Princess Fire at the Cafe

Fires erupt wherever I go…

Princess Fire. That’s what the news calls me. Not my choice. Stupid nickname. But changing the name ranks low on my priority list. First, I have to find a cure for this curse. A way to get back to myself. The self I’d been before that first fire. Before I become…this.

Except that after ten years of searching, answers still elude me. Hints. Guesses. Dead ends. All I had. Before walking into the cute little café attached to an equally cute bookstore, with a witch proprietor and tables full of non-mundane people. A place I feel comfortable.

Good coffee and a quiet place to sit might not be the answer to all my problems.

But then again, sometimes help comes from unexpected places. In the form of very unexpected people.

PRINCESS FIRE AT THE CAFE is available to read for free until the [DAY] of [MONTH], when another story will be posted. For readers who would prefer to read on a device of preference, or who would like their own personal eBook of this story, you can find it here.

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Princess Fire at the Café

A Café Story

I really hated that name. Princess Fire. What a ridiculous thing to call someone like me. I’m not a princess. Not that there’s anything wrong with princesses. I’m sure some of them are perfectly fine people. I don’t know any personally, of course. Why would I? But I’m sure some of them are lovely. There are a few movie princesses that kick ass. I love them.

I am not one of them.

Nor do I aspire to be a princess. Again, nothing against princesses. But…yeah. No. I’m not one. And the fire part… Well, that’s more of an exaggeration really. I can’t actually make fire. I mean, you know, outside of the usual ways using lighters and wood and stuff. But I don’t spontaneously create fire.

It just sort of…happens when I’m around.

That’s the problem, see. I’m not doing any of it on purpose. If it was on purpose, that’d be one thing. And frankly, there are some places that really have deserved to burn. But not all of them. Fortunately, no one has died in any of my fires. I usually feel it coming on and set off alarms or get people moving before the flames erupt.

It’s a curse. A curse imposed on me from a particularly nasty goddess whose name I don’t even know. I don’t really remember much before the whole fire thing. Memories wiped away in the curse. I suppose I must have been a horrible person or something? Who knows. Maybe I was just stupid or unlucky. Or maybe it was just an accident. The nasty goddess whose name I don’t know—because no one will say it out loud—is known for just randomly tossing out bad luck and curses.

I’ve been to dozens upon dozens of witches, wizards, healers, psychics, priestesses, and medicine women. No one had much insight into the reason for the curse. No one could see anything about me before it took hold. I must have had a life before the curse. I mean, I’m an adult. And the whole Princess Fire thing had only been happening for about ten years according to all the news articles I’d been able to find.

The first incident happened in a warehouse near a pier where cruise ships docked in New York. Whole warehouse went ablaze. Witnesses saw a loan woman walking away from the building, looking dazed. Snapped a picture because the dock was full of tourists waiting to board a ship. The picture was me. Splashed around the internet. Questions repeated in headlines across the country.

 

DO YOU KNOW THIS WOMAN?

 

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN WANTED FOR QUESTIONING.

 

REWARD FOR LEADS ON LOCATING THE MISTERIOUS WOMAN.

 

I sort of remember that moment, walking away from a burning building. But I don’t remember anything before it. Not even my own name.

More fires happened in my wake. More fortuitous pictures got snapped of me walking away from burning buildings, or people reported me hurrying them out of buildings before they caught fire.

The press dubbed me Princess Fire. So condescending.

Initially, I tried to avoid detection, tried to hide, tried to keep a low profile until I could figure out what was going on. Went hunting for answers that eventually led me to a really great psychic in New York who was able to see some of the problem. She couldn’t fix it, but she could tell me I was cursed. That it was a goddess level curse—she made a protective gesture after she said the goddess had cursed me—and that she couldn’t break the curse. After her, I went to more mystical people, looking for a way to lift the curse.

And a weird thing happened. I realized no one recognized me. I mean, my face was splashed all over the news in those first few months. Horrible, wide-eyed pictures of me with burning buildings in the background were everywhere. When I couldn’t find a way to lift the curse, I decided to just turn myself in. Maybe that would stop the buildings that caught fire all around me.

Except no one recognized me. I walked into a police station where they had a picture of me on the wall. And no one pointed and said, “Hey, that’s Princess Fire!” I walked up to the desk, looked the clerk in the eyes, nodded to the picture of me on the wall. She looked back, raised her brows and asked, “Is there something I can do for you?”

Not gonna lie, she was a little rude about it all. But she looked at that picture that was clearly me—the me I saw in the mirror when I looked in one—and then looked at me. And there was not a single sign of recognition. Nothing.

