The Teakeeper and the Demon
The tinkling of the bell through the mid morning silence makes me startle. I drop the bag of genmaicha I'm weighing out. Half the bag spills out onto the tiled floor, and I curse under my breath. A Teakeeper shouldn't be so careless with such a delicate blend, but I'll just have to make my apologies later with the gentlest of broom sweeps. For now, I look up for the person who's caused my present distress and try to force a smile. After all, they're the first customer all day, I should be more grateful. They don't call out a familiar hello to me, so I make the customary half-bow with supplicant palms. "What can I get you? What tickles your sense of delight?" I ask.
"It's not my sense of delight that needs tickling," says the person as they wind their way through the tight maze of shelving at the front of the shop. I can hear heavy boots on their feet and the swish of a long winter coat. They smell like feral brimstone, and I am old enough - wise enough - to feel a flicker of something like fear. I clear my throat. "Whose, then?" I ask as they come into view.
Not regular human, I think unbidden, at the sight of them. Maybe not human at all, I confirm as I meet their eyes, or rather, the most perfectly round pair of sunglasses I've ever seen. Another lick of danger ripples through me. It's a cloudy December day. No need for sunglasses this morning. Not for any practical use, anyway. But the fear is offset by the very sheepish expression they're also wearing. They run a too-pale hand across their face, through too-red hair, making it stand up on end. "Ah, I'm in need of a new tea kettle for a friend," they say. "I may have made a rather grievous - well. Blasted thing's called a tea kettle, isn't it? How was I to know, truly, that the purpose of it was not for making tea directly in it?"
I suppress a laugh and try to turn it into a cough. "The intricacies of tea may make it an unhappy puzzle for the uninitiated, indeed. Allow me to fetch you a selection to peruse. Was it electric?" They shake their head, and I nod crisply. I gather a few likely specimens from the back room: a copper gooseneck, a blue ceramic pitcher, a fussy little siphon system, and an antique silver kettle purportedly made by Paul Revere. As I choose, my mind races. Perhaps an Archdevil? A Hellhound in human form? But why would they be Earthside, and in my tea shop buying a kettle, of all things? Hellish creatures were noted coffee snobs. It was Known. But there was something different about this one. A whiff of humanity, as though their nose was pressed against a plate glass window, longing for sweeties they couldn't afford.
But then, I wasn't human either, not really. I wonder suddenly if the same thoughts about me were presently crossing their mind. I was an ancient thing more akin to a dryad: a shepherd charged with the timeless task of watching over tea plants. A Teakeeper. Whoever the person in my shop was, I would be far beneath their notice, surely. I stacked up the boxes, and squaring my shoulders, carried them out, lining them up on the counter. "Here we are, then. Your friend is sure to be pleased with any of these."
They wave a hand indulgently. "I'll take the lot. He'll choose what he likes and will see to it the rest find proper homes. No need to worry about their fates," they say, breathing the last sentence in a conspiratorial undertone that lets me know they know. They do elect to have them all gift wrapped, and stands there practically vibrating with impatience while I roll out paper and shiny ribbon. They tell me thanks in a hurried murmur that has far too many s's, and then they're gone in a flash, having left me an address for which to send a bill.
Shaking my head slowly, I look around for the genmaicha and find it all strangely back in its bag, and strangely back on the scale from where I'd dropped it, perfectly clean if a little confused. Maybe my mysterious customer wasn't as feckless as they'd first appeared.