The Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop

by Dianne Carol Sudron

  Mabble Merlin arrived in Pluckley and delivered the antique mirror to the Lion and Unicorn Inn. The inn was about 500 years old. He walked into the inn and handed over the mirror.

  “Oh, thank you,” the landlord said.

  He and his wife were both serving behind the bar. They both thought Mabble Merlin was dressed strangely. He had a beret on and a long trench coat and a long scarf that was wrapped round his neck several times. It was the longest scarf they ever saw. In fact, they wondered how he walked without tripping over it. They looked out of the window and saw the old delivery van, and when they looked back to where Mabble Merlin had been standing he wasn’t there; he was already back in the delivery van!

  The young inn owners, Sally and Richard Knight, rushed outside, but the strange delivery man and van were gone. They looked at the antique mirror and looked at each other and realised it wasn’t going to be an ordinary mirror. All they knew was that their aunt had bought it for them from an antique shop in London as a house-warming present. They had invited their aunt to visit them at the inn in the summertime, when the renovation work was completed. Their Aunt Lydia had bought several other things from the antique shop - she thought they would be suitable for the inn.

  Mabble Merlin was now driving at warp speed down the winding country lanes of Kent. He was going to the Queen’s Head Hotel in Eastbourne, where he had an antique bed to deliver.

  When he arrived at the hotel the receptionist was astonished because she didn’t hear him walking across the tiled floor. Mabble Merlin suddenly seemed to appear.

  “I’ve come to deliver a bed,” he told her.

  The hotel porter helped Mabble Merlin to bring in the bed. The bed was from the 1840s yet it looked brand new.

  The porter asked, “Is this a reproduction? It looks brand new.”

  “It’s not a reproduction - it’s the real thing.”

  The hotelier arrived and helped with the bed.

  Mabble Merlin said, “That’s a very special bed. You certainly will enjoy a good night’s sleep in it.”

  “It looks brand new,” said the hotelier, Philip Chase, but there’s a label on here that says ‘1840 - Handmade by Bedknobs and Broomsticks of Bristol’.

  Philip looked up at Mabble Merlin.

  “It is brand new,” said Mabble Merlin. “It’s never been used.”

  “Oh,” said Philip, “I see.”

  Philip was bemused.

  Suddenly he was distracted when the receptionist told him that seven guests had missed an organised trip to the medieval town of Rye and Beachy Head, which is not far from Eastbourne. The coach had left without them.

  Mabble Merlin offered to take the guests to Beachy Head and Rye, and also to Camber Castle, once owned by Henry VIII, not far from the nature reserve.

  The seven guests all bundled into the van - and there were plenty of seats for them; the seats tucked away when it was used as a delivery van.

  With the seven guests in the van, Mabble Merlin drove off down the road towards Beachy Head. The van raced along the leafy lanes at warp speed. While the van drove itself, Mabble Merlin was able to turn to the hotel guests and have a conversation with them. They thought he must know the area like the back of his hand, not to have to keep looking at the road.

  Finally the van came to a grinding halt, and they all got out and breathed in the beautiful sea air. Below them were the jade-green sea and the white chalky cliffs of Beachy Head.

  Mabble Merlin told the hotel guests that there were tunnels inside the cliffs, where hobbits and leprechauns and hobgoblins lived. He told them that the caves were lined with gemstones like amethyst.

  Suddenly the seven hotel guests found themselves in a gemstone cavern. The floor of the cavern was made from black obsidian and there was a table and chairs made from obsidian. They all sat on the seats. Mabble Merlin sat on a very tall chair. It was made from a gemstone called obsidian snowflake, which is black with splodges of white - the same sort of white as the chalky cliffs. The seven hotel guests looked at one another and felt very relaxed and peaceful.

  Then in trundled what looked like a leprechaun. He was dressed all in green. He offered the seven hotel guests a cup of tea and biscuits.

  They drank the tea and ate the biscuits, and Mabble Merlin told them about the little people that lived in the caves. Then Mabble Merlin said it was time they were going, and they walked up a gemstone staircase made from obsidian.

  In no time at all they reached the top of the staircase, where there was an opening in the top of the cliffs. They all walked out into the sunlight and found themselves back at the very spot they had started from, overlooking the jade-green sea. When they looked back, the entrance to the caves had disappeared.

