Anthony's Brew

The snow came down like it meant something. Thick flakes spun under the streetlamps, catching in the cracks of brick facades and swirling down Allen Street in soft, bitter spirals. Most of the shops had long since closed. The galleries were dark, the cafés shuttered, and the tattoo parlor on the corner had its neon flickering like a heartbeat trying to quit.

But halfway down the block, beneath a rusted iron sign that read Anthony’s Brew, a single window glowed gold.

Inside, the bar smelled of cinnamon, molasses, and old oak. The kind of scent that lived in your coat for days and made strangers think of someone they lost.

Elias moved behind the counter with quiet hands. He didn’t rush. He never did. A man who’s lived too long forgets what urgency feels like. He wore a rolled-sleeve linen shirt and a leather apron faded with years of use. His dark skin shimmered faintly in the low light, and silver curled at his temples where age had tried and failed to mark him fully.

He reached for the bottles by instinct. A thick-glassed tumbler first. Then the rum, dark as old blood. Then the whiskey. Honey came next, two slow drizzles. And last, the molasses. He let it pour like memory, slow and dark, sinking through the liquor like grief made visible. A cinnamon sprig, singed with a match, dropped in as smoke curled upward. It hissed like a whisper.

He slid the glass onto the bar.

Tonight was a meeting night.

They came in slowly, like they always did. Some walked with canes, others with perfect posture, eyes too still for their faces. None looked particularly old, but every one of them was. One by one, they slipped through the door, shook off the cold, and gave Elias the same look: not gratitude. Not reverence. Something heavier. Recognition.

They gathered at the long cedar table near the back.

Elias poured drinks. One by one. No menus. No requests. He knew what each needed. When he reached the last guest, a tall woman in a red coat with a burn scar across her collarbone. she took a sip and sighed.

"That yours?" she asked, gesturing at the drink. It was a rich amber, steam curling off the molasses-thick surface.

"No," Elias said. "It's his."

A man across the table tilted his glass. "Got a name, this brew?"

Elias nodded. "Anthony's Brew."

The table went still for a moment. Then someone said what they always said.

"He someone?"

Elias rested his hands on the bar. Looked down at the drink. Then up.

"Yeah. He was."

And so he told the story.

We met in 1864. Cold spring, near Spotsylvania. Mud everywhere, and death stuck to the air like smoke you couldn’t cough out.

He was short, built like a brick wall. His voice carried like cannonfire. Swore at the weather, swore at the coffee, swore at the boots he hadn’t broken in. He had this wild black curl of hair always trying to escape under his cap, and hazel eyes that looked like they didn’t trust the world for a damn second.

Anthony Bellavere. Sicilian-American. Union infantry. First thing he ever said to me was, "Watch where you’re walking, asshole. That’s my stew pot."

I was just trying not to get shot that day. Thought he was trouble. I wasn’t wrong.

We got paired for latrine duty. That’s how it started. Two hours digging frozen dirt together. He bitched the whole time—about the war, the army, the stink, me. But when it got dark and colder, he offered me his coat without saying anything. Just tossed it at me like I’d insulted him by shivering.

That night he shared his whiskey. Poured it into a cracked tin cup and dropped in a cinnamon stick like it was some sacred ritual.

"Family recipe," he said. "My ma used to make a version with amaro, but we ain’t got that here. So we make do."

It burned like hell. Then it bloomed. Sweet. Warm. Deep.

We kept drinking it every time we survived a week.

He’d sit next to me at night, just close enough that our shoulders touched. Never said why. Never apologized. Just leaned in like I was gravity.

And me...God help me...I leaned back.

We learned each other the way songs pass between campfires, slowly, quietly, never written down. I knew the way his voice softened when he was tired. He knew the way I stiffened when anyone shouted too close. He stopped cursing around me when I flinched. I started humming to him when the nights got too long.

One night, I added molasses. Just a little. He wrinkled his nose.

"That ain’t how it’s made."

"It is now," I said. "Something sweet should carry weight."

He didn’t argue. Just drank it. Said it tasted like fire and memory.

We were reckless. Careful. Everything at once. A single glance too long could’ve gotten us both killed. But we took those glances anyway. We spoke in coded gestures. Fingers brushing when no one was looking. Jokes no one else would get. A look passed in the shadow of cannon fire that said: I see you. I am with you.

He called me Stormheart. Said I looked like thunder and walked like I’d lived too long.

I told him I had. He laughed at first, but it died quick. Because not even Anthony could mistake what he saw the next day.

It happened during a skirmish. Sharp fight, trees splintering under cannon fire. I was hit. Rifle ball through the stomach. Dropped like a sack of stone.

He ran to me, yelling my name. Slid to his knees, hands pressing down on the wound, blood soaking through his fingers. Then he saw it.

