The Evening Shift

- Chapter 1 -

Rain arrived sideways on Aldercrest Pass.

Not aggressively.

Not theatrically.

Vancouver rain rarely needed theatrics.

It simply existed with enough confidence that eventually the entire city surrendered to it.

The fog rolling beneath Grouse Mountain looked almost architectural tonight — layered silver against cedar forests and distant apartment lights. From the overlook near Foothill Quill, the city below appeared submerged beneath wet glass.

Burrard Inlet reflected fractured ribbons of amber and white.

Harbor cranes blinked in the distance.

Ferry lights drifted slowly through the dark water like patient ghosts.

And above all of it, tucked along the mountain road between cedar trees and stone retaining walls blackened by years of rainfall, warm light glowed from the windows of Foothill Quill.

The hanging lantern sign creaked softly in the wind.

Inside, vinyl jazz crackled beneath the sound of steaming milk.

The café smelled like espresso grounds, cinnamon, tea leaves, old books, cedarwood, damp coats, and honey butter cooling somewhere in the kitchen.

Which, according to Declan Mercer, was either comforting or psychologically manipulative depending on the day.

Tonight it was both.

A handwritten chalkboard near the entrance read:

TONIGHT SPECIALS
Cedar Fog Latte
Honey Butter Bread
Blackberry Tea Loaf
Mushroom Hand Pies
Reading Loft Open Until Midnight
Please Do Not Argue About Anime Endings Near The Pastry Display Again

The last line had been added earlier that week after two university students nearly ruined an entire tray of maple rolls debating whether tragic endings were “artistically necessary.”

Ayla Tsukino still blamed the customer who slapped the counter hard enough to startle the espresso machine.

Declan blamed modern discourse itself.

At 6:11 PM on Friday evening, he stood behind the counter watching steam curl upward toward the hanging amber lamps while trying unsuccessfully to remember whether he had eaten lunch.

He probably had.

Maybe.

A muffin counted emotionally if not nutritionally.

Outside the windows, rainwater moved in silver currents.

Inside, Foothill Quill glowed like a hidden settlement from another era.

The café had become strangely famous for this exact feeling.

Not online-famous.

Not influencer-famous.

Something quieter.

People discovered Foothill Quill through recommendation chains that sounded suspiciously like folklore.

“There’s this café beneath Grouse Mountain.”

“The tea’s incredible.”

“The reading loft feels unreal.”

“Go when it’s raining.”

“Especially when it’s raining.”

Which in Vancouver narrowed things down to roughly all available dates.

Declan wiped the espresso counter and glanced toward the loft staircase.

Three students occupied the upper level already despite it barely being evening.

One slept beneath a blanket beside the manga shelves with an open philosophy textbook resting across his face like a failed defensive maneuver.

Another highlighted passages inside a weathered copy of Norwegian Wood while quietly crying into a London Fog latte.

The third had built what appeared to be a structurally unstable fortress out of sketchbooks, cables, and iced coffee cups.

Nobody upstairs acknowledged one another.

They merely coexisted in mutual academic collapse.

The reading loft specialized in that.

Ayla emerged from the rear kitchen carrying a tray of fresh blackberry tea loaves.

Warm air followed her into the café.

Butter.

Sugar.

Blackberries.

Fresh bread.

Declan inhaled deeply.

“See,” he said immediately, “this is exactly what I’m talking about.”

Ayla carefully placed the tray beside the pastry display.

“What are you talking about now?”

“This place chemically alters people.”

“Oh good. We’ve reached conspiracy theories.”

“No, listen. Nobody enters here emotionally stable and leaves sadder.”

“That is an incredibly low bar.”

“I’m serious. You walk in feeling terrible, smell warm bread for six minutes, hear jazz vinyl, and suddenly you’re reconsidering your entire worldview.”

Ayla adjusted the sleeve of her dark cardigan.

“That’s called atmosphere.”

“That’s called psychological warfare.”

“We sell tea and pastries, Declan.”

“You say that now.”

She stared at him for several seconds.

“You read dystopian fiction recreationally.”

“I read responsibly.”

“There is nothing responsible about how much annotated Murakami you own.”

Declan pointed toward her immediately.

“You own books about pastry architecture.”

“That is a real discipline.”

“You once described croissant layering as structural philosophy.”

“Because it is.”

The frightening thing was she genuinely believed that.

Ayla Tsukino approached baking the way medieval scholars approached sacred texts.

Everything mattered.

Temperature gradients.