Explained a lot, to be fair. I wasn’t what you might call good at the hiding stuff. I didn’t feel like I had any training in the process. And I didn’t seem to be know how to hide well. I just kept ducking away from people, looking all cagey and suspicious. Kept on big sunglasses and my baseball hat lowered over my brow when I checked into a hotel.

That was the other thing. I had a wallet full of money and credit cards that all worked, all had a name on them. Even a drivers license with my picture on it. But when I looked into the person whose idea and credit cards I had, that person was not me. The name and credit cards belonged a woman in her eighties who’d passed away about six months before that incident on the dock.

I kept expecting my cards and id to be flagged as fraudulent. They never were. So if I had to give a name, I gave the name on the id. Sara Baxter. But I was pretty sure I wasn’t Sara Baxter before the dock incident. And the witch who told me I was cursed seemed to agree I wasn’t Sara Baxter. I tried going to a medium to see if the Sara Baxter who’d passed away right before the dock incident was around and could give me some insights, but the medium turned out to be a scammer and, not gonna lie, I felt a little cynical about mediums after that.

Yeah, I was still good with witches and wizards and mages and magical workers. Lots of them I’ve come across are good people. With real magic. I’m just leery of mediums now.

Anyway, this has gone on for ten years. No cures discovered. No answers to who this goddess was who’d cursed me or why. No idea who I really was before all this. And every time I got tired and decided to turn myself in, no one recognized me.

Also, the credit cards continued to work—even though I never got a bill to pay them—and money kept appearing in my wallet. Someone somewhere was racking up a lot of interest on those credit card bills. Ten years’ worth. Honestly? That was probably the weirdest part for me. That the cards kept working. Yes, wherever I went fires had a habit of randomly starting and burning whole buildings to the ground. And the news still reported all the Princess Fire incidents. But what really got to me was the credit card thing.

So by the time I walked into the cute little café attached to an equally cute little bookstore, I was, mostly, used to all this weirdness. At least, I was resigned to it. I was still hunting for answers, but my hope of finding anything, or of breaking the curse, were pretty low. And since no one knew I was Princess Fire, I just sort of wandered around the country trying not to be in populated places when I felt the fire coming.

This failed as often as it worked.

The last time the fire had come on, though, I’d been in the middle of a desert outside Phoenix. The car I’d rented caught fire and exploded. No one else around, fortunately. That had been a few weeks ago. And no one had linked that one to Princess Fire, so I suppose that was something. After a fire, I usually had several months before I had to worry about the next one. That’s the pattern that settled after the first year. The first year, there were fires everywhere, all the time. But things slowed down and now it just happened every few months.

Since that last incident, I felt pretty safe being around people and in places that, to say the least, could be considered combustible. Like a building full of books. All that paper would burn really well. I didn’t go into bookstores very often because of that. But because of the car outside Phoenix, I thought I was safe and that’s why I went into the café.

The place just had a welcoming vibe. Open, airy, cushioned chairs and couches scattered around the wall, a few tables and chairs in the center of the seating area. One wall taken up by the counter, topped with plates full of pastries under clear cake domes. The wall opposite the counter opened onto the bookstore. There were quite a few people roaming the bookshelves as it was Saturday afternoon. And about half the tables and couches in the café were full too.

A woman behind the counter was busy making coffees and ringing up orders and chatting pleasantly with the customers. On a tall stool next to the register, a pale gray cat the size of a basset hound had managed to curl itself into a tight enough ball to sleep on the stool without falling off—an act of impressive defiance of physics.

I liked cats so I was tempted to try petting the giant gray beast, but I didn’t want to disturb its nap.

Waiting my turn to order a coffee, I scanned the seating area. And realized there were some interesting people in this particular coffee shop. Which was surprising because it looked pretty innocuous on the outside.

Now, this is something else that happened when the Princess Fire thing started. I started to be able to spot people who weren’t quite…well ordinary. Like, I could tell the difference between a witch with magic, or a psychic with real abilities, but not the specifics of the individual. That’s why I got the medium wrong. I can’t tell a witch is a witch or a psychic is a psychic per se. I can just tell they aren’t ordinary humans. The medium wasn’t ordinary, so I assumed she was a real medium. Turned out she was a con artist when it came to communing with the dead, but had a touch of illusion magic which helped her carry off her medium con.

Anyway, I knew when I started to actually look around, that some of the people in the café weren’t ordinary humans. Not even the woman behind the counter. And the cat… Yeah, he wasn’t an ordinary cat either, when I paused to consider him closer.

For some reason, a café full of people who were a little different was kind of comforting. Nice not to be the only non-mundane human in a room.

I got to the counter, ordered my coffee, and tried to ignore the way the woman narrowed her eyes at me just a little. I thought she might recognize me, call me Princess Fire, sound the alarm. But she didn’t. She just smiled and got me a coffee. Introduced herself as Nina and said if I needed anything else to let her know.

