2022-05-13 - A Taste of Weird

Willow is sitting at the back of the coffee house, her laptop sitting on the table in front of her and she is actually using it, for once. Her fingers move quickly over the keys as she types, a hot cup of coffee within arm's reach. Seems she is finally able to get some work done on her book.

Slip Slide Away On the Rainbow is what Della the Day Manager at Espresso Yourself calls the colourful concoction she serves for one patron -- the tall copper blond in black, Ravn Abildgaard. It doesn't really matter that what he ordered was black coffee. What he gets is a veritable rainbow in a glass -- each shade comes from magical combinations of blue algae, beetroot, turmeric, coconut sugar, black pepper, vanilla bean and agave -- along with espresso and three types of milk: almond, coconut and oat.

The look he gives it suggests he's absolutely horrified. For once, not even a snappy comeback.

"Okay, that's-- um, something," says Una, who has fallen into the queue behind Ravn, awaiting her coffee, which is exactly the black coffee ordered by the Dane but not quite (quite!) delivered. "Congratulations, Della: I am impressed." At least her smile is sympathetic enough, aside from the way it twitches at the corners in unsuppressed merriment. "I mean: it's beautiful."

No, please don't serve her one.

Brown eyes sweep across the room idly, falling briefly on the vaguely familiar Willow as they go.

Voices are those voices, or is she going crazy. Her eyes are pulled away from her screen, needing to rule at least one of those possibilities out, and when she sees people and people she recognizes, which causes an easy smile to come over her lips and her hand raises in greeting.

Pushing through the door, Itzhak pauses for a dramatic moment. Absolutely nobody is looking at him. He nevertheless croons, "I got liiiife, mother," and sashays in.

"I got laughs, sister," slithering among the tables like a torch singer, "I got freedom, brother - And I got good times, maaaaan..."

He sidles up to Ravn and Una. "Hey what's that, Abildgaard, it looks amazing." A little hitch of an upnod for Una, and for Willow too. "Girls." It comes out like goils in that accent.

Ravn glances up and a small smile curls up his lip. He can't stop himself from humming,

I got crazy ways, daughter
I got million dollar charm, cousin
I got headaches and toothaches
And bad times too like you

and then smile a little wider. "And that's all the singing you get out of me, ever. Hello, folks. Who wants to slip slide the rainbow, because I'm not it. I'm far too straight for this drink."

Una's fingers wrap around her own mug of coffee, and she's about to return Willow's smile, but: look, who can ignore Itzhak, with a song like that? "Itzhak," she says, by way of response, with a grin. "You make an entrance, that's for certain. There-- Ravn, looks like you have a taker for the monstrosity. Bags not me, anyway."

She gestures towards Willow, adding, "I'm going to go say hello. She's new in town, I remember. Willow, maybe? Something like that."

It seems that Ravn and Itzhak's entrances didn't bother her, because right now she is trying to hide her giggle behind the mug of her coffee, and is probably failing at that miserably. A small clear of her throat and she looks to Ravn and then Itzhjak again, the corner of her mouth twitching as she tries to control the giggles., "You two should really go to karaoke, they have that here, right?" Hazel-colored gaze sweeps from them back to Una and she smiles again, hearing her name, "Yes, that's right."

Itzhak goes "ooh!" when Ravn sings, and does a little crouch-spring in appreciation with miniature fist pump. "Yesssss! I got my hair I got my head I got my brains I got my ears..."

He's approaching the counter hips-first, singing to Della the Day Manager, who is trying unsuccessfully not to notice him. "Hey Della, you look good, girl, how about some black drip coffee to put hair on that skinny guy's chest, yeah?"

He winks at Una. Then to Willow, he says, or more admits, "I go to all the karaokes." Because why would he not show off?

"And I avoid them whenever possible," Ravn supplies, amused. "I'll go as audience, that'll have to do. Hello, Willow. Getting settled in?"

He looks very hopeful. Itzhak's buttering up Della might just somehow result in coffee with his name on and no rainbows. It's happened before. The man can be very charming, after all.

Una's little snort of laughter follows Itzhak's approach to Della, and rather coincides with the wink, but she holds back on her comment in order to cross towards Willow's table, coffee in hand, shaking her head all the while. "Willow, right. Sorry-- so many names. How are you settling in?"