  Then Mabble Merlin shouted, “Hurry up! We’re all going to the ancient medieval town of Rye.”

  They all got into the van and fastened their seat belts, and Mabble Merlin drove helter-skelter along the winding cliffs and the winding, narrow country roads. He held the steering wheel of the van and turned to talk to the guests. They noticed he never looked at the road once. He chatted to them calmly and casually. After the experience of being in the gemstone cave, and being given tea and biscuits by a leprechaun, they knew that Mabble Merlin was stranger than fiction; so they listened to everything he had to say, staring into his mud-brown eyes.

  In no time at all they reached Rye. Rye is a delightful place with a church from the twelfth century.

  The hotel guests were Karl and Evie from London, Clive and Corrine from Morecambe, Kate and Harry from Beccles near Lowestoft, and Roger from Cardiff. They were all really enjoying the trip with Mabble Merlin. When they got to Rye, they wanted to go to one of the taverns up the cobbled streets of the steep Mint, as it is called. They went into the Mermaid Tavern, where they all had the chef’s special: ‘Smuggler’s pie’ with chips. Basically, this is fish pie with vegetables and mushrooms. The chef came out to ask them if they had enjoyed it. He looked very trendy, and they noticed his ginger hair looked very stylish. His chef’s outfit was tailor-made and high fashion. He asked what sweet they would like, and he recommended the ginger pudding and custard - perhaps because his hair was ginger! It had real ginger in it. The chef’s name was Rex Mahoney. He came from Ireland, and he certainly knew how to cook. The pudding was delicious. They also ordered Irish coffee, and cheese and biscuits, and Mabble Merlin entertained them with all kinds of stories about his shop, which they all promised to visit whenever they were in London. He gave them his business card so they wouldn’t forget.

  At last it was time for Mabble Merlin to take them back to the Queen’s Head Hotel in Eastbourne. They all boarded the van and fastened their seat belts. Mabble Merlin took hold of the steering wheel and zoom! They whizzed at great speed along the narrow winding country lanes. Chickens in their chicken coops flew off their perches in alarm when the van whizzed past faster than the speed of sound. The hens certainly laid a few more eggs than usual that day! The cockerel started squawking his head off. A farmer and his wife in the sleepy village of Baldslow looked out of their window to see the black-and-gold 40s-style van whizzing past as if it wasn’t touching the road. Faster and faster went the van, but Mabble Merlin still managed to talk to the hotel guests without looking at the road even once. The seven of them were talking fast to him, and he was talking just as fast to all of them. In fact, everything was speeded up.

  When they arrived in Eastbourne, the guests got out of the van and quickly walked up the steps of the Queen’s Head Hotel. Philip Chase was waiting for them to arrive. They were all in a good mood. Mabble Merlin waved goodbye and the guests waved back and thanked him for a most amazing trip.

  The Sound of Running Water

  The hotelier asked if they had enjoyed the trip with Mabble Merlin, and they all said it was fabulous and they wouldn’t have missed it for the world. They were a
ll so tired that they all went straight to their hotel rooms. Roger was in Room 13. He had arrived at the hotel late and hadn’t previously checked into the room because it hadn’t been ready. While he was on the trip with Mabble Merlin the new bed had been moved into his room, so when he opened the door of the room he saw the antique bed for the first time. It looked like a bed fit for a king!

  Roger had brought his laptop with him, intending to do some work on tracing his family tree. Some of his ancestors had originated from the south of England; and he wanted to go to Rye, where one of his ancestors had been a smuggler. He had put his name down for the Rye Ghost Walk. Rye had captured his imagination. He had enjoyed the day trip to Rye. Now he planned to spend a few days in Eastbourne and a few days in Brighton and then spend a week in Rye.

  He took out his laptop and sat at the desk in the bedroom. On the Internet he found a nice hotel in Brighton and he looked at possible hotels in Rye. He booked an online reservation in Brighton at the Sahara Hotel, which included a Beachcomber Restaurant, a Sand Shuffle Bar and a Blue Nile Cocktail Lounge. He also booked an online reservation at the Smuggler’s Tavern, which included the Smuggler’s Cove Cocktail Bar and the Blue Lagoon Lounge. He was really pleased with his choice of reservations.

