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THE CANDY SHOP
by Derek Paxton
Sunlight filtered through the temple's stained glass windows and cast images of angels and saints
on the western wall. Within the temple parishioners shuffled uncomfortably in their pews as the literal
droned on with his sermon. The service was nearly over, and the children were even more restless than
the adults.
Amelie sat between her father and Artan, her younger brother. She was nine years old and like
most of the children in the temple, was daydreaming about the many treats of the candy shop that sat in
the temple's shadow. While others prayed she imagined pine nuts dipped in honey and sugar,
gingerbread men and fingers sticky with pecan brittle.
But they would only visit the candy shop if they were good during the service. It was this
promise that kept the children quiet and still on Sunday mornings. It was as much a part of the children's
religious experience as the literal's welcoming invocation or the brilliant arches of light that crossed the
temple's dusty lofts.
Artan swung his feet beneath the pew, risking kicking either the pew in front of him or the
bottom of his seat. Amelie squeezed his hand and gave him a threatening look. Around the temple many
mother's gave similar looks to their children, and Amelie's was as practiced and effective as any of them.
The sermon closed with a final adulation and the worshippers rose to make their way out of the
temple. Amelie grabbed her father's hand and Artan followed quickly behind. Now allowed to talk he
was full of questions, most concerning the candy shop. They had been good so yes, they would visit the
shop on the way home. And they would be able to pick one, and only one, piece of candy. It was the
same as every other week, but Artan and a half-dozen other children still asked their parents if they could
go, and still pleaded for more than one piece, though no parent relented.
Amelie remained quiet. She already knew her father's answers and she was trying to pick the
candy she wanted from her memory of the candy shops selection. She dreamed of caramelized pears,
chewy toffee, or raisons coated with sugar and cinnamon. She carefully imagined each candy as they
walked down the hill from the temple to the small shop, and changed her mind at least a dozen times.
This was her favorite part of the week. Her father was sober and kind and the three of them were, for a
little while, a happy family.
The candy shop was brightly painted with a red roof and white trim over a deep green building.
The front door was white, and stood beside a large window which let those on the street glimpse shelves
of glass jars filled with brightly wrapped treats.
"Remember Artan, don't touch anything." his father warned, "Pick the piece you want and tell
me so I can ask merchant Hamish to get it for us."
"Yes papa." Artan answered.
The shop's front room smelled like gingerbread and vanilla. Other families were already picking
out their treats and every child carefully considered their selection, they were stuck between the desire to
try a piece of candy and the fear that if they didn't look hard enough they may overlook something new
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and wonderful. Amelie had a different reason to spend more time picking, she didn't want this brief time
in the candy shop to end.
Merchant Hamish wandered over to Amelie as she looked at butterscotch candies in bright
wrappers. He was a small man, thin and frenetic, with a weak leg that required him to use a cane. But his
boundless energy made up for his clumsy three legged gait and he made sure everyone in the shop was
taken care of. He never forgot an order, and was quick to scoop, cut or measure whatever a customer
requested. He wore a red and white apron that matched the color of his shop and had a crazy shock of
white hair that would look unusual on anyone else, but somehow fit the shopkeepers wide, smiling face
perfectly.
"I have some ginger bread cookies I just took out of the oven. I believe you picked one last week,
and nibbled on it like a mouse as you left my shop." Hamish said.
"I wanted it to last longer." Amelie explained, "What are the cookies shaped like today?"
"There were some complaints about last week's cookies. Apparently speaker Ides didn't
appreciate having his rotund figure memorialized as a cookie. And I don't know if I can afford to keep
making cookies that large. So I switched to smaller things, like buildings in the city. There are some of the
cathedral bell tower, some shaped like the temple belfry, the bridge tower, the lighthouse and the east
gate. And of course..." Hamish added after a pause, "maybe a few of fat speaker Ides hidden in the back."
Amelie smiled, but before she could reply another family was ready to buy and merchant Hamish
was off to help them.
