Out to Lunch

The note was waiting for me when I checked into the hotel room. Considering I had chosen the hotel at random and been assigned this room only five minutes ago, this was odd. Not alarming, not even surprising. Live for a few centuries and the supernatural stops surprising you. Then again, I had come to New York City to disappear. I had already messed that up. Great. Good start.

I snatched the note from the pile of towels room service had left. A spider scampered across the bed cover. Maybe it was just a spider. Maybe it did not indicate the source of the note. Some hotels had bugs, and the spider could just be a predator filling a role in that ecosystem.

I looked at the note. ‘Lunch, Paulo’s Deli, 2:07 PM,’ it read. No signature, but the meal, the place, and the time were in three different handwritings. Each was precise, almost font-like in their lettering. I’m sure that wasn’t important. Definitely wasn’t confirmation of the ones who wanted to have lunch with me. I sniffed the note, just to see. Nothing. Of course not.

The clock read 1:40 PM.

The bathroom illuminated with a heinous, sterile light as I flicked the switch. The electricity in the walls beat at my eardrums. This was how it was going to be here. Why was I going to stay if I had already been found? I could’ve gone to South Dakota. Nothing happens in South Dakota! I would have loved a whole lot of nothing right now. New York was loud, but there was work to be had, mundane and magical alike. Even better, the more people there were, the more problems that needed solving. Oh, but gods, the stink!

“No,” I told my reflection, who returned my haggard look with one of its own. I could glamor myself to appear clean-shaven, but why? The glamor rippled as I reached for my right cheek. No, I didn’t want to scare the mortals. “You’re doing this.”

No gods were going to chase me out of this city on my first day. As much as every nerve in my immortal body was telling me to take my magic satchel and bolt, I was here to start over. There was no starting over without “starting.” That made sense. Besides, a deli meant sandwiches. I had not eaten today, or slept, or showered. My clothes needed a wash, too. They would know that! Why were they calling me out to lunch so soon?

I left my fresh, subjectively clean hotel room. The lobby was quiet, the receptionist looking up from her smut long enough to register that I was ignoring her. Then she went back to her own world. Going through the front doors was as much stepping into another world as any faerie Crossing had ever been. The hotel walls no longer guarded me from the noise of the city and its streets and the people there.

The weather had turned, following through on the threat of rain in spectacular fashion. Umbrellas bloomed along the sidewalk. The less fertile soil of the unprepared yielded a newspaper, briefcase, or tented jacket. I had none of these things. The glamor showed the world a freckled face running with rainwater. No one was paying attention to me, though, not here. I was the only one on the sidewalk noticing the people around him. A woman ran to a taxi across a lane of traffic. A jogger pulled his hood tighter around his head. A group of kids huddled under a bus stop for temporary shelter. A car halted abruptly as someone cut her off, the mother in the driver’s seat turning to the startled infant in the back seat. That was not to mention the animals hiding from the weather. So much life happening in such a small radius. For all of them, in this moment, their world was here, on this street.

I inhaled and focused on Paulo’s. The glamor hid my tattoos along with the other, less appealing parts of my appearance, but the compass etched into my back seemed to twitch as I cast a finding spell. It always pointed where I needed to go, so I was never lost. Right now, I needed to go get a sandwich.

The sounds of the city in the rainstorm faded. I could have asked for directions, but the mortals were busy with their lives. My visitors also could have left me an address, not that I was complaining. Basic courtesy was not their strong suit. Luckily, the magic urged me in the right direction. If I hurried, I would even arrive before 2:07 PM. The earlier I could get this over with, the more time I would have to myself. I was paying for that hotel room, and spending time away was just a waste of money.

The city was suffused in muffled gray sunlight beneath the veil of the rain. People on the sidewalk were less two parallel streams and more of an obstacle course. I wove my way through them, irritation scratching at my patience. I never had anywhere to be! There was no need to hurry, but I was expected and would not be the one pinned as rude in this encounter. In light of that, I was not some dog to be called when it pleased them. All of us were meant to be moving on in this world. Old habits were hard to break, but issuing a summons was old world etiquette. Maybe they needed to try email or cellphones to reach me. It was particularly convenient for me on account of how I had neither of the sort.

