Dreamer’s Ten'tea'cle Café

Dreamer—who was currently holding onto both Abigail and Daphne by means of her hand grasping one of Abigail’s and a tentacle around Daphne’s ankle—stared up at the building before her with her mouth agape and her eyes roaming across the old red brickwork.

It wasn’t all that impressive to look at. She knew this because she was an expert at human buildings, having eaten several. “I don’t get it,” she admitted.

It was just a normal building. The front had a pair of wide and tall windows next to a little door. There was a small fence-like thing around the bottom of the window with rotting plants in it. The door had an awning above it, with a torn-up tarp that used to be red and white but was now water stained and fading.

“It needs a little bit of love,” Abigail said.

Dreamer’s confusion only grew. Was Abigail going to make love to a building? That seemed very unsanitary, and she knew the things Abigail and Daphne got up to.

“What’s it for?” Dreamer asked. If Abigail wanted to be all depraved and stuff, she didn’t care, as long as Abigail remembered that Dreamer was the one Abigail had to love the most.

“Do you know what a café is?” Daphne asked. She hooked a lock of her blond hair behind one ear and smiled down at Dreamer, who shook her head. “A café is a shop that sells food.”

Dreamer liked the idea so far. “This place doesn’t look like it’s selling any food now,” she said. Just to make sure, she snuck a few tentacles through the walls of this reality, then out the other side into the café. Other than a few mice, there wasn’t anything worth eating.

She, of course, speared the mice through and yoinked them screaming and chittering into the void between realities, so she could snack on them later.

“So what are we doing here then?” Dreamer asked.

Abigail laughed, and Dreamer turned to look up to her. Abigail laughs were precious, so as soon as they were out of the immediate vicinity, she snatched the laugh out of the air and saved it for later. “Daph and I were talking, and the apothecary business… I don’t know if it’s what I want to do forever. This place actually belongs to Daphne’s family, and there’s a whole second floor we can use.”

Dreamer caught on. “We’re moving?” she asked.

Abigail let go of Dreamer’s hand, then squatted down next to Dreamer, the hem of her skirt brushing against the road. “Maybe. We’ll look around inside first. It might be nice to have a little shop all of our own. I’m a decent baker, you know.”

Dreamer nodded. Abigail was! She especially liked it when Abigail baked and she got to help by eating the utensils when they became dirty.

She never did understand how burning some things made them grow bigger, and taste better too. Tricksy human magic. “Alright,” Dreamer agreed.

“You don’t mind?” Abigail asked.

“Mind what?” Dreamer asked.

“Moving out, coming to live here instead of living at home?”

Dreamer shrugged. She’d lived next to dying stars and within the comforting embrace of black holes. Her homes, as many as they had been over the aeons, never lasted eternally. She was okay with moving on. Though her current home was the nicest. It had an Abigail, but this new home would have an Abigail too, and the same one, no less!

Abigail was conveniently portable like that.

“Well, let’s check it out,” Daphne said. The three of them walked over to the front, Dreamer recapturing Abigail’s hand when she stood back up and finished brushing off her skirt. Daphne started to fiddle within her skirt, then she pulled out a ring with a bunch of keys linked to it. “It’s one of these,” she said as she tried the lock.

Dreamer got bored three keys later and touched the keyhole.

Locks were very complex little mechanisms that clever humans came up with to keep nosy people out of their things. All someone had to do was push up a bunch of little levers, then turn the entire mechanism to move back a bolt. Two things that were very easy to do if one had a sufficient number of small tentacles.

“Unlocked,” Dreamer said.

“Where did you learn to do that?” Daphne asked as she pushed the door open with one hand. It squealed on rusty hinges, and a small bell above clinked pitifully.

“You remember that one shop you and Abigail went to without me once?” Dreamer asked as they stepped in. It was very dusty. “The one where you both blushed a lot and where you bought that magic wand you hide in the box behind the picture frame in your office?”

Neither Abigail nor Daphne said anything, so Dreamer went on.

“When you were in there and I was checking to make sure you were okay, I discovered they had metal underwear with locks on them, so I wanted to see what was in them, but I didn’t want to just eat them because Abigail said I’m not allowed to eat that sort of thing, so I had to figure out the lock.”

