Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 10:18:00 +0100 (BST)
From: Angie Holbrook <angieholbrook2001@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: The Shop at the End of the Road (parts 1 & 2)

Copyright Angie Holbrook and Mara Kirsht, 2003. All
rights reserved.

THE SHOP AT THE END OF THE ROAD.
Part 1 by Angela Holbrook.

1.

There was a shop on the outskirts of town, one of
those magical little places that seemed to sell
nothing but half-remembered dreams and broken
promises. It sat at the end of a long forgotten
cul-de-sac, nestled amongst the elms and maples,
idling away its days in a seemingly eternal
springtime. Its only customers were small children,
fallen teenagers and forlorn lovers, all seeking
answers to unspoken questions.

The answers were supplied by a dark-eyed woman who sat
behind an ancient cedarwood counter. She greeted her
clientele with an indulgent smile, her lips curving in
a startling, gloss red crescent, a gilt-edged deck of
tarot cards splayed beneath her lacquered fingertips.
As young and ageless as a waxworks gipsy, she watched
in tacit amusement while her visitors foraged through
the racks and shelves at the back of the store. Few
could explain precisely what they sought, but each
knew the moment they found it, squirreled away amongst
the books and bells and Halloween masks.

Sometimes they might search for days, drawn inexorably
back to the shop with its country-fair collection of
everyday marvels. Opera glasses and china dolls;
pocket watches and baseball cards; black satin gloves
and the sweet, mocking lies of a beautiful woman. It
was a museum of the strange, the exotic and the
wonderful, housing a thousand scattered fragments of a
thousand scattered lives. Trade was never brisk, but
no one who entered the premises ever left empty
handed. The Shop at the End of the Road sold
everything. The cost was naturally excessive, but then
again, happiness never comes cheap.

Happiness comes at a price very few could afford - and
which none could ever resist.

2.

Robin Lindale walked in the deep green shade at the
edge of the road, thirteen years of late September
sunshine in the body of a child not quite his age. He
strode the verdant lanes with a light, easy step,
meeting the world with a gaze that could calm an angry
sea. Fair and slight and willow thin, he possessed a
naive beauty that drew the eye of everyone who saw
him. Many would turn to remark on his lush, Autumn
features, thinking him a girl hiding beneath a boy's
careless denims. Their unsuspecting whispers often
brushed the truth, although no one would have guessed
what lay concealed below Robin's alabaster
countenance.

He was on his way to The Shop at the End of the Road,
treading a path he'd followed since early childhood. A
life-long devotee of the arcane and the inexplicable,
Robbie had become the Shop's sole regular customer.
Its dark, aromatic interior had held him entranced
from the moment he'd stepped through its leadlight
doorway half a decade before. His once-intermittent
journeys were now a regular pilgrimage, a ritual he
observed with an almost Catholic devotion. Like most
children his age, Robbie was a creature of custom and
ceremony. The Shop was a great unspoken mystery in a
grey pedestrian world, and his life would have been
incomplete without this weekly dedication.

He approached the store through a grove of pines
clustered around the front entrance. In previous
centuries, the Shop had been a small parish church
with bluestone walls and mahogany floorboards.
Stained-glass windows lent it a surreal quality much
in keeping with the owner's Gothic personality. Robbie
had always found this melancholy atmosphere vaguely
menacing, like the moaning of the wind through a
moonlit graveyard. He trotted up the front steps,
inhaling an intoxicating mixture of Indian Rose and
pine resin.

He paused just inside the threshold, adjusting his
vision to the perpetual night inside. Dim, looming
shapes gradually resolved themselves into art deco
lampshades and glass-topped display cabinets. Nothing
looked familiar; the merchandise altered from day to
day like the colours of an April sunset. Robin stood
silhouetted in the wide Victorian doorframe, savouring
the fresh aura of mystery.

Then: a distant, nocturnal voice, drifting through the
darkness:

"Hello Robbie."

The woman behind the counter waited in a pool of
indigo shadows, silently reading the inscrutable cards
with her long, spiderling fingers. She didn't need to
look up to know who had entered her store. She divined
the future the way the blind read braille, and was
rarely - if ever - caught off guard. Long accustomed
to her enigmatic presence, Robin approached her with
the careless trust of a five year old.

"Hi Felicity," he replied, using the name she'd told
him to use, which wasn't her name at all. He halted
before the counter, glancing absently down at the
Tarot cards. Her finger hovered over The Queen, an
image which held a special significance for the boy.
It always turned face up whenever he entered the
store.

"Earlier than usual," Felicity commented
indifferently.

"Yeah, I thought I'd drop in before the place got too
crowded," Robbie replied ingenuously, unaware that
such a comment could easily be misconstrued as the
grossest sarcasm. Felicity dealt another card,
whicker-flicking it into place with a dark, effortless
grace.

"Seven of Cups," she remarked, unsurprised. Mystic
numbers and the search for meaning.

