Page 5 of Uncharmed

Chapter Three

CURTAIN UP

‘W hich jam for the scone stacks today, Annie?’ Faye called over her shoulder as she rattled around the pantry on their very precarious ladder, moving aside stacks of Halloween decorations to get to the tiered cake stands.

‘These bloody awful pumpkin buckets should not be in here. In fact, we should probably burn them. I think they might be cursed.’

Annie gasped, mildly offended. She took great pleasure in hunting through flea markets and car-boot sales to add to the array of Halloween décor for the bakery.

‘They are not awful and they are certainly not cursed. Trust me, I’d know.

’ She muttered the last part under her breath.

‘I think you’ll find that they are vintage, kitsch and adorable. ’

Faye remained unconvinced, brandishing one of the buckets with a scowl. ‘This creep is winking at me. Kind of sleazy.’

Annie huffed as she took the pumpkin buckets from Faye and placed them on the table.

‘Well, there’s no point putting them in the basement now, is there?

We’re approaching Code Orange. Time to turn this place into a Halloween dream.

’ She gasped again, slightly higher-pitched this time, her brain working at a million miles an hour as always .

‘That reminds me. We need to decide our costumes as a matter of urgency.’ Annie tapped her whisk against the side of the mixing bowl then used it as a pointer at Faye, raining Chantilly cream across the kitchen.

‘We’ll be staying open late for No Tricks, Just Treats, so excellent outfits are a must.’

‘I have never known anyone in their right mind to take Halloween costumes as seriously as you,’ Faye said, looking at the boss with complete bewilderment.

‘Fancy dress is not a laughing matter. If you’re not going to do it properly then you shouldn’t do it at all,’ Annie said, deathly serious.

‘Can’t we just do something easy?’ Faye said with a groan. ‘How about Dracula? I can chuck on a bin bag and gel my hair back. It could be a very hot look for me. Or three witches? Double, double, toil and trouble. Thunder, lightning, rain and all that.’

Annie couldn’t help but twitch. The three famous words happened to be her coven’s calling card.

And she could not, in good faith, wear a witch costume.

She was far too cautious and overthinking to ever risk committing magical exposure; such silliness would certainly be flying far too close to the sun.

‘Don’t you think witches are a little overdone?

’ she said, laughing. ‘Our usual cafe theme makes so much more sense.’

‘Well, I’m not going as streaky bacon again. That wasn’t a good choice. I looked like a flesh wound.’ Faye’s cropped, bright crimson hair was supposed to have been the ketchup.

‘No breakfast platter trio this year?’ Annie lamented. ‘But I made such a cute pancake with my little butter hat.’

Faye rolled her eyes, but then conceded somewhat reluctantly, as she nearly always did.

‘Pari did really enjoy being a fried egg and I don’t want to break your fragile heart either.

Fine,’ she grumbled. ‘We can do breakfast again. Don’t leave me stuck with something ugly though.

I’m not being baked beans and definitely not a mushroom.

You’ll have a field day with the “fun-guy” jokes and it’ll make me want to commit a crime.

’ She scowled again, turning back to the cake stands, forever lovingly exasperated by Annie and Pari’s relentless joy. ‘Maybe a blueberry?’

Annie clapped her hands, jumping up and down on the spot and showering the worktop in yet more Chantilly cream.

‘Yes! You’ll look sensational in indigo.

We’ll go for exotic, international waters this time with American breakfast instead.

I have a little beret you can borrow that would be perfect for a blueberry. ’

‘And other normal sentences that are only said in this bakery,’ Pari said as she stumbled into the back room, her vision blocked by a swaying stack of cupcake trays to put away, having filled up the counter with fresh goodies. ‘Why are we talking about blueberry berets?’

‘Isn’t that a song?’ Annie asked, pausing mid-whisk.

‘Unbelievable,’ Faye muttered under her breath.

‘You mean raspberry,’ Pari said. After years of working together so closely, their unlikely trio of strange brains understood the workings of each other in mysteriously interconnected ways.

‘Inspired! In that case, we’ll have raspberry jam today,’ Annie said decidedly to Faye, puffing as she returned to ferociously beating the bowl of cream.