Artan already had his treat, an unnaturally red candied apple. He always picked the largest treat
he could find, and today was no different. He sat beside his father on a low bench in front of the window
greedily devouring it. Her father gave Amelie the look that meant she had to hurry up.
Amelie finally picked a piece of swirled vanilla and butterscotch. It was so soft she could shape it
with her hands and it melted in her mouth. She made tiny bites out of the thumb sized candy as her
father paid for it and they left the shop for the short walk home.
Throughout the day Amelie continued to take tiny bites from her candy, and lied to her brother
when he asked if there was any left. He finished his apple before they were out of the candy shop. By
nighttime Amelie had the last bite saved in the wrapper as a treat for morning and she curled up in her
blankets to sleep.
In that grey world between sleep and wakefulness Amelie imagined a bright light in her room.
She opened her eyes but the room was dark. Her tiny bed barely fit in her room, and there was no
window. The only light was from her father's room, where a lamp burned. Her door was cracked and a
sliver of pale light bled into her room from the hall.
Amelie closed her eyes again and tried to drift back to sleep. When she was again in that strange
limbo before sleep the light returned. This time when she opened her eyes, the light remained.
An angel floated above her bed. Tall and beautiful he had skin like honey and light radiated out
of him as if the sun set beneath his skin. As wondrous as he appeared his face was lined with concern,
and his eyes were unnaturally dark.
Amelie pulled her blankets up above her head and curled beneath them. The angels light shone
through the thin blankets and even completely covered Amelie could clearly see her trembling hands. But
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the light was mild compared to the other indications of the angel's presence. A feeling of peace and
warmth radiated through the room. And though Amelie had never imagined meeting an angel before, her
fear melted away. She lowered the blanket enough to see the angels face.
"I am truly sorry." the angel said. His voice conveyed deep compassion and though it wasn't loud
it resonated through the small house. "I tried to deliver this message to many people, but they were blind
to me."
"Who are you?" Amelie asked. She wondered if she was dreaming, but it seemed both to real
and to unlikely to be a dream.
"I am Verchiel, herald angel of Lugus. I have come to send a message, and a warning." the angel
answered. "Your brother Artan is in great danger. He has left your house and wandered into darkness.
He is already beyond my sight, and it may not be possible to save him."
Amelie sat up in her bed. The sudden skip and racing of her heart convinced her that she was not
asleep. "Where is he? What kind of danger?" she asked.
"He is within the home of a Occisor, out of the light and into the province of the god of blood."
Seeing that Amelie was confused Verchiel added, "He is in the home of an evil man. That is all I know.
Lugus's influence is waning and I have very little ability to act. You may be able to save your brother, you
may not, or you may die in the attempt."
Amelie was already out of bed throwing on her shoes and coat.
"Where is he?" Amelie asked.
"He went to the candy shop." Verchiel said, and for a second the angel looked afraid. Before
Amelie rushed out of her room Verchiel stopped her. "I can give some small help. If you get to the temple
and you hold your hand on the altar you will be safe. It is the most I can offer, though it is not much."
Amelie rushed out of her room and into Artan's. Just as the angel said Artan was gone. His
blankets were thrown aside and his shoes and coat were missing. Amelie went back into the hall where
she noticed her room was dark again, the angel was gone. But she didn't stop to consider his
disappearance as she ran into her father's room.
Amelie's father snored loudly from his bed. His lamp flickered and cast odd shadows. The room
smelled like stale beer and sweat. Amelie shouted at her father, called for him, shook him. But in his
drunken delirium he did nothing but swat her away. Amelie pushed him off the bed. He crashed to the
floor in a tangle of blankets, rolled over and continued snoring. Giving up Amelie left him and headed
outside onto a small landing and down the stairs to the street.
It was an early winter night and the season's first light snowfall was settling on the city. Amelie
could see her brothers tracks in the snow and she followed them along the street toward the candy shop.
