The Trouble with Fate Read Free

thought-pictures.
    A big fat red apple flashed through my brain.
    “Easy, Lou,” I said under my breath as I slid a bold one to a short guy. Fae tears,
     my aunt was lost today. This was the third time.
    Concentrate. My hand. This handle, shiny, and silver bright. Concentrate on the sounds in the
     background. Someone was jiggling his keys. Use that as an anchor, cling to the sound,
     stay in the here . There was a sickening flutter of images as she overwhelmed my resistance. A red apple, something flying through the air, a face angry and distorted.
    “Stay in the here, stay in the here,” I whispered. I tried to focus on the feel of
     my hand on the handle, the distinctive reek of coffee, and the murmur of human voices
     in the background. Lou’s telegraphed images started to get thin to transparent. For
     an instant I could see the lineup of cups on top of my machine.
    Another flash, another push, and suddenly, she’d started to tow me helplessly back
     into the current of her thought-pictures. The same freakin’ red apple. A gravel path. A tree line, dark and somehow horrifying.
     The inside of Bob’s bookstore, with midday light streaming weakly through the open
     space of glass. A natural pool. The water dark, but the trees so green, and the light
     so bright. A dark uniform, bulky and foreign. Lou’s hand, her ornate ring too loose
     on her finger.
    The “here” was gone.
    “Ow,” I squeaked as sharp pain broke through my haze and shattered Lou’s thought-pictures.
     I was back, staring at my hand on the knob again, with the smell of coffee pungent
     in my nostrils. Saved by Merry, once again. When all else fails, a well-timed pinch
     works just dandy.
    Lou had never pulled me so quickly into the broken puzzle of her deteriorating brain,
     except when I was asleep. When I was inside her head that deep, I couldn’t spit out
     the fear that lay heavy on my tongue.
    “Hedi,” my manager said carefully. “You’re off the line.”
    The next customer had stopped jiggling his keys. I bit my lip at his carefully neutral
     face, and turned with a sense of inevitability. Mark was standing halfway between
     the cash register and my machine.
    “Work the cash register for the rest of your shift.” He didn’t have the balls to come
     any closer. Jennifer was behind him, her brows pulled together. One day she’ll be
     Botoxing the crap out of that vertical line.
    Humans all around me.
    “You know what, Mark?” I pulled the apron over my head and tossed it. It caught the
     milk container, ghosted over it, and slid to the wet ground. “I’m not feeling well.
     I think I need to punch out early.” I pulled my backpack out from the cabinet storing
     the vanilla bottles.
    “Wait a minute. I haven’t given you permission to leave.” He lifted a hand as if to
     catch my arm. “I’d like to look through your bag before you go.”
    “Kiss my ass, Mark.” I shouldered past him, shrugging on my backpack.
    “You walk out that door and you’re fired. You’ve broken your last machine, and stolen
     your last sandwich,” Mark snapped.
    I searched for a good retort, couldn’t come up with one, and threaded my way through
     the tables. I kept my head high even when I heard Mark claim I was the worst barista
     ever. A patent lie. My foam was the best ever. Period.
    “She’s on drugs,” Mark said in a low voice to Jennifer.
    “Crack,” she said.
    I paused, one shoulder holding the door open. The cool wind slid past me but it did
     nothing for my temper. I took my time, eyeing targets, before settling on the coffee
     machines. Affixed to the top of each machine was a plastic bowl. Inside the bowls
     were the coffee beans, waiting to be fed into the grinder. Two machines, two bowls
     each holding two pounds. Four pounds total.
    Mark stood with one possessive hand on my favorite machine, his eyes all puffy as
     he narrowed them into a squint. That’s what made it so easy. They never saw it coming.
    I felt my lip