Every time Brenda made a move towards the florist, that devil Karswell was somehow ahead of her, flipping that flipping sign of his. It was as though he had a second sense for it.
Debs was baffled to find her shelves tilting precariously where she stacked her plates. They certainly weren’t like that the day before, but she shrugged it off. No sense crying over smashed plates, she told Brenda. That’s just the way things were.
By now, not even rubble remained where Erzulie Lopsiday’s shop once stood. There was a ragged terrace end where Curly Do’s now held domain, but the barber did not seem unduly worried by the state of his building. For Curly, it was business as usual. Business was slow. Just the way things were.
Several of the other shops had already boarded up their windows. Undefeated by the pound shop wars, Ron’s Continuum could not compete against market forces. Mr Karswell told him he was sad to see any business sicken and die. Ron appreciated his words, and also the parting gift of a potted plant – an exotic cutting, courtesy of Mr Bialystock himself. Ron even had a tear in his eye as he thanked the florist for his kindness.
“Don’t thank me,” Karswell said. And meant it.
The next day, Brenda decided to try her luck again.
Effie had left her to it, “Are you still harping on about that?” she’d asked, and so Brenda went alone.
Feigning interest in the window display at Paddywhack’s, Brenda bided her time, waiting for the latest customer to exit the florist’s. Before the bell had finished jangling, she had her hand on the door.
Flip.
‘Back in Five minutes’ the sign read, but Brenda knew that the shop would remain closed for as long as she would be prepared to wait. She imagined Karswell winking theatrically at her as she read the card. As she kept watch over Bialystock’s, she felt Karswell’s eyes burning through the slats of the shop blinds.
Morning, noon and night, Karswell’s vigil seemed eternal. Brenda began to suspect that he was being tipped off by the Magnificent Seven, the other shopkeepers. Counting the shops again, Brenda noted that the nickname finally made sense. But only late on in the film, when the bodies began to mount up. Effie, as ever, was oblivious to it all.
Either the shop was locked up tighter than a drum before she set foot in the Court, or the phantom flipper would manage to find some way to bar her entrance.
‘Closed for refurbishment.’
‘Away on business.’
‘Private function.’
‘Closed due to impending family arrival.’ That last card held a veiled threat, to Brenda’s way of thinking.
At four in the morning, Brenda started awake, with a bad feeling. Unable to get back to sleep, she headed downstairs for a milky tea. She could not escape the thought that something was afoot, and popped her head into the street. Whitby slept on, but there was a package on the doorstep next door. Effie’s doorstep. A small cardboard carrier, with a business card pushed into the lid. Brenda immediately recognised the stylised double B logo of Bialystock’s Blooms, and her blood ran cold. Well, colder.
‘Think of us – Messrs Bialystock & Karswell’ read the handwritten note on the reverse of the business card. It might have been an advertising campaign, but Brenda saw a darker motive.
Carefully opening the lid, as though it might explode or fire poisonous thorns at her, Brenda peered inside. Just a cutting from some exotic plant, too young to give much indication as to what it might grow into. Brenda was taking no chances though, and dumped the whole package into her wheelie bin, double-bagged to be sure. Effie needn’t be bothered by that tat. Anyway, dragging Effie from her bed at an ungodly hour wouldn’t help her disposition towards Brenda’s viewpoint. This plant was a declaration of war.
After mulling it over, Brenda decided she wouldn’t take closed for an answer. She popped a note through Effie’s letterbox, asking her to join her in Makeshift Court as soon as she got the message, and made her way into town.
She stood at the entrance to the arcade and awaited a customer. Despite the early hour, it didn’t take long, and nobody went into the arcade to shop anywhere else anymore, so she fell into step closely behind the first person to pass her on the way into Rotten Row.
Somehow, between the customer entering the florist’s and Brenda following on their heel, Karswell still managed to put the door between them, bashing Brenda’s nose against the door in the process.
Infuriated, Brenda pounded on the door, rattling it to the very frame.
“I want to see Bialystock!” she demanded.