The cat’s name was Boo. He deigned to open his eyes and blink at me when Nina introduced him, then shut his eyes again and went back to sleep. I loved him with my whole heart in that moment.

I sat near the front of the café, by the door, because if I had to leave quickly, that was the best place for me. And sipped at my black, sugar-sweetened coffee, watching people walk by on the sidewalk outside, trying to figure out my next move. I was hunting for a particular magic worker I only knew existed from rumors and innuendo. Hadn’t met anyone who’d met them in person. But more than one magic wielder had told me I needed to find January. January would be able to help me.

But finding this January person was proving as hard as pinning down my curse.

No one could even tell me what sort of magic wielder January was. Just “January.” I’d been on this hunt for about three years now. Pretty frustrating. And I was going to give this up soon. Though, to be fair, I’m not sure what else I’d do. I didn’t have anything else to go on. No other clue. This was the closest I’d come to a real clue in ten years. And if it also didn’t pan out, I had no idea what I’d do with my life.

I could sit around on a beach somewhere and just wallow in my curse and isolate from anything that might catch fire and live the rest of my life like that, I suppose. I’d considered it more than once. Even down to the beach I’d run away to. I had a few options. I kept a list in my wallet.

Weirdly, though, I kept resisting this option. Resisting giving up and going into hiding. I think it was the fact that I didn’t know why I was cursed. Why things kept catching fire around me. Why this goddess bitch had put all this on me.

Worse yet, I didn’t know who the hell I was. I wasn’t Sara Baxter. I knew that much. Even after ten years of going by that name, the name didn’t feel like me. I didn’t like not knowing who I was, or at least who I’d been before all this. I doubt I’m the same person now. A woman couldn’t live through ten years of traveling the country, looking for answers, never knowing when some place might go up in flames around her, without that lifestyle changing her. Whatever I might have been before all this, I knew I was changed.

I just wanted to remember myself. Remember who I’d been. And understand why this had happened.

Guess I was just stubborn enough to keep going in the face of all the evidence that suggested I should give up and go into permanent exile. And since the stubbornness felt like me in a way that neither my name nor my current circumstances did, I went with it. Stubborn had carried me through the last ten years and a lot of frustrating dead ends. It could carry me through the search for January.

Once I found this person, I could move on. Whatever that meant.

I was halfway through my coffee, considering where to go next but mostly just zoning out as I pretended to people watch, when I felt a presence looming over me. I glanced up to see this absolutely magnificent woman standing over me. She was tall, broad shouldered, her curves barely contained in a wrap shirt and tight jeans. Dark brown hair hanging in thick waves around her face. Pale, flawless skin. And eyes that… I blinked. I couldn’t really describe her eyes. Or judge their color.

That was weird.

“Can I help you?” I asked, suspiciously.

“Why are you in here?” she demanded.

“Uh.” Great comeback, right? “Having a coffee.” I lifted my half empty mug.

Who the hell was this? We’d never seen each other before. At least, not anytime in the last ten years. I might not remember what happened to me or who I was before the curse, but I—unfortunately—remembered everything since in great detail. I would have remembered meeting someone like this. There was a magnificence around her, like an aura, that was hard to ignore. She seemed much more fitted to the moniker “princess” than I did.

“Why here?” the woman said, her voice low, her jaw clenched.

“It was nearby to where I already was and there was coffee.” Once again, I lifted my mug and then said, “Very good coffee too as it happens.”

“Yes yes.” She waved an immaculately manicured hand, though I realized her nails were quite short for a woman who looked like she’d have elaborate nails that matched her immaculate makeup. “The coffee is excellent. That’s not my question. Why are you of all people in my sanctuary?”

“Have we met?” I asked this a lot, just in case. I keep waiting for someone to see me as the wanted arson “Princess Fire” and turn me in to the police. Which wouldn’t work, but I kept expected it to happen one day.

“We have not,” the woman said imperiously. She did imperious well.

“Then I’m not sure what this conversation is about,” I admitted.

“January,” the woman said with a huff.

That had me setting my cup down abruptly and blinking up at her. “What did you say?”

“January. You’re searching for January.”

“Yes. But…how? Are you a…” I dropped my voice, hoping she’d lean in to hear better so I didn’t have to shout, but she didn’t. Still, when I asked, “Are you a witch?” she snorted at the suggestion as if I’d offended her.

Then she made a little wavy gesture toward Nina and said, “No offense.”

Nina raised her hands, palms out. She also remained behind the cash register, leaning on the counter, watching us in a way that wasn’t subtle.

