Faeling

Merritt walked into Damn Fine Brew, the wind severely ruffling his brown hair as he opened the door. Jennifer, the girl behind the counter, smiled flirtatiously at him as the bell rung. Thankfully, it was busy enough that she didn’t have time to try to ferret out his weekend plans before the next customer needed his order taken. He could still feel her blue eyes on him as he walked to the end of the counter, waiting for his latte. He took a cursory glance around the coffee shop. It was definitely far busier than most days, probably due to the rain.

After a few moments, David handed him his latte and gave him a smile. Merritt liked coming here, even if it was more expensive than the chain coffee shops that were abundant in this city. He liked having real mugs to drink out of instead of flimsy paper cups. He liked the clatter of spoons stirring coffee and tea. He liked the couches and armchairs scattered around the shop. He liked knowing that the people inside the shop were like him.

Today, unfortunately, there were no chairs left. Merritt didn’t mind too much, he was only able to stay long enough to drink his coffee and read the paper. Some days he stayed and read a book or brought his laptop to do some work, but in an hour and a half he had to be back in the city for a small meeting. With that in mind, Merritt sat in a high chair at a counter by the front window, peering out through the rain as people splashed by with their umbrellas, looking harassed by the rain. He fished through his briefcase, looking for the day’s paper. He rifled through the documents, checking the side pocket where he sometimes stashed the newspaper.

No luck. With a sigh, Merritt picked up his latte and began to sip at it. He glanced to his right, where a balding man in his fifties was reading the paper. Merritt quietly read the headlines out of the corner of his sea-green eye, reading snippets of stories here and there. Unfortunately, after a few minutes, the man checked his watch, folded his paper, put on his jacket and left the coffee shop. Merritt turned back to the window. Usually he was an avid people-watcher, picking out their flaws and insecurities in an instant, but there wasn’t much to watch with the rain pouring down—people were fleeing from their cars to the shops and back again without so much as looking up. Merritt had to see a person’s eyes if he was going to actually enjoy people-watching.

Merritt was shocked from his reverie when the girl next to him swore loudly. He turned to see her mopping coffee off of her sketchpad, looking furious. He stood up to avoid getting coffee on his suit and added his napkin to the sodden mess, trying to keep the coffee from dripping to the floor. Jennifer scampered over with a roll of paper towels.

“Here Oz,” she smiled at the girl before winking at Merritt and going back to her post at the cash register. He was slightly surprised that the girl knew Jennifer. She didn’t look like ‘one of them’.

“Jeez,” the girl said under her breath, now wiping coffee off her paint-stained jeans. She looked back to her sketchbook, which wasn’t too badly damaged. “Oh, man... I was almost finished.” She sighed heavily and shot Merritt a quick, “thanks,” before grabbing all the coffee-soaked napkins and trudging off to the trashcan. Merritt took the moment to look at what she’d been drawing. It was a pencil drawing of a laughing young man with a mustache. Just looking at it made him want to grin—or would, had Merritt been the type to grin at that sort of thing. Unfortunately, it was now marred by a coffee stain in one corner.

The girl returned briefly to wipe down the counter again, making sure it wouldn’t be left sticky for the next patron, and walked away to give the paper towels back to Jennifer behind the register. This time as she left, he watched her. She looked to be about 5’6 and maybe a little round. It was hard to tell with the bulky clothes she wore. He took in her dishwater blonde hair and hazel eyes. She wasn’t anything special—definitely not up to his standards. She wasn’t pretty, but she wasn’t exactly trying to be either—her hair was still slightly damp from a shower or the rain, and she wore dirty jeans covered in paint above mismatched sneakers, topped off with a hooded sweatshirt and an ugly yellow slicker.

She sat back down, giving him a tired smile with bare lips. She wasn’t even wearing make-up. He gave her a polite nod back before turning back to his latte, which was now growing the slightest bit cold. He watched her from the corner of his eye—as he had the bald man’s paper—wondering what she was. She groaned softly as she looked at her sketch. It was really rather good, Merritt thought. He wasn’t impressed with her, but was definitely thought something of her work. It looked so real. Now, though, it had a big splash of coffee staining the entire top corner of the page, ruining the drawing. She hastily ripped the sketch out, balling it up and setting it next to her on a plate another customer had rudely left. She flipped through the rest of her sketchpad, slowly admiring the damage a single cup of coffee had done.

The rest of her drawings hadn’t been as complete as the one of the smiling man, but they clearly showed potential. There was a beautiful nude woman wrapped in a sheet, and a dog running and another portrait—this time of a child, perhaps six years old. All of them were smaller than the portrait of the man, so they weren’t as badly damaged, but each page had some staining. The girl’s shoulders sagged. Towards the back of the book, the stains were less and less, not having soaked through the paper. Behind a cartoon doodle of a dragon and unicorn, Merritt saw something that made his heart stop.

The only thing on this page was a large Celtic-style circle, with an eye in the center.

It was the symbol he’d gotten tattooed on his chest the minute he’d turned eighteen.

It was the sign of his fate.