The Witches Way

°One°

Guinevere

Guinevere Loughty was late yet again. She had accidentally slept through her alarm, again. It was the third time this month that she was going to be late for work. It wasn’t like her to be late, but she hadn’t been sleeping that well lately. Migraines had been keeping her up and so, she was late yet again.

She practically ran the three blocks to the coffee shop and was breaking a sweat when she arrived, heading through the back door. When she walked into the break area, she caught the eye of one of her coworkers, Jen.

Jen had been the one that had told her that she should work there, seeing that Guinevere frequented the shop at least three times a week. She had started to correct the newer baristas on how to make the drinks before she was hired. Jen shook her head and tossed her a hair tie. This was when Guin realized that she hadn’t put her hair up like she thought she had.

“Migraines?” Jen questioned when Guin walked up to the cash register and started to ring up orders. Guin only nodded as the remainder of the headache was still stabbing her behind her eyes. She was happy to be at work though. The smell of coffee seemed to make her headache subside and she left the register, to switch with one of the newer baristas.

They were struggling quite a bit and so she politely told them to go work the register. She smelled the drink and then checked the order and shook her head. It definitely did not smell like vanilla of any sort like it was supposed to.

“Can you hand me the vanilla syrup, Jen?” Guin said with a small smile. Jen closed the lid and tossed it to her and Guin went on her way to making drinks like no one’s business. She had peoples’ drinks up within at least ten minutes of their orders being rung up.

What seemed like soon after she started getting on her roll, it was time for her ten-minute break. So, she took off her apron and went into the break room, grabbing a water cup as she went along. But as she was walking out of the room, she tripped on the rubber matt and the water went flying out of her cup.

“Shit!” she said, as she fell. She caught herself with her left hand and was still holding the cup with her right hand. Guinevere stood back up and went to go get her water cup filled up but glancing back into it, she found that it was still full. She looked back at the spot where she had fallen, and the ground was completely dry.

She shook her head and grabbed her phone, heading to the break room. Opening her phone, Guin decided to send her cousin Cammie a text. She asked what she was up to and that she hoped her cousin had a good day. Soon after, she went back to working.

Throughout the work day though, Guinevere wasn’t sure if she had been hallucinating or if she was just so tired from her lack of sleep. But she just kept going on with work. Dancing around like normal, doing her normal routine. Making coffee had always been something that she enjoyed and today was no exception, not even because she was tired. She had gotten to make the playlist for the week, so she knew every lyric to every song and the regular customers all smiled and shook their heads at her, while the other customers were kind of taken aback.

But Guinevere could care less.
Finally, 4:30 rolled around and it was time for Guin to head out. “Bye Jen, bye guys. I’ll see you tomorrow. I promise I won’t be late,” she said, giving Jen a big smile. It was as if to say that she was extra sorry and that she would make it up in big smiles and customer service.

“Mhmm. Sure Guin. Have a good night though girl,” said one of her coworkers, Jordan. He gave her a small side hug and then reached around her to grab a sauce bottle. Guin laughed and pushed him a little. It caused him to knock into a water pitcher and before she even knew what was happening Guin reached out to grab it. Instead of grabbing it, she watched as the water that was falling toward the ground swirled back into the pitcher and the pitcher righted itself. Guin blinked.

And then she blinked again.
‘What the hell is happening?’ she thought to herself. She turned on her heel and quickly walked out of the shop and back home. Something was totally wrong with her and she needed to figure out what it was before it drove her crazy.