Prologue
The clock on the wall glared down at her, the small hand on the five, the longer one barely brushing the near side of the large seven, giving it the look of a disapproving frown. It was almost a half hour until closing, but with the constant thrum of pelting rain outside of the window, she had no doubt the next twenty-seven minutes would pass as the last four hours had, with no customers and nothing to divert her from the plague of her own meandering mind. If Mr. Noble would have been a little less restrictive, she might have brought a book to ease the slow times, but no, that was number seventeen of his myriad and seemingly endless list of restrictions.
The air was cool in here, which suited her well enough, since she was a warm-blooded girl and her uniform would have been stifling otherwise. The high collar's lace edge was soft thankfully, unlike the cuffs that were so starched she might as well have worn the crisp papers used to separate the candies. The deep blue wool of her dress and the pristine white of her apron shifted as she rose from her perch on the stool behind the showcase, walking down the length of it first on the backside, then on the customer's side of things. The candies were laid out upon doily covered rectangular trays within the case of smudge-free glass, their varied shades of cocoa brown and tinted icings, the brilliant, vibrant twists of colored sweets, candied fruits and golden cubes of sugar-crusted ginger gleaming richly in the low golden light from the new electrical chandelier that hung above, painting everything a homey sort of golden color, a warm hue that made you think of firesides and chicken soup comforts. Meant to draw in the customers on days like today, but it had been, thus far, fruitless.
Unlike the other shops along the street, the cool air outside was not much less than that within, and so the condensation that turned their windows to milky white was avoided and the gilded gold and green of the lettering on the shop window, as well as the door, were the only things to obscure her view of the world beyond. Not that it was all that interesting a view. The aforementioned shops with their ghostly white windows or pulled shades, the gray world of constant fog that seemed to cling to everything like the steam in a bathhouse, the occasional passing carriage or people huddled under umbrellas or darting quickly across the street under unfurled newspapers. Glancing up at the heavy gray clouds which hung overhead like damp wool. Occasionally, here and there, they would illuminate blue or green, sometimes a brilliant ruby, marking the unseen passage of airships high above.
It was dark enough now that she could see her own reflection in the door when she looked back down, a ghostly image superimposed over the world outside. Her dark clothing only helped this illusion of the spectral. Pale face and hands the only skin showing, and that seemed all the more pale in compare to her dress and the tightly drawn coif of her deep brown hair which had begun to come loose at the temple and the nape of her neck where tension had taken hold and the rubbing of her fingers to abate it had coaxed the strands to come free. Idly, she lifted her hands and smoothed it before turning away and retracing her steps back to the stool to once more perch. The clock made another soft -tick- and she glanced up to note the minute hand was still not touching the eight. She began to despair that this day would ever end.
Watching the rain fall, spattering droplets that melted into one another, growing fat and moving more swiftly down in rivulets. She must have dozed off for she did not even realize someone was coming until the bell jangled, and a glance at the clock proved it was only four minutes until closing. She blinked and sought to banish the remainder of the drowsiness from her mind as she gave an embarrassed chuckle, patting her hair and smoothing her apron as she rose from her stool and turned her attention to the figure at the door. He was enveloped in a dark coat, his collar turned up and the brim of his hat pulled low, no doubt to keep the rain off. "Good evening, Sir. Which of our delectable candy confections may I interest you in tonight? Perhaps some butterrumple creams or a hand-dipped cherry-berry whip?"
-.-
The rain at last let up, the clouds still hung darkly above, making it seem far later than quarter after six at night. Henry's Breath, blown in from western shore by the storm, was cloyingly seeking to obscure the glowing orbs of the street lamps in a wooly haze. The air was rich with the smell of chocolate, and Earnest Browne paused on his way home, thinking he might pick the Missus up a box of candies. He hadn't done anything wrong, but it never hurt to have a point in his favor for some future screw-up.
Pushing open the door, he paused to shake off his umbrella. "Oi, this weather! I do hope you're still open..." Spoken cheerily as he crossed the threshold. The moment he was inside, all color fled from his face at the scene before him. The ticking cadence of the clock was echoed by the steady drip-drip-drip of blood that fell from the tips of the fingers that hung out over the edge of the glass candy case, adding to the crimson puddle that spread out across the tiles, reflecting the chandelier's lights above, the unseeing eyes of the shop girl fixed in his direction, her face frozen in a look of utter horror.