.”

Alyssa made small mountains in the fabric of her apron. “It feels like the department keeps getting bigger. I didn't even know he was in it." Tears pooled in her eyes, and she looked up to stop them from falling unsuccessfully. “My Mum used to point them all out to me in the street. 'They are incredibly obvious, don't you agree?' and I would say yes… But they all just look like regular people to me.”

"Me too." Myke said, " I think that's the point. They blend in so they can get into your house and…” He trailed off, but Alyssa knew. She had experienced it first-hand. Her house was broken into in the early hours of the day by the department. Her books taken and burned on the front lawn of their house while her father was taken, beaten and questioned for days about what he had known and when. Her mother... Alyssa could still hear the screaming at night when she closed her eyes. The look on her face as the head of the Department of Inquisitions lit the match after declaring her guilty of Witchcraft. Sentenced to death on the word of another witch who escaped punishment for twelve other witches' names. Alyssa was sent to a group home for a few weeks until her father's name was cleared, but the less she thought of that time, the better. 

"I should say thank you" She stood, needing a task to remove herself from the memories. "I need to thank the guy in the suit.”

"Hey." Myke grabbed her hand. "You good? You don't need to be.”

"I'm not. But I promise I will be.”

Myke smiled and let her hand go. "OK.”

Alyssa left the office and looked over the counter and saw the Irishman was sitting in one of the chairs by the front window. He was sipping tea from a mug with the pot in the centre of the table. He was looking out at the snow falling in the street, while glancing down at a heavily worn paperback.

She reached into the display and grabbed the biggest blueberry muffin she could see, then walked over to him and placed it down in front of him.

"Just as a thank you. I... Yeah, that's really all, just. Thank you.”

The Irishman smiled. "Thank you." he put down his book face up, and she read the title.

"The Vicar loved me on Thursdays?" Alyssa read out, "That sounds…"

"Like it's incredibly dull. Oh, I agree that's its charm!" He smiled at her and then took a bite of the muffin. “This is magical! Store-made?”

"Well... Sort of" Alyssa shrugged awkwardly, "I um... Well, I made it. I bake all the muffins and things at home so... Store made... Homemade”

The Irishman smiled, "You know. You have to be more careful”

“Sorry?"

"Your spell”

"The... Sorry what?”

“Come on. You don't need to play coy with me. I saw you do it. The barrier charm to protect yourself. You did it in your head, which is incredibly clever for a girl your age. I haven't seen many people do it before they were in their twenties. But you made the hand movements… Well, finger movements, from the Book of Lights ”

“How d… I… Sorry I don’t know what you mean by that.”

The Irishman took her hand. "It's OK, Alyssa. I'm not here to take you.”

Alyssa's heart stopped for a second when he touched her hand, starting only when it was safe to do so. “Who are you?”

The Irishman smiled, then let her hand go. He looked over to his book and motioned for it to come to him. 

And it did. 

It slowly slid from one side of the table to the other.

Alyssa's mouth fell open, and she grabbed the book to stop it moving. She looked around to see if anyone had seen. The baristas had their backs turned pouring coffee and the customers in the store were in their own worlds. 

“What are you doing we are in public! Do you want people to see‽”

“People see what they want. They often don’t see what’s in front of their own eyes.” The Irishman smiled and said, "Open it. Read a few lines”

Alyssa opened the paperback to the bookmark and saw that at the top of the pages she was looking at was the author's name, which was on the front of the book, and the name of the book on the cover. However, the text was not what it should have been. On the left page was a spell for levitation, and on the right page was a spell for levitating objects.

She was holding for the first time in nearly ten years a copy of the Book of Lights. It was in an unceremonious cover. But the words and content were those of the book her mother and so many others had been burned for a decade ago in the uprising.

"How did you get this? Why does it look like this?”

"The Inquisitioners thought that they needed to burn all the books in order to get rid of the knowledge that the pages contained" he pointed to her forehead and pressed softly against her skin. His hands were warm from the mug, and Alyssa wondered why she enjoyed the simple gesture as much as she did. "But that Knowledge is in here.”

"So... why is it…"

"Wrapped up in a cheap romance novel cover?" The Irishman asked. Alyssa nodded, "I don't know about you, but if I saw someone reading this in public, I'd give them a wide berth” He smiled and continued, "It just has to look like it belongs in the real world. It doesn't matter what the title is because with a simple thought and a tap of your talented fingers, that's what it is" 

He motioned for her to look down, and the levitation spells had been replaced with prose from a Georgian romance novel.

"How did you?”

"In the last thirty years, technology has advanced. But so too has magic.”

Alyssa looked over her shoulder again. The word ‘Magic’ was a taboo word that anyone in their right mind would report. Luckily, it was just the Irishman and herself who were in earshot of the word.

"Who are you?”

The Irishman smiled and pulled a card out of his pocket, wrote his number down on it and slipped it into the book. "You can keep that one. I have quite a few copies" He stood up and hugged her. "You are not alone. Even in the darkest of days there is light if you can find it.”

She was still. "My mother used to say that. Before…"

"I know." He let her go and walked out the front door without looking back. His blue suit vanishing into the snow.

"He was friendly,” Myke said, appearing at her right side unannounced. "Who was he?”

Alyssa pulled the card from the book and then quickly pushed it back down. “That… was the leader of the magical rebellion.”

"No, it wasn’t!" Myke said, smiling, which vanished when he saw the look on Alyssa's face. "Was it?”

"Henry O’Donnell. That was him…” Alyssa's hands tightened on the book until her knuckles were white. "The UK's number one most wanted witch.”

Tears were in her eyes again, only this time she didn't even try to stop them from falling. "He's the son of a bitch who ratted out the twelve so he could walk free! He's the one who sent them to my house!”

Myke pulled her close and then walked her to the back room again. He closed the door and let her cry until the coffee was stone cold and the customers and the cakes were long gone.