‘Pyjamas?’ Margie asked, pointing at Cherry’s gold number.
‘Yup. I… er… never wear anything else,’ Cherry said.
‘You look lovely,’ Margie said kindly.
‘Why don’t you have a seat and then we can chat? I won’t be a moment.’ Cherry popped into the kitchen and cut Margie a slice of ‘Me, Myself and Everyone Else’ Marble Cake. It was the treatment she would have eaten herself were she able to reap the benefits of her own abilities. She added three Tranquillity-soaked cherries on top and dusted them with Hope-infused edible golden glitter. When Cherry returned with the cake, Margie was still standing in the same place, her coat tugged even tighter around her shoulders.
‘Would you… like to take it away?’ Cherry said, not able to keep the edge of disappointment out of her voice.
Maggie hesitated and then nodded. ‘Could I?’ She looked nervously at the busy tables and Cherry understood immediately.
‘Of course, Margie. Anything.’ Cherry boxed up the cake and its trimmings and Margie dropped three pound coins in the donations jar. With a timid smile, she quickly left but not before Anxiety gave Cherry the finger through the window. Cherry had only looked away for a moment when —
‘WHAT is your PROBLEM?!’
Cherry looked up and saw the same man she’d bumped into on the day she’d gone to The Barbican. Frustration, Cynicism and Mischief were right behind him. She ran to the doorway.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked Margie, who nodded, her eyes welling up. She quickly backed away and scuttled off down the street before Cherry could say anything else.
The man spun round to face Cherry. ‘What’s it got to do with you, Miss Full-Of-Hope-And-Wonder?’ he snapped. Cherry couldn’t hold back the shocked laugh that spluttered out of her mouth.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Yeah, you should be. I shouldn’t have bothered coming here in the first place. You and your bloody free cake.’ Cynicism leaned over and whispered something in his ear. ‘Bet it’s not even free. Bet you’ve got a tip jar that I’ll be guilt-tripped into filling.’
Cherry took a quiet, deep breath before speaking. ‘Come inside. Please. I think I’ve got exactly what you need and I promise,’ she crossed her heart, ‘that you won’t have to pay a penny.’
The man eyed her through his badly repaired glasses that now sat slightly skewed on his face. He gave a slight nod that was so quick Cherry almost missed it.
‘Wonderful! In you come!’ Cherry bounded into the bakery once more and saw him notice that she was wearing pyjamas. The smallest of smiles flickered across his full lips. ‘Were you on your way here when you bumped into Margie?’ she asked.
When he didn’t reply, Cherry looked over her shoulder. He was still standing in the doorway and all of Cherry’s customers were staring openly at him, their conversations stalling mid-sentence. Without looking at any of the people watching him, he walked purposefully towards Cherry. Every pair of eyes was watching him intently.
‘I’m Cherry.’ She held out her hand.
‘I’m Chase.’ Chase looked at her hand but didn’t shake it. Cherry shrugged and put it back in her apron pocket.
‘You’re not allergic to nuts, are you?’ Cherry asked, watching Frustration, Mischief and Cynicism waddling around in wide circles outside, knitted more closely together than they’d been the other day.
‘No. Why?’ he replied.
‘Just checking. I’ll be back in a bit. Wait there.’
‘You haven’t taken my order!’ he called out as she walked into the kitchen.
‘I already know what you need!’ she called back. She quickly found what she was looking for: a rather large Optimism oatmeal cookie, drizzled in milk chocolate with Acceptance almonds scattered haphazardly on top.
‘This is guaranteed to make you smile before you leave here, I promise. Will you try it?’
Chase looked at the plate, his nose upturned, but Cherry gently nudged it towards him and hesitantly, he picked the cookie up and nibbled the edge. Instantly, his face changed, but it wasn’t a smile on his face. It was a grimace.
‘What have you put in this?’ he demanded.
‘What… what do you mean?’ Cherry’s stomach flipped. ‘It’s just an oatmeal and almond cookie.’ She let out a high-pitched laugh that sounded fake, even to her ears. It certainly wasn’t the nonchalant tone she was aiming for.
