Page 3 of An Enchanted Moment on Ever After Street
And okay, trade has been quiet lately but since Mum died, so has my enthusiasm for doing anything other than losing myself in books. I read so I don’t have to think about real life. The bookshopisn’tpulling its weight with reaching new people. Earlier this year, The Cinderella Shop staged their own real-life Cinderella story that went viral and pulled in tonnes of visitors for all the shops on Ever After Street, but now a few months have passed and things are quiet again. Schools have gone back after the summer holidays, parents are spent-out on uniform and every other expense that comes with a new school year, butthings always pick up as we move towards Christmas. Theyhaveto. Because I can’t lose this place.
The thought makes my nose burn and a lump forms in my throat. I glance up at the clock: 3.30p.m. The after-school club will arrive in half an hour – I can’t let myself cry. Children notice and are quick to point out things like red blotchy faces. I’m reading Beatrix Potter tonight; I can’t be a sniffling mess when they come in.
I won’t think about it, not now, not in the middle of a working day. Professionalism and all that. I distract myself by scrubbing the crayon off the table and tidying up again. I talk a constant litany of nonsense to Mrs Potts because if I stop for even a second, my mind goes to the letter under the counter. It feels like it’s watching me as I work, biding its time until it can leap out and clamp my leg between its metaphorical teeth.
The after-school club was inspired by Meg Ryan reading to children in her bookshop inYou’ve Got Mail, but tonight’s session is like torture, not because of the kids orThe Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, but because of me. I mess up words and I can’t hide the distress in my voice, even on the cheeriest parts, where I overcompensate and become high-pitched and squeaky. A small child bursts into tears. An accompanying grandma takes her hearing aid out and replaces the battery in case it’s on the blink.
I’m a wreck by the time they leave, not a sale between them, and even though it’s only half past four, I shut the door and flip the sign over to ‘closed’. Being open for another half an hour is not the magic wand I need to save this shop. Unless it’s the difference between a billionaire stopping by and buying 13,692 books, anyway.
Mrs Potts has had some cat biscuits and is sleeping on a chair upstairs now, where she swiftly takes herself at the appearance of any significant number of small children who tend to scream‘kitty!’ and usually want to do one of two things – smoosh her to their little chests or pull her tail, and in her grouchy old age, Mrs Potts no longer has the patience for smooshing or tail pulling.
I get the letter out again with shaking hands. Maybe it will make more sense with a re-read, like really clever paragraphs of really clever books, except clever paragraphs excite me, there’s a joy in learning new words or seeing what someone has done with text, but there is nothing good about this letter.
This letter is the end of the only good thing in my life.
2
I don’t know what to do. I read the letter over and over again, but no magical solution springs out at me. No fairy godmother appears to wave a magic wand and make it all go away. I’m just… alone. There’s no one I can turn to. No one I can ask for advice. Mum would’ve known what to do. But if she was still here, the garden wouldn’t be in the state it’s in, and the shop probably wouldn’t be either.
It’s at moments like this when you realise how few friends youreallyhave. I want life to be like a made-for-TV movie where the heroine would lose a big job promotion and immediately be surrounded by friends to commiserate and pour wine and give a much-needed hug. I have never needed a hug more than I need one right now. But there’s no one to hug. It never feels like I’m friendless, but characters in books can’t give you hugs when you need one, even if they feel like friends while you’re reading. But in real life… I really am friendless.
My mum was my best friend, but now she’s gone, and the hole she’s left in my life seems to get bigger every day. I’m friends with a lovely group of readers on a few Facebook booklover groups, but I couldn’t share something like this withpeople I only know online. I’ve lost touch with everyone I was friends with in school or in previous jobs. And now I’m alone, apart from Mrs Potts, who, although lovely, is not really very good at giving legal advice. Or pouring wine, for that matter. And the tendency to claw my arms to shreds if the mood catches her doesn’t make her thebestchoice for a cuddle buddy. The other girls who work on Ever After Street are friendly, they offer help all the time, but I wouldn’t know how to turn to them with this. What would I say? I’ve let my garden slip into disrepair because all I can think about when I go out there is how much Mum loved it and I’ve lost all my customers because some mornings it’s been too hard to get out of bed, let alone follow through on promotions and other things we had planned now I’m by myself?
Even if it was just one thing, like needing to sort out the gardenorget more customers then maybe it would be manageable, but both together seems insurmountable. I keep the letter in my hands as I open the back door and peek out, and immediately wish I could go back inside and block it out like I have for the past few months, but I force myself to step out and shut the door behind me.
