People passed by me, talking to each other, laughing, yelling. Cars were honking at pedestrians who took too long on the zebra crossing. A bus sped out of a station, and two kids with school bags yelled after it. I was so used to the sights and smells, primarily of soot and exhaust, that it took me a moment to realize what was wrong with this picture. I could hardly feel any focal points of sorcery around me. Not on the street, not inside the shops. Everything was quiet. I recalled that I hadn’t felt any yesterday either, and the driver had displayed more intensive loathing than usual, but I was so wrapped up in me and Lee that I didn’t give it any thought. Now reality was staring me in the face.
A couple passed by me. I felt the sorcery emanating from them. “It’s like in the suburbs,” the man muttered, and the woman nodded. Neither of them slowed down enough to make eye contact with me.
I spotted two smashed shop windows on the way. One was of a hair salon, the other a toy store. “Death to sorcerers” was spray-painted on the salon door. The only sorcerer in the toy store was the airhead cleaner, and all she did was levitate tiny paper planes every now and then. It made no sense. Strewn on the ground in front of the two shops was some torn police tape that the wind had blown over. People on the street were radiating fear underneath the usual commotion of the day: thick, solid fear. I picked up my pace. At the bus stop no one was standing in the square of white paint, even though I felt the sorcery wafting from one woman. She boarded the bus through the front door and paid with cash, avoiding eye contact with me. I did the same.
The closer I got to the Sinkhole, the more vulnerable I felt. I clenched my fists. The Sinkhole was my safe space. The one place where no one cared what I was. Where the boss got mad if someone fiddled with his playlist, and Daniel asked me to make coffee foam look like a cat, and the cook always added either too much or not enough salt to the food. It was my home.
The chatter around me was picking up. One of our regulars spotted me and crossed the street, dragging his girlfriend along. I hastened my steps.
I had been expecting police tape, blood stains on the sidewalk, a busy crowd of onlookers. But the Sinkhole looked like its usual self. No malicious graffiti sprayed on the door, no smashed windowpanes, no torn pieces of police tape. Nothing out of the ordinary. The tables were still crowding the sidewalk. Remy waved to me as I walked into the café, the cool breeze from the air-conditioner a soothing welcome. Only a few customers were inside, but it was still early.
Remy was wearing his regular outfit of jeans, a sleeveless flannel shirt and black bandana tied around his forehead. “Good to see you. How are you feeling?”
“Better.” I attempted a smile. The warmth radiating from him was sincere.
“Good.” He was slightly shorter than me, stocky and bullnecked. He had black beady eyes, and an almost crimson tan.
I glanced around. Remy followed my gaze. “What are you looking for?”
“Burn marks,” I said without thinking.
“You won’t find any,” he said, waving at the counter. “We painted over everything. Burn marks are bad for business.”
I’m safe here. The Sinkhole is my home. No one will hurt me here.
“I’d understand if you decided not to return,” he said, the tension inside him palpably increasing. “We need you, especially now with what happened to Daniel and all, but I’d understand if you don’t want to come back. It’s your call.”
I tried to parse the source of his tension. I wasn’t sure if he actually wanted me back.
“I’d love to help,” I said. “But if you think it would stir up more problems…”
His eyes lit up. “Great. I knew I could count on you. Want to pick up this shift?” Of course, Remy was stressed about being short staffed, not about the fact that people like me had become an even more unwelcome presence in this country than before.
More than I wanted to visit Daniel, I wanted to feel normal, and the most normal thing I could do was pick up an unexpected shift at the Sinkhole.
I smiled. “Sure.”
Remy slapped me on the back. “There’s a uniform in the store.” He considered my pants. “I wish you hadn’t come in shorts. I don’t think we have your size.” He also commented about my shoes, and my hair, which wasn’t combed neatly enough for him. Same old Remy. He had only closed the place once, when his little girl got married, and even then only for a few hours.
I almost posted a status with a photo of myself frowning, but I couldn’t think of a line funny enough to accompany the image. I changed clothes, got an update about the day’s specials, and started working. Two regulars walked in when they spotted me from outside with a Sinkhole T-shirt. When I served them their coffee, I maneuvered them just a little, just enough to get a smile out of them.
Two hours into the shift, my feet started aching because I wasn’t wearing work shoes; excruciating bursts of pain shot up my back, and I finally felt normal again. I couldn’t stop smiling.
Around ten o’clock, a man in a neatly pressed shirt and dark trousers walked in. He looked too formal for a sea-side café.
“You’ve got a coffee and pastry deal, right?”
“Sure!” I put on my nicest smile. “Want to hear about our cake selection?” I went over the list in my head before beginning to recite it.
“No,” he cut me off. “Ice coffee and an almond croissant.” His expression was utterly blank, as if incapable of emoting.
“Sure!” I said, suddenly realizing I was repeating myself. I retreated to the shelter of the countertop to fetch him his coffee and croissant.
He sat down at the bar and waited. The man was completely frozen inside. My hands shook as I poured his ice coffee into a tall glass.
Everything’s OK. I’m home. Everything’s perfectly fine. I shouldn’t be stressing out just because a man I’ve never seen before is sitting at the bar, studying me as if I’m a caged animal at the zoo.
