The Barista at the Threshold

The only thing keeping me upright was the forward momentum of panic. My lungs burned, my phone was a dead brick of ice in my pocket, and the shapes in the swirling snow were getting closer. Then I saw it: a single, steamy window promising warmth on a frozen stretch of Portage Avenue.

The streetlights on Portage were gone. Not burned out, just swallowed. Eaten by the snow. The wind didn't howl, it screamed, a solid wall of noise and ice particles that scoured the skin off my face. My parka was failing. I could feel the cold seeping through the seams, a deep, invasive ache that was getting into my bones. My phone had died an hour ago, the battery meter dropping from thirty percent to zero in a single, final flash. A frozen black rectangle in my pocket. Useless.

I ran. Not because I knew where I was going—I was lost, completely turned around—but because stopping meant freezing. Stopping meant letting them catch up. I didn't know what they were. I couldn't get a clear look. Just shapes in the whiteout, things that moved too fast and with too much purpose against the chaos of the storm. They weren't people. The way they slid through the drifts, the way the snow seemed to cling to them, forming and reforming… it was wrong. Unnatural. There was a sound, too, under the shriek of the wind. A faint, high-pitched crackle, like ice fracturing under immense pressure.

My lungs felt like they were full of crushed glass. Each breath was a new kind of pain. My gloved fingers were clumsy and numb, wrapped tight around the little metal thing in my pocket. The amulet. Grammie had given it to me, a weird lump of silver, cool to the touch, etched with lines that felt like a language I should know but didn't. 'For emergencies,' she'd said, her voice thin and papery. I guess this qualified. It didn't feel like it was doing much. It was just a cold weight.

Then I saw it. A light. A single square of soft, yellow light, fogged with condensation. A circle of color in a world of gray and white. It was a storefront, the gold lettering mostly obscured by a thick layer of frost. *The Cafe on Portage*. I’d walked this street a hundred times and never seen it before. It shouldn’t be here. This block was supposed to be a boarded-up theatre and a payday loan place. But the light was real. The steam curling from a vent above the door was real. It was a chance.

I stumbled, my boot catching on a hidden curb, and went down hard on one knee. The impact sent a jolt of fire up my leg. I looked back, gasping, my breath a cloud of vapor that was instantly torn away. One of them was close. It was taller than a person, a lanky silhouette of churning snow and something dark at its core. It didn't have a face, but I felt it looking at me. The cracking sound was louder now, sharp and distinct.

Panic won. I scrambled up, ignoring the screaming protest from my knee, and threw myself at the cafe door. My numb hand fumbled with the heavy brass handle. For a second, it wouldn't turn, frozen solid. I pulled again, using all my weight, my shoulder slamming into the wood. The lock gave with a heavy *clunk* and I fell inside, sprawling onto a worn coir mat.

The door swung shut behind me, its weight muffling the storm to a distant, angry hum. The sudden silence was deafening. And the warmth. It was thick, like a blanket, smelling of coffee and cinnamon and damp wool. My whole body started to shake, a violent, uncontrollable shivering as my frozen nerves woke up. I pushed myself into a sitting position, my back against the door, and just breathed. The air didn't hurt here. It was a miracle.

“Bit of a storm out there,” a calm voice said.

I looked up. A woman stood behind a long wooden counter, wiping it down with a damp cloth. She was older, maybe in her fifties, with graying hair tied back in a messy bun and dark, intelligent eyes that missed nothing. She wore a simple black apron over a flannel shirt. A half-finished tattoo of what looked like a coiled serpent peeked out from under her rolled-up sleeve. There was only one other person in the cafe, a man in a parka sitting at a small table, staring intently at a tablet propped against a sugar dispenser. He hadn't even looked up.

“Close the deadbolt, will you?” the woman said, nodding toward the door behind me. “Gets drafty.”

My hands were shaking so hard I could barely work the mechanism. The bolt slid home with a satisfying thud. It felt final. Safe. I leaned against the door for another moment, my head swimming. The transition from the screaming cold to this quiet warmth was making me dizzy.

“You look like you could use something hot,” the woman continued, her voice even. She wasn't asking. She was already turning away, grabbing a heavy ceramic mug from a stack.

I peeled off my wet gloves, my fingers stiff and white. I fumbled with the zipper of my parka. The amulet felt strange now. Not cold. It was generating a faint, thrumming warmth against my palm. I shoved it deep into my jeans pocket and stumbled toward the counter, my boots leaving puddles of melting snow on the checkered floor.

“Don’t worry about the floor,” she said, not looking at me. “It’s seen worse.”

