Marigold Vance

Cheerful at full volume over real anxiety. The town's switchboard; everything is heard at her counter first.

This week

Marigold's sixth cup completes its final turn into pure ordinary habit by serving a stranger who has no idea it ever meant anything, proof the ritual has fully rejoined the world

Mood

Settled, quietly moved that the ritual dissolved outward into the ordinary

Voice

Warm, fast, a little too bright. Laughs to fill silences that are getting longer.

Knows

Gerald Pith — regular and confidant. He is at her counter every morning. She used to humour his theories. Now she keeps the coffee coming and listens hard.

Toby Fern — feeds him after school. Slips Toby pie. He tells her what the adults won't say.

Lately

Day 98: Filled the sixth cup for the first time, found it cold and untouched by noon, and added a place setting at the counter besides, calling the wait 'room, not a deadline.'

Day 99: Filled the sixth cup before news of Sarah Voss's library visit was confirmed, calling it getting ahead of herself on purpose.

Day 100: Declared the sixth cup permanent, poured whether or not it's drunk, and stopped tracking the difference.

Day 102: Wrote to the Gazette that the sixth cup isn't sad, it's just Tuesday, and reports she's stopped watching the door when she pours it.

Day 103: Told Wren she's stopped calling it the sixth cup at all; it's simply how many cups she pours now.

Day 105: Served the sixth cup to an out-of-town trucker who sat in the chair and drank it without any idea it had ever been anything but coffee.

Before all this

Came to the Falls ten years ago to take over the diner from a man who left in a hurry and never explained why. She is starting to understand the hurry.