Monday morning brought a miserable deluge of rain. Emily watched with dismay as it battered the village square outside, turning the gravel parking area into a field of puddles. Hoping that it cleared by the afternoon, she decided instead on a trip back to the teahouse to check the post. The electric and gas bills had shown up, as well as another handful of Christmas cards. Not wanting to stay in the teahouse but not in the mood to return to Cottonwood just yet, she drove to a café a couple of miles away where she had sometimes met with friends on days when she needed a break from the teahouse’s endless hustle and bustle.
She took a corner seat, ordered a latte and began opening Christmas cards. She was barely halfway through, finding cards from a few distant relatives perhaps unaware of Elaine’s passing but mostly from customers, when she heard footsteps approaching her table.
‘Emily Wilson? Is that you? Is this where you’ve been hiding?’
Emily looked up into the face of an overdressed middle-aged woman so overburdened with mascara that she was only a couple of brush strokes short of a circus. Emily couldn’t recall her name but remembered seeing her in the teahouse from time to time, usually in the company of a group of similarly dressed older upper-class types.
‘Hello?’ she said.
‘I must say, how much longer are you going to keep us all waiting?’
‘Um, for what?’
‘For your grandmother’s cakes, that’s what. There are people out there practically dying of starvation while you sit in here opening Christmas cards.’
Emily couldn’t help but smile. She considered mentioning that there were enough to fill half of Birchtide sitting on the counter in her holiday let, but thought better of it.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said.
‘You’re letting people down, you know. Elaine’s passing was a terrible thing, but letting that place sit empty … you’re soiling her memory.’
At the woman’s abrupt change of tone, Emily wrinkled her nose, resisting the urge to say something harsh. No matter how loved her grandmother had been, no one had loved her more than Emily.
‘I’m just sorting through a few things. Please be patient.’
‘You’ll lose your regulars, you know,’ the woman said. Then, with a surreptitious glance around the inside of the café, she added in a quieter tone, ‘Well, you would if there was anywhere else worth going round here. Come on, dear, we’re waiting for you to save us from café purgatory.’
And with that, and a dramatic sweep of her coat, the woman was gone.
Emily stared after her, picking at the remains of her words, wondering which bits had been truth and which an embellished exaggeration.
When she next went to take a sip from her latte, she found it had gone cold. She packed away her things and went out to the car. It was still raining, but it had eased off to an extent that it just made you soggy instead of soaking you right through. She switched on the engine then sat staring through the rain blotting the windscreen, wondering what to do. Without doubt, the old woman wasn’t alone in wanting the teahouse open again. Emily just didn’t know if she had the heart.
She called Karen.
‘Hello, my lovely,’ Karen said. ‘We’re just in the middle of a game of Monopoly. David’s dad has everything except Mayfair and Oxford Street. You can see how he made his money. What are you up to?’
‘I’m sitting in the car in a rainy car park in the middle of nowhere, wondering what to do with the rest of my life.’
‘Well, have you had lunch yet?’
‘Not yet.’
‘There’s the next hour sorted. Get yourself filled up first. Then take it from there. No one thinks straight on an empty stomach. Shall I get David to ask the butler—I can’t believe he has a butler!—to make up a spare room for you?’
‘No, it’s fine. I’m just moping. If it would stop raining and start snowing I might feel better.’
‘David said some’s forecast for next week. Hang in there.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘And remember—’
‘I know, I know. I’ll be in touch when my life starts falling apart again.’
‘I’ll keep the phone nearby after lunch.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Hang in there. Things will work out. Just trust me.’
Emily smiled as she hung up. Talking to Karen always made her feel better, but as soon as the call was over she was thrust back into the reality of her own loneliness. Twenty-nine years old and alone in the world. Elaine had provided a buffer for far longer than she should have, and the teahouse had offered her a false shield of sociality. As much as the warmth and chatter of the teahouse had mattered to her, however, the inhabitants had been customers and acquaintances, not true friends, and Elaine had been the mastermind of it all.
With her grandmother gone, Emily felt like a chocolate egg lying in the middle of a motorway, minus its wrapper, waiting to be crushed.
She tilted her head, looking at herself in the rearview mirror. ‘Who am I?’ she whispered, wondering if she was really going through an existential crisis or whether it was just rainy day blues brought on by the onset of a lonely Christmas, all collected together in the fishing net of her overburdening grief.
She forced a smile then gave herself a little slap on the cheek.
‘Snap out of it,’ she said. ‘Those cakes won’t deliver themselves.’
She headed back to Cottonwood. By the time she had reached the village, the rain had passed over and ragged diamonds of blue had appeared between the clouds. It looked like being a nice afternoon.