"Cool," Robin nodded as if he understood the first
thing about the Tarot, then looked towards the back of
the shop. Like everyone who came here, Robbie was
searching for something  - though he wasn't sure how
to describe what it was at this point. It was kind of
silly, kind of embarrassing, now that he stopped to
think about it. Maybe if he just went out back and had
a look round ...

"Felicity, would it be OK if I -" he began, inclining
his head towards the old Lady Chapel. A crumbling,
circular alcove packed with skirts, trinkets and
hat-boxes, it was sure to house the object of his
desires.

"Of course," the woman agreed in a subtle, knowing
tone Robbie was too young to recognise. He was
thirteen, and a boy; guile was an artform beyond his
understanding. He strutted into the rear of the store,
passing a framed poster advertising a French magician
named Robert-Houdin (Suspension Chloroform, the legend
read). He felt confident that he'd locate his prize
out in the Lady Chapel or some other part of The Shop.
That was the true enchantment of Felicity's place;
nothing was ever out of reach if you sought hard
enough.

3.

It was odd - as a little boy, he'd thought the Shop
was a shrine dedicated to lost toys. Week after week
he'd fossicked through the shelves, discovering things
he imagined only existed in his dreams - matchbox cars
and Radio Flyers and Ty Cobb baseball cards and
Screamin' Demon motorcyles. A million fabulous
treasures he'd never seen before but knew he couldn't
live without.

Recently, he'd begun to notice a more adult content
lining the shelves; the memories and snapshots of a
vanished generation. Crystal perfume atomisers with
big, squishy bulbs. Vintage cash registers. Pin-up
calendars from the late fifties. Gold plated Dunhill
lighters. Norman Rockwell prints from the Saturday
Evening Post. A signed copy of Carl Sagan's Cosmos.
The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's album in its original
sleeve. An endless stream of postwar trivia which
never ceased to fire his imagination.

Today, of course, Robin was after something completely
different.

He was no longer a child. He was growing up. Baseball
gloves, Sandman comics and pressed vinyl had lost
their appeal. He'd uncovered a well of fantasy in the
depths of his mind; a shadow world swarming with
moist, sultry images. They were things he'd spied here
a hundred times in the past but had never really
noticed until now. Silk scarves. Lace gloves. Glossy
black stilettos. Long satin evening gowns that clung
to the body like a gleaming second skin. Signature
Dior stockings with French heels and seams running up
the back.

It was a parade of the sensual, the feminine and the
seductive, one which frightened and captivated him in
equal degrees. This fascination had built up over the
last six months, forming in the centre of his being
like a ball of liquid silver. It had haunted his
sleep, hounded his waking hours. And the strangest
thing was -

Something had happened last week, something which had
released all the pent-up heat simmering in the pit of
his belly. It wasn't the first time it had happened,
but the experience had never been so intense. It had
occurred in the space of a few moments, striking him
with the force of a biblical revelation, altering his
perceptions at the most intrinsic level. And although
he didn't realise it, this change had been coming for
as long time - almost since the day he was born. Like
all teenagers, Robbie yearned for things he couldn't
name, couldn't understand, couldn't escape. Mirages in
the desert, shadows he could see but simply couldn't
touch.

Which was all that The Shop had ever sold, ultimately.

4.

He hunted through the Lady Chapel for over an hour,
heart pounding with excitement as he glimpsed his
prize lying just beyond the next hanger. Invariably,
the 'prize' turned out to be a delusion, a trick of
the dim, stained-glass light and days of unresolved
fantasies. Sighing with frustration, Robbie moved on
to deceive himself yet again, wading through tier upon
tier of glistening silk. The Chapel appeared much
bigger than he'd originally thought. He could have
wandered through the racks for weeks, inspecting every
 dress, skirt and blouse by hand. Everything he found
seemed to mock his efforts, tormenting him with its
blatant, overstated femininity.

He finally emerged from the alcove, shaking his head
in bewilderment, his face a mask of distraction. In
all the years he'd frequented The Shop, he'd never
walked away disappointed. Today, however, his goal had
eluded him over and over, fading through his fingers
like a will-of-the-wisp. He sauntered back through the
store patting the dust off his shoulders, casting
baffled glances around the shelves.

"Didn't find what you wanted?" Felicity asked, her
tone more statement than question.

"No, I didn't ..." Robbie agreed, confusion etched on
his innocent, doll-like features, "I was sure I'd find
it back there somewhere ..."

"Answers are never where you first look for them," she
commented, dealing another hand. The Tarot was laid
out in a straight line across the counter, the cards
face down and absolutely mute.

"I wasn't looking for answers," the boy replied
without thinking, "I was just looking for - "

Felicity's eyes flashed up, huge and predatory: the
eyes of a vengeful barn-owl, the eyes of a hungry
jaguar.

"Yes?"