Old, overlapping graffiti created an urban mosaic with posters yellowed by age. The newest advertisements were for musicals, concerts, blood drives, and protests that were all months old. I avoided a man hawking his mixtape from the next corner. What was coming from the speaker in his jacket pocket was not my taste. The bass was too distracting from his lyrics. Or was that the point? I did not frequent “the club” enough to know what mortals liked in that environment. Blaring it on the sidewalk to mix with the din of car horns and the static of tires on wet pavement was a poor marketing tactic.

I was already failing at patience in a big city. I needed to take a breath, eat a sandwich. If I intended to live here long enough to establish a reputation, keeping myself from overstimulation was important. Things lit on fire if I was not careful. Being called to lunch hadn’t helped. My nerves would be given a rest once this was over. I would stay in tonight, drink hot tea, and hold a seance.

Despite my optimistic plans for the future, my present was fraught with delays as I drew nearer to Paulo’s Deli. A crosswalk light took too long to change. I found myself amidst a thicker crowd that managed to slow my pace. My finding spell dissipated when I was in the shadow of an office building. That meant I was at Paulo’s. Naturally, it was across the street. The next crosswalk was too far to bother with, so I prepared myself for a game of Frogger. Then a taxi struck a puddle that threw a wave of gray water at me. I flicked a hand and drew on some magic. The wave split in a way to miss me. Rainwater was one thing. Whatever was going on with that puddle was not entirely water, or liquid, for that matter.

When I stepped into Paulo’s after wiping my boots, my eyes went to the clock hanging behind the counter. As foretold, in glaring red, I saw it was 2:07 PM. I hissed through my teeth, raked a hand through my shaggy hair. Water droplets jumped into the air with the motion. One of the deli workers shouted a greeting at the other end of the counter. He would be with me once he was done helping a group of three women, one elderly, one middle-aged, and the last a teenager.

The oldest of the three collected her sandwich and turned to me. She wore blacked out glasses as if she were blind. That did not stop her from looking directly at me. A Greek accent underlined her words. “There he is. Right on time.”

She went to a corner booth, followed closely by the other two once the teenager had added chips, several cookies, and a drink to her tray. Despite the size of the booth, they huddled together on one side. The teenager wore reflective sunglasses that hid her eyes, too. Only the middle-aged woman had an eye visible. Her hair fell over the right side of her face. She glanced at me when I did not move. Her accent was fainter. “Well? Hurry and order, boy.”

Not a lot of people could call me boy and have it be true. I was older than most that did. This was not one of those times. Even the teenager was my senior. Unfortunately, she knew that and was prone to acting on it. The girl had adopted the accent of an American. According to some, that was no accent at all. “Yeah, boy, hurry up! We don’t have all day.”

All of the sandwiches were named after celebrities whose names I did not know. Why would they do this? Just tell me what the sandwich is. I ordered a BLT, which turned into a BTLA when the teenager announced that I wanted avocado. I glared at her until the crone informed me that yes, they were paying for it. How generous of them. I ordered a meatball hoagie that was possibly named after the current quarterback of one of the New York football teams. I also added some chips because I was feeling adventurous.

Once I sat across from the sisters, there was a near-silence full of chewing sounds. Sometimes I wished my hearing was not as sharp. The youngest was doing it on purpose. I could see my annoyance in the mirror of her lenses. She seemed the only one of them eating the cookies, too. The window next to me fogged up from my body heat, obscuring my reflection there. We just sat there, eating. The muffled noises of the street reverberated against the glass. Rain streaked the window, warping the people passing by into watery blurs while the cars congealed into a rolling mass of colors. Classical music, of all things, hummed out of a speaker sitting behind the counter.

“Why am I here?” I finally asked.

“To get lunch, duh,” the teenager said.

