Discerning Tastes
By Sara King

Illustration by Mark Fults

hen Eira lifted the scented, cotton-fiber envelope from amidst the bills and flyers, her fingers tightened on her car keys.  She stood in the post office, reading the name several times before she could believe it.

Adalee Howard.

Eira flipped it over.  A note scribbled in delicate Copperplate calligraphy under the thick wax seal said, Regarding your request.

A pain in her left hand tore her attention away from the letter.  Eira forced her hand to unclench, and immediately grimaced at the oozing puncture wound her house key had left in the meat of her palm. 

She looked back at her Aunt Adalee’s letter.  Half of her wanted to rip it open on the spot, but the other half was afraid of what it might say.

Fear won out.  Eira tucked the letter back into the pile of junk and put her gloves back on.  Thus armed, she went out the post office doors, into the cold February air.  She tugged open the door to her fifteen-year-old Subaru and collapsed upon the shredded upholstery to the metallic scream of the car door swinging shut behind her.  She dropped the mail in the passenger seat, forcing herself to think of chores, work, bills—anything but the perfumed letter tucked neatly between two orange Clearinghouse envelopes.

She stuck the key into the frigid ignition with gloved fingers, then cranked the car to life.  It complained—even after making the journey to the post office, the seventeen-below cold streak had sucked the life out of its engine in even the brief time it took her to mail her Christmas packages and check her box.

Eira pulled away from the post office parking lot, her belts squealing as she fishtailed onto the icy road.

She’s not going to help me.

The thought tumbled in Eira’s head like a snowball, increasing in size and weight with every revolution.

Aunt Adalee hates me.  She’d love to see me starve.

Eira remembered the gathering her grandmother had thrown in New Jersey, remembered the way Aunt Adalee had showered the other girls with delicate ceramic dolls, perfect wooden dollhouses, painted plastic horses…

Eira had gotten a book.

Not that Eira didn’t read—she loved to read.  Had it been any other book, she would have immediately taken it to the sunny nook in her grandmother’s den and snuggled in for the afternoon.

But this book was different.  Eira could feel it in her soul as soon as her fingers touched the oily black leather.

Embedded in the cover of the book had been an intricate, lifelike picture of a fairy posed on a rock.  It had been beautiful—until Eira realized the fairy’s eyes had been sewn shut and it was holding its own severed head out in its upraised palms, like an offering to a vengeful god. 

The fairy had moved, then, stepping out of the cover, offering its head to Eira with its two slender, bluish arms.

Anger returned to Eira’s chest as she remembered.  She could have sworn her aunt had smiled when she screamed.  Aunt Adalee’s cold, tight-lipped grimace had followed her as Eira pitched the book into the bonfire in the center of the gathering.  She could have sworn she was still smiling when her mother slapped her for ruining ‘such a beautiful gift.’  They dragged it out, cleaned it off, and made her carry its remarkably undamaged remains back to Aunt Adalee and apologize.

“Everyone’s tastes are different,” Aunt Adalee had said, though something in her eyes had chilled Eira to the very core.

Eira hadn’t realized she had reached her home until she saw her neighbor’s curtains flick shut on the second story, probably out of irritation for blasting his window with her headlights for the last ten minutes.  Eira reluctantly shut off the engine, grabbed her purse and the stack of mail, and trudged over the icy walk and up cold-creaky wooden steps. 

She left her purse and the mail on the table, then ran back out to plug in the oilpan heater on her Subaru.  The radio station was predicting another week of negative weather, with a chance to hit thirty below on Thursday. 

Even with gloves, Eira’s fingers were painfully numb by the time she got back inside to stay.  She turned on the teakettle and stood over it as the blue fire brought the water to a boil.  The heater in her apartment was cheap, just like the rest of the building.  It was one of those crackerbox houses construction crews slapped together in a couple days so they could start on the next one.  The only improvements the building had seen in ten years was a couple months ago, someone had walled off the staircase and added an extra bath and laundry room to the upper level to make it two homes, instead of one. 

Now it was being rented out as apartments, and the landlord refused to upgrade the frigid, single-pane windows or the clunking, off-smelling spaceheater.  Eira had only discovered this after signing a year-long lease.

Her teakettle came to a whistle and Eira made herself coffee, pouring the hot water into the plastic filter cradling the grinds over her mug.  Coffee was the one luxury she allowed herself.  Eira’s pantry held bags of ramen, tuna, a few cans of soup, and some dried beans.  Food—when she had it—was never more elaborate than what could be served with a bowl and spoon.  Sometimes she had a few crackers, usually not.