Not wanting to appear rude, she picks up her laptop and slips it into the bag. "Next time you go." She says to Itzhak, "Let me know, /this/ I have to see." She then looks between Ravn and Una, since they both asked the same question, "Well, I've managed to find a place to stay and I've managed not to fall into the veil so, I think, good. How are you all doing today?" Her coffee is reclaimed, seems it's going to be one of those mornings where she will need every last drop.

Itzhak flirts those eyebrows at Della and wins his prize, a big mug of hot, black, unadulterated coffee. Just this once. He came in like a wrecking ball.

That gets handed over to Ravn while Itzhak claims the awful rainbow thing. He slumps into a chair, still humming, and tries the drink. Weird look. "Why does it taste like someone boiled brussel sprouts in coffee?" That must be the algae.

Ravn just quickly absconds from the counter with his prize. Hope Willow wants company because she got it. He's going to enjoy his coffee over here and there is nothing Della can do about it, bwahaha.

He plonks himself down on a chair and smiles lightly. "Tell us you're not staying at the Murder Motel. The Seaview, I mean. I've never been uncomfortable there but a lot of people have."

That causes a rise of an eyebrow, "What the hell is the Murder Motel?" Realizing she didn't actually directly answer the question, she then laughs, "no, not staying there, and from that name, it's probably a good thing that I'm not." She doesn't seem upset with the company, which is probably a really good thing since Ravn made himself right at home. "I'm sure there is a story behind the name?" Itzhak causes her attention to divert, just for a moment, "maybe they use that for the color green?"

"A lotta people got murdered there," Itzhak says, "but it's fine. I was there a lot for a while and I didn't see even one murder. Holy shit that's gross." Next layer is beetroot. Nope. Tumeric? Well, could be worse, could be algae. Coconut sugar and black pepper? Now we're cooking.

Ravn hitches a shoulder. "Never been bothered by the ghosts there. I'm guessing whatever happened has largely been resolved. I think Scullins and Irving met some one of the kittens there though."

The way he says it, probably not just some random kitten.

He grins a little and sips his coffee, black bliss. "From what Scullins said, it got itself locked in a freezer because it was raiding for burger patties."

"Way too many teeth," puts in Una, glancing up again. "Way too many teeth."

She looks over Itzhak, Ravn, and then Una, apparently not sure what the hell to say to that, though this town and its stories were quickly proving to make her speechless. It's Una though that gets her attention, "Umm, teeth?" Sure, not ghosts, not murders, no teeth stands out as the, what the hell.

"Just how I like 'em," Itzhak mutters in response to Una's too many teeth. He's poking around in the drink with the straw, sampling tumeric again to see if he liked it on the second try. Nope. He looks up as Willow's tone changes.

"Yeah. Teeth. So don't get bit."

"The Evergreen kittens are good kittens," Ravn agrees and sips his coffee. "They can't help having had a little help from the Other Side to come into existence. Yes, they've got more teeth than normal cats. They chew through steel plating if they want to, and it's kind of creepy. But they're cats. All they want is a warm place to nap and something nice to eat. Imagine if all the horrors in this town were that nice?"

"I'd happily welcome one of those kittens into my home," agrees Una, relatively placidly, now that she's had a few sips of her coffee and settled into her chair. "Once you get over the initial shock of the teeth, they're adorable, and reasonably polite. Ravn's right: more horrors like that, and fewer like... well, the rest of them."

She grins. "You get used to this kind of weirdness, I promise."

Vanilla! Agave! We've hit paydirt, folks. "Okay, half of this is pretty good, but half of it is like drinking them real stinky vitamins." Itzhak is drinking it anyway, because it's here and probably it's good for him or some shit. His gray eyes flick to Una. "You really did get used to it, didn't ya?" A crooked, ever so brief smile. "Tough girl."

Fist bump time; Itzhak offers his huge knobbly fist, the one with STAY across the knuckles.

Ravn offers a crooked smile at that (and keeps his hand to himself). "This town changes you. Stay here a year, you will barely recognise yourself. I've certainly changed so much in my year and a half here I doubt that my family back home would even recognise me. Might recognise my face but once I open my mouth somebody'll be yelling about imposters."

