The Shop at the End of the Road, Part 2

[Part 1]

A frigid silence chilled the air between them. Felicity transfixed the boy with an ebony stare. Robbie withered in that arctic gaze, a deep carmine flush invaded his features. Nothing was said for several moments, then Felicity began gathering up the cards with an air of weary dismissal, her expression one of vague distaste.

“We have nothing further to discuss.”

Robbie felt a surge of panic. What had he done? She’d been trying to help him, to offer him a solution, and he’d missed his chance. His window of opportunity had closed – probably forever. Worse than that, he’d insulted her in some obscure way he didn’t quite understand. He could see that now, see it in the sharp angle of her spine, the harsh set of her features. She was the one person who might comprehend the doubt and confusion he’d been feeling – and he’d pushed her away with a few careless words.

“No, wait,” he cried (a little more desperately than he’d intended), leaning half-way over the counter, “you don’t understand, Felicity. I … I can’t talk about this, really I can’t! It’s too embarrassing, too – ” he groped for the word – “humiliating. Whenever I think about it, I feel. . .”

Unable to continue, Robin looked down at his hands, allowing the sentence trail off into oblivion. He tried to start over: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to – ”

“Do you trust me Robbie?” Felicity asked, cutting him off.

“Yes,” the boy nodded, hesitantly.

“Then listen carefully. As I said before, the answers are never where you first look for them. Sometimes you have to take risks, venture into places you’d rather not go. Places that frighten you, the way a child fears a darkened room. The problem is; you’re no longer a child, Robbie. No one is going to hold your hand now. If you want to explore that darkened room, you have to enter alone … and face whatever waits within.”

Robin nodded, saying nothing.

“You came here today because you wanted something,” the woman continued, “something so magical and terrifying that you can’t bring yourself to ask for it by name. And here you face a paradox, Robbie. Because what you want – what you need so desperately –  has no real name.”

And she was right. There were words – alien, clinical words he’d read in textbooks and heard on documentaries – but they couldn’t begin to describe the complicated emotions he’d experienced in the preceding weeks. Transvestite. Transgendered. Transsexual. Sterile, technical, lacklustre terms. Robbie knew precisely what they meant, but the meanings themselves were irrelevant. As she’d said, what he wanted had no real name.

“What can I do?” He asked, teetering on despair.

“Give it a name.”

“I can’t. I . . . I don’t know how to put it into words.”

“You don’t want to put it into words Robbie. You want the answer, but you don’t want to ask the question. You want the cake but you don’t want to cook. You want the gain, but not the pain. Like all men, you want The Easy Solution.” She measured him with a dry, leveling glance. “I thought you were different.”

“I am!” he almost wailed. This wasn’t right, she wasn’t being fair. He was different, he’d been made to feel different from the moment he started school. Rejected and ostracized from day one, he’d endured the contempt and loathing of virtually everybody he knew. The big kids in the playground. Mr Grady, his gym coach. Mrs Lorris, his homeroom teacher. The old geezer who mopped out the hallway back in grade school, the one who used to call him ‘Rosebud’ under his breath. Jesus, his own parents on occasion, when his effeminate ways embarrassed them in public. How could he explain that to her, make her see what an ugly, pointless waste his existence had become?

She already knows.

The thought flashed across his mind like summer lightning: she knew. She’d always known. She’d known from the morning he’d stepped across The Shop’s tiled threshold five years ago. Even then, she’d known everything about him, known him better than his own Mother. Every hair, every pore, every flickering eyelash. The Tarot had told her, whispered his story through her gliding fingertips, slowly disrobing his fragile soul until he was left naked and shivering in the night.

“You already know what I want,” he said, his voice wavering on the verge of tears.

“Yes.” Her tone was calm, unperturbed, almost serene. Robbie gaped in surprise. He’d expected a laugh, a denial, a knowing smirk; anything but indifferent confirmation.

“Then why won’t you give it to me?”