Coffee, however, was Eira’s staple.  It got her up in the black hours of early morning, cleared her head, saw her off to work or school, and kept her going until she got back after dark.

Currently, in her freezer, Eira had two off-color discount steaks, a small chicken, and a three-pound bag of holiday French roast.  It was two-thirds gone.  Eira drank coffee like most people drank soda.  Coffee was cheaper than soda.

Eira slumped into the worn kitchen chair she’d salvaged from someone’s trash pile when she was cruising through a better neighborhood, looking for work.  She hadn’t found work, but she had found a nice oak chair.  Its only problem was that sometimes a splinter along the top would snag her hair when she sat down, and then rip it out when she stood back up.

Eira would have sanded down the snag, but every time she got close to anywhere that sold sandpaper, her mind was just too busy with bills and notices to care.

Open it, you coward.

Eira eyed the pile of mail in front of her, but made no move to reach for it.  She’d waited too long for good news, and somehow she already knew what the letter would say.

Eira closed her eyes and took a deep breath of the steam rising from her cup.  Her mother was dead of leukemia.  Her sisters had died in a car accident with her younger brother and her dad had committed suicide the week after.  All only a year after the family gathering in New Jersey.  Her grandmother had died two years after that.  Six deaths in less than three years.

Eira had been eleven when she became an orphan.

She’d been eleven when she watched her Aunt Adalee hand her over to the courts without even a second glance.  The way her manicured nails and perfect skin coiled around the pen as she signed the papers still burned in Eira’s mind like the perfume that now sifted from the stack of bills.  Her aunt was wealthy, wealthy beyond reason, and yet she sent Eira to live with strangers.

Pride had kept Eira from writing her Aunt Adalee before this.  She’d endured the evictions, the medical bills, the falling grades, the hunger…  Anything would be better than swallowing her pride and kowtowing to her icy visage.

Until now.

Two weeks ago, Eira had discovered she was pregnant.

Stupid.  It was the only word to describe her fling with the restaurant manager’s son.  Eira had been lonely, and he’d had a warm bed and interesting stories about life in the desert as an Army grunt.

They’d only been together two nights before Eira ended it.  It had been a bad breakup, one where not even the scotch could hide the fact that her paramour’s boasting was insipid, the fact that his body was pretty, but his soul was not.

The manager had afterwards fired her in front of the entire restaurant.  Both father and son were cast of the same mold, right down to their brilliant green eyes that flashed with the same smug satisfaction as she threw her apron aside and stormed out the door.

When she’d found out she was pregnant a week later, she’d been in shock.  They’d used protection.  It just wasn’t possible.  Eira was almost there, almost out of debt, almost done with school.  Just one more year…

She had no insurance.  She had no job.  She worked part-time as a barrista at a coffee stand in Anchorage, but even with tips it didn’t make enough to pay the rent, let alone food and utilities.  The student loans were piling up, and if she stopped going to school to have a baby, she’d be expected to repay them.

She needed help.

She needed her Aunt Adalee.

Sleek, perpetually sexy in her fine clothes that spoke of casual wealth, her aunt had enough money tucked away to buy Eira out of debt a thousand times over, then still have money leftover to purchase half the California coastline.  Just seeing her enormous Victorian mansion cradled amidst its gnarly oak trees and circular drive was enough that even an idiot could understand that.

I only asked for five hundred, Eira thought.  She can afford five hundred dollars.

Five hundred wasn’t much—it would pay for one month’s rent and maybe one of the doctor’s visits, but it would help her get back on her feet.  Eira had been afraid to ask for any more.

Finally unable to put off the inevitable any longer, Eira set down her coffee and retrieved the envelope.  Reluctantly, she opened it.  She saw the lighter shade of something tucked within the folded letter.

There’s a check inside!  Excited, now, she pressed it open and looked at the slip of paper.

In her aunt’s flowery script, the letter read,

I know how much you enjoy your caffeine, Eira.  I thought this might help you survive your troubles. 

–Your Aunt Adalee.

At first, Eira’s brain didn’t comprehend.  She simply stared at the slip of paper, unable to make sense of it.  The amount was more than Eira had ever thought possible—twenty-five thousand dollars.

But it wasn’t a check.

It was a gift-certificate.

Discerning Tastes was the name of the store.  Eira frowned as she read the fine-print.  Exotic coffees.