“And you will, dear lady. All in good time.”
With a final frustrated slam against the door, Brenda stalked off.
Brenda hefted the weighted base of one of Debs’ metal patio tables from outside the café and carried it easily across the square. Another indicator of the Court’s downturn in fortunes – Debs had not even taken her chairs inside overnight.
“Brenda! You can’t!” Effie called from the top of Rotten Row, waving her hands to attract attention.
“Effie,” she said firmly, but put the table down, “We’ve been through a lot in this town, haven’t we?”
“We have.”
“A lot of rum dos and eerie goings-on.”
“You’re not kidding.”
“When have I ever led you wrong?”
Effie took a breath, “Well, you’ve always been against my Kristoff…”
“Well, if you will go gallivanting about with lords of the undead, Effie. But let’s not get ourselves distracted. Aside from that, when we’ve stumbled on things beyond our ken…”
“There’s not much beyond our ken, Brenda. It’s just… You’re being ridiculous.”
There was an uncertain tremor in her voice, “Shops don’t just sprout up from the ground overnight. Why would it even come here? And why now?”
Effie was struggling to understand, but that was a good sign, Brenda thought. Bialystock, if he even existed, hadn’t won quite yet.
“The Bitch’s Maw draws evil in like a honey trap. Does it need a reason? All I know is that it’s here now, when we’re here to stop it. Unlucky for some, I’d say.”
Effie looked doubtfully at her friend.
“Them or us? Can’t we just skip to the end, and have bacon butties washed down with some of your spicy tea? That’s the best bit.”
Brenda sighed. “It doesn’t work like that, lovey. If you told me there was a creature that you couldn’t see, but that it was going around stealing all the milk, I’d believe you. You know that, right?”
“I do.”
“Well, I’m telling you that there was a pet shop on the end there. It was run by a wonky old biddy with an incontinent monkey and a parrot called Admiral Spangle. And while we didn’t know Erzulie well, she was as much of a fixture in Whitby as the Abbey. And she was good. And now you, Debs and everybody but me, it seems, don’t remember that she was here. And that,” she stabbed a finger at Bialystock’s Blooms, “was not here a fortnight ago.”
“But… I remember it always being here, Brenda. You’re not making sense. They did the flowers for my wedding. Both times.”
“Effie, I can assure you that whatever you remember, it’s not true. You’ve been got at. And that makes me even angrier.”
Effie looked into Brenda’s eyes, bottomless pools of mystery that they were to her, and saw sincerity shining up from the depths.
“Fire away then, pet!”
“I’ll need your help, Effie. Take some of this, and hopefully it’ll keep that pongy pollen from getting its hooks into you again.”
Effie took a couple of exploratory sniffs of Brenda’s patented evil plant repelling house dust snuff, giving herself a series of concussive sneezes in the process.
“If this keeps up, they’ll certainly hear us coming!” Effie warned.
More accustomed to the stuff, Brenda inhaled deeply, with barely a sniffle.
“Here’s what I think we should do…” she said.
Admiral Spangle s
at atop the chimney stack of Curly Do’s, keenly watching Brenda sling the weighty table at Bialystock’s window.
Brenda was surprised when the window did not produce the expected shattering sound you would associate with breaking glass. If anything, it sounded like a heavy boot on a frozen puddle, or a spoon breaking through the coating of a choc-ice, with the volume turned up to eleven.
Knocking out the loose fragments of whatever it was from the window, Brenda pushed aside the table and stepped into Bialystock’s Blooms for the first time. She took a brief moment to savour her mini-victory as she pulled the bolt across on the door. This allowed Effie to follow in a more dignified manner, for which she was grateful. She threw the door wide open, and ripped down Karswell’s closed sign for good measure.
The violent manner of her entry to the property threatened to bring back fractured memories from her long and eventful life, but Brenda forced them back into the depths. This was a totally inappropriate time for an extended flashback.