I glanced around. No one else seemed to be watching us. Just Nina and Boo. The fact that the cat was watching struck me as significant. He’d barely opened his eyes for me earlier.

I glanced back up at the woman standing over me. “Would you like to sit down? We could talk easier.”

“I don’t want to sit with you,” she said, staring down her nose at me.

“Fine. What do you know about January?”

“That you’re looking for her.”

“I am. Do you know her?” This was, honestly, the first time someone had called January a gendered pronoun. The handful of people who’d told me to go find January hadn’t refer to them by anything other than the name. I’d had to ask, more than once, if they meant the month. Was something supposed to happen in the month of January?

I’d been assured that was not what they were talking about.

The woman hovering over me frowned. “You do not?”

“I’ve never met her. I was just told to find her.”

“To help with this…” The woman sneered and waved her hand over me. “Curse situation?”

“Yes.” My eyes widened. Whatever she was, if not a witch, she certainly knew more than most people did on first glance.

I couldn’t tell what she was, of course. I mean, I knew she wasn’t mundane, just like a number of people sitting around the café. But no clue what kind of non-mundane person she might be. And obviously she wasn’t a witch. Though turned out Nina was—which probably meant Boo was her familiar. That made a lot of sense in hindsight. But the magnificent woman staring down her nose at me like I was a pile of shit was a complete mystery.

“Typical,” the woman huffed. But now it sounded like she was talking to herself more than me.

Still, I felt the need to ask, “Typical of what? Exactly.”

“My relatives,” she said. Then gracefully collapsed down in the chair opposite me, despite claiming she hadn’t wanted to sit with me.

The table I had sat at in the front window had a cushioned couch on one side and two cushioned chairs on the other. And I was sitting on the couch. The chair had looked quite squishy and soft, like the sort of chair a person would sink into, maybe sink so deep getting up again would take leveraging upward from the armrests. When the woman sat, however, the chair suddenly looked like a throne. It even seemed to glow a little.

“Who are you?” the woman asked, more curious than accusatory now.

“Sara Baxter. And you?”

“You can call me Diana. But you are not Sara Baxter.”

“It’s the only name I know myself by.” Which was true. As far as it went.

The name Diana niggled at something in the back of my head, though. I wasn’t sure what. Just that the name seemed like it should trigger a memory.

“Hmm.” Diana nodded. When Nina stopped next to the table with a giant mug of something hot that I suspected was coffee, Diana reached for it and gave a brief head nod of thanks without really looking up at the witch.

Had Diana ordered the coffee or was Nina just checking on things? Based on the look she gave me, brief though it was, I had a feeling it was the latter. Though if Diana questioned why she was receiving a coffee she hadn’t ordered yet, she didn’t show it. The mug sat between her long-fingered hands like the finest China even though it was an ordinary white porcelain mug.

“Why were you cursed?” Diana asked.

“No idea,” I answered honestly, and went back to sipping my own drink. It really was nice coffee and it’d be a shame if it got cold. Plus, at this stage, I knew Diana was something magical, and I was used to talking about the curse with magical people.

Did I worry about other people in the café overhearing?

Early in my time as a walking curse, I did worry. But whatever kept ordinary people from recognizing me also seemed to keep them from hearing me when I talked about my curse with someone who wasn’t ordinary.

“Walked out of a warehouse in New York like this about ten years ago,” I said. “Been this way ever since. Not sure how to fix it. Been searching for ten years. January is my most recent clue and probably my last hope before I have to give up and go live on a beach.”

“There are worse things than living on a beach,” Diana said.

“Until a hurricane or tropical storm blows over you. Or a tsunami hits.”

“You could travel to one of the poles. Artic is nicely cold year round. No tropical storms.”

“And risk triggering a complete melting of the ice caps? No thank you.”

“Hmm,” Diana said again, this time more contemplative and almost…dare I say, amused. “Who sent you looking for January?”

“Several people over the last three years. A psychic in Rhode Island was the first person to suggest it. Then a witch in Chicago. A shaman in Seattle. A wizard in Reno. The last person to recommend January was an old woman in New Orleans whose only skill seemed to be giving people the evil eye. But she said I already had it from someone and I needed to speak with January. I believed her.”

“As well you should. Hortense knows what she’s talking about.”

That Diana knew the name of a random old woman in New Orleans should probably have surprised me more. “Do you know where I can find January?”

She sucked in a breath that was so deep it narrowed her nostrils. She sipped her coffee then and stared at me without answer. It was an intimidating stare, I’m not gonna lie. I sort of wanted Nina to rejoin us so I’d have somewhere else to look.

“If you’re willing to sit here for another few minutes without causing a fire, January will be right with us.”