Coffee?

Holding the expensive cotton paper certificate in her hand, Eira went to the phone and dialed the company’s number.  She received a representative almost immediately, and from the educated Southern accent, Eira became even more certain it was a rich-woman’s hobby shop.  The lead weight in her stomach began to grow.  Aunt Adalee was toying with her.

“Hi,” Eira said, “I just got a gift-certificate in the mail and I was wondering what you sold.”

“Darling, we sell coffee.”

Twenty-five thousand dollars for coffee.  Eira had to choke down the burning fury that was welling up inside her.  “I need to trade in my gift certificate for cash,” she said.  “My aunt made a mistake.  I don’t need coffee.”

“Oh, I’m sorry dear.  That’s just not possible.  Gift certificates are non-refundable.”

“Then I need to talk to your manager.  I need the money.”

“I am the manager, dear.  And I can assure you your aunt made no mistake.  Our coffee is the finest brew in the world.  Once you taste it, all your troubles will disappear.”

Eira closed her eyes and wished her aunt a painful death.  “So what’s your most expensive stuff?  I’ve got a certificate for twenty-five thousand dollars here.”

The woman did not sound surprised at all.  “Our most expensive beans are sixty-two thousand dollars a pound.”

Eira laughed.

The woman on the other end didn’t.

“You’re serious?” Eira croaked.

“Newcomers are advised to buy our weakest brew and work their way up as they develop the tolerance for it, but your aunt assured me you’re capable of starting with our mid-grade.”

“Huh,” Eira said, still not sure the woman wasn’t joking.  “What’s the cheap stuff cost?”

“Fifteen hundred a pound.”

“You’re kidding me.”

Eira frowned down at the certificate.  “So this is like member bucks or something?  What’s a twenty-five thousand dollar certificate cost to buy?  Forty bucks?”

“Twenty-five thousand dollars.”

Eira glared at the grimy wall above the telephone jack.  “Are you really trying to tell me you charge fifteen hundred a bag for coffee?”

“Actually, it will be the twenty-five thousand rainforest blend.  Your aunt was quite specific as to what you could buy.  If you look at the certificate, you’ll see it.”

Eira narrowed her eyes.  Her aunt had laughed in her face.  Even if it weren’t an elaborate hoax, which she suspected it was, the woman was being cruel.  She almost hung up right there.

Instead, she said, “Rainforest blend?”

“Hand-harvested in the jungles of Colombia.  Roasted to perfection using no modern machinery.  Its flavors are a delicate harmony of rain and sunshine, a pleasurable medley of the very best magic Mother Nature has to offer.”

Bordering on despair, Eira said, “Send it to me.”

*     *     *     *     *

Eira was coming back from her latest job-search frustrated and on the edge of her nerves when she passed the post office.  She considered pulling in, but then thought better of it.  Nothing but bills, anyway, she thought, continuing her drive home. 

She went inside, turned on the kettle, and went through her ritual of heating herself over the fire as she waited for it to come to a boil.  The radio had been wrong.  Thursday hadn’t gotten to thirty below.  It had hit thirty-five, and the schools had closed.  Now, three days later, it was still cold enough to freeze her fingers to the car door when she tried to pull it open.

Her teakettle began to whistle and Eira went for the coffee she kept in the freezer.

The bag of French roast was empty.

“Damn,” Eira muttered.  A crappy end to a crappy day.  She slumped into her chair and watched the minutes tick by on the clock, feeling the oncoming of a huge caffeine headache.  She had no TV, no computer, no schoolwork, and no one to call.  Nothing to do but listen to the neighbor upstairs having sex with his ugly, bucktoothed wife.

The light fixture began to tremble as they really got into it.

Irritated, Eira got up, threw her coat over her shoulders, and went back to the car.  She climbed inside, turned the engine, and cranked the crappy dashboard heater up all the way, reaping a feeble stream of frigid air.  Then she backed out of the driveway and went out to a movie.

She didn’t have the money for a movie.

Eira was still thinking about that fact two hours later, as the credits rolled.  She tried, but she couldn’t remember what the movie was about.  Eira left the theater lobby feeling worse than she had in weeks, wishing she had never left home.

On her second pass by the post office, Eira pulled into the driveway and went to check her box. 

At first, she didn’t recognize the cylindrical tube tucked amidst overdue bills, the kind used to send photos and maps.  She pulled it out and hefted it.  It was too heavy to carry paper.  The weight meter stamp on the package read 1.23 pounds. 

