Children of Adaygue Book 1: Mad World

Chapter 1: A Beginning And An End- (Part 1) | Madleine

Madleine Luisa Winterfeldt had no idea that she would lose her relatively well-paid job by the end of the week.It was Wednesday, February 14, 3135 years after Adaygue sacrificed herself to preserve creation in the eye of absolute chaos. 

Madleine handed the customer another large coffee, two fresh rolls with minced meat, onions and a slice of gherkin, as well as a mini pig's ear: "Here you go! Enjoy your meal and have a relaxing day and week!" she called out to him as she took the money she had previously counted out from the counter. She smiled as she put the money in the till.

The 22-year-old young woman with the blue apron that read "Café Friedrich- Café with Love ❤" on her chest pushed one of her shoulder-length, medium blonde strands out of her face before closing the till and taking a quick look around.

The tables. Right.

She had to clear and wipe down the tables.

Better to do it now, before the next customer came in and she had to search for the thread of thought again and roll it up all over again. She had a seven-day shift this week. Absolutely annoying, but at least she had three days off in a row the following week. That was enough time to lock herself in her little apartment and-

She had just started to stack up the dishes from the first table and take them away when a new customer entered the café. She looked up: it was this Otto. She put on her perfect smile and straightened up: "How do you do? I'll be with you in a moment!" she whispered cheerfully. He returned her smile: "No problem! Just finish your work in peace, miss. I've got time!"

Madleine thanked him wordlessly with another smile and realized for herself that the tall young man, perhaps in his mid to late 20s, with his black hair and striking face, broad shoulders and grey eyes in which she thought she could see a golden-yellow gleam, looked more like a work of art than a real person. 

Maybe it was just the artist in her, pining mercilessly over this work of art made flesh, maybe she really had developed a crush on him over the last year.

She had hastily but thoroughly wiped the table and put the cloth in the sink, washed her hands and quickly slipped on new plastic gloves. "Same as always?" she asked with a slight smile as she faced him behind the counter. "Same as always." he confirmed with the same smile. Jesus, this guy knew what he was doing! She hid her red cheeks behind her wider professional smile. Yep, he knew how to flirt.

Once a day, always at the same time, this Otto, whom she only called that because she didn't know his name, came into the café and ordered the same coffee with milk, and took two spritz cookies and a pretzel to go with it, paid in change that he wanted to match, counted out forever and then didn't match after all. After all these months, she had lost all sense of how often he had tried to put it in her hand, only to accidentally touch "the Misses hand".

He had probably lost all sense of how often she would point out, giggling regretfully, that she wasn't allowed to do that because of some rule or anything along the line of that.

She couldn't. She simply couldn't. The voice in her head screaming at her to take this hand and pick every coin out of it one by one and count it, to "lose count", to throw everything back into her hand and start again, simply because it would be incredibly fun, was too loud and above all: intrusive.

She couldn't. 

 She wasn't allowed to.It would cross a line that was not allowed to be crossed. No one knew that she had a secret that she had to keep under all circumstances. One that could ruin her entire future if it got out. This Otto didn't know how many other jobs she had taken, juggled and given up, had had to give up. How many times she had been on the verge of her secret coming out. Because Madleine was one of the most dangerous, worst and therefore most ostracized people in this society, if the laws of the Holy German Empire were anything to go by: she had a magical talent.