Una makes a face for Itzhak's description of the drink, but it doesn't last: she's laughing, instead, her quick shake of the head acknowledging, somewhat ruefully, how true Ravn's summation is. Her fist's pretty tiny in comparison to Itzhak, but she'll take the bump. "That's me," she agrees, and there's a hint of pride in that: she's doing okay. "Toughest of the girls, beneath this fluffy, sugar-coated exterior."

She leans back, nursing her coffee thoughtfully, and has to add, "I think it's inevitable, place like this. How can you face the kinds of things we face, without being changed by them? If nothing else, you have to learn to be adaptable."

Willow just sits there and listens to them talk, a small smile though always stays on her lips. Creepy kittens, ghosts, what next, though all good information for her book.

Toughest of the girls gets a bigger flash of a smile out of Itzhak. "S'like being in a war. You adjust, you stick to your side," nodding to what Ravn says. "That's what all the ex military guys tell me. Not so different from prison."

He glances at Willow to see how she's taking this but she seems to be doing fine.

"I didn't dodge my country's draft," Ravn observes with a trace of wryness. "I got told my constitution is so poor they wouldn't even use me as cannon fodder."

He hitches a shoulder. "There's truth to it, though. The feeling that you got the company and each other, against everything else -- I think that's the same. The vets I teach -- I feel I sometimes understand what they're on about, and I'm saying that as someone who's never been to a war zone or conflict area."

"Denmark still has a draft?" Cue a horrified look from Una. Apparently this is how it is: the regular horrors of Gray Harbor are no big deal, but forcing military service on unsuspecting young people? Hard pass.

"But-- yeah. I don't know anything about being in a war, or in prison, but I believe it. I wouldn't be surprised if half of us have pt--" she pauses. Maybe she's remembered that Willow is still new to all of this, because that's certainly the direction she glances in then. "At least we all have each other," is what she concludes.

Hey she is from New York, she is fine, though having not seen something yet, and having only heard stories, probably has some yo do with that. Ravn's comment brings her back from whatever thought process she is in, the cannon fodder quip causing a small chuckle as she imagines that. To Una she nods with another easy smile, "true enough."

Itzhak has sucked down that horrible concoction. What? It's way better than prison food. Getting up, he whaps the table next to Ravn in clear lieu of touching him. "Gotta go to work, youse be good." And then he's rolling out the door, part saunter, part strut.

"I thought I was supposed to be bad any chance I get," Ravn calls after him, laughing. And with a wink he adds, "If anything, Rosencrantz keeps complaining I'm too damn straight laced."

"I wonder if, in this context, 'be good' is more like 'be bad'. Or at least 'be interesting'," muses Una, with a laugh-- and a hand lifted after the departing mechanic. "I thought you were going to say 'too straight', period, end of story, but-- straight laced probably also works. So," she adds, turning her attention back on Willow.

"I can't remember if you said. Why Gray Harbor?"

She laughs again, "It's more fun to be bad, at least in my past experience." She drains the rest of her coffee, her attention once again returns to Una, and she thinks about the answer, "Well, back when I was in NYU, I started looking for places that I could go to experience ghosts and the such, though this place is proving to be in a different level of its own." She grins, "if it's all true."

Ravn traces a gloved finger around the rim of his coffee cup. "I suppose I am too straight, too. You're either straight or you're not, after all." He grins a little. "But I did mean straight-laced, yes. Stick up my backside, that kind of thing. He's always telling me to loosen up and live a little."

He hitches a shoulder again. "I suppose that depends on what one means by being bad. Partying, drinking hard, getting laid a lot? Some consider those bad. End up doing time? Probably not so much fun. Neither applies in my case -- I like my home life pretty quiet."

"I don't know if that counts as 'too straight', though," Una says after a moment-- though she's nodded along (and frowned) in answer to Willow first. "You just are. Or you aren't. Buut I am clearly overthinking my own thought, don't mind me. I'm with you on the being bad. In bed by ten, that's me." News alert: local redhead states the obvious. "But I might drink a beer first."