“Because you’re not a child, Robbie. As I told you before: if you really want this, you have to ask for it. By name.” She started rearranging the cards once more, laying them out in a rough semi-circle. “There’s an old saying, no doubt you’ve heard it: Money can’t buy happiness. It’s true. Money can buy anything except happiness.” The cards now formed a tight, gold-rimmed crescent moon, the horns pointing in Robbie’s direction. “But that doesn’t mean happiness comes free.”

“I only have five dollars,” he said automatically, not really understanding what she’d meant.

“Four ninety-eight,” she corrected with a throw-away gesture, “but that doesn’t matter: your money’s no good here, as they used to say back in Vegas.” A fond, nostalgic look passed over her face, as if she were recalling a dear, years-lost friend. She went on: “You can’t buy what you want, Robbie, not anymore. The price is more than you could possibly afford. Bill Gates couldn’t afford what you want, trust me.”

“Then how – ?” Robin began, his voice quailing with anguish. Why was she doing this, why was she torturing him with these lying riddles? She was playing with him, a cruel, teasing game he felt compelled to play against his will. His head was reeling with the contradictions: yes, I have what you want, but no, you can’t have it. Yes, you can buy it, but no, you can’t. Yes, I’m going to help you: no, I won’t. What was going on? Felicity had never treated him this way before. She was offering him false hope in one hand and an empty promise in the other. He felt cheated, tricked, betrayed.

I thought you liked me, he thought, feeling his heart sink with lonely, child-like hurt.

“I do,” Felicity told him, as if he’d spoken the words aloud (which he had, without realizing it), “that’s why we’re having this conversation. I like you quite a lot, Robbie. Very few of my customers have shown such dedication over the years. Unfortunately, I can’t simply give you the answer to all your prayers. There are rules about these things. I’m not a genie, I don’t grant wishes. Get that part absolutely clear in your mind. This is a place of business, Robbie, which means we have to strike a bargain.”

“A . . . bargain?” The boy replied uneasily. The conversation was taking on rather a macabre tone, as if he was bartering for his soul. Reading his expression (or maybe his mind, let’s get it out in the open), Felicity flashed him another wolfish, predatory smile, freezing the blood in his veins.

“A deal, anyway. Reach an agreement, negotiate a contract. Make an exchange. The way things were done back in the olden days, before there were books or banks or money.”

“What else can I give you?” Robbie asked in the tiny, strangled voice he’d used earlier. Knowledge crept over him in a slow revelation. She had trapped him, backed him into a corner with her willful deceits and manipulations. Why in God’s name was she doing this? What could she possibly gain?

Felicity’s hand drifted over the cards.

“Tell me what you were looking for, Robbie.”

The boy opened his mouth, attempting to reply, but the words refused to budge. They caught in his throat like fish in a net, struggling to escape back to the depths. He didn’t want to tell her, didn’t want to abase himself before this strange, fathomless woman. It would be a humiliation beyond endurance. But what choice did he have? She had deprived him of all options, all alternatives. Inhaling a deep, calming breath, Robbie forced out his answer:

“I was looking for a dress.”

6.

“No.” Felicity shook her head, not unkindly. “You weren’t looking for a dress. You were looking for something else. That’s why you couldn’t find it.”

Robbie considered this for a few moments, peering into the cloistered depths of the Lady Chapel. What he sought should have been in there, hidden amongst the racks and stacks and camphor chests. Several times, he’d reached into the cluttered rows, only to grasp a fading mirage. It was always on the edge of his vision, hanging just beyond the point of recognition.

Yet suddenly, there it was, as plain as the frost on an autumn lawn. He looked back at Felicity, blinking the doubt from his eyes.

“You’re right,” he said in a surprisingly steady voice, “it’s not just the dress I want. It’s. . . everything that goes with it.”

Felicity smiled indulgently, as if dealing with a slow and rather ungrateful student.

“I doubt that very much,” she replied, turning three cards over in quick succession, “but we seem to have made some progress.” A vague shadow passed over her features while she studied the final hand. Close though he was, Robbie couldn’t quite make out the configuration. All of the sigils seemed to blend into a meaningless jumble, perhaps because he didn’t want to know what the future held for him.