I slid onto a stool at the counter. It was worn smooth, the wood dark with age. The cafe was small, just a few tables, but it felt solid. Permanent. The walls were lined with bookshelves crammed with mismatched paperbacks. The air hummed with the quiet gurgle of a coffee machine and the low thrum of a radiator.

The woman placed the mug in front of me. It was filled with dark, steaming liquid. “Hot chocolate. On the house.”

“Thank you,” I whispered. My voice was a raw croak.

“Drink up. It’ll help with the chill.”

I wrapped my hands around the mug. The heat was a shock, a pleasure so intense it was almost pain. I brought it to my lips and took a sip. It wasn’t the powdery stuff from a packet. It was rich and dark, barely sweet, with a hint of something spicy I couldn't place. It coated my throat, and I felt the warmth spread all the way down to my stomach. I took another, deeper drink.

The woman, whose name tag read ‘Cathy’, watched me. “Better?”

I nodded, unable to speak. I focused on the steam rising from the mug. It swirled in the still air of the cafe, forming patterns. I blinked. The patterns weren't random. For a second, I saw a shape in the vapor—a spiral, with a sharp, jagged line cutting through it. It looked familiar, like one of the symbols on Grammie’s amulet. Then it was gone, dissolving into a simple wisp.

“Funny how steam moves,” Cathy said, her eyes fixed on my mug. “Tells stories, sometimes.”

“What?” I asked, my brain feeling slow and packed with cotton.

“Nothing.” She turned away to rinse a portafilter. “Just an old saying. Where were you headed in this mess?”

“Home,” I said. “I was on the bus, but it got stuck near the university. They told everyone to get off and find shelter.” A lie. The bus hadn't been running for hours. I'd been trying to get to my friend's place. But telling her the truth felt… dangerous.

“Home’s a good place to be on a night like this,” she said. The man at the table, Kevin according to his own name-embroidered jacket, coughed, a dry little sound. He still hadn't looked up from his tablet.

I looked out the window. It was almost completely opaque with frost now, intricate, fern-like patterns spreading from the edges. But there was something wrong with the way it was forming. It was too fast. As I watched, a new layer of ice crystals bloomed across the center of the pane, thick and white. And under the constant hum of the wind, I heard it again. The cracking sound. Close.

My stomach tightened. The hot chocolate suddenly felt heavy, sloshing around inside me. They’d followed me. They knew I was here.

Cathy stopped what she was doing. She was listening. Her whole body was tense, her head cocked slightly toward the front of the cafe. Kevin, oblivious, typed something on his screen.

“What is that?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

“The wind has teeth tonight,” Cathy said quietly. It wasn't an answer.

The lights in the cafe flickered once, twice, then dimmed, casting the room in a weak, amber glow. A low groan came from the front of the building, the sound of old wood under impossible pressure. A thin line of frost appeared on the floor, creeping out from under the door. It glittered in the dim light.

“That’s not normal,” Kevin said, finally looking up from his tablet. His voice was annoyed, like he was dealing with a power outage. “This city needs to upgrade its grid.”

“It’s not the grid,” Cathy said. She placed both hands flat on the counter, her knuckles white. The serpent tattoo seemed to writhe in the low light.

A loud *crack* echoed through the room, sharp as a gunshot. It came from the window. A fracture line, thin as a hair, appeared in the frosted glass. Then another, and another, spreading out like a spiderweb. The temperature in the cafe dropped instantly. I could see my breath again.

“Okay, what the hell is going on?” Kevin demanded, standing up. He walked toward the window, peering at the cracks. “Is that from the cold?”

“Get away from the glass,” Cathy ordered. Her voice had changed. It was hard, sharp, full of authority.

As she spoke, a shape pressed against the outside of the window. It was indistinct, a distortion in the frost, but it was there. A tall, gaunt form with too many joints. The glass bowed inward with a sickening creak. The ice on the floor was spreading faster now, a sheet of white advancing across the tiles.

Kevin scrambled back, his face pale. “What is that thing?”

My hand went to my pocket, to the amulet. It was hot now. Not warm, but hot, a burning pressure against my leg. I pulled it out. The silver metal was glowing, a soft, pulsating blue light that pushed back against the cafe’s gloom. The etched lines were shining with an intense white fire.

“Ellen,” Cathy said, her dark eyes locked on the amulet in my hand. She knew my name. I’d never told her my name. “You need to focus that. Feel it. Don’t think. Just feel.”