‘No it’s not. I know it’s not.’ Chase shoved the plate back towards her. ‘You’re tampering with the food,’ he said, raising his voice so everyone could hear him.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Cherry insisted. ‘But talk like that can ruin a business.’
Chase stood up and leaned across the counter, threateningly close to her face, and hissed his next words. ‘Then you need to stop what you’re doing.’
‘I don’t know what you think I’m doing but I can assure you that —’
‘Look, you can try to fix this town’s problems and make everyone here feel better with your spiked cookies but if there’s one person you’re not going to get to, it’s me. What was that, anyway?’ He picked up the cookie and took a bigger bite, swirling it around his mouth with this tongue, chewing loudly. ‘Optimism?’ He swiped his finger across the plate scooping up the melted chocolate and almonds. ‘And… Obedience?’
Cherry was stunned. ‘… Acceptance, actually. But how… how do you…?’
‘Oh, did little Mary Berry think she was special? Well, you’re not, so listen to me and listen well.’ Chase walked behind the counter spitting out each syllable. ‘You can’t change people. No matter how much you try to make them feel better or worse —’
‘Worse?’ Cherry shook her head. ‘I’d never —’
‘People don’t change.’
Everyone was watching the exchange in silence. No one moved, apart from Sally who was shuffling her Tarot cards furiously.
‘That’s not true,’ Cherry said, holding her ground and his gaze. ‘I choose to see the good in people,’ she hissed.
Chase smiled tightly and laughed a laugh so full of malice that Cherry wished she’d never invited him into her safe haven.
‘You think I don’t see the good? That’s all I see,’ he said.
A tear rolled down Cherry’s cheek as she realised what he meant. ‘You’re like me,’ she whispered and her Loneliness halved in height immediately.
Chase stared at her. Then, without another word, he pushed the plate off the counter so it crashed to the floor with a clatter and left. Frustration was standing a little taller than before as it followed Chase down the road and away.
‘Are you all right, Miss?’ a kind voice asked.
Cherry looked around but couldn’t see who had spoken until she caught Sally’s eye. Cherry moved her gaze downwards and saw a very short man standing at the counter. He had a round face with kind blue eyes and a faded pink beanie hat that Cherry liked very much.
‘Yes,’ Cherry said, walking out from behind the counter, pulling out a stool with a shaky hand and sitting down. ‘Yes, I am thank you, sir.’
‘Bruce,’ he said holding out his hand. ‘Don’t mind Chase. Lived here all his life and he’s never been any different. Always bitter and feeling like the world owes him something.’ Bruce pulled himself onto the stool beside her and leaned across to take her hand once more. ‘I wouldn’t give him a second thought.’
‘No, you’re right. I won’t,’ Cherry lied as another tear escaped.
‘And don’t you shed another tear because of him,’ Bruce said squeezing her fingers, mistaking her tears for sad ones. How could she explain that the tears she was crying were happy ones?
As everyone returned to their conversations and she saw that Bruce was looking after Cherry, Sally calmly turned over the top card of the deck, from left to right.
8
The Magician Reversed
Chase Masters was the son of Madame Velina, a local palm reader, and had lived in Plymouth all his life. His mot
her was a charlatan who had come from a long line of charlatans. Not that they’d ever admit that, of course. Nor did they really believe that’s what they were. They believed they had a connection to worlds beyond ours so if they needed a bit of help here and there (steaming open mail, hacking into email inboxes, the odd bit of eavesdropping), and it was in the name of helping people, where was the harm? Velina and his aunt, Danior, thought they were doing good by charging punters twenty pounds a pop for their guesswork and gut feelings but Chase knew better because he really was as different as his family claimed to be.