Bialystock’s interior was rammed to the gills with different plants, from the common or garden rose to all manner of odd flora that neither of the interlopers could identify. Brenda recognised the same plant as on Effie’s doorstep, taking up a number of shelves – obviously the florist’s biggest seller, judging by the space devoted to them.
As quickly as they could, Brenda and Effie scanned the space for clues. Despite it being not even lunchtime, the shop interior remained dingy and twilit. Some daylight muscled its way through the smashed window, but soon withered away once it crossed the threshold.
A bench filled with work-in-progress floral displays. The usual stuff. Balls of twine and decorative wrapping paper. And Pacer’s collar, idly discarded amidst the leftover debris.
The interior furnishings were all natural, wood and wickerwork. Vines crisscrossed the room from ceiling to floor. Nothing manmade.
“Where do you think Karswell is?” Effie asked, “Do you think he’s off on business?”
“I doubt we could be that lucky,” Brenda replied. “Keep an eye out. I’m going into the back.”
There was a beaded curtain over the doorframe at the back of the shop. Caught up in the excitement, Effie overtook Brenda and pushed through.
“Wait for me!” Brenda called.
“Last one there buys the butties!” Effie stage whispered as she went further into the darkness. The musty overripe smell filled the shop. Even Brenda was beginning to smell it, though thankfully did not appear to feel any other effects.
Brenda swept the curtain aside, but as the beads rattled and rolled over her hand, Brenda found them moving of their own accord. They twisted and writhed, wrapping themselves around Brenda’s wrist and arm.
She tried to brush the vines away, but more snaked down and trapped her other arm. The more she struggled, the tighter they grew. Even her strength seemed to work against her, as the vines yanked and dragged her like a puppet.
“Effie!” she cried, but received no response. She pulled against the restrictive coils again, and received a sharp yank in return, like a bad dog owner disciplining their pet, momentarily pulling her off her feet.
“Come out, Bialystock! Stop hiding away in the dark!” Brenda bellowed, provoking a low rumble from the depths of the shop. She continued to struggle, for all the good it did her.
Suddenly by her side, a silken voice broke the silence, “You really are the most impatient of creatures, Brenda.” Karswell stepped in front of her, and smiled. His moustache turned up at the ends in a thoroughly unpleasant manner. If they had been longer, Brenda would have expected him to twirl them.
“Whitby is the perfect beachhead, Brenda. I don’t know what it is in the soil, but oh, it is ripe with potential. It’s not the Old Country, but then, what is?” Karswell paced the floor in front of Brenda, who was now suspended by the vines a couple of feet off the ground.
“The years I’ve walked the world, you wouldn’t believe… Although… perhaps you would.”
“What are you? Aliens?” Brenda remained defiant, but unable to do anything.
“Hah!” Karswell laughed cruelly. “I can assure you I’m as human as you. I’m just blessed to have received Mr Bialystock’s benediction.”
“What have you done with Effie?”
“She’s gone to meet Mr Bialystock. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? If you’d waited a little longer, he would have come to you in his own time.”
“Let me down, and I’ll happily see Bialystock for myself.”
“Nothing would give me greater pleasure, my dear. But I can see that you seem to have a resistance to the pollen. Can’t have you throwing around the garden furniture again, can we? Not at this crucial phase in our expansion. Perhaps Mr Bialystock will bestow his benediction upon you too. Then you’ll see things our way.”
A muffled noise came from the deeper recesses of the shop.
Karswell turned to call into the darkness, “That’s right, Miss Jacobs – may I call you Effie? Face the Master! Inhale his blossom…”
Brenda took advantage of Karswell’s distraction. She pulled mightily at the vines attached to the shelving, gaining just enough freedom of movement to lash out at the florist, catching him no more than a glancing blow, but causing him to stagger.
All pretence at civility stripped away at last, Karswell backhanded Brenda, making her gasp. The vines started to constrict further.
“No benediction for you!”
Brenda’s stitches threatened to come undone as the vines squeezed ever harder.
“I’m sorry I brought you here, Effie,” she said as consciousness threatened to leave her.
