He had crushed the moist, dark brown, pastry in his hand before he was aware of what he had been doing. The poor, incredibly tasty, little “breakfast muffin” mushroom shaped bun-thing now sent fluffy, crumbling flange-like tendrils out from its main body through ‘Ker’s fingers in a mad bid for freedom. He could feel the small cubed gobbits of slightly more solid bits of smoked pork as he watched the three men in white suits walk into the little store.

As he sat at the small table, ‘Ker watched two of the men saunter in, while the third man shuffled along with his head down and looking miserable. All wore the white suits he had become used to seeing, and now recognised as the uniform of his enemies since the night he had left the hospital, but that third man just looked wrong.

He didn’t fit with the other two.

Those first two had strode into the cafe as if they owned this world, and all they saw was theirs with which to play. One of them even had a broad smile on his caramel colored face, and looked so briefly around the interior of “Black Cat Coffee” that he knew, regardless of any evidence to the contrary, there was nothing here that would harm him.

That third man, however, looked like he wanted nothing to do with either of the men with which he now stood by the counter. Unlike his fellow countrymen who wore clothing that was tailored to their athletic frames, he wore a white suit that hung loosely from his body, and did not make him shine like a beacon, as much as it made him stand out like a splinter of glass in the center of one’s palm.

Unlike those with which he stood, his head was not shaven, nor was his hair neatly cropped and trimmed to a tight, geometric perfection, but it hung lankly about his ears and eyebrows, and flowed in disarray over the back of his ill fitting collar.

The second of the three men in white, the one with the perfectly shaved pate, gave those sitting at tables about the room a suspicious glance, but immediately turned back to the counter as the young shop worker came out from the back room and greeted the three men.

Peeling off a small piece of the bread of his “muffin” from where it sat in the fist of his left hand, ‘Ker twirled the small, moist morsel into a long, tapered tendril, the way a potter might do with clay. As the three men at the counter talked with the young shopkeeper, ‘Ker carefully bent and twisted the string of spun bread into a specific shape and arranged it on the polished surface of the table at which he sat.

The mottled, sweet smelling little rune now looked a little like a tiny, leafless tree that had been felled and now lay next to his cup of steaming black qahveh. ‘Ker smiled to himself as he imagined an even tinier little forrester having brought this little tree down.

He pulled in a deep breath, and centered himself.

And then he began to hum.

He listened to the sounds of the little shop. The sound of the two young women chatting quietly together as they both did complex things with yarn and shiny metal sticks. The clicking of the sticks making a syncopated rhythm accentuated by one and then the other of the two occasionally pausing to take a bite of a pastry, or sip of their drinks as they bantered back and forth.

The small, heavily wrapped man who sat at another table as he used his fingers to hunt and peck at the lighted symbols projected onto the table’s surface in front of him by his datpad, the tapping noise consistent and monotonous as he matched it with his wheezing and labored breathing. The man was older than ‘Ker had first thought, but he could see now the man was easily within the final tenth of his years. His fingers tapped away with smooth confidence, but looked like knotted tree roots for all the swelling of the knuckles and the wrinkles and scarred flesh which covered those hands.

A large mottled cat that he had not noticed before, ‘Ker now heard its purr as it slept curled about a small statue of a nude woman on a shelf otherwise burdened with a variety of …books? He thought they were books. But he was prepared to not care about that at the moment. He wove his humming around all of these sounds. Matching them and wrapping them in his low, buzzing exhalations.

He could feel the vibrations deep in the tissues of his sinuses, and even the cartilage of his septum. That, too, like the image in his mind of the little man chopping down his muffin -made tree, made ‘Tj’Chin’Ker smile.

The conversation going on at the counter amongst the four young men, three in white and the qahveh seller, was bundled into his hum now.

The two well dressed men talked animatedly with the shopkeeper, but that third man just stood beside the first two, looking miserable. Miserable and wrong to ‘Tj’Chin’Ker.

He found a tone, at the lower end of his range, and then a pattern, which allowed for a crude rhythm he could incorporate all of the small, subtle noises and sounds into. With a second and then a third complete repetition, he tied off the charm with a flexing of his will and a hard stop to his hum that cut himself out of the sounds in which he had wrapped himself, the other patrons, even the sleeping, mottled cat on the bookshelves, and the cafe thoroughly.

He wanted to remain hidden, or at least unnoticed. And he wanted to defend himself if necessary. Though he was loath to add into the spell anything that might cause the shop, or its inhabitants, any harm.

So he pushed into the charm as he wove it about himself, the idea of fatigue, and of comfort, and of finally finding sleep in a warm bed after a long day of hard work out in the blustery cold. He had never used this kind of spell before, not wrapping it into another charm, but the concert was simple enough, and he had seen other spellweavers do much the same over the years.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

It was a risk worth the effort.

Looking down at his table, and opening his perceptions, he saw the small bready rune now glowed with magical potential, diaphanous web-lines of force connected through the hard edged geometry of the little rune from points all about the interior of the shop. The spiders who wove their webs at the edges of the first at the end of summer and beginning of the autumn could do no better than he had here.