Felicity flipped the cards face down once more, seeming to reach a decision.

“You want to be a girl.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what you’re asking?”

“Yes,” he nodded without hesitation, though he actually had no idea whatsoever. Nor did he honestly care at this point: Robbie knew what he wanted, and that was enough. More than enough, in fact.

“And you ask this of your own free will?”

Far away in the back of the shop, an ancient chrome pendulum ticked away the distant seconds. Robbie studied the dark woman’s face, aware that this was his last chance to back out, to leave by the front door and simply accept whatever the world had to offer a boy of thirteen.

“Yes.”

“All right, then. Come with me.”

Felicity rose from her chair, leaving the Tarot behind on the counter, and walked quietly though the archway of the Lady Chapel. Robbie followed in a kind of plodding fugue, chill fingers teasing up and down his spine. The enormity of his decision struck him with appalling force: there would be no turning back now, no compromises or negotiations. The bargain had been struck, the contract sealed, and the conditions were binding. In perpetuity.

What had he done?

What had he done?

Before he could pursue this line of thought any further, Felicity halted before a changing booth at the very back of the Chapel. Robbie stared at it in dull wonder – he must have walked past it at least a thousand times over the last five years. How could he have never noticed it before?

“You weren’t looking for it until today,” Felicity answered his unspoken question.

A sleek, iridescent curtain was drawn across the booth’s opening, the glossy fabric framed by a pallid, moonlight glow from within. Robbie stepped carefully forward, mesmerized by the pulsing radiance surrounding the doorway. He waved his right hand slowly through the air and was startled to see an after-image trailing in its wake. 

“You’ll find what you seek in there,” Felicity told him, pointing a jeweled finger towards the cubicle. Her words were flat and hollow, like the ritual chant of a litany. There was none of the cheerful malice he’d heard in their earlier conversations. All pretense had been dropped. As far as she was concerned, this was a business transaction, nothing more.

And it was time to pay the piper.

Eyes locked on the curtain, Robbie started fishing about in his hip pocket, withdrawing a handful of loose change. Four ninety-eight, exactly as she’d predicted. He deposited two crumpled bills and a scattering of coins in her upraised palm, barely aware of what he was doing. Felicity stepped discreetly to one side in a sweep of gypsy silks, her role in the drama fulfilled.

Robbie edged closer to the shimmering veil, fingers extended like a sleepwalker. His pupils were dilated, his lips slightly parted. He should have been frightened – terrified, in fact – but the thought of running never occurred to him. The light was seductive, entrancing. He had to know what was hidden behind the veil.

“Felicity?” he asked in a daze.

“Yes?”

“What’s in there?”

“Everything you’ve ever wanted.”

He drew in a long breath, catching an unusual scent in the air. Something wistful, delicate, almost imperceptible. It wasn’t the incense that normally permeated the atmosphere of the store. No, it was much finer than that; a sweet, subtle aroma that flowed like a breeze across an open wheat field.

“What’s in there?” he repeated in a hushed, awed whisper. His gaze never left the curtain; serpents and firebirds swirled hypnotically across his field of vision. The light appeared to be bleeding out from behind the draperies, enveloping him in fluid, opalescent waves.

He surrendered himself without conscious thought, feeling his body shift and melt away into nothingness.

Felicity watched dispassionately as Robin Lindale vanished from the world, dwindling away like a dream forgotten in the morning hours. He expired into non-existence with little more than a sigh, leaving behind only his wasted hopes and fruitless desires, sole witnesses to his empty, meaningless life. Not even a void was left by his passing: time flowed and shifted around spot where he’d stood, erasing his presence from all human memory. . .

With only one exception.

“Goodbye Robbie,” Felicity said to the empty store, and receded back into the shadows from which she had originally sprung.

The End

…perhaps.

Tags: fantasy, featured, fiction

Category: Fiction