Chase could see the good in people. Well, the good they felt. Everyone is taught to see the good in people, metaphorically, but Chase had the ability from birth and to him these good feelings were physical beings. He was always able to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, to forgive them and give them a chance at redemption and as a child who knew no better, Chase found this easy. It was short-lived, however, because children can be cruel and can find happiness in the most dubious of places. Watching Joy float around the heads of the school kids as they laughed at him lying bloodied and aching on the ground was a tough lesson for Chase to learn. As he caught sight of Awe applauding just before he passed out, he realised that those who felt good things weren’t always good people. He could see whatever glorious things the other children felt, skipping about like anti-angels watching over the monstrous habits their owners enjoyed. Very few lessons are so hard learnt and can make a child so untrusting but from those fateful school days Chase began to mistrust his own sight and steered clear of overly happy people.
Chase decided early on not to tell his family what he could see. As soon as he realised his abilities were real and unlike anything his mother claimed to be able to do, he knew that telling them the truth would be a mistake. He saw two possible outcomes:
1. They would be overjoyed, ecstatic and annoyingly elated. They’d ask hundreds of questions to make him prove it was true. They would constantly ask him what they were feeling and they would make him work in the shop.
2. They’d ask, ‘what took you so long?’ They’d think he was finally accepting his place in their family of fraudsters, who all believed they had this connection to the beyond, and he was no different… and they would make him work in the shop.
Working in the shop would be his worst nightmare realised. He couldn’t bring himself to endorse the family business by helping them run it. That would be too hypocritical. He may have hated the world and its inhabitants but he hated it because of people like this mother and aunt – he didn’t want to take advantage of anyone and that’s what would happen if he confessed what he could see. Telling them simply wasn’t an option. He was happier being the black sheep who thought it was all a bunch of hocus pocus. Life was hard enough for him as it was.
Seeing the best in people was exhausting. What use was it when some people weren’t necessarily good, just feeling positive things? For the most part, those who felt good things deserved to feel them – but Chase began to hate this even more. Over the years, his gift turned into a curse and he became bitter. He could see that the world was a wonderful place, so why wasn’t he happier? He could see couples in Love saunter past in a lovesick daze but he was all alone. He saw people with Ambition and Motivation strive towards success from sunrise to sunset and yet he still hadn’t found his purpose in life. He met people who had nothing but who still had Hope for their future and yet he could barely get himself out of bed every morning. Chase wasn’t a bad person but sometimes he couldn’t help winding people up just to see their Joy shrink. He’d push their buttons and touch their nerves, just a little, and it made him feel better for a few seconds before he felt sour again. The world was a beautiful and wondrous thing and it frustrated Chase no end. Many people long to travel the world but not Chase. He didn’t need to see Joy and Happiness on the other side of the world. His hometown was more than enough for him and so he’d never left. Instead he’d spent his years trying to get countless businesses off the ground, each one failing harder than the last because he insisted on doing everything alone. He refused to work with other people. Each time everything came crashing down, he’d sink into an alcohol-induced stupor until the next crazy idea came along.
Despite all his Cynicism, Frustration and occasional Mischief, Patience and Resilience had quietly stayed beside him since he was sixteen. They had interlinked their fingers with his and rarely let go. They were the only things in the world he cherished. Patience made him breathe when Frustration poked at his back, and Resilience pushed him onwards when Cynicism tripped him up. It was the pair of them working together, gently pressing their warm hands against his shoulders, who took him back to Cherry’s bakery the day after he’d behaved so badly at her opening. As soon as he’d laid eyes on her, he knew she wasn’t normal. Not like everyone else in the town, who grated on his nerves each and every day. From the way she glared over his shoulder, as he so often did himself to passers-by, he knew she had a secret that closely resembled his own. He knew others like him existed in the world. Research on the deep internet had led him to cryptic forums filled with people claiming they could do what he could do, but it was hard to weed out those who were genuine and those who were trying so hard to make their lives more exciting than they were.
It was 5 p.m. and Chase had hoped the bakery would be emptier than it was. Sally Lightbody, whom he thought was the biggest crackpot he’d ever met, was sat in the corner deftly shuffling her black deck of cards from palm to palm. A couple were canoodling at the table round the corner, presumably thinking that no one could see them, and Bruce Bunting was perched on a stool at the counter. He was nattering away to seemingly no one until Cherry came out from the kitchen in a pair of duck-egg-blue linen pyjamas and a matching dressing gown trimmed with fur. Her gaze flickered to the door and their eyes met. To his surprise, she smiled and beckoned him inside. She’s nuts, he thought. I wouldn’t invite me inside.
