The Morning After
- Chapter 5 -
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The storm ended at 3:26 AM.
Not all at once.
Snowfall simply loosened its grip.
Wind softened.
The sky stopped fighting itself.
And by morning, Grouse Mountain sat beneath a silence so complete it felt unnatural.
Snow covered everything.
Aldercrest Pass had disappeared beneath white drifts.
Cedar branches bent beneath the weight of winter.
Power lines sagged.
Cars rested like frozen animals along the roadside.
And below the mountain, Vancouver glittered under a sheet of pale morning frost and harbor light.
Foothill Quill remained standing.
Warm.
Breathing.
Alive.
At 7:02 AM, Declan Mercer woke in the reading loft beneath three blankets and somebody else’s coat.
He had no memory of falling asleep.
Only fragments.
Rowan’s guitar.
Candlelight.
Snow pressing against the glass.
The stranded couple laughing nervously over soup.
Elias standing in the Storm Room like part of the architecture.
Declan sat up slowly.
The loft was chaos.
Books open.
Half-finished mugs.
Blankets everywhere.
People asleep in chairs.
A student using a dictionary as a pillow.
Bernard somehow still seated upright, asleep over his crossword like he’d died doing what he loved.
Below, sunlight moved weakly through frost-covered windows.
The power had returned.
The espresso machine hummed again.
That sound alone felt like civilization.
Declan descended the stairs.
The café smelled like coffee, wet wool, extinguished candles, and morning bread.
Ayla stood behind the counter already working.
Of course she was.
Hair tied up.
Apron on.
Focused.
Like the blizzard had simply been another line item on her schedule.
“You slept?”
Declan rubbed his eyes.
“Technically.”
She slid him a mug.
Black coffee.
No questions.
That meant concern.
Declan accepted it.
“How long have you been up?”
“An hour.”
“That’s unhealthy.”
“That’s ownership.”
He looked around.
Customers still remained.
Some awake.
Some pretending they hadn’t slept there.
The stranded couple sat near the windows, eating toast like survivors of something much larger than weather.
Marisol was asleep face-down over her sketchbook.
Rowan tuned his guitar softly near the tea wall.
Naomi Wren wrote in her notebook while drinking tea like the entire storm had been scheduled content.
Bernard woke suddenly.
Looked at his crossword.
Then at Declan.
“Did I win?”
Declan blinked.
“Win what?”
Bernard folded the paper.
“Exactly.”
That felt like Bernard logic.
Ayla began taking inventory.
Half the pastry case was gone.
Soup nearly empty.
Tea stock reduced.
Blankets everywhere.
The storm had cost them.
But somehow—
the café felt fuller than before.
Not physically.
Historically.
Like something had been added.
Declan noticed the Storm Room door open.
He looked inside.
Empty.
The lantern gone.
Elias had left.
No footprints.
No goodbye.
Nothing.
Only his tea cup remained on the table.
Finished.
Of course.
Declan stepped inside.
Morning light touched the cedar walls now.
The carved names looked different.
Less ghostly.
More human.
He moved closer.
New writing had appeared near the bottom.
Fresh.
Still pale against the wood.
Winter 2026
Storm stayed. So did we.
Declan stared.
He hadn’t written it.
Neither had Ayla.
He would’ve noticed.
Behind him, Naomi appeared.
“Interesting.”
He pointed.
“That wasn’t there.”
Naomi examined it.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
She wrote it down immediately.
“Of course you’re writing that down.”
“That’s literally my job.”
Back in the main room, Marisol woke violently.
Knocking over three pencils and half a sketchpad.
“I’m alive.”
Rowan looked up.
“Debatable.”
She glared.
Then froze.
“My sketches.”
She grabbed them.
Flipped through.
Dozens of pages.
The candlelit café.
The rescue.
The lantern.
The wall.
The storm.
And one page she didn’t remember drawing.
Declan saw it.
A full-page illustration.
Foothill Quill buried in snow beneath the mountain.
Its windows glowing.
Lantern light visible through the glass.
And above it—
high in the trees—
a single light.
Watching.
Marisol stared at it.
“…again.”
Declan looked at her.
“Again?”
She swallowed.
“I keep drawing things I don’t remember drawing.”
That sat badly.
Not dangerous.
Just strange.
Foothill Quill had begun collecting strange.
Ayla approached.
“Road crews are coming.”
She looked out the windows.
Snowplows moved faintly below.
The mountain waking again.
Normal life returning.
But it didn’t feel normal.
Not after last night.
The stranded couple stood to leave.
The girl hugged Ayla before going.
The boy shook Rowan’s hand.
Thanked Bernard.
Nodded awkwardly at Declan.
Then they were gone.
Into sunlight.
Into snow.
Into the world.
Declan watched them leave.
“You think they’ll come back?”
Ayla smiled faintly.
“They always do.”
He believed her.
That was the thing.
Foothill Quill had gravity.
Not business gravity.
Something older.
People arrived carrying storms.
And left lighter.
Outside, the roads slowly reopened.
Cars began moving again.
Tourists would return.
Students.
Writers.
Nurses.
Couples.
Lonely people.
Lost people.
People looking for warmth without realizing it.
The mountain kept sending them.
And the café kept holding them.
Declan stood near the window, coffee in hand, watching morning light spill across snow-covered cedar branches.
Behind him, Rowan played something quiet.
Marisol sketched.
Naomi wrote.
Ayla baked.
Bernard resumed his crossword.
And somewhere beyond the walls—
beyond the storm—
Declan had the sudden, unmistakable feeling that Foothill Quill was only beginning to reveal itself.
Not what it was.
But what it kept.
And what it remembered.
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