The loudspeaker was murmuring with the voice of the real boss who was born to run. I thought about Lee. About his smile. I took a deep breath, curving my own lips into a natural smile, and turned around to the customer serving him his order. My hands were no longer trembling.
I had no other customers in need of service, and Remy signaled me to stay behind the bar. I took out a dishrag to clean the countertop of drink rings.
“You’re the sorcerer, huh?”
“Yup.” I smiled at him politely. “Don’t worry, I’m not–”
“I’m not worried.”
The frost sheeting his words made me wince. I stopped mid-stroke, the dishrag going limp in my hand.
His lips tightened around the rim of his glass in a thin, flat line. “You should be worried.”
No I shouldn’t. I could crush his mind if I wanted to.
I swallowed. “I’m not,” I replied in a tone more confident than I felt.
He took a sip of his coffee, and I hoped he was done talking. “The Sons of Simeon know what needs to be done. How your lot should be handled.”
“I don’t talk religion before my second cup of morning coffee,” I said, trying to smile. Remy was busy with a table of four squealing teenage girls and wasn’t looking at me. I could maneuver him, I thought. Just a little. Just to enough so he’d notice something was off and come over to help me.
I knew the customer wasn’t about to attack. All I felt from him was that same internal, unmeltable frost. He only wanted to rattle me. To harass.
“Blind,” he snarled, almost spitting the word out. His hair was neatly combed – certainly more than mine – and gleaming with gel. If anyone were to look at the two of us, he’d deem the customer better put together. More polished. “Or stupid. Which one is it?” He leaned in. “We’ll get you too, don’t worry.”
“Get the fuck out of here. Now,” I hissed.
The client let out a chuckle and tossed a bill on the countertop. A slightly torn note was folded around it. “Keep the change. Buy yourself something nice before they off you.” He got down f
rom the barstool and started walking away, half his croissant still sitting on his plate.
I unwrapped the note from the bill and opened it. ‘There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead.’ The note wasn’t signed. But I didn’t need a signature to know who was behind it. I leaned against the bar. Breathe. Breathe. It’s just words. Breathe.
Remy approached me. “Everything OK?”
“I need…” My voice came out croaky. I felt Remy’s concern swelling. “Everything’s fine.” I took a deep breath. “I just need to make a call home.”
One of the café’s windowpanes suddenly looked darker. Someone had scribbled the verse from the note onto the left window. A small, rational part of me said it couldn’t have been the customer.
It was probably some pebble or pyro who warped the glass. Which meant he had an accomplice waiting outside, and that accomplice happened to be a sorcerer. Maybe it was even the same pyro who had hurt Daniel. I felt sick to my stomach.
Remy ran outside. The customer had disappeared into the crowd forming at the front of the building: a combination of people in swimsuits, parents in casual beachwear and businessmen in suits too hot for the Israeli summer. Someone had called the police.
The world was spinning around me in a swirl of noises and panic that jumbled the details. An oily trail of satisfaction drifted through the crowd. Too many of them didn’t want me here. I stood near the boss, trying to make sense of it all. He put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, it’s just plain old vandalism.”
I felt a knot in my stomach. We continued to stare at the window. Someone suggested cleaning it with water and soap. A woman quaked that there was no way of getting it off. Another man blurted out, “What do they expect when they hire those…” and fell silent when Remy shot him a menacing look. I felt stifled, trapped.
A squad car pulled up at the curb. Two officers got out. One was Sherry, her tablet already switched on. They were both wearing the same white ribbons on their lapels.
“There was no squad car when it happened at Haim’s,” someone in the crowd whispered. I got the feeling it was the same person who had asked what Remy could have expected when he hired me.
Sherry gestured at the squad car parked at the curb. “Let’s start the questioning with you.” She gave her partner orders and guided me to the car. She led me into the passenger seat, sat behind the wheel, turned to me and said, “Talk.”
I told her about the customer. She typed in the information, asked a few guiding questions, and didn’t admonish me for not calling her the moment he walked out of the café. When we finished, she looked at her screen and tapped on it with her pen.
“Does this have anything to do with what happened to Daniel?” Sherry typed something else into her tablet. She then looked up at me and asked, “What do you think?”
“That it does,” I replied, my voice tremulous.
“Why?”
“Because Daphne saw all of us wounded, and then he shows up here and–”
“When a seer gives you a vision, it’s never accurate. The fact that Daphne saw everyone injured doesn’t mean that it starts here, or that it has anything to do with what happened to you this morning. Instead of trusting a vision, try trusting your common sense. Why do you think the Sons of Simeon attacked an ordinary boardwalk café whose sole attraction is a sorcerer who hasn’t done anything to anyone?”
“So assuming they weren’t after me…” I started saying.
Sherry nodded.
“Then it means that the Sons of Simeon are trying… to distract you from what’s really going on?”
Sherry arched an eyebrow. “Meaning?”
I started listing with my fingers. “First they strike at the Beer Belly…”
“They attacked at the rally first,” Sherry corrected me.