"But," she adds, turning back to Willow, and frowning. "I didn't think anyone ever heard of this place, outside of... this place. I guess it must have wanted you here for some reason. So you've not actually seen a ghost? Are you... do you have any particular... abilities?"

She grins at Ravn, "Well, that is pretty much my life, and I've been called a bad girl, oh many many times." She smiles and shrugs a little, to her, it's just normal life. She then swings her gaze to Una, "Maybe? And no, not yet, though I'm not planning on going anywhere." She purses her lips in thought, "As far as I know I don't."

Ravn glances at Willow while trying to decide if she means drinking and partying hard, or doing time in prison. Ultimately, though, neither are any concern of his and he nods lightly. "To each their own. I was never really into the party circuit at college and university. Nor anywhere else, really. You've seen one fund raiser or college kegger, you've seen them all -- and the only difference is how fancy the dresses being ruined are."

Una's, "Hmm," is appraising, and so is the glance that lingers thoughtfully on Willow. "Well," she says. "You may well find out you do, at some point. You--" she hesitates, makes a gesture. "I mean, the fact that you've listened to us talking about weird shit and not forgotten it all says something, anyway. But." She shrugs.

"Not a huge amount of nightlife here, anyway. The Pourhouse. I think there's a cabaret? But. Yeah. I'm sure it must seem very quiet compared to New York City."

The causes a nod to both of them, "I've always enjoyed the nightlife, it was pretty much all I did in New York, well, beyond University." She grins a little, fingers coming up to smooth back from hair from her face. "What do you mean, Una?" She looks over at the other woman again, "Do people usually forget things that they hear about this place."

"The Platinum Cabaret is a strip bar." Ravn glances at Una; just, you know, one of those things that might be useful to know before scheduling the next family outing there. "There's the Grand Olympic Casino, with the high end restaurant and its piano bar. And there's the beach bar, Two If By Sea, but it's largely a haven for yachter tourists. I worked there for a stint -- the bar food is good but bloody hell, those assholes who think they're a big deal because they've rented a yacht and sailed to a town with a casino, ugh."

He sips his coffee. "If you're used to 42nd Street, Gray Harbor has to be one step short of the retirement home as far as bars and nightlife is concerned. And yeah -- people tend to forget the strange things here. The people who don't tend to be a little weird."

Did Una know that the Platinum Cabaret was a strip bar? Maybe, maybe not. She's turned a little pink anyway, though her shrug is easy enough: still nightlife, right? On the other hand, she doesn't offer up anything else to that part of the conversation, and seems terribly interested in her coffee.

"We're very boring here," is what she says, finally. "Except for the weird. For those of us who know the weird. Are the weird."

She bites back a laugh at Una's obvious embarrassment and bites her cheek to keep laughing. "Well." She clears her throat, "I've always been drawn to weird things, and I'm not sure why I'm not forgetting the things that I've heard about here, though maybe that's a good thing. If I /never/ experience anything." Does anyone ever live here without experiencing at least one thing, "At least I can write about the stories."

"Most people who live here don't experience anything out of the ordinary. And when they do, they forget." Ravn crosses his legs. "The fact that you remember these conversations in the first place is experiencing something most people do not. I'm not going to tell you to not go hunting for the bizarre -- a person's got to do what a person's got to do."

He glances out at Main Street outside. "Might be worth remembering, though, that most of these experiences serve one purpose: For something to try to make you miserable. Most of these experiences are somewhat of a downer. Even the friendliest of ghosts I've seen around this place were sad -- drowned children, others who for some reason or other they won't even talk about are trapped here as long as anyone remembers them. Ghosts rarely stick around because they like a place too much to leave."

Pause. "King Valdemar of Denmark excepted. But then, most people don't curse God either."

Una lifts her coffee mug in a gesture towards Ravn, unspoken but very clearly: listen to him, he speaks truth.

"In the winter," she says, "I bring cookies to, and chat with, a little girl ghost at the pond. She's all alone, and when the pond isn't frozen? She doesn't even get to have that much, conversations with people who can see her, because she's trapped on the Other Side. It's heartbreaking."

She indicates Willow's laptop with a dip of her chin. "Fiction, yes? Because, just be warned, your notes will rewrite themselves if you try and write anything as fact. This place? It protects itself."