When she saw the company name, Eira’s lips twisted.  Discerning Tastes.  It was her twenty-five thousand dollar bag of coffee, and it had cost a mere four bucks to ship.

Eira slammed the door to her box shut, stormed back to her car, and yanked the door shut behind her hard enough to make her ears pop.

The first thing Eira did when she got inside her apartment was open the tube and dump its contents—a small bag of coffee and a brochure—onto the table.  The bag was a silver wire mesh, like burlap except classier.  She grunted and lifted the brochure from the table.
Her heart nearly stopped at the company’s logo. 

It was the same fairy, sitting on the same rock, striking the same pose as the one on the book cover at her last family gathering.  The only difference was this one’s eyes were open—a beautiful violet—and its outstretched blue hands cradled a cup of steaming coffee, not a head.

Now I know it’s a prank, she thought, furious.  She picked up the brochure and the bag of beans and threw them into the trash.  Then she went to bed.

Eira dreamed of being packed in a cage with a thousand other pregnant woman, a terrifying monster with a cup of coffee for a head reaching into the cage and bursting their bellies between its fingers like over-ripe berries, one by one, before dipping its bloody fingers into its churning, watery head. 

Eira woke gasping.  She checked the clock, realized she still had another two hours to sleep before she needed to start getting ready for school, but got out of bed anyway, not willing to risk another dream.

She went downstairs, turned on the teakettle, and sat down, staring at the wall. 

Gotta find another job, she thought.  Maybe a night shift.  I could do a night shift.  Pay’s better.  More likely to go crazy with cabin fever, but so what?  At least I’ll eat.

At least my baby will eat.

Only when the kettle started whistling did Eira remember she was out of coffee.

God, her head hurt.

Her eyes fell to the metal mesh bag sitting in the top of her trash amongst discarded, overdue bills.  Drowsy, exhausted, her head hammering from lack of caffeine, it no longer seemed to matter that her aunt had gone to great lengths to taunt her, instead of using that money to help her with the child.

Eira retrieved the bag of beans from the trash and, on second thought, took the brochure with it.

Inside the decorative metal mesh bag with its fairy logo, the beans were vacuumed-sealed.  Eira cut it open and sniffed. 

It smelled like every other bag of coffee she had ever smelled.

Still, it was coffee.  And it was fresh.  Eira took a handful of beans and dropped them into her grinder, then plugged it in.

The high-pitch whine of the blades was louder than usual, almost a keening.  Eira yanked the plug from the wall, disgusted.  The grinder, like everything else she owned, had finally begun to break.

Eira took the top off the grinder and dumped the contents into her single-serve filter.  She frowned when she saw they were damper than usual, forcing her to scrape the grinds off the sides of the collection cup with a finger.

They must’ve added syrups, Eira thought, irritated.  Rainforest blend, my ass.  She hated syrups.

She poured the hot water and waited as it sifted down through the grinds.  She frowned at the oily residue spreading on the surface.  She knew coffee had natural oils, but this was almost like someone had poured chicken fat in the top of her filter. 

Maybe that’s why it’s expensive, Eira thought.

Then she reminded herself that it was a hoax, one of her aunt’s many mind games.  There was no company called Discerning Tastes.  Her aunt had probably gotten the beans from Costco and put them in the fancy metal bag herself.  The phone number she’d given Eira could have been to one of her friends. 

In short, it was just regular coffee.

Eira waited until the filter was finished, then sat down at the table with her cup and her brochure.

On the very first page, in bold red letters, there was a warning.

Never freeze our delicious beans.  Unlike normal coffees, freezing causes ours to spoil.  Beans should be kept at indoor air temperatures, away from any electric appliances, especially the microwave.

Eira grunted and flipped through the pages until she found Rainforest Blend.  The art was tastefully done, with two naked fairies leaning back-to-back on the page, each sipping coffee.  The male fairy was orange and looked as if it had flames coruscating over its body and wings, and the female was aquamarine, like the one she’d seen on the cover of her book.  Intrigued, Eira read the description.

A delicate blend of sunlight and rain, our Rainforest Blend is strong for its type.  Its magic lies in the specific breeds included in our mix.  The elements of Fire and Water abound, allowing it to excel in soothing problems of the material, especially the financial.

Eira glanced again at the fairies, then at the slick of oil spreading at the top of her cup.  She had a brief, inexplicable urge to dump the whole cup down the drain and throw the beans into the snow.

Instead, she took a sip.

