1.4 The Bird and Owl

I watched the largest woman that I had ever seen adjust her pleated skirt before taking a seat at the bar. I don’t mean large as in overweight. I mean large as in she was nearly 13 feet tall, thighs the size of muscular tree trunks, and a chest that was probably bigger than my entire body.

I was staring. I know I was. But…The way they bounced when she adjusted her seat—

“Elida!” My trainer Feora—a half fae with translucent wings in the corners of her purple eyes—hissed at me. “Stop gawking!”

I blinked. Looking at Feora always made me blink. The wings mixed with her white eyelashes. Did she not feel them? I turned my back fully to the gorgeous giant and tried to focus on the drink Feora was making.

The loud commotion from a group of men made it hard to concentrate. One of them slapped a soaking wet bag on the bar top with a sickening plop.

“Ah, ah, ah!” Feora scolded as she poured a golden drink out of the shaker and into a chilled coupe glass. She waved at the wet bag. “If it oozes or snoozes it stays off!”

I quickly wrote that down in my small notebook.

After my conversation with the girls the other day, it started to sink in that I had no real plan of finding Esti. Only a dream. And it seems to travel you’ll need money. So I found myself a part time gig at The Bird and Owl. It was a fairly lively tavern down the block from Bogarts while still remaining ‘on campus’.

‘On campus’ meaning within the magical barrier that kept Bogarts hidden from wandering mundane eyes.

Part time tavern worker, full time Bogarts student. I can handle that, right?

Somewhere in the back an oven exploded and the owner was shouting in a language I wasn’t familiar with.

Sure. I can handle this.

“Name this drink,” Feora quizzed me as she handed the golden drink to a sleepy looking woman with red curls.

“Ummm….” Viscous. Gold. Shaken…. “Sunny sparkler?”

“Lion spritz.” She shook her head. “You’re stuck on ale duty only until you can remember the cocktails.”

I nodded dutifully as she approached a new customer with a trained smile. Training with Feora, though? I might not survive that. ‘Training’ was simply watching her on the job and trying to pick up as much as I could without any explanation. We had never even made a lion spritz yet. How was I supposed to guess it at a glance?

From around the corner a billow of smoke curled to the ceiling. Alex, the resident baker and cook of the tavern, stormed out as the cloud spread into the bar with flour streaked across his face.

As we made eye contact, Feora snapped her fingers at me. “Don’t get distracted!” She shoved two empty pint glasses into my chest. “Two dark ales, stat!”

I glanced back at Alex before he ran out of the front door wondering what got him so frustrated. I turned and pulled two ales into the glasses from a silver tap as the owner, Balfen, stormed up to us.

He snatched one of the ales out of my hand. The thick foamy head spilling slightly over his hairy knuckles. Feora took another glass and filled it up beside me.

“This damn baker!” Balfen threw his hands into his black, wavy hair, spilling more of the ale down his wrist, and chugged the drink in three big gulps. He threw the glass back into my hand as Feora took the two ales and delivered them to two men with antlers at the end of the bar.

Balfen wiped his hand on his shirt. “Thinks he can bring whatever ingredients he finds and whip whatever he wants up! In my establishment?” He threw a pointed look my way. “Don’t be bringing any of your own concoctions into this place! Ya hear?” As I nodded the wind seemed to have been knocked out of him. His shoulders slumped forward and he sighed. “What a mess.”

“I can clean it up for you if he doesn’t come back.” I could see Feora shaking her head vigorously over his shoulder. The wings in the corner of her eyes lightly wafting side to side with every shake. I blinked. “If you…Would rather not deal with it, that is.”

Balfen wafted at the air as it thickened with the smoke. “Well. Get to it, newbie. Earn that keep.” He had a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Did I…Get played? I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. As I walked past Balfen and Feora towards the kitchen, I heard Feora hiss under her breath. “Always ignore Balfen.”

Ignore the owner? The guy that hired me with no bartending experience and a strange school schedule? I don’t think I had it in me. Stuck with my fate, I exited the bar and walked behind a wall and into the kitchen. It was moderately sized with a long stove top, two fryers, and a medium sized oven.

The smoke cloud was coming from the oven which was slightly ajar. I opened it fully and the rest of the smoke blew past me and after it’s maker Alex. Inside the oven was a baking sheet with eight small, white ramekins. I put on some black oven mitts—part of me worried that they might not always have been black—and pulled the sheet out. Steaming water splashed on my shoes before I could place it on the countertop. Love that.

‍ ‍ Inside the ramekins were burnt piles of something. The acidic smell could have been chocolate or tree bark. Who knew at that point. I tested one with my bare hand to see if they were hot. When I realized they had cooled, I took the entire sheet to the small sink.

As I scrubbed the contents I wondered if these might be desserts. Celaya would love to try out her desserts here.

“You didn’t need to do that,” came a voice.

I shrieked and jumped out of my skin. I quickly spun and caught myself on the edge of the sink. Alex was rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Jesus.” I exhaled. “Make a sound or something first!” I clutched my beating heart and hung my head.

Alex tugged at one of his auburn curls. It sprung back into its place in front of his eyebrow. He made a fist and slapped it into his palm. The sleeve on his shirt nearly tearing around his bicep. “If I could just get the timing right! These could be incredible.”

I looked into the sink. “What…Were they supposed to be?”