In the morning’s chaotic coffee rush, she’d forgotten to revive the crucial self-whipping Dulce Lac Turben charm on her whisk before Faye arrived and was now paying the price with aching arms. ‘I do not have the upper-body strength for this job,’ she whined with a foot stomp.

‘You are pathetic. What would you do in a zombie apocalypse?’ Faye replied.

‘Die and be glad of it,’ Annie said.

‘Probably for the best. You wouldn’t enjoy zombies and their flagrant disregard for personal hygiene and seasonal colour palettes,’ Pari said, turning her attention to untangling some black cat bunting in the overflowing Halloween box.

Faye continued rummaging through the homemade jams that were her personal speciality, hunting out the checkered-lid jars.

For a slightly grumpy, extremely svelte music-head, she was an unexpectedly keen jam maker.

Undoubtedly the more serious member of the Celeste trio, Faye generally brought the other two back down to earth when they got carried away with excitable ideas that were either impossible to pull off (without being aware of the existence of magic, anyway) or insanely expensive to execute.

The crops of blackberries, elderberries and gooseberries on her and Pari’s patio, along with scientific theories for their cultivation, were among the only topics of conversation that ever brought out Faye’s giddy side.

Making jams to perfectly curated mixtapes was her ultimate stress reliever.

‘We were just discussing Halloween,’ Faye said to Pari, stacking up the jars in her arms. ‘Annie is keen for us to reprise the iconic breakfast costumes. But, I hasten to add, we are going meat-free this year.’

‘Ooh, please can I be the egg again?’ Pari asked with elated clasped hands.

‘What did I tell you?’ Faye said. ‘Making dreams come true one day at a time here at Celeste.’

Faye and Pari had come knocking at Celeste two weeks after opening, spotting the pink striped awning with a queue around the corner each morning and the blonde girl somehow juggling everything alone.

They’d strolled in, hand in hand, having been made redundant from a local Italian deli that had recently closed down.

They were both amateur but decent bakers and had their upcoming wedding to pay for.

Annie had practically bitten their arms off for the help, asking right there and then if they wouldn’t mind checking on the triple chocolate chip muffins that she suspected may be burning while she wrestled with the coffee machine.

As though they had always been on her side, Faye had stepped straight in to create the perfect ultra-frothy cappuccino and Pari had skipped into the kitchen to rescue the muffins.

Annie’s intuition told her that they were something special, the ingredients to add a final sprinkle of sugar to her place.

It had been one of the best decisions she’d ever made.

Faye managed the caffeine and logistics and was only thriving more and more with ambition as demand grew.

Meanwhile, Pari’s endlessly warm personality and chatterbox nature made her a firm customer favourite.

A whirlwind of a human, maximum energy compacted into her tiny height, Pari would often be at the counter while Annie busied herself with final flourishes to bakes in the background.

Faye and Pari, of course, knew nothing of the sorcery involved in Celeste’s secrets, but Pari had shown a few signs over the years that she had become rather tuned into the presence of magic.

Her nose would twitch, as though she could smell something more intriguing than just fresh bread and caramelized fruit in the air.

Sometimes, her big brown eyes would hone in on a rogue spark of magic if it was left lying around for too long, as though she were watching a butterfly take first, fascinating flight.

Annie had learned to be particularly careful with her powers when she and Pari were working in close quarters.

‘How are the cinnamon bun supplies looking?’ Annie asked Pari.

‘A bit sad. There’s a couple left, but the mums and babies group at the church will be letting out any moment, so we can wave goodbye to any and all pastries then. I swear some would choose the croissants over their own babies.’

‘Who wouldn’t,’ Faye grumbled.

Annie flicked a splat of cream at her for that.

‘But we did extra! I thought they’d last until at least lunch time.

’ She sighed and thumbed her forehead, recalibrating at speed as her to-do list multiplied.

‘Let me finish up on these scones and then I’ll see if I have enough time to throw in some more dough for proving.

’ She mopped her brow on her sleeve after all the whipping, then reached for the punnets of strawberries to begin slicing.

Once the girls were out of the kitchen, she could knit some spellwork to lighten the load.

‘Reminder that you have to take your lunch break today, Annie,’ Pari added, before she headed back out into the cafe, gathering up the bundles of fairy lights to string across the ceiling as imitation cobwebs. ‘And coffee does not count as a food group. I’ll make you a toastie.’