Eira’s eyebrows lifted.  It was good, but not heavenly.  She was pretty sure she could duplicate the taste with a few spoonfuls of Colombian and…what?  She moved her tongue around her mouth, testing.  It had a pleasant aftertaste, almost like she’d used extra-pure water.

Or like she was tasting sunlight.

Eira laughed.  It was her mind playing tricks on her.  A little suggestion went a long way.  She’d heard people could make themselves bleed from the hands and feet, like Christ, if they thought about it long enough.

Eira took another sip.  She had the strange feeling she was drinking liquid energy.

Maybe this stuff isn’t as bad as I thought.

She finished her cup, then made herself another.  The grinder made the same, agonized keening sound, but at least it didn’t break.

I’ll replace it, Eira swore, wishing she’d saved her money from the movie to buy a grinder.  I really need to get rid of that sound.

Eira finished her cup and made another.

The high-pitched screaming of the grinder blades was beginning to grate on her nerves.  I need a new grinder.  Today.  After school.

Eira drank coffee until she realized she was only an hour from missing her first class.  She stared at the bag of grinds, then at her empty cup.  How many had she drunk?  Four?  Six?

Feeling a little troubled, she ground one last batch of grinds and endured the insanely high-pitched screeching of the blades.  It seemed to get louder and louder, like it had found a crack in her skull and was prying it open, exposing the fleshy gray interior to the brutal shriek emanating from under the chopping steel blades.

I really need to get rid of that sound.

Eira poured the finished coffee into her beat-up thermos, screwed the lid shut, and headed out for class.  She hadn’t eaten breakfast—she hadn’t done anything other than drink coffee for two hours—but strangely, she felt like she didn’t need it.

Eira threw on her coat, her hat, retrieved her school backpack from the closet, and glanced at the bag of beans where it sat, opened on the counter. 

They might fall out.

She knew it was an insane thought, but once it was in her head, it was the same as if she were outside, wondering if she’d left the stove on. 

Eira left the door and went to tie the metal mesh shut.  She thought about throwing it in the freezer, as was her habit with all her other coffees, but the warning in the brochure nagged at her.  She left it on the table, away from the electric appliances in the kitchen.

Then Eira went to her car and threw her school bag inside, dreading the thought of having to plead with the engine on such a bitterly cold morning.  She had not looked at the thermometer before she left the house, as was her habit, but Eira knew it was at least twenty below.

The Subaru was going to be difficult, no matter how long she’d had the oilpan heater plugged in.  Eira yanked the extension cord free, then sat down in the driver’s seat, fumbling the key into the steering column, refusing to pull off her bulky gloves in the cold.

Eira finally got it in, said a prayer, and twisted the key.

The engine roared to life.

Not just turned over, but roared.  Like it had been a sports car pampered in a collector’s garage for the last fifteen years, instead of enduring its grungy life neglected beside a snowberm.

Eira stared at the steering wheel, then got out and began scraping ice from the windshield.
When she got back into the car, it was warm.

The heater was working.

“No way!” Eira cried, gleeful.  She tore off a glove and let her hand hover over the heater vents.  Hot, air, so hot it was almost sizzling, spewed forth with enough ferocity to roast her fingers like fishsticks.

Eira held her hands over the vent for several minutes, laughing.

Then she had a paranoid thought.  The engine roaring to life and the hot air…she wondered if something had exploded.

Yanking her gloves back on, Eira popped the hood and went to check.

Though she hadn’t the slightest idea about the internal workings of a car engine, Eira saw no black smoke, no steaming shrapnel lodged in the hood.

Eira probably would have felt better if there were.  At least that way, she’d know she wasn’t about to get stuck on Diamond, trying to wave down a good Samaritan in the midst of rush hour traffic and twenty-below weather.

Frowning, Eira lowered the hood and got back in her car.  Tentatively, she put it into gear and backed it out of the driveway.

The Subaru kept purring all the way into town.  If anything, it sounded better by the time she pulled into the campus parking lot and began her daily half-hour search for a parking spot.

On her very first revolution, Eira saw a student sitting in her car, reading a textbook, her cute little multi-colored gloves wrapped around a steaming mocha.

You can read your damn textbook at home, Eira thought, furious.

To her surprise, the woman jerked suddenly, as if she’d just remembered something important.  She threw her textbook aside, yanked the strap over her shoulder, and backed her car out of the spot.  In moments, she was gone.