She listens thoughtfully to both of them, "I didn't actually realize that most people forget about what they saw, though could that just be a way for them cope." Turning her attention to Una now, "That does sound heart breaking and honestly, I haven't completely decided between fiction or nonfiction. I'm guessing that others, before me, have tried to tell the world about this place?"

"For about a century and a half." Ravn continues to toy with his coffee mug. "Sometimes, a little is recorded. Sometimes, records don't burn or flood or get stolen. Sometimes."

"Sometimes," agrees Una, echoing Ravn. "Though I wouldn't hold my breath on anything you write surviving. Fictionalise everything, that's the only way to be sure. You... you get to being able to work out, who you can talk to about this stuff, and who you can't. Everyone sees it, or feels it, a little differently. Everyone else... they'll rationalise things, or mishear, or just glaze over and forget. It can be unnerving, watching it happen in front of your eyes."

She hesitates for a moment, then picks up a sugar packet from the bowl in the middle of the table. She holds her hand out, palm up, the sugar sitting in it, gesturing towards it with a tilt of her head.

The sugar packet, out of nowhere, begins to singe-- complete with the smell of burnt sugar. There's no actual fire, but after a few seconds, the white packet is black and charred.

"Magic," she says.

She was going to play it off, like everything else so far, though the sugar, the bloody sugar starts to burn and Willow watches it transfixed, "What...the hell was that." Her gaze lifts to Una, ",Did you do that?"

"Some people command fire. Others can do things like this." Ravn gestures at the bowl -- and another packet just flies out of it, to land on his gloved palm. "Does this satisfy your desire for something weird? I'd say it qualifies. But it's perhaps not exciting enough, stealing sugar packets or lighting them on fire."

Una turns her hand over, letting ash and melted sugar drop into a mess on her napkin, then carefully bundles it up, using it to wipe the rest off of her hand. "To be fair," she says, "that was almost nothing. So was yours, in comparison to what's possible." She's watching Willow, her brows ever so slightly lifted.

She looks from Una, to Ravn, back to Una, her face going a bit paler, "I'll be god damned." she finally breaths out, fingers coming up to rub a little at her eyes, nope, she did not imagine that. "Yes." She looks back to Ravn at this question, "That certainly does satisfy my desire." Even though she doesn't look terrified, it's more of a mixture of confusion and amazement.

Ravn flicks the sugar packet a few inches into the air and then lets it land on his knuckles. There, it hops back and forth like a magician's coins, only, well, it's not a coin. "It can be very difficult sometimes, to tell where magic starts and trickery ends. In this town, it's often wiser to worry more about what than how. If gremlins are about to sink your boat, that is not the time to discuss whether they can even exist. They're there, and the boat is sinking, get out the life vest."

"'Real' is kind of a strange concept, around here," Una agrees. "Because... if it's happening in front of you, to you, it's real, no matter how ridiculous it may seem. The faeries at the bottom of the garden are real; the gremlins are real; the stab wound you got while asleep is absolutely real, please go to the hospital at your earliest possible convenience. You'll likely have the ability to do some of this kind of thing, too-- if not yet, then it'll happen, sooner or later. There may be people who can see it, but not do it," she gives Ravn a quick, thoughtful, questioning glance, "but I've not met any that I know of."

She takes their words seriously, it's hard to ignore something that happens right in front of you, and it seems the last few pieces of disbelief just seem to fall away from her. Their worry for her well-being, however, that gets a small grin, though instead of going into a long explanation, she simply nods, drops some money on the table to pay for her coffee, and stands up, "Sure thing. Sorry to talk and run; I didn't realize how late it had gotten and I need to do a few things around town." She slips the laptop into the bag and then puts a cigarette between her lips, though doesn't light it, not until she's outside, "Thank you though." A look to Ravn and then to Una, "For showing me."

Ravn sips his coffee. "Have a feeling she'll find all the trouble she's looking for, soon enough. Anyhow -- I'm kind of done here too. Want to walk back with me?"

Una acknowledges Willow's departure with a nod and a quick, easy smile. Ravn's remark, in time, draws a face from her. "No kidding. Yeah - let's head."