Page 69 of The Cake Fairies
Chapter Thirty-One
POLLY
Here they were in Edinburgh. January’s drops had been something of an anti-climax and Polly was worried about Annabelle’s increasingly baffling behaviour. She’d been acting strange for a while, of course. Then it had been Ivy’s turn. Now it seemed Annabelle had taken hold of the reins again. In a way, it would have helped to have Ivy around for longer, despite the fact her trust in all things Cake Fairy had definitely waned. Somehow three was never a crowd when she was about. But now they were a pair once more. Ivy had returned to the course (and mother) she seemed to be constantly on the run from; if the college would take her back, that was. Things felt almost unbearable. Unbearable iced with a frost-biting cold.
“Tourists need fuelling before they throw themselves at the mercy of these ghastly city ghost tours. It’s a mighty bitter time to be hanging around this far north,” Polly read aloud from the folder.
“Huh, she ain’t kidding,” Annabelle said sourly.
“I’m recommending you take advantage of the numerous whisky outlets and carry a hipflask a piece. The hotel kitchen’s also stocked up with porridge. I would normally urge you to respect local heritage, but even I draw the line at oats boiled in water and salt. Ask the chef to douse your flakes with milk, cream and sugar… the seeds from a vanilla pod too, and let your hearts be glad.”
“Curiouser and curiouser, in the words of Alice,” Polly’s customary head shake at the words of the red folder ensued.
As elegant a city as Edinburgh was, why, oh why, couldn’t Amber Magnolia have sent them there in the summer? The fringe festival was meant to be fantastic. But there was no point deliberating the merits of the more clement months. For as long as they were north of the border, they needed to brace the permanent Arctic chill and get on with the tasks that lay ahead. Except today’s undertaking was at nightfall… and underground.
“Bitch!” sniped Annabelle.
“Hey, it might be fun. You’re supposed to be the adventurous one.”
But Polly actually had no idea where her own motivation would come from for this one. How would they disguise their cake in front of a tour guide and a bunch of city sightseers? It was all really rather ridiculous. She’d read up on the dank and dingy passageways these ghost tours took people on; hidden vaults beneath the Scottish capital; a place where people had once had no choice but to live, ply their various wares, and die the most grisly deaths.
Modern-day tourists paid good money to put their own lives in the hands of a solitary (and hopefully pioneering) local expert, to hear their blood-curling tales of past terrors. With a rudimentary-looking torch, they’d stalk from chamber to chamber in perpetual fight or flight mode, deep beneath the busy streets. These places had once acted as jails, brothels, and everything else in-between.
The fact that the cousins would have little choice but to experience all of this for themselves in the pitch-black dark would just have to be swept to one side. Now there was a colossal (and aptly flavoured) iced whisky fruit cake to bake, build, and embellish. And Polly remained less than convinced by the corner-cutting dried fruit soaking method Amber Magnolia had suggested. Anything less than overnight to plump and marinate sultanas seemed a crime. But the grains of time had granted them little choice but to skim. They had to scoot to a department store for some way-too-big and seriously lengthy padded coats; the kind that would disguise their belt-attached cake boxes as generous stomach endowment.
“Is it just me, or is she getting slacker by the minute? Shouldn’t she have pre-empted this and helpfully included a couple of XXL North Pole-style jackets in the wardrobe? Too busy cavorting with Mr Coconut to remember she’s stranded us here.” Annabelle scowled.
They were a sight for sore eyes by the time 8 p.m. and the delights of the tour approached. Even Nigel couldn’t mask his great guffaws as he dropped them on the Royal Mile ready to join the queue for the haunting hour.
“Sure you don’t want to change your minds and audition forCinderella… as the Ugly Sisters?”
“Hilarious, Nige. I think you’ll find panto season’s over,” Annabelle quipped.
“I think you’ll find that’s to Edinburgh’s detriment.” Off he went again, cackling so hard he even caused the usually more sedate Polly to slam her door.
The limo was soon a dot on the lightly rain-streaked, slate-grey horizon, as was drop-off custom. Polly winced as she caught the unfortunate sight of herself in a shop window, wincing again as she registered just how awful Annabelle looked, and then a third time when Annabelle regarded Polly as if she were some kind of glutinous slug she’d pulled off the bottom of her shoe. Which would probably be quite accurate description-wise.
Thank God she’d not had her happily ever after with Alex, thought Polly. The thought of anyone she knew seeing her dressed like this was too much. She doubted she’d even be able to face her brothers togged up in this garb – such would be their life-long taunting. How the tour guide and the rest of their lucky group would retain straight faces, she’d no idea. Or how they’d unburden themselves of the triple-tiered fruit cakes, either. It wasn’t like there was anybody hanging about in the dark pit of the Underground to take advantage of their largesse – unless you counted the ravenous spectres, and she didn’t intend to keep her eyes off their guide for long enough to spot one of those.
Half an hour later, and a bunch of perplexed looks and totally indiscreet snapshots and videos for Instagram (and its many altercations) later – ha, the flipping irony! – Polly and Annabelle were waddling around the miserable, and frankly terrifying, tunnels of Edinburgh, equally perplexed as to where in the actual hell, for it certainly felt like they’d reached its depths, they were going to shed their loads.
In the end, Annabelle’s belt-loosening scream decided the duo of cakes’ fate. Etienne, their thoroughly un-Scottish and unhelpful guide, had marched ahead with their selfie stick-toting comrades, way too fast for the women to keep up, hindered as they were with box bellies that could only produce penguin side strides. A freaky and decidedly bagpipe-esque drone had startled Polly in the tunnel behind them, giving Annabelle permission to caterwaul the most ghoul-struck noise this part of the city had ever encountered – well, perhaps only in recent years. It was probably just the next tour and its faraway echoes, but they certainly weren’t hanging around to find out, and unfortunately none of this could stop the abrupt deposit of iced whisky fruit cake number one, relegated to smithereens on the stone floor. Annabelle skittered to the archway of the tunnel that (hopefully) led them to the relative safety of Etienne’s heavily French-accented commentary, as Polly stuck her hands up her coat in several ungracious movements, swiftly unfastening her own belly, coaxing her trembling hands to gently place her box next to the cake smash.
***
“Well, that was about as successful as attempting to bake bread without yeast.” Polly flung her hideous coat at one end of the settee, flumping herself at the far reaches of the other.
It was midnight, and they might now be at their home from home (a castle hotel on the outskirts of the city where they occupied the very best suite) but she doubted she’d ever erase the fear as they’d scarpered back to the group, and then bypassed it straight for the exit, amidst Etienne’s haunting wails. And now that she realised the age of their current dwelling matched those of the tunnels of terror, she doubted she’d ever be able to sleep again.
“I feel like a puppet,” Polly declared.
“You’ve finally worked it out.” Annabelle slowly and sarcastically clapped.