Steam retention.

Tea acidity.

Crumb texture.

Butter ratios.

There were nights she discussed pastry balance with such intensity that customers nearby stopped conversations entirely just to listen.

One exhausted software engineer from Seattle had once whispered:

“I think she just described cinnamon rolls the way physicists describe stars.”

He wasn’t entirely wrong.

Ayla moved with the quiet efficiency of someone perpetually carrying too much responsibility to waste unnecessary motion.

Twenty-six years old.

Japanese-Canadian.

Born in Richmond.

Co-owner of Foothill Quill after the previous owner retired unexpectedly three years earlier.

Externally composed.

Internally held together by tea, spreadsheets, and sheer refusal to collapse.

Declan admired her more than he admitted aloud.

Mostly because admitting it aloud sounded emotionally dangerous.

The café door opened.

Cold air drifted inside carrying rain and pine.

Two hikers entered immediately arguing about whether they were lost.

“You said the shortcut was marked.”

“It was marked.”

“It was marked badly.”

“That’s not my fault.”

“Everything after the bridge looked haunted.”

“This entire mountain looks haunted.”

“Exactly.”

Ayla pointed silently toward the menu board while Declan stepped toward the register.

“Welcome to Foothill Quill,” he said. “How severe is the emotional damage from your hike?”

The taller hiker blinked.

“…what?”

“He means welcome,” Ayla clarified without looking up.

The shorter hiker stared around the café in visible awe.

Warm amber lighting reflected across cedar walls lined with books and hanging plants.

Jazz vinyl drifted softly through the room.

Steam curled upward from mugs beside fog-covered windows.

Near the loft staircase, somebody quietly tuned an acoustic guitar.

The hiker lowered his voice instinctively.

“Oh.”

It happened constantly.

People entered loud.

Then Foothill Quill recalibrated them.

Not intentionally.

The place simply possessed gravity.

“Can we get two coffees?” the taller hiker asked.

“Absolutely. Emotionally restorative or medically necessary?”

“…is there a difference?”

“Not after 7 PM.”

Ayla sighed deeply.

“I work with a man permanently trapped between novelist and raccoon.”

“Raccoons are highly intelligent.”

“They also eat garbage.”

“Writers too.”

The shorter hiker laughed hard enough to fog his glasses.

That happened often as well.

Declan possessed a strange conversational rhythm that made people feel like they had accidentally entered an indie film halfway through the second act.

He blamed years of excessive reading.

Ayla blamed Burnaby.

Both explanations remained possible.

By 6:43 PM the café had filled almost completely.

Rain intensified outside.

Water rolled endlessly down the windows while fog consumed the road beyond the lantern sign.

Inside, warmth gathered between strangers.

An exhausted nurse occupied the corner table near the tea wall reading manga with the focus of someone spiritually evacuating from reality.

Two international students shared headphones upstairs while translating poetry badly and confidently.

A local elderly man named Bernard slowly completed the crossword puzzle every single evening while pretending not to eavesdrop on conversations.

Bernard absolutely eavesdropped on conversations.

Professionally.

The man treated overheard café drama like seasonal entertainment.

Ayla once caught him silently giving relationship advice through crossword clues.

Declan still wasn’t sure how he managed it.

Near the vinyl station, Rowan Bell appeared.

Not entered.

Appeared.

Nobody ever physically witnessed Rowan Bell arriving at Foothill Quill.

One moment the chair beside the record player sat empty.

The next moment Rowan occupied it holding an acoustic guitar and looking mildly windswept regardless of weather conditions.

Declan narrowed his eyes immediately.

“You do understand this is deeply unsettling.”

Rowan removed his coat calmly.

“I used the door.”

“No you didn’t.”

“I did.”

“You materialized from folk music itself.”

“That would explain my financial situation.”

Ayla slid a mug across the counter toward him.

“Lantern Espresso.”

“Thank you.”

“You vanish for four days and reappear exactly when the weather becomes cinematic.”

“I have excellent timing.”

“You have cryptid energy.”

Rowan smiled faintly over the mug.

Twenty-nine years old.

Victoria-born.

Resident musician.

Professional wanderer.

Possibly half folklore.

Nobody at Foothill Quill entirely understood Rowan Bell.

Least of all Rowan Bell.

He disappeared unpredictably for days or weeks, returned with new songs and fresh rain on his coat, then performed acoustic sets so emotionally devastating customers occasionally forgot to finish beverages.

One woman from Toronto once cried through an entire cinnamon roll while Rowan played a song about ferry lights.