Alex took a scratchy sponge and helped me clean one of the ramekins. “Soufflés. With an onyx chocolate made from the fruit of a stone tree.” He bit his bottom lip. “Just need to get the ratios right. The chocolate is finicky. But divine! A customer at the tavern made these truffles with them and the thought alone is enough to deal with Balfen’s grumblings.”

I scrunched my nose as I scooped out a large handful of the black mess and tossed it into the sink with a plop. “I’m sure…” As we fell into silence I decided to offer something. Or someone. “I have a friend…She specializes in desserts. She’d love to try new ingredients. Maybe…She could help?”

“She’s a student at Bogarts too?” Alex asked as we finished the ramekins.

“First pin, like me.” I tackled the sheet pan as he dried the ramekins.

“First pin?”

“Oh, sorry. Like a first year. Just starting out.” I frowned and handed him the sheet pan. “You don’t go to Bogarts?”

Alex laughed. “I wasn’t invited. If you’re wondering how I got on campus without an invitation, let’s just say I messed up a portal spell and am kinda…Stuck.”

“Oh…”

“Until I figure out how to tweak the spell, might as well hone my cooking skills.” He tensed beside me. “I…I’m not sure why I…I’m not a very social person.”

I dried my hands on my pants. “I don’t mind! People tend to open up to me. Always have. Must be something about my face.”

Alex grunted. “Probably best for you to work behind the bar.” He hesitated again. “Well… I guess—”

Feora’s head whipped around the corner. “Are you finished yet? Get out here and do your actual job! I have a line of elves waiting for their order to be taken! They are not a patient race despite having literally all the time in the world!”

I quickly ran out and waved goodbye to Alex. The tavern was flooded with tall, slender elves who all wore the same frown on their thin lips.

Feora placed three coupe glasses on the bar in front of me. “Twelve Dew Waters.”

“Uh…” I paused.

“I’ll walk you through it.” She spoke fast as she gathered four bottles in front of her. “Now get the other tree essence. Third bottle from the left in the well. And don’t make me repeat myself.”

I grabbed the neck of a bottle with a clear liquor hoping it was the right one. When I turned to look for her approval, she slid a metal jigger towards me.

“Two ounces. Then one ounce of the birch water which is in the middle of the well. Chubby bottle.” She poured as quickly as she spoke.

A blonde elf wrapped his knuckles on the bar top. “Service? We can wait forever, but that doesn’t mean we should.”

As we both threw in a few maple leaves and a scoop of ice into the cocktail shaker, I pressed my shoulder against Feora’s and muttered, “Aren’t they immortal? You think that would make them more patient.”

We shook our drinks in shakers at the same time. She leaned close enough that I could feel the wing on her eyelashes tangle slightly in my curls. “You would think! But it makes them more impatient. Feeling eternity stretch before you makes you want to get the menial stuff over with quickly.” She blinked her wing out of my hair and placed four stemmed shot glasses on the bar.

“Grab four others of this glass and get the blue powder from the under the counter.” As I followed she made two more batches of the drink. I really was slowing her down. “Only a pinch at the bottom of each glass.” She readied two cocktail shakers over the glasses. “Quickly now!”

As I dusted she poured the drinks, barely missing my fingertips each time. The clear liquid swirled blue and then lightened into a purple. As we finished the first eight glasses, they were swiped as quickly as they settled.

“A little more,” Feora placed the last four glasses in front of us. “Last round.” I dusted the glasses as she poured but before these could get stolen, she slapped the knuckles of two elves.

“Open tab or closing out?”

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. A fluffy blonde haystack of hair billowing in an unfelt wind. “Open tab.”

“Then we need some collateral.” Feora placed an open palm in front of her. The elf looked appalled at the show of bare skin.

The elf beside him—who could have been his twin sister—gently placed a silver cube in Feora’s palm. “Here.” Her voice was deep and melodic. Her ears sharper at the tip than other elves I had seen before. (Only one other. Esti.)

“Our ride home. Good enough until we settle out tab?” Her green eyes were like looking into a moss agate stone. Ripples of brown and black around the irises.

Feora smiled and pushed the last four drinks a little closer to them. “Enjoy! We will keep this safe for you.”

“Almien.” She and the other elf took the glasses to the rest of their party who had settled around a round table near the edge of the bar.

Feora grinned triumphantly at me and for a split second I thought she was going to say ‘good job’.

Until a knight threw his gauntlet on the bar behind me and demanded a hasty refill.

Feora waved me away. “Ale duty! Chop, chop!”

I held the dramatic sigh in my chest and hurried to the rosy cheeked man who was muttering to no one in particular about his drink tasting better in his home realm.

Later that night, as I walked out of the tavern trying to remember the names and ingredients of all the cocktails I had seen today, Alex barred me at the doorway with an outstretched hand clutching a spiral bound notebook.

Cautiously, I took it. Not knowing if it would explode on me or not. I looked at him and waited for an explanation.

He shrugged and avoided my gaze. “Recipe book. You’ll never make it off of Feora’s training by just watching. Last two trainees quit before their first week.”

I grinned. “You’re welcome.”

His shoulders tensed. “I didn’t—”

“See you tomorrow!” I ducked under his arm and gave a wave as I ran back to my tower at Bogarts. “I’ll let you know when my friend can come by and help you with your soufflés!”