Page 74 of Kate and Clara's Curious Cornish Craft Shop
‘Oh, where did you get it from then?’ Anita looks through the back entrance into the window again. ‘It looks familiar – is it from someone local?’
‘I’m not sure …’ I reply, not really knowing how to answer this.
Anita looks at me with a puzzled expression. ‘How do you mean, dear?’
I sigh. I’d known Anita a long time now, and Anita had known St Felix a long time too. She had been one of the people who had told me the most tales about some of the many ‘unexplained’ things that often went on here. If I was going to confide in anyone, Anita would be one of the best people to share with.
I take a deep breath and confess all, from the first embroidery to the last and all the others in between. I tell her all about Jack’s paintings and what happens when we put the two types of artwork together. Then I tell her about the house with the blue door and who we think might have lived there in the past.
Then I pause and wait for her reaction.
‘Well,’ she says, when I’ve told her my highly improbable and very strange tale, ‘I did wonder whether it might happen to you at some point.’
I’m surprised by her calm reaction. If someone had told me all this, I’d have been looking at them with very different eyes now. ‘What might happen to me, Anita? Paintings and embroideries bizarrely coming to life?’
Anita shakes her head. ‘No, dear, the magic of St Felix. I told you before it often strikes in the most unlikely of places. This time it seems to be your turn.’
‘My turn? My turn for what?’
‘To help someone, or be helped yourself. It’s often both at the same time in my experience – that’s how it usually works. I think I told you the story of the Cornish sorceress Zethar, and of how the townsfolk of St Felix helped her shelter from her persecutors when she was on trial for witchcraft?’
‘Yes, you did, and how she cast an enchantment on not only the building where she hid and the ground below it – where Poppy’s flower shop now stands – but over the whole town too. That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, that’s the one. It’s a story embedded in St Felix’s history. Anyone who comes here and stays is always subject to Zethar’s magical spell. When it strikes it’s always something different, but it always involves helping others in some way … like the villagers helped her.’
I shake my head a little. Seeing moving images in static pictures was one thing, but believing it was all to do with some ancient Cornish sorceress’s spell hundreds of years ago was another. ‘So you’re sayingI’mbeing helped, is that right? But helped to do what?’
Anita shrugs. ‘Like I say, it’s always different. You might be being helped along a little, but most likely if you are, it will involve you helping someone else too.’
I immediately think about Jack and his struggles, and then I think about Julian. Was it one of them I was supposed to be helping?’
‘How will I know who it is?’ I ask, hoping Anita will have all the answers.
‘I don’t know, dear,’ she says gently. ‘I don’t think it works the same way every time. I guess you’ll just know when it happens.’
‘Have you ever been helped, Anita? You seem to know a lot about it.’
‘Everyone who comes to St Felix likes to think they’ve been helped by the magic in some way. That’s part of the charm of the place, when you discover all these stories you have immediate hope, and hope is a very powerful emotion, but whether your fortune comes from the magic, or simply from the belief that something good will happen, no one truly knows. My good fortune came after Wendy passed on and I thought this shop would be closed for ever. I’d have lost not only my job but a part of my life too. You know how much I love being here. So when you came along and said you’d keep me on, I have to admit, I did wonder if it was the magic of St Felix that had helped me.’
I smile at Anita. ‘It was never in doubt you were to stay,’ I tell her. ‘I think I’d have had a riot on my hands if I’d ever tried to let you go.’
‘You’re a good girl, Kate, which is why I think the magic has struck in such a big way for you. Some of us can only wonder whether it might have been Zethar’s enchantment helping us along in times of need, but you and Jack seem to have been granted something much bigger, and likely more important, to do. Don’t think of this as something to worry about, think of it as your chance to do something special, something that will truly make a difference to someone.’
‘Oh Anita, you’re the one who’s amazing!’ I say, giving her a huge hug. ‘Only you could have made it seem like that, and not like I was going mad! So you think we should keep pushing to find out more about Clara and Arty?’
‘Oh definitely. I’m sad I can’t really help you any more, I only know that the lady who lived in the house you’re talking about was called Peggy. She was a bit of a recluse by all accounts. I remember Wendy trying to be friendly and going up there once to see if she wanted to be a part of the community a little more, but she didn’t get very far. The lady was polite enough to Wendy, but she really wasn’t interested in us. She preferred to be on her own, I think. Probably why she chose that house – it is a bit isolated, isn’t it? Up on the hill in its own grounds.’
‘A little bit, I suppose, but it has some amazing views of the town and the coast. I wouldn’t mind living there if I had the money. It’s a fair bit bigger than my little flat upstairs.’
‘Who knows, maybe one day you will,’ Anita says kindly.
‘I’d better start buying a lottery ticket then!’ I grin. ‘Because that’s the only way I’ll ever find myself able to afford to live there.’
St Felix ~ August 1957
Clara glances out of the window of her shop. The morning had started quite busily, but now, as the heat of the afternoon penetrates Harbour Street, people are much preferring the cool breeze of the beach and the cliffs than the stuffy little seaside shops.
She fans herself with one of her dress patterns to try to cool down but it’s not helping at all, so she goes to the door to see if there’s any more air on her door-step.