Before going back to the holiday let, she went into the shop, where she found Kelly Chambers behind the counter. As Peter’s mum wished Emily a good afternoon, a bark came from a basket tucked in next to a rack of magazines. A dog climbed up and came ambling over to sniff at Emily’s feet. It looked up at her, barked once more, wagged its tail, and then returned to its bed.
‘Looks like Rudolph remembers you.’
‘Rudolph?’
Kelly smiled. ‘Peter chose it. We got him Rudolph for Christmas when he was twelve. Yeah, I know you’re not supposed to get children pets, but we were fully prepared to look after him if Peter was more interested in computer games. Luckily they got on okay, although I have to do most of the walking duties these days.’
‘It’s a nice name.’
‘Christmassy. I like it best at this time of year, although these days it’s a little bittersweet.’
‘I saw the pictures of the Christmas carnival. It looked lovely.’
‘It was. It was the village’s main event. It still would be if Trower wasn’t such a Scrooge.’
‘Can’t you hold it somewhere else?’
Kelly shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I mean, I suppose it’s possible. It’s just that no one wants to organise it, nor risk Trower’s wrath. He’s a powerful man in Cottonwood.’
‘So I keep hearing. I don’t think it’s fair that he gets to dictate whether or not the rest of you enjoy yourselves.’
‘Well, if you decide to take him on, let me know. I want a front row ticket.’
Emily picked up a couple of things for lunch before wishing Kelly a good afternoon and heading back across the road to the holiday let. As she let herself in the door, however, her nerves immediately pricked up. Something felt wrong. The house was colder than it should have been, the air fresher, the smell of cooked cakes and pies less pervading than it had been when she left. She took off her shoes and hurried down the hall to the kitchen.
As she opened the door, something black fluttered away from the kitchen counter. Emily let out a gasp of surprise, jumping back as the crow fled through the open back door. It wasn’t the only one, she found, as she stepped through the entrance, waving her hands to shoo off the others. Four, five, six, she counted, before she managed to get the back door shut.
She turned around, and let out another gasp, this one of horror. The birds had made a mess of her cakes, tucking into the ones she had left uncovered. While the mince pies, Eccles cakes, and one treacle tart were safe inside plastic containers she had found in a cupboard under the sink, a sponge cake she had left under a thin piece of gauze to “mature”, as Elaine would have called it, had been decimated. Similar destruction had been wreaked on a pecan pie, while a cheesecake had been cleared of the expensive out-of-season strawberries she had clustered on the top, the rest of it left clawed and mangled. One corner even dribbled with grey-brown crow poop.
Growling with frustration, she set about clearing up the mess and throwing away the ruined cakes. Elaine had sometimes left the back door open to let her fresh cakes get a little air, but Emily was certain she had closed it. Unless she was losing her mind.
The cleanup operation over, she retreated to the living room with a glass of wine. Too tired to start the fire, she glared into yesterday’s embers, trying to convince herself that it hadn’t been her fault the door was open and the crows had got in.
She was certain she had, if not locked it, then at least closed it. The door was old, a little loose-fitting, but it couldn’t have slipped open, surely?
Perhaps she ought to call the police. Someone might have broken in while she was out, sensing the rich pickings of someone on holiday. However, she had left her laptop on a kitchen surface, and it was still there, untouched. Nothing else appeared to have been disturbed.
Maybe someone else had come in. A cleaner perhaps?
She put her wine down and went upstairs. Her bed, hastily made this morning, looked the same. Her towel was hung over the landing stair rail where she had left it.
Not a cleaner then.
Perhaps the landlord had paid her a visit? After all, he would certainly have a spare key.
Nathan. Nathaniel Trower. The village Scrooge, hell-bent on ruining Christmas for everyone.
She started thinking about the drone from last night. What if Trower was spying on her, and leaving her back door open for the crows to get in was a deliberate sabotage attempt to get back at her for flaunting the village’s rules about Christmas decorations?
Emily went back downstairs. She had taken her boots off before coming in the door, leaving them in the small covered porch, but as she leaned down to touch the doormat just inside the main door, her fingers came away damp.
Someone had been inside, leaving their shoes here while they looked around.
She might not be able to prove it to the police, but there was no doubt in Emily’s mind what had happened.
Elaine had possessed the heart of a saint, but she had got to her status in life by possessing a steel core. When hard decisions had to be made, she made them. And she had never backed down from a challenge.
It was time for Emily to channel her grandmother’s spirit and confront the local Krampus over both his actions and his attitude. He might be able to push around a few poor locals, but Emily wasn’t standing for it.
What Nathaniel Trower had done could not be ignored.