The flesh knit itself closed.

Not like a miracle. Like something old. Something cursed.

He went pale. Backed away. Crossed himself, mumbling, eyes wide with something between fear and fury. I saw his hand go for his rifle, fingers hovering.

Gunfire tore through the woods around us. Men screaming, smoke thick.

I called to him. "Anthony!" He looked like he didn’t know whether to run or finish what the war started.

We ducked behind a split oak at the edge of the clearing, the world screaming around us.

“I’m not what you think,” I said. “But I’m not the Devil either.”

He didn’t speak. Just stared. Waiting.

So I told him.

Told him about West Africa. About Anansie the trickster. About how I stole a story that wasn’t mine to speak, how the god cursed me to carry every tale I touched, never dying until I’d spoken them all. How I’d lived through chains and ships, deserts and death, always alone, always remembering.

He didn’t say a word through it. Just listened like he was hearing scripture from a ghost.

And when I was done, when I told him I’d never meant to love again. He reached over and touched my hand.

Not like it was strange.

Like it was the only thing that made sense.

We never said the word love. But it echoed in everything.

The shot cracked through the air, sharp, final. We were pinned, mud thick at our knees, and cannon fire shook the world. I moved to pull a man from the line, just one more body I thought I could save.

Anthony screamed my name.

I turned just as he threw himself into me, knocking me sideways. I heard the thud more than I saw it—the rifle ball tearing into his back.

He collapsed hard, face twisted not in pain but in panic. I rolled him over, hands shaking, blood already pooling under him.

"No, no, hell, no," he muttered, eyes wild. "You dumb bastard, I told you to stay down"

I pressed my hands to the wound, trying to stop the impossible. Blood soaked everything—my hands, the ground, his coat. His breaths were shallow, fast.

"You son of a bitch," he whispered, voice breaking. "You weren’t supposed to go first."

I opened my mouth and nothing came out. There was no right answer. No lie gentle enough. Just my hand on his chest, trying to keep him here.

"I know," I finally said. "God, I know."

He looked at me then, not with fear, but something worse. Acceptance. Regret.

His hand found mine. It was already cold.

"Tell someone about me. Someday. Don’t let it just be gone."

Anthony coughed hard, blood painting his teeth. He gritted through it, reached up, grabbed a fistful of my coat, and pulled me down until our foreheads touched.

"Look at me," he rasped. "Look at me, dumb bitch."

I was crying. Snot, tears, the same blood I’d tried to stop streaking my palms.

"I have my own curse for you," he whispered, breath hitching. "This isn’t goodbye. It’s just...I’ll see you later."

He winced, breath catching, but he forced a smile.

"Yeah. Fuck. Yeah, I’ll come back. You hear me? You’re cursed to always have me by your side. That’s my spell. My damn... promise."

He squeezed my hand one last time.

And then, he was still.

Elias went quiet. Back in the bar, the story slipped from his voice, and something older took its place, silence, grief, the breath before a name.

He looked down at the glass in front of him, and wiped at his face with the side of his hand. The firelight caught the wetness beneath his eyes.

"I wanted to die that day," he said quietly, not to the table, not to anyone in particular. "More than anything. But the curse wouldn’t let me."

He steadied himself. Drew a breath.

"I made the drink again that night. Alone."

Rum. Whiskey. Honey. Molasses. Cinnamon.

I called it Anthony’s Brew.

When he finished, the others told their stories too. One had watched Rome burn. Another had danced in the courts of Ming emperors. They shared, and drank, and let the fire inside the bar press against the snow clawing at the windows.

When they left, Elias cleaned in silence.

He was wiping down the bar when the door swung open with a sharp chime from the brass bell mounted above it. A blast of cold followed a man inside, stomping snow off his boots and cursing under his breath.

"Fucking hell," the man growled. "This city can choke on its ice."

Elias straightened. He opened his mouth to say, We're closed.

Then he saw the man’s face.

Olive-toned skin. Curly black hair. Hazel eyes that burned hot and wild, even through exhaustion.

It was him.

It wasn’t, but it was.

"What?" the man said. "I got something on my face?"

Elias blinked. "No. Sorry. Just… thought I knew you."

The man slid onto a barstool. "Yeah, well, maybe you did. Long fucking day. You still open?"

"For you?" Elias said quietly. "Yeah. I think I am."

"Great. Name's Tony. Got anything that'll shut my mouth and burn the cold off my bones?"

Elias nodded. He turned to the bottles without asking another question. Rum. Whiskey. Honey. Molasses. Cinnamon sprig last, set just right.

He placed the drink down gently.

"This one's on the house."

Tony picked it up, sniffed it, took a sip—and paused.

"Shit. That’s good. What the hell is this called?"

Elias smiled. The kind of smile that only ghosts see.

"Anthony's Brew."