“Unless you are asking in a more cosmic sense,” the middle-aged one added, her single eye focusing on me in a way that saw too much. “Your thread has ever been beyond our reach, courtesy of your witch-mother.”

The eldest sister groaned. “What use are threads anymore? Our loom gathers dust. When we bother to spin threads, they are mundane! The gods do not hand out destinies as they once did.”

I looked around the deli to ensure no mortals were eavesdropping on us. Aside from the deli worker, maybe Paulo himself, there was no one else coming in for lunch at 2:07 PM. I wondered if the sisters had something to do with that. “The gods are busy adjusting to a new world, one that has moved on from them.”

“I do not believe that is true. There is always a need for gods. You have adjusted just fine,” the middle sister said.

“I am not a god.”

The teenager snorted. “Yeah, you’re just old.”

“Clotho,” the crone snapped, cowing the teenager with a blind stare. “He is our guest, even if this place is unfamiliar to us.” When Clotho bowed her head over another cookie, she continued. “The world has moved on, and quickly. The threads of mortals are not tangled or frayed. They are simply… uninspired. They do not weave together in any meaningful way. The gods do not bestow purpose on new heroes because they themselves are seeking purpose.”

The middle sister nodded. There was a frantic look in her one eye. “Once, their divine threads stretched taut into eternity. Though they still reach such lengths, there is slack! We cannot see the end, but as it stands, there is an end. The wheel turns, summer ends, and the gods find themselves heading for winter.”

“Calm yourself, sister,” the eldest said, placing a hand on the middle sister’s shoulder. Their ages and appearances were just a glamor, but she still held herself with the maturity of one who had seen this before. Whether “this” was her sister’s panic or the gods losing their purpose, I was not so sure. “We come to you, witch-child, for help. You have been nothing but a vagrant in the sands of time. We have caught glimpses of your thread when it has crossed with the divine. Then the wheel turns, and you vanish among the mortals.”

“That did not stop you from finding me with a little effort,” I told them.

“We asked your mom, actually,” said Clotho.

Had they? I would need to speak to my mother about that, because it meant she was watching me, too. “You wish for me to answer a question, I think. That is why I am here. However, you have yet to ask the question.”

“The world has left the gods behind, so they seek purpose for themselves,” the middle sister repeated. Her sandwich was the least touched. Anxiety had stolen her appetite. Maybe seeing a goddess who could see the future have anxiety should have worried me, but a smile tugged at my lips. “We are in flux, witch-child! What purpose is there for us if our purpose has ever been to allot such to others?”

Before the wheel had turned, before the world had moved on from gods, the “heroes” tasked with saving a kingdom or the world itself were chosen by these three sisters on behalf of the gods. They needed some unlucky champion to fix their problems. I had filled that role for them a handful of times, hiding the scars that proved it. “Glorious purpose” or some nonsense was always the selling point. For me, an immortal witch, such a purpose was temporary. I could live another lifetime and find something else to do. For the mortal champions chosen by lot, that purpose lasted their lifetime, and that purpose often cut their lifetime short. If one champion failed, the gods found another to take up the sword, fix the mess.

Now here were three goddesses, scared that a purpose meant to last their eternity was being stripped from them. The wheel had been ripped from their grasp. By the very mortals whose destinies they once spun, no less. Their loom gathered dust, yes, but only because they hesitated to use it again. What if they could only watch the threads, instead of shaping them? They stared at me, one eye between them. Their foresight had told them I would arrive at 2:07 PM, yet maybe they were developing a cataract. The future held more blindspots for them.

I finished my sandwiches and chips before speaking. “If there is one thing I have learned in my centuries, sisters, it is that Fate is resourceful. You have always found others to solve problems. This problem is yours alone.”

When I stood to leave, the panic of the middle sister infected Clotho. She tensed, a tremble overtaking her chin. Her voice broke. It was almost possible to believe she was truly a child. “What are we supposed to do?”

“Honestly? I don’t know.” I smiled at them, heading for the door, leaving Fate at that window booth in Paulo’s Deli. “But I have faith that you’ll figure it out.”