Page 2 of An Enchanted Moment on Ever After Street
‘Thanks for your purchase,’ I call after them. ‘Have an enchanted day!’ Our go-to farewell sounded quirky at first, but with customers like that, I fear it’s taken on a patronising tone.
There’s a display of pumpkins in a stack by the door, and the toddler smacks it as his mum drags him outside, sending it clattering to the ground and mini plastic pumpkins rolling across the shop. Charming.
I apologise to Mrs Potts, who has woken up with a start, and go over to set the display right.
I’m still gathering up pumpkins when a group of three women come out of The Beast’s Enchanted Rose Garden, the flower shop next door, and come straight in through my door, one of them carrying a miniature rose bush in a pot under her arm. Each pristine white flower has a delicate lemon centre and the shop is instantly filled with a subtle floral scent.
‘That place is so weird,’ she says as I scramble out of the way with my armful of pumpkins. ‘The guy who owns it isn’t really a beast, is he?’
As a bookseller, you’d think the questions I get asked the most are in some way related to books, but in reality, the one and only thing most people want to know about is my Scary Neighbour. ‘I don’t know, I haven’t seen him.’
‘Aren’t you two, you know…’ She lowers her voice and waggles her eyebrows. ‘…together?’
‘Just a coincidence, I promise.’ I give her my brightest smile. It’s a misconception that I have to correct several times a week. The Beast’s Enchanted Rose Garden being right next door to the Tale As Old As Time bookshop really is just a coincidence. When I was a little girl, I told my mum that I wanted a bookshop named A Tale As Old As Time one day, after watchingBeauty and the Beastfor the thousandth time in my young life. The Beast’s Enchanted Rose Garden was already here when we arrived on Ever After Street, but that just made it even more of a perfect fit for this fairy-tale-themed street.
The only thing I know about my neighbour is that he exists. The Beast’s Enchanted Rose Garden is run by a man who is hardly ever seen, and on the rare occasions that heisseen, he’s always wearing some kind of disguise that keeps him hidden. He’s also the gardener up at the castle in the hills at the end of Ever After Street, the one who kept it neat and tidy while it was abandoned, before Witt and Sadie from The Cinderella Shop across the street moved back in earlier this year.
Maybe I should be grateful. Given the kinds of problems that people can have with their neighbours, I never hear a peep out of mine. I may as well be living next door to a ghost. People say he lives in the flat above his shop, but the only time I know he’s there at all is if I’m upstairs and he happens to be upstairs at the same time – the walls are thin enough to give away the sound of movement on the other side: footsteps or the creak of opening and closing doors.
When we first opened our shop a few years ago, I went next door to say hello and although I could see him moving around in the back of his shop, he didn’t respond or acknowledge me in any way, and he’s never tried to introduce himself since, so it’s probably safe to assume he’s not one for neighbourly goodwill. He’s obviously some kind of rose specialist though, because everything in his shop revolves around them. He’s got bouquets of cut roses in a rainbow of colours; growing roses in decorative pots, from huge established bushes to tiny windowsill plants; bare-rooted stems for people to take home and plant themselves, and an array of seasonal wreaths and garlands that all feature roses in some way. His window displays make you stop and stare at them, open-mouthed, as you wonder howanyone can dosomuch with a simple flower. His shop is beautiful, butheis terrifying. In fact, he seems determined to drive customers away. Every time I’ve looked in, there’s no one manning the till, just a cash box where he expects people to put the correct money for anything they want to buy, and anyone who has made the mistake of seeking him out for flower-related advice has found themselves growled at or shouted at, and apparently chased away with a broom once. Which seems like an odd way to run a business to me, and surely the broom is overkill.
There are security cameras everywhere in there, so I can only assume he monitors everything via video and relies on his scary reputation to deter customers from attempting anything dodgy.
The postman is next to arrive at the bookshop, depositing a pile of letters on my counter with a cheery smile as I ask the women about the last books they read. I can’t resist chatting about books at any given opportunity, and I’m always happy to hear book recommendations despite the fact my to-read pile is so big that it’s liable to topple over and crush me one day.
I leaf through the letters distractedly, dreading the thought ofmorebills or problems to deal with. There’s an official-looking letter with my landlord’s return address on the back and a stone settles in the pit of my stomach. My lease renewal is coming up… Maybe it will be something nice about that, like saying my rent has gonedownperhaps? Unlikely, but a girl can dream.
