taste buds didn’t either. ‘One Christmas focaccia to go then, please.’
‘Coming right up,’ Celeste trilled when Jade said she’d go and decorate the rest of the gingerbread men out in the kitchen. ‘And I’ll add extra cranberry relish with the brie just the way you like it,’ she grinned.
The sisters worked well together bar the odd disagreement. They were as much a part of the village as the bakery itself. Both had porcelain skin they’d inherited from their Irish parents along with their tall, willowy height, apparently, but whereas Celeste had short pixie-cut black hair, Jade’s hair of the same shade was shaped into a graduated bob, shorter at the back and longer at the front. Their green eyes sparkled in amusement as Jade brought the gingerbread men through and they shared a joke about their competitiveness and whose gingerbread was the best, whose batches of mince pies were going to be the tastiest when they got going with those later.
‘Don’t all mince pies taste the same?’ Lucy teased.
Celeste and Jade looked at one another in mock horror, the freckles that crossed the bridge of each of their noses and peppered their high cheek bones changing shape with their expressions. They said in unison, ‘No!’
Lucy laughed. ‘I can’t wait to try them.’
Jade wrapped her order and sent Lucy on her way with an assurance the mince pies would be ready to compare later if she could make it back today, or throughout the week if she couldn’t. Lucy didn’t doubt it. This was her first Christmas in the village but she’d come to learn that local businesses thrived and gave the festive season their all. Sometimes it was like stepping into a different world, and a good one at that.
Back in her flat, Lucy was relieved to have Shadow trot towards her in greeting. Guilty she’d let him get out in the first place, she was paranoid he’d now try to escape as though he’d suddenly developed the ability to open doors himself. Since he’d run off this morning she’d been sure to give the door an extra tug to shut it properly. Like everything else in here it needed an overhaul to be in proper working order and she’d add it to the ever-growing list.
Shadow had a sniff of her lunch that she clutched in her hand but the Christmas focaccia aroma obviously didn’t appeal and he turned his interest to his scratching post before he crept to the coffee-coloured furry bed she’d bought him and up until now he’d ignored. At last. Maybe his scare earlier on and her coming to rescue him had made him see he finally had a proper home and she wouldn’t let anything happen to him.
Her phone rang before she had a chance to eat and it was the delivery guy announcing he was outside with her tree. She told him she’d go down to meet him and she picked up Shadow’s bed with him still in it and lifted it into the bedroom. ‘Just so you don’t run off,’ she told him, knowing she’d have to leave the door to the flat open, but he seemed content enough as though her arrival had interrupted his all-important snooze time.
The tree, skinny in netting, was no problem to get up the stairs. All she wished was that she could get on and decorate it right now, but with lunch and work demands she had to settle for putting it into its stand filled with a little water and placed in front of the window that looked out over The Street so everyone would be able to see it when it was all lit up.
She smiled, the tree in position as she hungrily devoured her lunch, and let Shadow out of the bedroom to investigate. The second she finished the Christmas focaccia she grabbed some scissors to remove the netting. Already the smell had filled the room and although the village tree was lovely to see when you were out and about, there was nothing like waking to the scent of fresh pine needles in your own home. She ran the scissors from the bottom of the netting all the way to the top, peeled it off and stood back as the branches gradually unfolded. Shadow looked a bit scared of this moving being in his home and approached cautiously, taking a lap of the tree’s base and then back again. He may as well get used to it, she thought, but perhaps this year