A little stunned by her good luck, Eira pulled into the spot the woman had vacated and checked her watch.  It had only taken her thirty seconds to find a spot.  Unheard of. 

It gave Eira time to luxuriate in the heat, paranoid that as soon as she shut off the engine, whatever it was that had clicked into place would clunk out of it again and she’d never again feel the same kind of warmth emanating from her dashboard.

Eventually, though, Eira had to get up.  She shut off the engine and grabbed her books for class.

Class went well, especially when the Comparative Lit professor described a new student position in the English department, a teacher’s assistant.

The pay, he explained, would be as much as a first year English teacher, with benefits.  The only problem was that it would take place at night.

Eira sat up, ears perked.  The district was sponsoring a new program for illiterate, working parents to learn to read so they could in turn help teach their own kids.  Eira approached the professor at the end of class, hoping her desperation didn’t show on her face.

“I already put a word in for you, Eira,” her instructor said.  “I think you’re perfect for the job, and as far as I know, they haven’t had any interest.”

Eira could only stare.  She was surprised the job hadn’t had any takers, as night jobs were the quickest to get snatched up, and she was surprised the instructor remembered her first name.  Up until that point, he had glanced at his roll-sheet and called her Miss Greene, if he called her anything at all.

Eira found two hundred-dollar bills on the way back to her car.

They’d been folded up, wedged under a tire in the parking lot, the pale green edges drifting slightly in the frigid winter breeze.  When Eira picked them up, her heart gave a thunderous welcome.  She glanced all around her, trying to determine if anyone had seen her.

The parking lot was empty.

I should turn this in to the campus Lost and Found, she thought, staring down at the money clutched in her glove.

Why?  Eira had heard what happened to money put in a lost and found.  Unless it had identifying marks, like someone had given Abe Lincoln horns, or a wallet was found with it, money was not claimable.  No way to know who it really belonged to, so the district just held onto it.

That meant money turned into the campus rotted in a corner of a drawer or cubby, never to re-enter the economy unless the guard on duty needed an extra five for lunch.

Eira knew she was rationalizing, but she needed the money.  She stuffed it into her coat, took one more look around the parking lot, and found her car.

Eira also knew she should take the money to the bank, use it to pay off her utilities and buy a good meal, but as she was driving past the Fred Meyers on Muldoon, she pulled in.  She didn’t go to the produce section, nor the frozen foods aisle.  Despite not having breakfast that morning, she went to the kitchen appliances and bought herself a thirty dollar coffee grinder.

This one won’t scream.

She was grinning when she took it to the cashier.

The elderly lady at the register smiled at her as she rung her up.  As she was handing Eira her receipt and the tinted plastic bag with the grinder in it, she said, “You’re positively beaming, young lady.  If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were pregnant.”

Eira’s hand hesitated over the bag.  “What?”

The white-haired cashier motioned at the bag.  “Coffee grinder.  Coffee’s bad for babies.”

Eira felt like someone had kicked her.  “I didn’t know that.”

Before the cashier could ask any more questions, she fled.

Coffee’s bad for babies?  The thought tumbled through Eira’s head all the way home.  She’s just a superstitious old woman.

Eira’s hand was trembling by the time she got home and got the new grinder unpacked.  Immediately, she poured in a double scoopful of beans and fired it up.

The screeching was louder, now.  A high-pitched keening like a dying insect.

“What the hell!” Eira screeched.  She yanked the cord from the wall and glared down at the blackened bean crumbles clinging to the top of the collection bin.  Now that she looked closer, she could see the grinds were not uniform in color, nor were they entirely dry.  She could even see flecks of white inside.

White?

Eira frowned at the grinds.  Bugs?  She dumped the coffee into her filter and pinched out a tiny portion of the grinds, bringing a white speck up for closer inspection.  It wasn’t squishy, as she would have thought a coffee bug to be.  It was sharp, pricking her when she squeezed it between her fingers.

Grunting, Eira dusted the pinch off of her fingers and poured her first cup of coffee.  As long as it wasn’t bugs…

Eira took several long swallows of the coffee from her mug, reveling in the taste.

Yes, she could see where someone would pay thousands of dollars for coffee like this.  It energized her, made her feel alive.

Eira didn’t go to bed that night.  She stayed up, reading her textbooks, drinking coffee.  For the first time in years, she felt prepared for her next set of classes.

By the time she was supposed to leave for her job as a barrista, Eira had used up a quarter bag of beans.