The evening breeze is fresh and cool and there’s an autumnal smell in the air. The nearest tree on the opposite side of the path is a tall sycamore, and its leaves are a blaze of yellow while its brown helicopter seeds already litter the ground.
The garden is overwhelming. There’s green plant life everywhere, and I don’t know what any of it is. Brambles are just about the only thing I can identify. And stinging nettles. And tonnes of other weeds and nasty-looking things. Even though I walk through this garden every day, I keep my head down and hurry Mrs Potts along the path from the gate to the door. I imagine the garden is still as it used to be – wonky paving slabs, borders filled with flowers, and somewhere in the midst of it,there was a rusting metalwork table and two chairs once, but it’s been swallowed completely by nature. I force myself to look at the wooden bench where Mum used to sit, over by the far wall. I haven’t looked over there in months because it hurts that sheisn’tstill sitting there. I can only see one end of it through the greenery now, and that’s on an angle where at least one leg has rotted away. Mum would be devastated to see the garden like this. How have I let things get this bad?
No wonder someone’s complained. It’s a jungle. Most of the weeds are taller than I am, and the stinging nettles are so beefed-up that they look like they’ve been eating spinach on a daily basis. Even with one step, weeds have reached out and clung onto my jeans and a bramble has snagged a thread from the sleeve of my knitted jumper. I try to tread down the brambles. Maybe if I can make a bit of a path to the other side of the garden and at leastgetover there, could I think about… weedkiller, maybe? I could buy a bottle of weedkiller and spray it, couldn’t I? And if it all died, then I could clear it away…
‘People kill weeds all the time,’ I say to myself. ‘Shops have shelves full of products for this exact purpose. It can’t be that hard, can it?’
It’s the first time I’ve felt the slightest spark of hope since that letter arrived.
I have to do something about this. I’ve let things slide, buried my head in the proverbial sand, but this shop is the only thing left in my life that I love. I can’t let it slip away because I’m not brave enough to face my grief. This letter is a wake-up call, giving me a chance to turn things around before it’s too late.
I take another step through the undergrowth, but I’ve trodden on a bramble and pulled it taut, and my other foot catches in it, and I flail around to keep my balance, but it’s no good.
I shriek as I go flying face-first into the weeds, throwing my arms out to catch myself as I crash down, my fall cushioned by the thicket covering the hard ground underneath.
I lie there for a moment, adrenaline coursing through me as I assess myself for injuries. I’m scratched from the brambles, but my jumper is thick enough to have protected me from the worst of the damage. My face is scratched and a stinging sensation has started to burn through my left hand. I landed in a patch of nettles. Of course I did. I push myself back up onto my knees and there are bramble thorns embedded in both my palms, and my limbs are shaking from the shock of the fall. I feel too unsteady to get up, so I turn myself over into a sitting position, and I sit there in a bramble bush, feeling small and stupid for not being more careful, for getting ahead of myself and thinking a bit of weedkiller could win against this jungle, and the patheticness overwhelms me.
The emotions I’ve been fighting all day finally build up until they explode in a noise of anguish and a flood of tears.
It’s all so much. Too much. I can’t even take two steps into the garden without falling over and then crying like a child who’s grazed their knee in primary school and needs a parent to kiss it better.
Heaving, shuddering sobs wrack my body. Everything feels jarred from how hard I hit the ground. Each thorn in my hand is throbbing, the scratches on my face are stinging as salty tears drip over them, and my hand is burning and tingling as though pins are being pushed in and out of it and the sensation is spreading up my arm too, and I sit there and let all the feelings come bursting out. I swipe blood from a scratch on my nose, feeling so stupid. How the heck am I supposed to do something about this when I can’t even take a step without making a mess of myself?
‘Bloody hell, will you stop making that godawful noise?’
I freeze in shock. A voice. A voice from the other side of the hedge.
Scary Neighbour. Itmustbe my Scary Neighbour. He’sthere? He must be out in his garden too, and I had no idea. How long has he been there? I’ve been talking to myself, has he heard all that?
Usually I’d be quite excited at the prospect of contact with this unknown entity of a person, but tonight… tonight, I’ve absolutelyhadit. I cannot take another thing today, and now I can’t even cry in my own garden in peace? Not today, Scary Neighbour,nottoday.
‘I’m sorry if my misery impinges on your day!’ I shout back.