The candy shop was only a few blocks away and it appeared as it did on all their visits. It was
tidier than the surrounding buildings, and its red roof and white trim seemed at odds with the fear that
clawed at Amelie as she ran. Though the front room of the shop was lost in darkness Amelie imagined
that there were still rows of jars full of candy, and for a second she thought herself crazy for having
rushed here in a panic. Until she noticed her brothers footprints leading up to the front porch.
She followed them onto the porch with her heart once again racing. The porches roof kept the
porch clear of snow, Artan's footprints ended at the porch stairs. Amelie crossed the porch, and though
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she had never noticed that the porch creaked in the many times she walked across it, now it seemed to
cry out with each step.
Reaching the door she turned the knob, but it was locked. It seemed secure and untampered
with. Unless someone had locked it since Artan went in, Amelie couldn't imagine how he would have
gotten through.
Walking down the porch Amelie came to the large front window. Pushing her face against the
glass she tried to look into the room beyond. She could see the vague outlines of the room. The counter
where the sales were made, the shelves covered in candy jars. What wasn't lost in darkness seemed
normal.
For the first time Amelie shivered in the cold. Though her coat was warm, she had thrown it on
over her sleeping gown, which was one of her father's old shirts. It was threadbare before she got it and
though it hung just past her knees, it provided little protection against the chill night air.
Amelie walked to the end of the porch looking for anything unusual. At the very end she saw
where Artan's footprints began again. He had jumped off the porch and walked around the side of the
shop.
Amelie followed the footprints around into the darkness. She had to stop and wait for her eyes
to adjust, and build up her courage. There was no one on the street, but as she stood in the shops
shadow Amelie remembered that there was a guard station at the north bridge a few blocks away. If she
ran there and if the guards believed her she could be back with help in fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.
Deciding Artan may not be able to wait that long, she continued following Artan's footprints around the
shop.
The back of the shop was a simple deep green wall, still with white trim and no doors. There
was a small window set too high in the wall for Amelie to see through. But it wasn't the window or the
shop that interested her, but what the tracks led to, a simple cellar door in the ground.
The bar that usually blocked the cellar door now lay discarded beside it. Though Artan's
footprints clearly led to the cellar door, there was no indication of him walking away. Amelie whispered a
prayer to Lugus as she walked to the door, then hoping it was quieter than the squeaky porch, she opened
it.
Beneath the door a ladder descended into darkness. Amelie could feel warm, moist air coming
out of the cellar and she was happy to see that there was a faint flickering light below. Leaning close to
the opening Amelie whispered for Artan, trying to be loud enough so he would hear her, but quiet enough
that someone else wouldn't.
After waiting to see if there was any sound or response, Amelie climbed into the hole and down
into the cellar. Cellars were unusual in Bourne, as the city sat between two rivers the ground was
generally to wet to dig down in. Any sufficiently deep hole turned into a well. But the few she had seen
had stairs leading into them, not ladders. And this ladder went down further than Amelie expected. If the
candy shop had a basement, Amelie guessed that this cellar would be below it.
The ladder ended at a hallway with a rough stone floor and slick reddish brown walls. The ladder
shaft was so small that an adult would have difficulty squeezing through, but the hallway was much
larger. Looking up Amelie could see the night sky, and now that she was on the ground she could see the
light coming from further down the hallway. After whispering again for Artan and receiving no response
she started slowly down the hallway.
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A scream echoed through the cellar so pained and shocked that Amelie nearly turned and fled
back up the ladder. She couldn't imagine a person could communicate such horror in a yell, and at first
thought it wasn't human. But her body went chill as she recognized the voice, it was Artan.
Everything seemed to slow down. The smallest details leapt out at her and even though Amelie
ran down the short hallway toward the screams, she felt like she was running in mud.
The hallway continued straight with two open archways on each side. A lit lamp hung on a hook
between the archways and provided the only light. Amelie only briefly glimpsed through the first two
archways as she rushed by, the left contained large cages, like a kennel. Something moved in the cages,
something large and covered in filth. The opposite archway was dominated by a stone table and tools
and knives hung from the walls. Both rooms made Amelie more afraid.