I blinked. That was…not anything like an answer I was expecting. Throughout my three year search, I’d been sent all over the country looking for her. She might be in Colorado. Maybe in Appalachia. Try northern Washington. January liked wild, cold places, I was told. Look for her there. I even went up to Alaska in the middle of winter trying to find this person. And after the first fire that caused so much snow melt I was worried about flooding Juno, I went back down south. I hadn’t found any hints of January’s location while up in Alaska anyway.

Honestly, I was starting to consider traveling outside the US, but I’m pretty worried about playing on planes—I drove through Canada to get to Alaska—and after I lost yet another car to the fire in Phoenix, I was even more hesitant to put an entire plane full of people in jeopardy. I could always take a cruise ship, but even that brought risks of fire and an awful lot of deaths. Cars were easier. Usually only me in danger if it suddenly caught on fire. And I never burned.

The search had been so long, and so hard, that having this…whatever she was, this person sit down across from me and say January would be there in a few minutes left me reeling. I spent way too long just blinking at Diana wondering if I’d heard her right. Or if I was hallucinating. I could definitely have been hallucinating.

“Well,” Diana snapped. “Are you staying or going?”

“Staying,” I rushed out. “I can stay. Definitely staying.”

Diana’s mouth pursed but she gave a brief, approving nod. After a moment, she said, “I haven’t seen…January in a while. It will be nice to catch up.”

“Do you know why I’m cursed?” I asked, since she seemed to know a lot more about it all than I did. “No one else has been able to explain it. I must have done something horrible to the goddess who cursed me. But I can’t imagine what.”

“Are you sure you did something horrible? Perhaps this ‘curse’ is supposed to be a reward.”

“A curse as a reward? I’ve never heard of that. Doesn’t sound right considering I catch things on fire wherever I go. Feels more like a bad curse. Like a punishment.”

“I suppose it depends on your perspective,” Diana said, her gaze traveling out to the sidewalk. “You have been given an identity, resources, and a glamour that hides you from those that might seek to…hold you accountable for all the fires. That doesn’t sound exactly bad to me.”

I wasn’t going to ask how she knew about all that. She knew I wasn’t Sara Baxter. She might even be able to see the fact that I didn’t seem to look like myself to anyone else. She called it a glamour. I’d read about glamours but no one I talked to confirmed I had one on me so I hadn’t thought of it that way.

After just a few minutes with Diana, I was starting to wonder if anything I’d learned in the last ten years had been even a little useful at all.

“What sort of…reward would this be?” I asked. “Setting fires randomly and without trying to. Blowing up cars and buildings regularly.”

Diana waved her perfectly manicured hand. “I don’t know. I didn’t set the curse, did I?” She shrugged. “Perhaps you were supposed to be going around punishing bad people.”

“I doubt that. I get the sense of a fire coming on just long enough to get everyone out. But I don’t seem to have control over it otherwise.”

“You’ve never killed anyone with this, have you?”

“So far, no. But it’s only a matter of time. I feel like I’ve gotten lucky so far.”

“Perhaps.” She considered me over her mug. “Are you sure you want to get rid of this power?”

“Absolutely and without any hesitation whatsoever. Be it a bad curse or some sort of twisted reward, I do not want to be Princess Fire anymore, please and thank you.”

Her eyebrow shot up. “Princess Fire?”

I could feel my cheeks heating. “I know. It’s a stupid name. The press has been calling me that since the first fire.”

“Hmm.” Diana nodded. “Well. That makes more sense, then.”

“What does?”

“You.”

“I… No, it doesn’t.” At least not to me. None of this made sense to me.

“How would you feel about discovering you have never been normal and weren’t a normal human before that first memory of walking away from a burning building?”

“Freaked out. What do you mean?” As far as I could tell, outside of the fire thing, I was a pretty normally human. Well, that and the fact that no one recognized me and that I could tell when people weren’t mundane. But otherwise, I looked in the mirror and just saw a regular human.

“You don’t remember who you were before that, right?”

“Right.”

“Maybe you weren’t anyone before that. Maybe you’ve been Princess Fire since you were born.”

“So…whoever I was before I walked out of that warehouse, I was already like this? And the amnesia is something that’s not related to the fires?”

“I’m say, you didn’t exist before you walked out of that warehouse.”

That made less sense than anything else she’d said to me so far. “I walked out of that warehouse as an adult. It was only ten years ago.”

“Age is…more of a concept than a literal count of passing years.”

“No. No it’s not. That’s new aged bullshit.”

“Well, this is a new age.” Diana chuckled to herself, looking down into her mug like she’d found the joke at the bottom.

“I mean, ‘you’re only as old as you think’ doesn’t suddenly make someone pop into existence as a twenty-five year old woman.”