She tipped forty dollars afterward and called it “necessary.”

The café door chimed again.

Marisol Reyes hurried inside carrying an enormous sketch portfolio beneath one arm and approximately six hours of sleep total.

Water dripped from her oversized green jacket.

Her dark hair looked aggressively defeated by humidity.

“Tell me you ate something today,” Ayla said immediately.

Marisol froze.

“That feels like an accusation.”

“Because it is.”

“I had coffee.”

“That is not food.”

“There was emotional foam art.”

Ayla closed her eyes slowly.

Declan whispered toward Rowan:

“This is our nightly ritual.”

“I gathered that.”

Marisol placed the sketch portfolio onto the counter dramatically.

“Before anyone attacks me further, I bring offerings.”

She opened the case slightly.

Inside rested manga-style drawings rendered in astonishing detail.

Rain-covered streets.

The loft staircase.

Tea cups beside fogged windows.

Customers reading beneath amber light.

Declan blinked.

“Is that me carrying pastries?”

“No.”

“That is absolutely me.”

“You cannot prove likeness in a court of law.”

“You drew my exact sweater.”

“A common sweater.”

“You included my burnout posture.”

“Also common.”

Rowan leaned sideways to examine the sketch.

“She captured the emotional exhaustion around the eyes really well.”

“Thank you,” Marisol said proudly.

Declan stared at both of them in betrayal.

Marisol Reyes had become part of Foothill Quill almost accidentally.

Twenty-one years old.

Filipino-Canadian.

Art student attending school downtown.

Perpetually overworked.

Financially unstable.

Artistically brilliant.

She first wandered into the café during a rainstorm six months earlier intending only to charge her tablet for twenty minutes.

She stayed eight hours.

Now she spent more time inside Foothill Quill than her own apartment.

Ayla claimed she was slowly turning feral through caffeine exposure.

Marisol argued that was simply what happened to illustrators in Vancouver.

Honestly, both positions had evidence.

The rain outside intensified further.

Wind brushed against the cedar siding.

The café lights reflected across the fogged windows in soft amber halos.

Then the front door opened again.

And the atmosphere changed instantly.

Not dramatically.

Subtly.

Like temperature shifting before snowfall.

Conversations softened.

Several customers glanced toward the entrance instinctively.

A tall man stepped inside carrying an antique brass lantern glowing dimly behind rain-speckled glass.

Water dripped from the hem of his charcoal coat.

Leather-bound journals rested beneath one arm.

Silver threaded through his beard.

Elias Vuković had arrived.

The Lantern Man.

Even newcomers sensed something unusual about him immediately.

Not dangerous.

Not threatening.

Simply difficult to place inside ordinary life.

Like someone displaced from another decade.

Or another weather system entirely.

Bernard looked up from his crossword.

“Storm’s worsening,” he muttered.

Elias removed his gloves carefully.

“By midnight.”

Ayla folded her arms.

“You predicted snow last week.”

“I was early.”

“You said forty-eight hours.”

“The mountain negotiated.”

Rowan hid a smile behind his coffee.

Declan still hadn’t decided whether Elias was eccentric, supernatural, or simply the most observant human being alive.

Possibly all three.

Elias approached the counter.

“The usual?” Ayla asked.

“Yes.”

“Storm Room?”

“If available.”

“Always for you.”

Marisol leaned toward Declan carefully.

“Do you think he actually lives somewhere or just wanders fog indefinitely?”

“I think he materializes whenever atmospheric pressure reaches a narratively appropriate level.”

“That feels accurate.”

Elias glanced briefly toward Declan then.

Just for a moment.

Not hostile.

Not warm.

Something stranger.

Recognition without introduction.

As though Elias already knew details Declan had not yet discovered about himself.

The Lantern Man accepted his tea quietly before moving toward the Storm Room hallway.

The lantern glow drifted across the café walls as he passed.

Several customers watched him without pretending otherwise.

A tourist whispered:

“Who is that?”

Bernard answered without looking up from his crossword.

“Depends how long you stay.”

The tourist blinked.

“…what does that mean?”

Bernard circled another answer calmly.

“You’ll see.”

Outside Foothill Quill, rain continued falling beneath Grouse Mountain while the city below shimmered endlessly through fog and harbor light.

Inside the café, strangers gathered beneath warm lamps carrying invisible storms inside themselves.

And somewhere between the turning pages, quiet music, pastry warmth, and rain-covered windows—

something began.