Seeing that, Eira panicked.  She promised herself she’d slow down, save them.  She locked the remainder in her fire-safe before hurrying out the door to work.

Eira endured a day at the coffee hut and was surprised when five customers in a row tipped with a five instead of a handful of change.  When the sixth customer placed a couple of tens in her cup, Eira could only stammer her thanks.

She ended up with three hundred thirteen dollars and twelve cents.

It was more than Eira made in tips for an entire week.

She counted it three times, flabbergasted at her good luck.

This time, Eira went to the bank, paid her utilities, and bought herself the makings for a nice stir-fry of rice and vegetables to go with one of the steaks in her freezer.

It was at that point, as Eira was packing the grocery bags back out to her car, humming, when she realized she hadn’t eaten in over a day and a half.

Frowning, she dumped the groceries in her trunk and started the car.  It roared to life with tuned mechanical perfection. 

Like it’s a damned sports car.

Like last time, the heater began blasting hot air within moments.  Eira stared at it, her good mood quickly deteriorating.  Her luck had never been this good.  She sat in the car, waiting for it to come to a screeching halt and God and all of his angels to start pissing on her.

Nothing.

What the hell is going on?

Then, It’s the beans.

Eira laughed and put the car into gear.  Coffee beans.  Right.  There was nothing special about a few handfuls of poorly-roasted beans.  Maybe she was just finally starting to get her life’s due.

When Eira got home, she saw that she had a message on her answering machine, but she made herself coffee first.  She endured the screeching of the coffee grinder and poured sizzling water over the clumpy grounds.  The oil slick developed, but she ignored it, taking several sips before it was even finished percolating. 

She winced at the way it burned her tongue, but blew on it and tried again.  The more she drank, the more she realized she didn’t need to make the stir-fry.

Maybe I should eat anyway,  Eira thought, concerned.

The flashing red light on the answering machine caught her attention again.  She went over and switched it on.

“Eira?  It’s Professor Davids.  My friend called about that job.  Craig says you can start tonight.  Can you meet him in the Humanities building tonight at six-thirty, room 102?  He’s really looking forward to working with you.”

Eira glanced at her watch.  5:53.  She dumped her coffee in her thermos, threw her coat over her shoulders, and ran to her car.

When she got to it, she frowned.  The street lamp was casting the paint in a strange light, almost as if it was a steely gray instead of the grungy tan it was an hour before.

“Huh.”  Eira jumped into the seat—it felt springier under her, cushier—and yanked the door shut.  She was already out of the driveway, cruising down the road to the campus, when she realized that the door hadn’t made a rusty squeal when she closed it.

The meeting with Craig Newman went better than Eira could have ever hoped.  He hired her on the spot, and gave her an option to stay on as an aide in the Humanities department after the test program was over, and doubled the advertised salary.  And all of it would work around her schedule.  Maternity leave included.

Eira was so thrilled she was floating on a cloud all the way home.

The fact that the car’s suspension actually seemed to be doing its job didn’t hurt, either.

When Eira pulled into her driveway, her neighbor paused inside the door of his beat-up Bronco to stare.  His bucktoothed wife sat in the passenger seat, looking over at Eira with stupid brown eyes.  “You get a new car?”

Eira shut her door and was pleased with the sturdy click it made.  Usually she had to slam it.  “Nope.”

Still, her neighbor hesitated.  Inside the car, his wife complained for him to get in, he was letting out all the cold air.  “New paint job, then?”

“Nope,” Eira said.  “Why?”

Her neighbor shrugged and climbed into the driver’s seat.  “No reason,” he said, then slammed the door behind him.  It didn’t catch the first time and he had to try again.

Eira watched them leave, then frowned down at her own car.  Was it different?  The curves seemed curvier.  The paint shinier.

Just my imagination, Eira said.  She went into the house, locked her door, and made herself more coffee.

She had made three batches, and it was almost four O’clock in the morning before the metal scream of the grinder became too much for her.  She decided to get all the grinding done at once, so she didn’t have to deal with the sound anymore.

Handful after handful, Eira dumped the oily black coffee beans into the grinder.  Handful after handful, the grinder screamed.

Then, as Eira was nearing the bottom of the mesh bag, she realized the sound wasn’t coming from the grinder.

It was coming from the bag.

Eira screamed and jumped away from it.

She’s playing a mind game with you.

Slowly, Eira’s panic died.  She reached out, unplugged the grinder, and watched the bag as it stopped screaming.  Growing irritated at her aunt’s sick nature and her own gullibility, Eira peered into the bag.  She saw nothing out of the ordinary.  She moved her hand around in the bottom, but felt nothing but beans. 