Amelie ran into the second room on the right, where Artan's screams were coming from. For a
moment she was delighted to see that Artan stood in the middle of the room facing away from her,
appearing uninjured. Amelie grabbed him and spun him around, pulling him into a hug. He jumped when
she touched him and tried to push away, but as soon as he realized it was her he collapsed against her
and burst into heavy, pained sobs.
Amelie didn't have to ask why he was crying. What was hanging on the wall Artan was facing
stole away any slight relief Amelie may have felt at the recovery of her brother.
Once it had been a man, a massively fat man buried in rolls of flesh. But now all the fat had been
cut away. His chest lay open, brass eyelets had been sewn into his skin and hooks held open a bloody
gaping maw that exposed the bare organs beneath. His organs were tied along his spinal column and his
heart still beat from within a thin mesh of netting, his lungs expanded and shrank with each breath and
the slick bloody mass of organs dumped down into coiled intestines. His lower jaw and tongue had been
removed so his head was a helpless hook on the wall, and his eyes moved and watched the children with
an emotion Amelie had never seen before. His arms and legs had been painfully hollowed out, leaving the
bone and clinging muscle, but now only air filled the loose skin.
Amelie opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out.
The crack of the cellar door closing shocked Amelie into action.
"Shut up!" she yelled at Artan, "Are you okay?" As she asked Amelie made sure Artan stayed
facing her, so he couldn't see the man hanging on the wall behind him.
Taking deep breaths Artan coughed out his words, "I... want... to... go."
"We will be okay, calm down. I am going to take you home." Amelie said. The man hanging on
the wall continued to stare at her and Amelie wondered if he had snuck down into the cellar looking for
sweets too.
The sound of another door opening and slamming closed shocked both of them. It sounded
closer than the cellar door. Amelie guess it was from whatever was straight down the hallway. She could
hear someone walking toward them. It was the familiar step, step, click of the candy shop owner's cane.
Holding Artan close Amelie dove beneath the only object in the room besides the hanging man.
It was a small end table near the entrance to the room. She could hear the footsteps in the hall. She held
Artan's head against her chest and tried to stay quiet. She looked at the hanging man, silently pleading
with him to quit staring at where they were hiding.
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The lamp light jumped and flickered as someone lifted the lamp off of its hook. Then Amelie saw
Hamish's wiry legs and cane step in beside the end table. She and Artan held their breath in fear. She
briefly considered rushing to Hamish for help. But nothing in the candy shop owner's demeanor seemed
surprised by the man hanging on the wall, and that kept Amelie trembling and quiet beneath the end
table.
Hamish set the lamp down on top of the end table, and walked across the room to look at the
hanging man. With Hamish's back to them Amelie considered running from the room. As Amelie
watched Hamish set his cane down. Then he climbed up onto the hanging man and spun around, sliding
his legs down into the partially hollow legs of the hanging man and his arms into the huge bodies hollow
arms. Hamish's head came to just under the hanging mans upper jaw, so it appeared that Hamish was
wearing the hanging mans horrified face as a cruel helmet. The hanging man only offered a muffled cry in
protest, but Hamish ignored him. Instead Hamish looked delighted to be settling into the hanging man's
body, wearing a living man as a thick fleshy suit. The candy makers eyes sparkled as he ran a cord through
the brass eyelets, sewing himself into the body so that only his head remained exposed.
To terrified to see what would happen when Hamish finished sewing himself into the body
Amelie crawled out from under the end table and pulled Artan behind her. She grabbed the lamp off the
end table and ran into the hallway, back toward the shaft up to the cellar door. She pushed Artan in front
of her and he climbed up the ladder shaft into the darkness.
Amelie was halfway up the ladder before she heard Hamish thundering down the hallway after
them. This time there was no slow click of the cane, only thick pounding footfalls. She looked down at
the pudgy flesh of the hanging mans hands and arms as Hamish grabbed the ladder and shook it. But they
were almost at the top.