“Positive thinking does not, no. Not for humans. But as I said, you might well not be human.”

“Wouldn’t you know that?” Because whatever Diana was, she wasn’t an ordinary human. She’d made sure I knew that.

“That glamour covering up your true nature prevents me from seeing too much,” Diana said, again with her mouth pursed. “Irritating. But I suppose expected. You’ll need at least two or three centuries to mature. Wouldn’t want you exposed too early, would we?”

I wanted to get up and leave because everything she was saying made me more and more confused. Except she’d promised January would be here soon and I really wanted to find this person after all these years. I wasn’t sure if January would have the answers I needed when no one else did. But at least I could say I tried this. If I failed…I failed.

Then I’d consider the best beach to go live on.

“Don’t worry,” Diana said, almost kindly. “It will get easier as you go. And I think January will be able to help. You’re just missing a crucial gift.”

I nodded, still without understanding, and finished my coffee. Was considering a second mug when the door opened and an extremely tall, pale woman with blue hair walked through the door. She was so tall, her head brushed the top of the door frame. She had her bright blue hair decorated in twists and braids, with small silver hair decorations scattered throughout. Her makeup included some blue sparkles on her eyelids and a silvery shade of lipstick. She wore dark brown cargo pants with a lot of pockets, and a long blue and silver sweater that looked stretched out and well worn.

The instant she walked through the door, all eyes in the café turned toward her. Everyone seemed to hold their breaths. The quiet murmur of conversation resumed a moment later, and everyone went back to what they were doing, ignoring the tall woman. She spotted Diana instantly, gave her a small smile, before going to the counter where Nina was waiting to take her order. Boo the cat lifted his head and the tall woman gave him a little scratch around the ears. He purred loud enough I could hear him from my seat. Then he settled back on his stool and went back to sleep while the tall woman collected her iced coffee and sauntered toward me and Diana.

“Long time,” the tall woman said, giving Diana a nod. “We should organize another hunt.”

“That would be fun,” Diana said, sounding almost wistful. Her expression closed up as she nodded across the table to me. “She calls it a curse. And she was told to find you.”

I blinked up, and up, at the tall woman with her beautifully decorated blue hair. Her age was really hard to judge, even this close up. And her eyes weren’t just gray, but the kind of gray that sparkled. Like… Well, this was a weird thing to think, but it looked like snow was falling across her eyes for a moment. When she did a slow blink, the illusion was gone, but that impression was hard to shake and I saw it in her eyes even without it happening there anymore.

“Who are you?” the tall woman asked, in a voice that wasn’t quite as deep as I’d been expecting from someone topping seven foot tall.

“I go by Sara Baxter,” I said truthfully. “I don’t know who I really am.”

That got raised pale white brows and a head title. The tall woman grabbed one of the wooden chairs from a nearby, unoccupied table, flipped it so the back was to our table, and straddled the chair, resting her forearms on the back, her ice coffee dangling precariously between her hands.

“I go by January,” the woman said. “Now. Lot of us change our names over time.”

“Us?”

January cast a look at Diana. Diana responded with one of those inscrutable looks I couldn’t read. January looked back at me and did that head tilt thing again.

“Interesting. I wonder why she’d have done that.”

This was said mostly to herself, but since I’d heard anyway, I said, “She who? The person who cursed me?”

“Cursed?” January frowned, her brows dropping low over her strange gray eyes. “Ah. I could see how that might be the confusion. When no one tells you what’s happening, it can feel like a curse, can’t it?”

“Do you know what’s happened to me? Why I’ve been cursed?”

“You aren’t cursed. Isn’t that good news.” The woman smiled and sipped her ice coffee. A puff of visible air came from her mouth even though it wasn’t cold inside the café.

In fact, I was feeling a little warm. A moment of panic set in. I hadn’t noticed but that feeling was sweeping through me, the one that said something was about to catch fire.

Oh and this place was so cute! I didn’t want to burn it to the ground.

“Don’t then,” January said with a shrug.

“What?”

“Don’t burn it down. Control the fire. You were born to it. You don’t have to burn things down if you don’t want to.”

“No… I.” What the hell was she talking about? “I have no control over this. I just…I thought I had longer this time. My car…”

“In Arizona? That was you? Huh. I probably should have come looking for you sooner.”

“Why? Please, tell me what’s happening.” The sense that everything was about to go up in flames grew. I was out of time. I needed to get everyone out of here, needed to clear out the bookstore too.

January settled a hand on my arm and said, “Cool down.”

Almost instantly the sense that I was about to burn everything down eased. The heat cooled. Where January touched my bare arm started to hurt from the cold. But the fire didn’t come. Nothing spontaneous burst into flames.

