The Phantom Café

The coffee never runs dry. That is the law of the Phantom Cafe. So why is the light going out?

High above the clouds floats the Phantom Cafe, a warm, lantern-lit cafe that never closes, kept by a small phantom in a purple hood whose cyan eyes glow brighter the happier his guests are. The Great Pot has never once run dry, because it is not filled with coffee at all. It is filled with mornings. Every laugh, every good morning, every moment people gather and feel a little less alone rises up as light and keeps the flame alive.

But the light is failing. Lamp by lamp, the Realm is going grey, and Phantom Guy, whose eyes are the brightest in the Realm, has begun to flicker.

To save the Cafe, he must journey down through the darkening Realm: through the haunted halls of Dread Hollow, past the Ferryman of the neon tide, into the crypt where a keeper hoards stolen light in a thousand lanterns, and finally below the clouds, to a small room where a kind, soft-spoken streamer named Jon greets a little crowd who call themselves the Roost, and whose light, impossibly, is still burning.

The Grey wants that light too.

An illustrated fantasy novella about coffee, found family, and the radical act of showing up, with an original painting at the head of every chapter. Book One of Tales from the Phantom Realm.