Focus what? I was thirteen. I didn’t know how to focus anything except the panic that was clawing its way up my throat. The window groaned again, and this time, a single shard of glass popped out of the frame and tinkled onto the floor. A blast of impossibly cold air shot into the room, carrying with it a flurry of snow and the sharp, clean smell of a deep freeze.

The thing outside pressed harder. I could almost see a hand, long, skeletal fingers made of black ice. It was coming in.

My grip tightened on the amulet. It burned, searing my palm, but I couldn't let go. It felt like the only real thing in the room. *Feel it*. Cathy’s voice. I closed my eyes. I felt the heat in my hand, the frantic hammering of my heart, the cold on my face. And I felt something else. A deep, humming power radiating from the silver in my fist. It felt ancient and wild. I didn't try to control it. I just… let go.

There was no sound, but a wave of pure heat erupted from my hand. A flash of blue-white light so bright I saw it through my closed eyelids. The room temperature shot up, the air suddenly dry and hot. I heard a high-pitched shriek, a sound of scraping ice and shattering glass that didn’t come from the window, but from outside. A noise of pure agony and retreat.

I opened my eyes. The lights were back to their normal brightness. The creeping frost on the floor was gone, melted into a series of puddles. The pressure against the window had vanished. The cracks were still there, but nothing was pressing on them anymore. The only sound was the wind, which once again sounded like just wind.

Kevin was slumped against his table, breathing heavily, his eyes wide with disbelief. “What… what was that?”

My hand was empty. The amulet lay on the floor at my feet, no longer glowing. It was just a dull piece of silver again. My palm was red, but not burned. It tingled with pins and needles.

Cathy walked around the counter. She didn't look at Kevin. She didn't look at the window. She looked at me. There was no surprise in her expression, only a grim sort of confirmation.

“That was a temporary solution,” she said. “They’ll be back. Stronger.”

She picked up the amulet and pressed it back into my hand. It was cool to the touch again. “They’re hunting you. Or rather, they’re hunting that.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, my voice shaking. “What are they? What is this?”

“They are the outriders of the Fimbulvetr. The Endless Winter,” she said, her voice low and urgent. “And this is a sanctuary. A doorway. One they can’t enter unless they’re invited by overwhelming force.”

She took me by the arm, her grip surprisingly strong, and pulled me toward the back of the cafe. “Kevin,” she said over her shoulder. “Your bill is comped. I suggest you go home, lock your doors, and forget anything you saw here tonight. It’ll be healthier for you.”

He just stared, mute.

She pushed through a swinging door into a small, cluttered stockroom. It smelled of cardboard and roasted coffee beans. Sacks of beans were piled high against one wall, boxes of filters and syrups on metal shelves. It was completely, utterly normal. At the far end was a plain, gray steel door with a push bar. An exit.

“Where are we going?” I asked, my heart starting to pound again.

“You are going,” she corrected me. “I am a keeper of the threshold, not a traveler. I can’t go with you.”

“Go where? Out there? They’re still out there!”

“Not through that door,” she said, nodding to the steel exit. “That door doesn’t lead to Portage Avenue anymore. Not for you. Not tonight.”

She put her hand on the push bar. “Listen to me, Ellen. The amulet is a key. It will guide you, but you have to learn to listen to it. Not with your ears. You need to find the heart of this storm, the source of the ice. You have to stop it, or it will consume everything. This world, and others.”

This was insane. I was in a coffee shop stockroom with a woman talking about endless winters and thresholds. But I had seen the thing at the window. I had felt the heat from the amulet. My reality had already cracked wide open.

“How?” I asked. It was the only word I could manage.

“Follow the cold,” she said. “It has a center. A core. You’ll feel it. Now, go. Before they regroup.”

She pushed the bar. The door swung open. There was no alleyway, no dumpster, no brick wall of the neighboring building. There was only white. A landscape of snow-covered trees under a bruised purple sky where two moons, one a perfect silver circle and the other a broken crescent, hung in the frigid air. The wind that blew in was colder than anything I had ever felt, but it was clean, without the city’s grime. In the distance, I could see the familiar shape of the Esplanade Riel bridge, but it was coated in monstrous icicles and seemed to stretch into an impossible, frozen twilight.

It was Winnipeg. But it wasn't.

“Step through,” Cathy said, her voice firm. “Don’t look back. The path only goes forward now.”

I stood on the edge, one foot in the mundane world of a coffee shop stockroom, the other hovering over the threshold of a nightmare. The amulet felt heavy in my pocket. I took a breath of the strange, cold air.

Then I stepped through. The door clicked shut behind me.