Shock ricochetted through my system. The fire just…wasn’t there anymore. I wasn’t about to destroy this cute coffee shop and bookstore. Whatever January had just done had worked!

She released me and smiled. “See, not so hard.”

“You did that, not me.” I rubbed my arm, glancing down to see the imprint of January’s hand a red brand in my skin that faded as I watched. The patch of coldness warmed slowly. The rush of heat that meant a fire was coming didn’t return.

“You can too. She should have trained you instead of just turning you loose.” January glanced at Diana. “Why does she do this?”

“Don’t ask me. I haven’t spoken to her in centuries. She was always reckless, though.”

January snorted. “Little more so this time. At least with the last one, she hung around long enough to teach them control.”

“She hates the modern world,” Diana said with a shrug. “Maybe she wanted the chaos.”

“Rude.” January gave the long braids across her shoulders a flip. “Okay,” she said to me directly. “So here’s the short answer. You’re a god. Just born. Really a baby by our standards, even if the humans see you as an adult. That Princess Fire nickname—ha, that is you, isn’t it?—that is nonsense, but it does get to a fundamental fact that you’re royalty of a sort. Just as a god instead of a queen. Your mother is a restless and reckless irritant. She went by Bellona in Rome. No idea what she goes by now. She likes war. Like, a lot. And hasn’t reproduced in ages, as far as I know. I don’t know why now. No real need for another kid. Plenty of wars going on to feed her.”

“Really, she should be delighted by the modern world,” Diana cut in to say. “I will never understand why she pouts about it so.”

January shrugged. “All the old ones are grumpy these days. Not enough burnt sacrifices or whatever.”

Diana waved that away. “Grow and adapt. It’s the only way.”

“I agree.” January raised her iced coffee in a little solute to Diana. “And really, if anyone is going to complain, it should be us. All this earth heating stuff isn’t exactly comfortable. Where will I ski if they melt all the snow?”

“I can’t be a god,” I interjected to get them both back on topic. I got the feeling that was a conversation that could go on for a long time. And probably had in the past. “I would know something like that, right? Know how to do things. Be…aware of things around me, or something.”

“You know how to catch things on fire,” January said with a grin.

“Not. What I meant.” My tone did nothing but expand her grin. “I mean I would…know I was a god. That’s…” I shook my head. “Do gods even exist?”

I’m not sure why I asked that. I’d known for ten years my curse was caused by a goddess. I’d never really doubted that, especially given the way people refused to say her name. I guess, in that moment, the whole gods and goddesses thing seemed a little preposterous if someone was claiming I was one, though. Because I knew I wasn’t one. So maybe gods and goddesses weren’t real.

Both women looked at me shocked, and then both started to laugh. The laughter was loud enough it drew attention to our table again. And Nina paused in cleaning the espresso machine to watch us for a moment. A beat later, she grinned herself and went back to cleaning. Boo never even raised his head from his nap.

“I mean…outside of metaphors,” I tried to explain myself. I felt ridiculous now. But I’d never met a real god, and even if all the magical people I had met claimed my curse was caused by a goddess, this conversation had thrown me off. Not a single one of those people thought I was a god. None of what these women were saying made sense.

“Gods exist,” Diana said. “Live, change…”

“Can’t be arsed dying,” January added with a wink.

“So there are a surprising number of them walking around,” Diana said. “And sometimes, though rarely these days, but still sometimes, one of them decides it might be fun to have a kid.”

My head felt like it was bouncing back and forth, trying to look at both women at once. “And then immediately abandon them without so much as a hint that they are gods?”

“Sure.” January sipped her coffee and said, rather sarcastically I thought, “Where would be the fun in doing otherwise.”

“This is a joke, right? You’re making a joke at my expense for some reason.”

I really really wanted to believe that. I wanted this whole thing to be a joke and then January would teach me that trick that had stopped the fire, and I’d be able to get a real life…or return to one? I still didn’t know anything about me before ten years ago, so I guess I just needed to build a life from where I currently was and hope my memories came back.

Unfortunately, the minute January said that I was a god, something inside clicked. I was trying desperately to ignore that clicking sound, that settling, that ah ha moment. I wanted this to be a joke. I didn’t want it to make sense. If I was really a god of some kind—and apparently the child of a war goddess? What the hell?—then I was stuck this way. This was really me. There was no way out. No breaking the curse. No other me I could return to. Just…this.

Ten years of searching for a way out of this was evaporating before my eyes.

“It’s not a joke,” January said kindly. “But it will probably take some time to get used to. That’s okay. That’s why the pseudonym and money and everything. You have plenty of time to adjust.”

“If I don’t want to?”

“You’ll remain in pain and unable to control your powers until you can.” January gave a sad little shrug and sipped her coffee.

