Two and a half years later

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I looked around the empty space and was pleasantly surprised by its size. From the outside, it had looked small, but looks certainly could be deceiving. In my mind, I pictured how I would furnish the place. Made mental notes on how many chairs and tables I wanted to buy to add to the list of things I had already decided I needed to buy for the kitchen. It had become a number of things and would be expensive. But money wasn't one of my problems. 

"What ye think? Gonna take it?" a man asked me. He stood behind the counter. 

I wasn't sure what to make of the man. His eyes had kept darting around, his fingers fidgeting. And he had spoken all about how great the place was. How it was in a perfect location for people from the village to come by as well as people travelling through. How all things in the apartment upstairs were well functioning, though it had been long since it was renovated. That the village was a lovely one, one I was sure to find my place in quickly. 

Several times, I had wanted to ask why he was selling if everything was so great. And not only selling, but selling it at such a low price I felt guilty for not paying more. 

"Yeah, I'll take it," I answered. 

"Good. Got the contract here. I've signed. Just for ye to as well." 

I scribbled my signature on the piece of paper. When I put the pen down, the man heaved a sigh, and his fidgeting ceased. 

"Now, I got some to tell ye," the man said. I raised an eyebrow, ready to hear why he was so eager to sell. "The folks who come here... Some are strange." 

I narrowed my eyes to keep the excitement, which caused my heart to skip a beat, out of my face. "Strange how?" 

He shook his head. "Some seems batshit crazy, I tell ye. I dunno. Some don't seem human. And there's one lassie. She comes now and then. Maybe once a year. Always alone. Zoe's her name. Five years I ran this place, and she doesn't look a day older! The previous owner warned me, but I didn't believe him. And I heard a nutter talk about dragons. Broke up a fight between two lads I swear had claws for nails!" 

My heart was hammering. This was it! This was exactly why I had come to this otherwise insignificant and forgotten village in the Highlands. 

"This Zoe. What does she look like? So I know when I see her?" I asked. If she came often, I was bound to meet her. And when I did, I could ask her all the questions which burned in me, and finally get my answers. 

"Oh, ye'll know when ye see her." 

I nodded, and didn't press more. Didn't want to raise suspicion. 

After he had given me his warning, he seemed eager to get out of there, and I didn't keep him. I had plenty to busy myself with, anyway, and during the past two years, I had learnt I needed to keep my mind occupied, otherwise I would lose grip on myself again. So I brought out pen and paper to make my mental list into an actual one. For me to get the answers, I first and foremost had to get the café open after all. 

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It felt like I drove all over the Highlands during the following weeks, visiting all second-hand stores I passed by. From each, I bought whatever tables and chairs I liked the most, bringing it back to furnish the café. Steadily the empty space became filled with the mismatched furniture. 

I also bought vases and candleholders. Got some curtains and rugs. I ordered a sign to hang outside and bought all the new equipment I wanted for the kitchen. 

After about a month, I got ingredients and such that I needed, then set out to try some of the recipes I wanted to use. I had never been a great baker growing up, and it took quite a few tries before I managed to make scones I thought good enough to sell. 

I was in the middle of my fourth attempt at making chocolate muffins, when the bell I had installed to ring by the entrance mixed with the sounds of my whipping of the batter. 

"Someone here?" the voice of a woman followed. 

I placed the bowl down and dried off my hands from specks of batter, which had flown up on them, before exiting the kitchen. 

The reason why I had bought the café was because of all the rumours which circulated about the village. It was like the previous owner of the place had said, rumours about strange people passing through. People that in one way or another seemed to rather be supernatural than natural. 

I wanted to meet them. I had already spent the past two years trying to track down any supernatural being without success. The news articles I had read and the people who had claimed to have encountered the supernatural I had interviewed had not been able to give the answers which fuelled me. 

My grief had been overwhelming, had caused me to wither away for around half a year. But the day I had decided to search for the truth, find out why my parents had been killed, I had found a purpose again, and my investigation had led me here. So I had thought buying this place would be a good idea. Then hopefully I would have a magical being stumbling into my café without me needing to go looking for one. 

By the looks of the woman in front of me, I believed my wish had been answered because she looked more like a troll than a woman. 

Her red hair stood on end in all possible directions, as if she was on fire. Twigs and leaves were stuck in it, so the hair not only looked like fire, but like a kindling fire. Mud smeared her face and her sack-like dress. She was hunched over, holding a hand over her stomach. 

"Sorry for bothering you," she said in a hoarse voice, which made me even more convinced she was a troll. "But is your loo up and running?" 

"Yeah," I nodded, finding it hard to formulate more words. Though finding the supernatural was what I craved most of all, nerves and fear made my brain freeze and mouth run dry. What did you say to a troll? Was she dangerous? Was she here to harm me? 

"Life-saviour, you are!" the troll grinned and stumbled off to where the bathroom was without need of direction, further convincing me she was magical. How else would she know where the bathroom was? 