The three women are chattering between themselves so I open the letter and scan it quickly, not expecting anything too bad, but my eyes pick out words like ‘complaint’, ‘prosecuted’, and ‘evict’.What?
Panic rises, but I don’t have time to read it properly as a man comes up to the counter with a stack of romance books and tells me he’s buying them to cheer his wife up. It warms my cold heart to think there are still some good men out there, but all I canthink about is the letter I’ve just shoved onto the shelf beneath the counter with such force that it’s still billowing around, like one of those fortune-telling fish you get in Christmas crackers, warning me it’s something far from good.
It takes forever for the women to leave, without buying anything, of course. My stomach is rolling and my hands are shaking as I get the letter out and try to make sense of it.
Dear Miss Platt,
I’m writing to inform you that I’ve received a complaint about the state of the garden area at the back of my property. I’ve received documentation suggesting a vast amount of neglect on your behalf. The garden behind the bookshop is as much a part of the property as the bookshop itself, and you signed a lease agreeing to look after the property.
You have failed to do this. The garden has been left to dereliction, and as such, it is now devaluing my building. This is unacceptable behaviour from any tenant. I have been more than lenient, given your personal circumstances, but this cannot be ignored for a moment longer.
A patch of Japanese knotweed has been brought to my attention. While it is not illegal to have it on the property, it is illegal not to declare it, and you, Miss Platt, have not declared it. As it is close to the property boundary, we are at risk of it spreading onto public land, for which we could both be prosecuted.
I take the letter and go to look out the window. I don’t even know what Japanese knotweedis, never mind that I was supposed to declare it. And ‘illegal’ sounds all sorts of terrifying. I picture myself in court, a scary judge bearing down on me as I wibble about not being able to declare something I can’t even recognise. The garden is a mass of greenery. There could beanythinglurking out there.
Therefore, if work is not undertaken to rectify this immediately, you will be liable for the charges to put things back as they were when you signed the tenancy agreement, and I will not be renewing your lease for another term.
I work in accordance with the local council and the complaint has prompted them to look again at the popularity of A Tale As Old As Time, and quite frankly, the council and I agree that your bookshop is simply not attracting the attention that it once did, and therefore, if things do not improve within six weeks, I will be evicting you when your lease expires. I will be in the area at that time and I will be coming to inspect the property, and I politely suggest you have a very good case to put forward as to why Ever After Street needs a bookshop at all. The novelty of a Beauty and the Beast-themed bookshop has clearly worn off and the council are keen to fill the street with shops that attract customers, bring in revenue, and get people talking about the area. Your shop, Miss Platt, is doing none of those things.
Regards,
Mr Rowbotham
The garden? Thegardenhas caused all this? Pure dread is flooding my veins and I can’t get enough air into my lungs. I lean a hip against the counter to steady myself because my legs are shaking. Mum loved gardening. The garden was always her department. She kept it looking lovely and spent many sunny afternoons sitting out there when she needed to take the weight off her feet. Since she died, I haven’t been able to face the garden at all. I’ve tried not to think about it, tried to ignore how overgrown it was getting in the hopes that… I don’t know. Maybe fairies would come along and sort it out for me?
I can’t cry, there are customers in. Someone’s telling me about a book she bought for her son last week and how much heenjoyed it. I can see her lips moving but I can’t hear her words coming out.
What am I going to do? A Tale As Old As Time has been my sanctuary for the past eighteen months. It’s given me something to focus on. It’s the only thing that’s kept me going, and now it’s going to be taken away?
I know I’ve been avoiding the garden, but I didn’t think anyoneelsehad noticed. I’m not much of an outdoorsy person, and the garden at the back of the bookshop is… well, all right, it’s a bit on the unkempt side, but there’s a little path because Mrs Potts and I cut through the back way to get into work every day. Who the hell has complained about it? And why? What has my garden got to do with anyone else? Who can even see it? The window to the back is in the children’s section, but I painted it with blue sky, sun, and green hills, so no one can see out. No one walks down the back lane apart from the other shopkeepers who work on this side of the street. Was it one of them? Or some miserable customer intent on sticking their nose in where it doesn’t belong? The garden doesn’t harm anyone. It’s just a tad overgrown. I glance towards the back window, where the branches of an overhanging bush are scraping along the glass outside, clamouring to get in. All right, maybe more than atadovergrown.