I - well, I wasn't ..." Robin  stumbled through his
response, his complexion darkening several shades.
What was he doing, blurting out his story like some
little kid with a secret too big to hide? He was
practically dancing from foot to foot in
consternation. How could he tell her what he really
wanted? He doubted he could have told anybody.

"I wasn't looking for anything," he finally explained,
knowing how lame that must have sounded. Hands thrust
into bottomless pockets, he lowered his gaze to the
floor.

"Really?" Felicity enquired with some amusement.
Whicker-flick: two more cards from either side of the
deck. Two seconds passed. Four. Then:

"Yeah, OK, I was. But it isn't here."

"Isn't it?" Whicker-flick, whicker flick, the sound of
Christmas beetles taking flight.

"No, it's not," Robbie frowned unconsciously, "at
least, I don't think it is.

Another brief lull, punctuated by the soft clip of
cards on a woodgrain surface. Robin fidgeted
uncomfortably, feeling cold tension building up around
him like static electricity. He waited out the taut
moments in an Alpine sweat, knowing there was more to
be said, more to reveal, more to confess.

"Allright," he said helplessly, "I guess it's here
somewhere. I ... I just wasn't sure how to ask for
it." That wasn't exactly the truth, but it was close
enough (he hoped).

Felicity nodded, as if expecting no more from him.

"Bring that stool over here," she said, leaning back
from the counter, "it's time I read your fortune. When
was the last time you turned the cards, Robbie?"

"I dunno. Never, I suppose." He felt around in his
pocket for loose change, wondering how much she was
going to charge him. Being thirteen, he was pretty
much skint from stem to stern. Maybe coming down here
today hadn't been such a great idea after all. You
probably couldn't buy the meaning of life with four
dollars worth of plugged nickels, even in a place like
this.

"Don't worry about that now," Felicity said, absently
reading his mind, "you've come here every Saturday for
the last five years, so we can afford to settle the
accounts later." Robin nodded, not really
understanding what she meant, but feeling absurdly
flattered, nonetheless. He watched in dawning
fascination while her fingers skittered over the
cards, rearranging them into a perfect Vegas fantail.
She flipped the last one with a kind of spontaneous
expertise, the result of decades of training. It
housed the picture of a young man dressed in medieval
costume, blond locks hanging down to his shoulders.

The Youth.

"A child's desires are easily satisfied, Robbie. They
change by the hour, flowing like treacle over the
tongue. Warm and sweet, but empty of all substance.
First time you came here, the shelves were lined with
toys and baubles. All you saw for three years were
gameboys, skateboards and catcher's mitts." She
paused, grinning at some private joke, then concluded:
"Snips and snails and puppy dog's tails - that's what
Robbie's dreams are made of."

Robin blinked several times, sensing an undertone of
taunt in the woman's chirping nursery rhyme. Her hands
sparrowed over the cards once more, upturning an
armoured figure astride an angry black stallion. The
Knight of Swords.

"A man's desires are equally vain. Visions of wealth
and conquest; the power to prove his courage. His
masculinity. His innate superiority. They still come
in here now and then, blustering like feudal lords,
demanding respect they've never earned. Know what they
see? Easy solutions. Pheromone sprays, MK-20s,
platinum visacards. Shortcuts to happiness, or what
they believe is happiness. For some it's an unlimited
supply of viagara. For others, its the keys to a
sixty-three Mustang. Anything to bolster their
pathetic male egos.

"But that's not what you're looking for, is it
Robbie?"

He shook his head. Whatever he wanted, it had nothing
to do with validating his masculinity. Felicity smiled
again, exposing brilliantly white, even teeth.

"No, of course not. Being neither child nor adult,
your interests are more intricate. They're mysterious,
esoteric, unresolved. Things you can neither name nor
touch, except in the deepest part of the night, when
you drift  between the waking and sleeping worlds."
Her fingers hovered over another card, centre of the
spread. "What were you looking for, Robbie?"

The boy opened his mouth to answer, to spill out his
burden of shattered hopes, but fought back the words
with all his strength. Years of secrecy and
self-denial shackled his tongue. This was a facet of
his personality he'd been concealing all his life, one
he could barely admit to himself.  How could he
discuss this with her, with anybody? He drew back in
an agony of self-defeat, unable to even glance in her
direction.

"I can't tell you," he whispered in a small, drowning
voice.

THE SHOP AT THE END OF THE ROAD.
Part 2 by Mara Kirsht

A frigid silence fell between them as Felicity
transfixed the boy with an ebony stare. Looking up
against his wishes, Robbie withered in that arctic
gaze. A deep carmine flush invaded his features.
Felicity shook her head and began gathering up the
cards with an air of dismissal, her expression one of
weary 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 all dirty and sweaty, like I
was -" touching myself, he was going to say, but let
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, levelling
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 ostracised 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 gave him grief,
practically every day of the week. 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
lightening: 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 realising 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 wilful 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 an ordeal 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."


To Be Continued
email us for more:

angieholbrook2001@yahoo.co.uk
marakirsht@yahoo.co.au