“No, no, at the rallies they always attack only…” I suddenly paused, seeing it all clearly now. “They attack whoever doesn’t matter. Whoever isn’t important enough. Like me. They make sure their attacks won’t attract enough attention to alert the police damuses, so they won’t be able to see the attacks before they go down. That’s how they manage to fly under the radar. They attacked the café because it won’t affect any major change in police activity, but… but they can see how you react!” I snapped my fingers. “Learn who responds, and later use that information so…” I paused.
“So when they strike with full force, they’ll already know all our weaknesses,” Sherry concluded quietly.
“So I’m not significant enough to derail the course of events, but I’m important enough to Daphne, which is why she saw what your damuses didn’t.”
Sherry nodded.
I bit my bottom lip. “What now?”
“Now we continue as if nothing has changed,” she replied, and flipped the cover of her tablet closed.
“Because as long as the Sons of Simeon think their plan will work, you can look for ways to bring them down?”
Sherry shot me a brief glance. “So you do take after Matthew.”
I gave her a clipped smile.
Sherry drummed her pen against the cover of her tablet. “Let me know when you make it home.”
“We’re open till midnight.”
Sherry’s brow furrowed. “Any exciting plans today?”
“Not really,” I said. “I’m working.” I gestured at the café. Sherry stopped tapping her pen and looked at me. “You’re not. You’re going home.”
“Hmm, excuse me?” I straightened my back.
Sherry raised her hand and pointed her pen at me. “You’re planning on going back to work at the same café where the bartender was hit–”
“Barista,” I corrected her. “He makes coffee. It’s a different profession.”
Ignoring my remark, she continued, “Because they thought he was the sorcerer here. You were threatened. And now there’s a death threat right there on the shop window. This is where you want to work till midnight,” she said in a tone that made it perfectly clear what she thought of my idea.
“You said I’m not important,” I said with a small voice.
“To the Sons of Simeon. You’re very important to Matthew, and consequently, to me.” Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Or maybe you’re one of those people who think we should provoke confrontations with the Sons of Simeon so everything will blow up and ‘that way we can finish them off’?”
I knew too many people who subscribed to that notion. Forrest, for instance. I shook my head.
“You go straight home, get it? And you let Matthew know you’ve made it there safely.” She tapped her tablet again. “Otherwise I’m assigning two officers to keep track of your every move.”
“I don’t know whether my boss can do without me here,” I replied, knowing that it was just an excuse. He could manage, just like he had been doing since I landed in the hospital. Maybe he could get his daughter over to wait tables. It would probably bring in all the customers who hated me; he might even see a profit from it.
Sherry nodded. “I’ll wait.”
I got out of the car and noticed the crowd had begun to disperse. Remy was offering people coffee on the house. He fell silent as I approached.
I gestured at Sherry. “The cop doesn’t want me working today.”
“If that’s what she said…” Remy wiped the sweat off his forehead. “This thing isn’t normal. It’s not normal. You have to look after yourself.”
It was only then that I realized how much I had wanted him to shrug the incident off, how much I depended on the pretense that nothing was wrong.
“I’ll go home.” The words came out of my mouth without thinking. “It isn’t worth it.”
“Daniel’s in the hospital, you’re leaving–”
“You’ll manage perfectly well without me,” I said, trying to aff
ect a confident expression. “And Daniel will be back pulling shifts in a few days.”
After a little moaning and groaning from Remy, intended to make me feel wanted rather than actually persuading me to stay, I went to inform Sherry that I wouldn’t be working there anymore. I wanted to burrow under my blanket in bed and think about Lee, not about how the world had become narrow and menacing.
Remy promised he’d save a spot on the roster. “Once this is all over, I’m hiring you back.” I wanted to believe him, but I felt the wave of relief rippling off him as I walked away. I didn’t linger around to find out whether he really meant what he said.
I had already left the café when I remembered that I wanted to grab a sandwich and frothy milk for Daniel, and I didn’t have the energy to go back. The thought of the empty house awaiting me, dim and locked up, made me miserable. I wandered the streets, letting my thoughts race in circles, looping around the conversation I’d had with Daphne that morning.
Her vision was becoming real, taking form in front of my eyes. I envisioned all my friends wounded, dead. I plodded along with no particular direction in mind, feeling the tension mounting inside me, permeating every crevice. I needed to unwind, to untie the knot in my stomach, but I couldn’t calm myself down.
I stopped when I recognized where I was – standing outside Lee’s building. I looked up. He lived on the third floor, a rainbow flag with six colors dangling from his windowsill. It wasn’t there the last time I had visited. The shades were slightly different from the usual ones; the red too bold, the yellow too faded, the blue and green diffusing into each other. I wondered what emotion was attached to the flag’s design, and whether he’d want me to help him inject that emotion into the fabric. I could weave it into the edges if he wanted, so that the emotions would only affect those standing beneath the flag.
“Want a ride?”
Lee’s voice jolted me. He was looking rather official in his suit and carefully styled hair. The last time I had seen him he was in a pair of scruffy jeans and a T-shirt.
“What were you thinking about when you designed the flag?” I pointed at it, and added before he managed a reply, “Wait, is there a robot hiding there somewhere?”
The Heart of the Circle Page 16