Artan reached the top and tried to swing the cellar door open, but it had been barred from the
outside.
"It's locked!" Artan yelled.
The ladder shook again as Hamish was tearing it off of the wall. Both the children screamed,
hoping someone outside would hear them.
"Hold onto the sides." Amelie yelled as the ladder threatened to collapse.
"Come down children." Hamish called, "You will be ripe fruit on Aeron's altar tonight."
At that the ladder collapsed and Amelie and Artan were left braced in the shaft. Artan slipped on
the wet walls. Below them Hamish laughed in delight.
"I'm sorry." Artan said, and his eyes began to well up with tears.
"Listen to me." Amelie ordered, "Is there another door?"
"Yes," Artan said, "straight down the hallway there are stairs leading up. But that door is barred
too."
"I don't think so, not anymore. He couldn't have barred this door from the outside if he came
down it. He had to have come through the other door." Amelie said. She could feel herself slipping.
Hamish had become quiet, but he still glared up at them with a hungry, depraved eyes.
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"When I say go," Amelie said, "slide down the shaft as fast as you can and run for that door.
Don't stop for anything. Just run and go to the temple, not home. In the temple put your hand on the
altar and don't take it off until you are safe, he can't hurt you if you touch the altar. Do you understand?"
Artan nodded.
Amelie took one more look down at Hamish, then she dropped the lamp.
The lamp smashed into the hallway floor and oil splashed out in all directions, burning Hamish
and setting the entire base of the shaft on fire.
"Go!" Amelie yelled.
Together they slid down the ladder shaft and Amelie hit the burning cellar floor hard. Artan
landed on top of her and she immediately pushed him up onto his feet. The grotesque form of Hamish
was slapping at itself trying to put the fire out and though he nearly filled the hallway Artan was quickly
up and past him.
Amelie slipped in the burning oil and fell when she tried to run. Her coat caught fire and when
she got up again Hamish was on her. Hamish grabbed her sleeve and pulled her against the bare skin of
his living suit. Amelie could feel the dank sweat of the hanging man, could smell his rotting flesh and
looked up to see two pairs of eyes staring back at her. Hamish's sparkled with dark pleasure, and the
hanging mans looked equally horrified and helpless.
Artan came running back down the hall. He had one of the knives from the room with the stone
table in his hand. Before Hamish turned Artan leapt at him, stabbing clear through the hanging mans back
and into Hamish.
The jolt of pain was enough for Amelie to unfasten her coat and slip out of Hamish's grip. She
ran by him, grabbing Artan as she went.
They ran past the four archways to where stairs led up into darkness. Hamish thundered down
the hallway behind them and his elongated shadow was reflected on every surface by the fire burning
under the ladder shaft.
Amelie could barely make out a closed door at the top of the stairs and she prayed as she
charged toward it that it would open. She hit it full speed and it flew open.
Both children popped up into a long kitchen. A pot boiled in a fireplace, ovens were set against
one wall and tables were covered with trays and bowls. A tray of freshly baked cookies sat out, half
covered in green frosting. The room smelled of gingerbread and vanilla.
Amelie and Artan were stunned by the change in scenery. The room seemed cozy and
welcoming, homey in a way their home had never been. But the sound of Hamish on the stairs reminded
them they were still in danger.
"Close the door!" Amelie yelled.
Artan swung the door closed while Amelie searched for the bar used to brace it. She found it on
the counter nearest the door and raced to slide it through the four iron braces on the back of the door. It
had only gone through the first when Hamish hit the door.
For a brief second the door looked like it may hold, but then, in an explosion of splintering wood,
the door flew open and Hamish came stumbling up into the kitchen. Once again the children were off
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running. Artan threw open the door on the far end of the kitchen, revealing a short hallway that ended at
a room the children recognized, the front room of the candy shop.
They ran through the front room, past the shelves of jars and treats they had dreamed about for
so long. Artan went to the front door, but Amelie ran to the low bench in front of the window.
