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“Your Grandmother used to brag to me that you were going to be a very powerful witch,” he remarked. “How can you not have magic?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I don’t know anything about that side of myself. In fact, until I got here yesterday, I had completely forgotten all about this place—and all about my Grandma too.”
It was a lot to admit to a stranger I didn’t even know, but somehow the words just poured out of me.
Rath’s face grew serious.
“In that case, someone must have put you under a memory-loss spell. Do you know who would do that to you?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t know anything about anything. I just opened a door and found myself here yesterday. I mean, I’m getting these flashes of memory but I still don’t know what I’m doing here or why I forgot my Grandma until it was too late and she was already…already gone.”
I was surprised to find that my eyes were stinging with tears as the words came out. But the longer I was here in this strange new place, the more I remembered how much I had loved my Grandma and the more I missed her.
Most human guys would have made a quick excuse to get away when I started crying. But Rath didn’t run. He leaned down from his great height to get a little closer and murmured,
“Hey, I’m sorry. I miss her too. Would you let me buy you a cup of coffee and we can talk about it?”
Mutely, I nodded. It wasn’t that my words were stuck again—for some reason, they flowed easily around the big Orc. But I was afraid that if I spoke, I might start bawling. Also, the chilly wind was beginning to get to me, despite the thick gray cardigan I was wearing. A cup of hot coffee sounded really good.
“C’mon. Let’s go to Goldie’s—they have the best coffee in town,” Rath said.
Putting one big, warm hand at the small of my back, he guided me carefully across the street to a small restaurant. He held the door for me and when I went inside, I was greeted by the warm, delicious scent of freshly brewed coffee and some kind of fresh baked goods with cinnamon.
The restaurant was set up like a classic 1950s diner with vinyl booths and metal tables. There were even little tiny juke boxes—one on each table—where you could put in a coin and pick a song.
Half the restaurant was clearly set up for humans and the other half was obviously for the non-humans I had seen. There was a tall table with no seats around it which must be for centaurs to stand at. And there were several oversized booths where the table would probably come right up to my chin.
A blonde waitress in a short skirt bustled over to us and looked up at Rath.
“For here or to go?”
“For here,” he rumbled. “Can we get a half and half booth?”
“Lucky for you, one just freed up. Follow me.”
She led us down the row of human sized booths until we came to the end. The booth here had one human sized bench and on the other side the bench was much larger—clearly meant for someone Rath’s size.
“Thanks,” he said as we got seated across from each other. The table came up to just under my breasts, but other than that, it was a good compromise. Clearly the businesses in this town knew how to accommodate the non-human residents.
“You wanna minute to look at the menu?” the waitress asked us.
Rath looked at me, his eyebrows raised. But now that we were in the presence of the waitress, I found it impossible to talk again. I nodded mutely.
“Two coffees for now, and sure, we’ll look at the menu,” he said easily. “Thanks, Goldie.”
“You got it, big guy.” She produced a couple of plastic laminated menus and slapped them on the table in front of us. “Be back in a minute with your coffee,” she said, and bustled off again.
“Okay, what looks good?” Rath rumbled, picking up the menu, which looked tiny in his big hands. “You hungry?”
“Maybe a little,” I admitted cautiously. “What do they have that smells like cinnamon in here?”
“Probably fresh cinnamon rolls from The Lost Lamb,” Rath said. “Goldie gets all her desserts and baked goods from them—she says it saves her trouble when she can just concentrate on the savory side of the menu.”
“A cinnamon roll would be good then,” I said, thinking how delicious the sugary pastry would taste with fresh brewed coffee.
“Sounds good.” Rath nodded.