Curious, Eira plucked a bean from inside the bag.  It looked normal.  She split it in half with her thumbnail.

Inside, nestled in the center of the bean, was an insect.

Immediately, Eira felt the urge to vomit.  She was about to toss it in the trash when the insect moved.

It was not an insect.

Their eyes met, Eira’s brown and the tiny creature’s deep violet.  Eira’s lips parted in shock.  The little creature opened its mouth and screamed.

The high-pitched keening sound.  The same sound that had eaten into her brain every time she turned on the grinder.

Eira slammed her palm down, crushing the creature on the countertop.  She stared at its broken remains, panting, her heart pounding like a hammer.  One of the delicate, aquamarine legs twitched like a wind-up toy for long minutes before it stopped.

Eira glanced at the pile of coffee grounds she had collected in a Tupperware bowl, then at the filter awaiting hot water.  She vomited into the sink.

Eira tossed through the night, unable to sleep, unable to think of anything but the oily pile of grounds in her kitchen.

She got back up around seven and carefully ignored the beans and grounds, ignoring the kitchen entirely.  She was beginning to get hungry again, but she could not bring herself to set foot on the linoleum.  Instead, she went out and used a couple bucks to buy breakfast at McDonalds. 

The restaurant coffee that came with her meal tasted like ashes in her mouth.  Eira spat it out and threw the cup into the trash.  As she was leaving, she stopped at the counter.  “Your coffee is disgusting.”

The girl behind the counter blinked at her venom.  “I’m sorry, ma’am.  Would you like to talk to the manager?”

“No.  Just tell him it’s crap.”  Irritated, Eira stormed back to her car, which roared to life with all the power and eagerness of a Lamborghini.  She tore out of the driveway, leaving rubber on the frosty pavement.

She collected the mail and sat outside the post office as she went through it.

No bills. 

Checks. 

Three checks.  A product refund for a DVD player Eira had completely forgotten about.  An apology notice from her landlord, along with a thousand dollars for a new unit.  And a prize for one of the soda cap contests Eira didn’t remember entering.

As she stared at the final check from Coca-Cola, Inc., Eira found it hard to breathe.  She wasn’t going to have to work nights through her pregnancy.  Not now.  Not ever again.

Her hands were trembling badly as she tucked the final check into her purse.  She opened the rest of her mail more out of shock than anything else.  She didn’t realize she was reading Aunt Adalee’s letter until the perfume hit her like a blow.

Dear Eira,

I trust you are making good use of my gift by now.  And, in case you have any doubts, no, the things that are happening to you are not by chance.  If you’re the same intelligent girl I saw when I tested you at our gathering, by now you’ll have discovered the true nature of the beans. 

It will be a shock.  It might be difficult for you to cope.  Just keep in mind the effects of the beans does not last forever.  Two weeks from your last sip, the magic will leave you.  With it, its effects.  Let me warn you now…what magic can give, it can take away.  Your father learned that the hard way.

I’ve included a second gift certificate, in case you can’t yet afford your own beans.  Once you’ve established yourself, I suggest you try the Wildflower Blend.  I hear it’s quite good for expecting mothers.

Oh, and I sent a package to your home.  It should arrive soon. 

-Aunt Adalee

Eira went home, placed her purse on the counter, shut the door, and cried.

An hour later, a knock on her door brought her out of her misery.  A man in a United States Postal Service uniform stood outside, a Priority Mail package under his arm.  Seeing Eira, he gave her a smile.  “You’re looking beautiful today, miss.”

Eira stared at him.  She was still staring at him as he walked back to his squat little mail truck and drove away.

Inside, on the kitchen table, Eira opened the Priority Mail package.

A singed book slid out, on its cover the picture of a fairy seated on a rock, drinking a cup of coffee.

A piece of stationary fluttered to the table with it.  Aunt Adalee’s note was short.

In case you’d like to make better use of your beans. 

Inside the book, the script was in beautiful Copperplate, like her aunt’s calligraphy.  One page was pre-folded for her.  She flipped to it.

The title read, Spell for a Healthy Baby.

Eira slammed the book shut.  The coffee-drinking fairy on the cover stared back at her, grinning over its steaming cup.

Trembling, her aunt’s letter in hand, Eira called Discerning Tastes and placed a second order for the Rainforest Blend.

Then she made herself coffee.

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