I tried to gather my wits about me, tried to come up with a way to confirm my suspicion without it being weird in case I was wrong. But who was I kidding, of course I was not wrong! Even the smell from her screamed troll. 

Before I had come up with a plan, however, she wobbled out of the bathroom. 

"Thanks again. Have needed that since last night! Won't bother you anymore." 

She got to the door before she paused and turned back to me. 

"If my brother shows his face here, don't tell him I stopped by," she asked me, which prompted my mouth into working again. 

"How... How will I know he's your brother?" 

"Easy! He'll still be pished with how he drank last night." 

"Pished?" I asked, but either too low or too late, because the troll left without answering. 

I stood staring after her for quite a while, not sure she had really been there. She had come and gone in such a flurry, maybe she had just been a figment of my imagination. Or maybe an apparition, a ghost. 

But after some long moments, I shook my head and went back to the kitchen. The muffins weren't going to bake themselves after all, and by now, the troll had to be far away. Though as I continued the baking, I told myself I would be braver next time I came face to face with a magical creature. I wouldn't freeze up, but push through and get myself one step closer to knowing why my parents had died so brutally. 

As I placed the tray into the oven, the bell rang again. 

"Someone here?" someone asked again, but this time the voice was lower. 

When I came out of the kitchen, my eyes fell on a man. And I was fairly certain this was a human man. He had short brown hair, which needed to be combed. He wore a shirt, which was half-tucked into his green pants and half-hidden under a green jacket. The red lipsticks of a kiss on the cheek and the stench of alcohol were what made me believe he was human, though. 

Or maybe leprechauns liked to get drunk and fool around. Would make sense if they did that a lot, those lucky bastards. 

"Sorry for bothering you," he said, just like the troll had. "But I'm looking for my sister. You think you might have seen her around?" 

Was he the troll's brother? Could different magical creatures have children with each other, so one sibling became a troll and the other a leprechaun? 

Independent on if that was the case, I was not about to rat the troll out and risk pissing her off. If I had to pick between who to fight, a leprechaun felt like a better opponent than a troll. 

"No, haven't seen anyone," I answered him. 

"Damn. Where is that bloody lassie?" the leprechaun muttered to himself before addressing me again. "If you see her, will you tell her I'm looking for her?" 

She already knows that. 

"Sure. But how will I know she's your sister?" I asked, curious if his answer would tell me if he indeed was related to the troll or not. 

"Easy! She'll still be blootered with how she drank last night!" 

"Blootered?" I asked, but once again I either asked too low or he was in too much of a hurry to find his sister because I did not get an answer. 

What woke me from my stupor over the encounter this time was the alarm going off, telling me it was time to take the muffins out of the oven. Once again, I berated myself over not having got any answers. But I also calmed myself with that if both of them had indeed been magical, then the frequency of visits from magical beings was much higher than I had expected. I would soon get my chance at talking to one again. 

While the muffins were cooling off, I cleaned up the kitchen. I wasn't a particularly neat person when it came to my own home, but I had made a vow to keep this kitchen to my mother's standard. It was her recipes I was using, after all. I had decided on a café as a way to honour her. 

When all was clean, I dragged a chair to the counter where I had left the muffins. I unwrapped one and took a bite. It didn't taste as good as my mother's muffins had, but I doubted anything ever would. Nothing could compare to your mother's cooking. 

Though the last time I had seen my mother, she had offered to cook me Sunday dinner. I had told her I rather wanted to go out and buy myself a hamburger. 

I stared down at the muffin in my hand. My throat felt thick and saliva built in my mouth as I became more and more nauseous. I had wished over a million times to go back to that day and instead tell her I wanted her to cook and how much I loved her cooking. 

I took the tray with muffins and moved to the trash bin. But just as I was going to dump them all in there, the bell by the door jingled for a third time. 

"Can a person just have one bloody moment of peace?" I yelled as I placed the tray back on the counter and stomped out to the serving area. 

Standing in there was a woman. She had fiery red hair tied up in two ponytails. Brown eyes filled with such warmth they would probably be all which was needed during winter to not freeze. Freckles adorn her nose and cheeks. Though summer was coming to its end, and it was a windy day, she wore a light-blue sundress and sandals. With her, she carried a faint scent of the forest. 

If the first one had been a troll, and the second a leprechaun, then this woman had to be a changeling. 

The beautiful type of changeling. The faerie-exchanged-for-baby type. Not the goblin type. 

She had smiled when I first came out, but as she met my eyes, the smile faded to be replaced by a sheepish grin. 

I wanted to fall through the floor over having yelled at her. 

"Sorry for bothering you again," she said in a soft voice as her cheeks grew red. "I just realised I forgot to welcome you to the village before. That was all I wanted. I'll be off again." 

And then she left before I could even say a word to her, and my mind was empty once more because of the peculiar encounter. It was empty for long enough that she was certainly far away before I realised the strangeness of what she had said. 

Again? What had she meant by saying again? 

Chapter word count: 2298

Novella word count: 3370