Carefully picking up his cup, he took a timid sip of its hot, dark qahveh, not wanting to choke himself on it again. It was heady stuff, and sipping from his mug was normal in this little cafe, not drinking or eating as he sat here was not, and might break the charm that he had woven to keep himself unnoticed.

Relaxing his hold on his will as he sipped his drink, ‘Ker let his eyes wander around the shop again, taking in the other patrons as calmly and quietly as he could.

The cat remained curled about the small statue. The bundled up man tapping on his lighted table continued to tap. The two young women continued to chat and weave, or whatever it was they did with that ridiculously puffy and vibrantly colored spun wool they both used. And the three men in white now stood at the counter waiting on their orders of drinks and possibly pastries.

Until the third man, the sloppily dressed and disheveled man, turned, and drove his attention like a knife directly at ‘Tj’Chin’Ker where he sat, cup in hand. He could feel the man’s gaze brush against the threads of inattention that he had just woven about himself.

His charm held, if just barely, as the man’s gaze sliced about the little room, seeking ‘Ker where he sat in the middle of his spun disguise of normality. Every time the man’s red eyed gaze neared him, it slid away to the right or the left, to look at any of the other occupants who were enjoying the ambiance of the Black Cat Coffee Shop.

The man was looking frustrated, and beginning to sweat a little as he looked around, head constantly changing its angle to better see what he couldn’t quite grasp as he was trying to catch sight of a man he could clearly see, but was charmed to not actually notice. It was putting the scent of meat in a hound’s nose, but there being no flesh there for him to devour.

There was something that the man was sensing, however that wasn’t allowing him to let ‘Ker’s “scent” go. Something inherent in ‘Ker himself that he had, he realized now, not taken into account as he had spun out the charm.

…ah… The thought entered his head at speed, and hurt him when it entered his thoughts. IWhat it injured was his pride. His sense of Self. …I am not hiding if I think of myself as Me… I need to be…

And reaching out to the little rune he had spun and twirled muffin bread with his left hand, he gently ran two fingers over the small image, and let the lie flow through him.

The lie every hunter tells themselves and the prey they hunt.

…I am not here, this is not me. I am a light breeze on the needles of the pine tree. I am the step of a ram in the distance. Mice under the leaves off the path…No hunter. No bow. No arrows. The fall of snow from on high, gently settling to the mast below the canopy… and with a gentle exhale, …I am Banner Tinker. A man enjoying a day out on the town. I am avoiding work today to shop. A local man, who enjoys qahveh… I will buy some jewelry for my … wife…

He almost lost the alteration to the charm as his mind stumbled on the image of his lost wife. His lost place among his people as a husband. The subtle shades of her violet, flowerlike skin. Hints of blue at the the turning of a cheek, and deepening to a rich sunset color at her lips.

And then he focused again as he saw the tall man turn his head closer to being in line with seeing him where he sat at the table. He couldn’t think of his tall Nurse Ellen, they may know her face, and be looking for her as well. It had to be someone he knew, but that they wouldn't know.

So, with a deliberate effort, he called up thoughts about a petite, dark skinned woman who had aided him in escaping attention in the hospital cafeteria months long passed by. A woman who, as he thought of her long dark hair spilling from her shirt as she had thrown the garment to the floor, that lovely cascade of hair had held its own glorious fascination for him. As she let him and herself into an empty “resident room” in the building, and then she had thrown herself onto the bed, the spell letting her imagine he was with her, the grace of her athletic movements stirred him, even in his then exhausted state, she played out her own fantasies in that bed as he sat slumped on the couch and tried to further heal and recover from his own confusion and exhaustion that night… a young woman who even now was tied to him through an unintentionally harsh spell. One he had cast without knowing its severity.

A spell that had been taught to him by his Eldest Brother, a long time ago. A brother who was, himself, tied to a woman of the People in a loveless marriage that no one outside of his marriage throughout the centuries had understood. An angry Mother, ever tied to a resigned Father of the People, the ‘Tj’Shea, and forever rebelling from that devotion she had been forced into.

His finger ached and burned as he thought of her. He had never known her name, though in the charm he had cast on her, the spell really, not a harmless charm, she had called him “James.”

So now, as he caressed the rune, he thought …I am James Banner… Spending a day out on the town… buying jewelry for my dark beauty of a wife… and here he thought of her long face, and wide, smiling mouth under a long straight nose, her skin thebrown of a late season acorn shell, and her long hair as black as that of a crow’s feathers.

He could see the tall, poorly garbed men in white calming down as his new charm wove its way about the room. Changing the just barely seen threads from hard red to a violet tinged red.

The small tracery of the spell, the curse, that was attached to his hand pulsed in sympathy with that violet stain on those red lines now wrapped about the little shop on the busy street.

And the men in white now each held a cup of some hot concoction, and a little bag containing some treat, looking about the room for a free table at which to seat themselves. They stepped, as one, toward the little table where “James Banner” now sat, drinking his coffee, and waiting for a jewelry order to finish.

James started to sweat. He sat at the only table large enough for all four of them to sit at, and so the men now approached him where he sat.

…fuck…

.