She hadn’t planned to use the holiday let as a cooking factory, so she went over to Peter’s shop and stocked up on what she could, before jumping in the car and heading to the nearest supermarket to pick up what she couldn’t. When she returned in late afternoon, her car was laden with baking trays, bags of flour and sugar, butter, spices, and tins of dried fruit and nuts.
With only a pause to find a station playing Christmas songs on the old radio, she got straight to work, turning the kitchen into a production line of cakes, tarts, and biscuits. By the time she looked up to find that the sun had set and night had fallen, several airing trays were piled high with mince pies, Eccles cakes, treacle tarts, sponge cakes, and caramel shortcakes. Elaine, as her strength and energy had begun to fail her, had passed off all her recipes and cooking methods to Emily, eventually passing on the majority of the cooking duty to her granddaughter while she manned the shop front. However, by insisting on tasting everything, Elaine ensured Emily had baked to a high standard. Now, as she surveyed her handiwork, she found herself grinning at the memory of her grandmother standing over her, holding a piece of caramel shortcake in her hands and frowning, before saying, ‘Hmm, let me try a little bit more. It needs to make me feel just shy of a heart attack before it’s perfect.’
‘Miss you,’ Emily said, as she had so often, washing her hands before going to the fridge and pulling out her unfinished bottle of wine. It was time for a celebratory drink.
She put on her jacket and went out to the back patio. The air was still but the temperature had dropped with the departing sun, so Emily found herself shivering as she watched her Christmas illumination blinking on.
Within a few minutes, all of the lights had illuminated, brightening the garden right down to the bottom fence. She wondered how easily she could shift the picnic table down onto the lawn in order to accommodate a Christmas party. Elaine had loved Christmas parties on the back terrace, some of them private invite only for her favourite customers and a few friends, where they were treated like guinea pigs for her new creations. Emily wondered if she could cobble together enough locals for a decent party, then remembered the pictures of the Christmas carnival she had seen.
They were out there somewhere. Like fossils, they were lying dormant, waiting to be rediscovered.
The night was almost quiet, only the occasional hoot of an owl echoing across the valley or the distant rumble of a car. Emily finished her wine and was about to head inside when a strange buzzing sound came from somewhere overhead, beyond the gardens to her left. The noise grew as something came closer, a high-speed whirring which sounded strangely familiar. She frowned, trying to recall where she had heard such a sound before.
The sound intensified before fading again, as if whatever was making it was moving quickly, but not following any regular route, rather shooting back and forth as though it couldn’t decide where to go.
Birchtide Public Park, that was it. A man helping a young boy test out his birthday present.
A drone.
She stood up, peering up into the sky, wondering if it was right above her. Who on earth would be flying one at this time of night, and what on earth would they be hoping to see?
She had no experience of them other than seeing a couple buzzing around in the sky, but weren’t they mostly used for taking videos and photographs of scenery? That, or….
She shook her head. No. It had to be someone taking pictures of the stars or something. They couldn’t possibly be spying.
It sounded right overhead. If they were watching the stars, it wouldn’t matter, because the camera would be facing a different direction, but just in case it was someone spying on her, she waved her hands at it, then crossed them over each other, mouthing at the same time—just in case its camera was good enough to make it out—‘Go away.’
For a few seconds the sound hung there above her before slowly fading as the machine retreated. Emily tried to figure out where it had gone, but her ears weren’t the best and the wind chose exactly the wrong time to offer a solid gust, as though to remind her that winter was here. By the time it had died away, so had the whir of the drone’s propellers.
Emily took her wine glass and went back inside, washing it in the sink. Despite the gorgeous aroma of freshly cooked cakes, the drone’s appearance had soured her mood somewhat. Perhaps it had been some local kid playing around with a toy while his parents were watching TV unawares.
Or perhaps not.