Sitting, hunched over the back of the backward chair, she still looked like a giant. But she managed to come across as a sympathetic giant with that shrug. Unlike Diana who was examining her nails and looking bored.

So. My choices were to believe I was a god. And I’d be able to control the fire eventually. Or keep believing I was just a cursed ordinary human and continue as I had for the last ten years. No answers. No home. No place safe from me. No way to stop the fires once they start building.

No rest.

“I could still run away to a deserted beach somewhere,” I murmured, mostly to myself.

Boo stretched, his big gray body only barely balanced on the stool, defying physics. Then he sort of slid off the stool to the floor, landing gracefully, and padded across the hardwood floors to our table. Diana gave the cat a raised brow and he deigned to twitch his whiskers at her. He rubbed briefly against January’s leg and she reached down to run her fingers over his head as he passed. Then he jumped up onto my lap.

I was so startled by having the huge, fluffy cat in my lap I just sat there with my hands in the air above him for a long moment. Boo circled until he was curled in my lap and then started purring. I settled my hands into his thick fur and petted him because I didn’t know what else to do.

The whole thing was very settling. Warmth, but not the fire heat, and soft soft fur and that low rumbling purr that actually moved through my muscles. Within moments, I felt soothed. Calmed.

Realized I couldn’t run away to a beach.

Still running my fingers through Boo’s fur, I said, “How? How do I learn what I need to learn? What do I even do now?”

“If you’re willing to be taught,” January said, “I can teach you. Probably good to have an ice giant for your mentor when your talents tend toward fire.” She winked again.

Diana raised her hands. “Oh thank the great father, I’m so glad you volunteered, I did not want to do that.”

January chuckled. “I don’t mind. Been a millennium since I had a student. Might be fun.”

“You’d teach me?” My heart was hammering, but there was hope mixed in with the fear. And there were no fires exploding around me. That was such a relief, so much better than the last few years, I latched on to the hope with both hands—metaphorically, because my literal hands were still buried deep in Boo’s soft, soothing fur.

“Sure.” January shrugged. “I don’t mind. We’re not going to a beach. Probably spend more time in the north where it’s cold. You okay with that?”

“I will be. I can be. I won’t, like, accidentally melt the ice caps?”

“I won’t let that happen. Trust me?”

“Not really. But I hope I can eventually.”

“Good answer. You’ll make a satisfactory god.”

Diana said, “Just try not to get caught up in your mother’s machinations when she finally comes looking for you. She’ll have some scheme in mind.” Diana rolled her eyes. “Don’t let her browbeat you. You’re your own god now. Even if she is your mother.”

I had no idea what I’d do if my “mother” showed up and didn’t want to think about it. I’d worry about that after I got control of this fire power of mine. Or maybe never. Maybe I’d just avoid Bellona for the rest of my life. She’d been avoiding me for ten years. I’m sure it could be done.

“Finish your coffee,” January said. “Then we’ll get going. This’ll be fun. You ever gone skiing?”

“The last time I went into the mountains during a snowy season, I caused a flood.”

January laughed. “Guess we’ll be ice skating downhill instead of skiing. That’ll be fun, too.” She wagged her pale brows.

I looked down at Boo. “What do you think?” I asked the familiar.

He started purring stronger and doing that kneading thing cats do with his front paws against my thigh. I took that as a “go for it.”

“Okay,” I said. “I guess I’m learning how to…be a god?” Wow, did that sound weird.

“Trust me,” January said. “You’ll love it.”

“If we’re done here.” Diana rose and gave January a kiss on each cheek. “Get in touch when you’re ready for that hunt. I’ve got the perfect place.”

She waved absently at me and went across the café to where a fancy purse and an open magazine sat on what had been an empty table just a moment ago. Nina brought Diana another coffee without Diana ordering and Diana smiled up at her, thanking her graciously. Once she was settled, Diana proceeded to flip through the magazine, ignoring me and January as if we weren’t here anymore.

Was that what it was like to be a god in modern times?

January gave my shoulder a light punch. “You’ll find your own way. Don’t worry. We’ve got this.”

Okay, I thought. Okay. Not the answer I thought I was looking for. But at least it was an answer. After ten years of searching, I had hope. I had a way forward.

I guess I was going to learn to be a god.

But I was going to pick a better name for my god persona. No way I was going to be forever known as Princess Fire.

***

Thanks for reading PRINCESS FIRE AT THE CAFE. I hope you enjoyed it. If you’d like your own personal eBook copy of this story, you can find it for sale here. You can also peruse the previous Café stories that are individually available for sale here.

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PRINCESS FIRE AT THE CAFE Copyright © 2025 Kat Simons

All Rights Reserved. No part of this story may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This story is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.