The door was locked.
"Help me." Amelie yelled as she lifted one end of the bench.
Artan grabbed the other end and as Hamish entered the front room the children threw the
bench through the huge front window. Amelie and Artan leapt through the shattered window behind it.
The children screamed for help as they ran up the hill toward the temple. Hamish continued his
pursuit, and though the glass shards cut up the hanging mans feet, he raced after them. If he had looked
crazed in the nightmare of the cellar, he looked even more so in the ordinary city night. A man wearing
another man's body as a second skin running through the streets of Bourne.
Despite his cut feet Hamish was faster than the children on the straight road. And if anyone
heard the calls for help, they weren't responding.
By the time Amelie reached the temple her terror had been replaced with exhaustion. She could
barely breath, she felt like she was choking and her heart was racing so fast it made her dizzy. Amelie
collapsed against the temple door and turned the handle, for the first time wondering if the temple would
even be unlocked.
It was unlocked, but where Amelie expected the warm glow of safety or an army of priests and
angels set to protect them, there was only the cold, lifeless interior of the temple. The pews were empty
and the stained glass windows dark. The clear round window that formed the top of the church was the
only real source of light. Through it moonlight shone down on the center of the temple, highlighting the
altar.
"Put your hand on the altar and don't let go." Amelie commanded.
Artan looked less convinced, his eyes widened in fear when he realized this door was the only
way into, or out of, the temple. They would be trapped here.
There was no time to try to close the door behind them, Hamish was in the doorway right behind
the children. As the children ran to the center of the small temple Hamish stopped to look around. It
seemed that he may also have expected some sort of defense here, though he was obviously pleased to
see that the temple was empty. He closed the temple door behind him.
"For a moment I thought you might get away." Hamish said smiling.
Hamish stretched in the hanging mans skin, the sight was grotesque and unnerving. Bones
creaked and popped and the cord binding the chest together pulled taunt against the loose flesh. Above
Hamish's head the hanging mans eyes fluttered back and forth in fear as if looking for something in the
room.
"You can't hurt us here." Amelie said, her hand firmly on the Altar's warm mahogany top.
"Are we playing some of game?" Hamish asked, "Is this your base? I'm afraid I may have to break
the rules."
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Hamish walked down the center aisle toward them.
"You dropped this." Hamish said, holding out Amelie's burnt coat.
Amelie didn't move. Artan fidgeted beside her, he still held the knife with one hand and gripped
the altar with the other.
"I'm glad you followed your brother." Hamish said, "You will make a wonderful offering. And I
can keep your brother to fatten up."
At that Hamish charged the altar. Just before Hamish hit them Artan let go of the altar and
stepped in front of his sister, swinging wildly with his knife.
"No!" Amelie screamed, grabbing Artan's free hand.
Hamish caught Artan's knife hand in a fist so large it nearly covered up Artan's entire forearm.
Hamish pushed down on the back of Artan's hand with his thumb, forcing him to drop the knife, then with
a sickening pop Artan's wrist broke.
Artan screamed in pain. And though Amelie pulled, her brother was caught between them.
Hamish towered over the children, Amelie barely came to his waist and as Hamish pulled the
screaming Artan away, Amelie's finger slid easily across the smooth altar. She stretched as her fingers
came to the edge of the altar. Just as her fingertips were all that was left of her contact with the altar she
let go of Artan's hand.
"Shhh..." Hamish whispered to the crying boy. Hamish lifted Artan, placing one meaty hand over
Artan's mouth. Three sets of eyes looked down at Amelie but she stood unmoving, hand once again
firmly on the altar. Tears silently pouring down her face.
Without saying anything Hamish turned and walked out of the temple, carrying the struggling
Artan with him. When he was gone Amelie collapsed beside the altar, with her hand still on it, and cried
so violently that her small body shook with each wail and ragged coughing breath. That is where they
found her the next morning, though Hamish and Artan were gone.