Dreamer looked back when her arm tugged on Abigail’s. Abigail wasn’t moving anymore, and her face was very red. Daphne’s wasn’t far behind.

“Are you both sick, or did I say one of those red-face things again?” Dreamer asked.

“N-nevermind that,” Abigail said. “Can you just… forget all about that?”

Dreamer considered it, then she shrugged. It wasn’t very important. So she jabbed a tentacle into her mind, grabbed that memory, and flung it away. She blinked a few times. “What now?” she asked.

“Well, ah, this looks… cleanable?” Abigail asked as she looked about.

The front room of the café was quite long; the rear section rose up three steps to a landing that was split in half by a counter with some racks and tables and shelves behind it. There was a lot of empty space, and a single broken table against one wall with a chair next to it. The air was dusty, with thick dust bunnies floating around and gathering into bigger lumps with the wind slipping in from the open door.

Daphne sneezed a very Daphne sort of sneeze, all quiet and lady-like, her little lace handkerchief fluttering about. “We’ll need to clean the place to truly see its potential.”

“It doesn’t seem that bad,” Abigail said. “There’s lots of room. We can set out at least four tables here. Maybe more if we really squeeze them in.”

“You might want to limit the number of tables. That’ll lower the number of clients that’ll wait around. We don’t want to have more clients in the shop than we can care for at any one time,” Daphne said.

“That sounds fair. Can we check the kitchen?” Abigail asked.

They climbed up the back, where the counter blocked Dreamer’s view into the kitchen space. Once she slid some tentacles out from under her dress to raise her up, she could see that the part of the counter at the top didn’t have much behind it.

“Just room for the till and maybe a few smaller machines,” Abigail muttered. “We can likely have a display here, for cakes and pastries.”

“That’s a good idea,” Daphne said. She pointed to a door at the rear. “That’s the kitchen. Unless you feel like vaulting the counter?”

Abigail giggled. “I wish. Come on, let’s check it out.”

The kitchen door was locked. Daphne wiggled the handle, then let go and turned to Dreamer.

Dreamer stared back. “What?”

“Could you unlock it?” Daphne asked.

Dreamer blinked. “I don’t know how to do that.”

“But… you unlocked the front door.”

“I did?” Dreamer asked. She couldn’t remember that.

Abigail smacked herself in the face. Something she did sometimes. “I told her to forget how to do that,” she said. “Just… use the keys.”

“What did I forget?” Dreamer asked. She couldn’t remember ever forgetting anything.

“Nevermind,” Abigail said. Then she gave Dreamer celebratory pats, likely to congratulate her on her ability not to forget things.

The kitchen was even dustier than the rest of the place, with pots and pans and all sorts of things laying around. There was a big oven at the rear, made of stacked stones with cracked cement between them, and a few stoves that looked like they were powered by some of that magic that humans like Abigail liked using.

“Well, this has... potential,” Abigail said as she looked around.

“It’s very dirty,” Dreamer pointed out.

“It’s a bit dirty,” Abigail agreed. “Should we check out the upstairs?”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Daphne said.

To get upstairs they first had to go outside, then up a rickety staircase and into a small home on the second floor. It was a nice enough place, though it lacked all the stuff that made home home. None of Abigail’s books, none of Dreamer’s extra dresses. No painting of Abigail and Daphne on the walls. Still, it was a bigger place, if Dreamer didn’t count the extra space she’d shoved into their other home. Two bedrooms, a small kitchen and dining area, a much bigger washroom than they had at home.

“You can have your own bedroom,” Abigail said.

“But then where will you sleep?” Dreamer asked.

Abigail laughed and pulled Dreamer into a side hug. “I like it,” she said. “There’s a nice view of the street, and it’s not too far from Daphne’s place. We just need to clean the tea shop up a bit and it’ll be perfect.”

Dreamer nodded. “I can do that,” she said.

Abigail eyed her. “Really?”

Dreamer was always happy to help Abigail. “Yeah, I’m sure I can find a way to clean the place up.”

“Well, I won’t say no to a bit of help,” Abigail said. She grinned down at Dreamer, who decided that she’d help more than just a bit.

***