‘How lovely to see you again, Chase.’ Cherry smiled, draping a pink tea towel over her shoulder.
Sally quickly directed her cards at Chase and shuffled them once again, unnoticed by the others.
‘Lovely? Are you mad?’ Bruce said incredulously, refusing to look at Chase.
‘Oh, Bruce.’ Cherry swatted his arm playfully. ‘I doubt anyone would return after a scene like yesterday’s if they hadn’t come to apologise, now would they, Mr… ?’
‘Masters. Chase is fine, though,’ he said, looking at the floor. ‘And no. They wouldn’t.’
‘See, Bruce? Now what can I get you, Mr Masters? Plain, of course,’ she added quietly, giving Chase a knowing look.
‘Don’t sell yourself short! Nothing you bake is plain! I’ve tried nearly everything you’ve got back there and it’s all bursting with flavour.’ Bruce swivelled his stool so that he was effectively blocking Chase from the conversation.
‘I bet it is,’ Chase sneered.
‘That Cynicism has you under its thumb, doesn’t it?’ Cherry gestured towards the Meddlum, waiting outside. It was shooting her such a foul look that she looked away quickly, with a shudder.
Chase frowned. ‘Eh? Cynicism? What are you talking about?’ He turned to the window, but could only see the subtle yellow light emitting from Patience and Resilience, who were stood in the doorway. Their feet had stuck firmly to the pavement when they’d tried to follow Chase inside. Bruce looked from Cherry to Chase, from Chase to Cherry and then to the window, where he saw absolutely nothing.
‘Maybe you have been putting something funny in those cakes,’ Bruce joked. ‘You’re both behaving strangely!’ He laughed as he hopped off his stool. He was about to leave when Sally beckoned him over and made him join her, mischief etched into the wrinkles of her eyes.
Chase took Bruce’s place at the counter as Cherry fetched him a plain slice of Victoria Sponge.
‘What do you see when you look out the window?’ Cherry asked, curious that he didn’t seem to know Cynicism was attached to him.
>
‘What do you see?’ he countered.
‘I asked first!’ she insisted.
‘Fine.’ Chase turned back to the window and pointed. ‘Patience and Resilience. They belong to me.’
‘Really?’ she said, remembering the way he’d yelled at her in the middle of the street after a rather small collision.
‘You can’t see them?’
‘Nope.’ Cherry looked away from the window and directly into Chase’s eyes. ‘Nothing good out there for me to see.’
‘So you only see the bad in people.’
‘And you only ever see the good. Lucky you,’ Cherry said, watching Loneliness panting at the window.
‘Gratitude has just arrived. Belongs to Bruce although looks to me like it’s aimed at Sally.’
Cherry looked over at where Bruce and Sally were sitting and sure enough, Bruce was beaming at his dreadlocked companion as she pointed to each of the Tarot cards she’d drawn for him and explained what they meant.
‘He’s also got Understanding,’ Chase continued, rolling his eyes. ‘Contentment is Sally’s. That’s what you get when you retire, I suppose. I see a lot of elderly people with Contentment. She also has Acceptance and Nostalgia on her side. Apparently, she and her husband were madly in love, the whole town could see it. They were the human embodiment of true love. Sweet if you like that sort of thing.’ He shrugged.
‘Apparently?’
‘He died long before I was born. Mum says a part of Sally died then too.’
Cherry looked over at Sally and she noticed something she’d never seen before. At the start of each of Sally’s smiles there was a slight hesitation, a moment of questioning. Each time she felt the smallest flicker of happiness, she also felt like she shouldn’t be smiling at all.
‘I had no idea…’ Cherry said, looking away as Sally’s gaze fell on them both.
‘There are two belonging to you out there as well but that would be telling.’ Chase smirked and took another bite of his cake.