The cavalry arrived – or given his rank, was it the navy? – in the form of Admiral Spangle. Swooping in through the open window with a mighty caw, the parrot made straight for Karswell’s most vulnerable feature. His eyes. Karswell was unprepared for the fresh attack. Despite the advantages he had been given, the agony of a parrot repeatedly pecking at the jelly of his eyeballs was more than he could bear.
He lashed out blindly, but Spangle was a canny bird, and managed to avoid his grasp.
Brenda sensed that Karswell was linked to the sentient vines. As the bird struck and struck again, the whole place fell into uproar. The room beyond began to shake violently, and the vines whipped about wildly. That was enough for Brenda to gather her wits and wrench herself free at last.
While Karswell and Spangle circled each other, Brenda leapt headlong through the wrecked curtain into the heart of darkness.
What illumination there was came from a form of bioluminescent moss growing in random patches over the walls. It was as though the rest of the building beyond the antechamber had cored itself out into a single cathedral-like shell. Brenda saw Effie, transfixed before her, looking up and up and up at Mr Bialystock, revealed at last in all its glory. Rooted deep into the ground in the centre of the chamber, Bialystock was the size of an ancient tree. Warped and furrowed, it had no actual facial features, but Brenda could not help but project human characteristics onto the alien thing. Shadowy knot holes were easily mistaken for eyes and a gaping mouth. On top of Bialystock’s head grew a number of broccoli-like protuberances. Textured like the surface of a brain, combined with the faux-face beneath it, Brenda could only see it as a veggie afro.
Connected to everything in the shop, the creature’s roots lashed it to the cavernous shell parasitically. Some had started to rot away, no longer needed. Bialystock thrashed along with the moans from its servant.
Brenda remembered Karswell’s comments about it being a crucial time. Was this what all those pot plants would grow into?
Directly in front of Bialystock was an offshoot of its main body. Like a great organic pod or egg-cup, filled almost to brimming with some form of sticky sap. A crib, or some sort of font.
This must be where Karswell received his benediction from the thing. Her eyes flashed to Effie, who stood stock-still in front of it. Had Bialystock inducted her too? She saw no sap stains on he
r friend, though the plant’s thrashing was causing the font to shake and tip the foul-smelling liquid onto the floor.
Brenda dashed forward and pulled her friend out of reach, just as Karswell staggered into the chamber, having succeeded in getting away from the deadly parrot. His face and hands were torn horribly.
Karswell stepped awkwardly onto the sap-slick floor, lost balance and went headfirst into the font. Just his legs stuck out as he scrabbled to gain purchase on the edge of the font.
Splashing liquid everywhere, although Brenda and Effie were careful to remain out of the firing line, Karswell managed eventually to haul his upper torso from the font. He gulped at the air gratefully.
The ladies witnessed the transformative work that Bialystock’s benediction had begun upon its servant. The least severe scrapes on his flesh were gone, almost washed away. Deeper damage took longer, but creepers and vines from the main trunk of the creature snaked up from the font to nurse Karswell, supporting his dead weight before the font. Fronds at the end of each creeper daubed at his wounds tenderly, bathing them in the healing sap. Karswell’s flesh began to bubble and regenerate. Where the fronds touched, his skin started to take on fresh texture, emulating that of his master’s. More bark than flesh. Veins and arteries on his hands and face bulged, as though varicose, pulsing in time with the heartbeat that thudded around Bialystock’s chamber.
Brenda and Effie watched Karswell’s eyes knit themselves together once more. His agonised expression gave way to one of serenity. The benediction evidently acted as a supercharged anaesthetic, too. The florist half-turned towards them, drawn to the sound of their horrified reactions. His new eyes were still growing in.
Behind him, Bialystock shook itself; another growth spurt, and accompanying moans, echoing around the chamber. The rumbling moans reached their crescendo, and a line of buds running along Bialystock’s branches, each the size of a football, answered the call. Shaking, the buds began to split and separate, forcing themselves open. In unison, they bloomed.
[Brenda & Effie 00] - A Treasury of Brenda and Effie Page 5