  He made himself a cup of hot chocolate and was ready for a good night’s sleep in the antique bed that had just been bought from the Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop. He got into the antique bed, and he dreamt about the Sand Shuffle Bar. The Sand Shuffle Bar had a sand-coloured voile curtain along one wall, and, to the sounds of desert music, a cinema screen appeared showing a desert scene. Three camels moved across the scene, and then the music stopped and the sand-coloured curtain closed.

  Roger was a restaurant manager in Cardiff. He was interested in the pub trade and hotels because he was hoping one day to buy a property somewhere on the south coast, so he planned to do a bit of market research during his holiday. He was sceptical about ghosts, but he was curious! He didn’t actually believe everything that had happened that day with Mabble Merlin. He thought it was a set-up or Mabble Merlin was a hypnotist. He had noticed Mabble Merlin had strange hypnotic owl eyes. Before he went to sleep he made up his mind that in the morning he would type up his experiences on his laptop. Then he thought he might have a walk along the beach of Eastbourne to clear his mind.

  The antique bed had a richly ornate hand-carved headboard and a rich mulberry satin quilt. The mattress was so comfortable that he had fallen asleep immediately.

  He hadn’t been asleep long when he woke up abruptly to the sound of running water. The sound seemed to be coming from inside the bed. He thought for a split second that he’d had too much hot chocolate to drink the night before, and he jumped up out of bed fearing he’d had a little accident. The bed sheet was soaking wet. He felt embarrassed that he’d wet the bed, and he thought, ‘How very odd!’ He went to the wardrobe to see if there was a spare sheet.

  There were spare blankets, but no sheets. He was feeling suddenly so tired that he decided to get back into the bed and the next thing he knew it was morning. He looked at the sheets and felt that they were dry, so he concluded that he must have dreamt the whole thing, but he remembered how real it seemed.

  He had a nice walk along the beach, and then he went for breakfast. He felt rather relieved that the bed was dry and that the sound of running water seemed to have been in his imagination after all.

  The Lucky Charm Bracelet

  It was a few weeks before Penelope’s birthday, and Daisy and Oliver wanted to buy their mum a present. So one Saturday morning they decided to go into Kensington and to take a short cut through Hyde Park. Miles went with the children. He wanted to buy some silverware for the birthday party, as well as some crockery and some table linen that would look suitable for a 1920s-themed party. There was a shop in Kensington called The Silver Spoon, and Miles wanted to go and browse around it.

  It was a pleasant day when they arrived in Kensington and walked along one of the busy streets lined with restaurants. Suddenly they came to an opening that led down a cobbled back alley that they hadn’t noticed before - at least Miles hadn’t noticed it before. There was a billboard in the back alley on the cobblestones that read, ‘Eye-catching silver jewellery, silver tableware, 1920s crockery and 1920s Irish table linen’. Miles couldn’t believe it. It was as if someone had read his mind. Halfway down the cobbled street, tucked out of sight, there was an antique shop. There were several steps up to the shop, and it was so narrow and quaint with a small bow window. A quaint shop sign hung above the door: ‘Welcome to the Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop’.

  Miles was so excited. He believed he would find everything he wanted in this shop. He had been in a shop like this a few weeks before in the Bayswater area, he thought there must be more than one Musty Old Magical Curiosity Shop. The shopkeeper looked rather different, so Miles didn’t think they were the same person.

  “How can I help you today?” asked Mabble Merlin.

  “Well, I’m looking for some silver tableware - knives, forks, spoons, sugar bowl, salt and pepper pots and a milk jug. I would also like a silver tray and some table linen. We’re having a 1920s-themed cocktail party - a birthday party.”

  “That’s wonderful!” said Mabble Merlin. “Now come over here. I’ve got everything you need and more.”

  Mabble Merlin handed Miles a leather box, and Miles opened it. It contained the most exquisite silver tableware. Miles picked out a silver spoon and turned it over to look at the maker’s mark. It had been made in Boston, USA, in 1923, so it was perfect for the 1920s-themed party. Miles was very pleased with the silverware.

  Mabble Merlin brought out another leather box, containing a silver milk jug, sugar bowl, tray, and salt and pepper pots. These were all made in Virginia, USA, in 1922.

  All that Miles needed now was the table linen. Before Miles could say anything, Mabble Merlin had handed him a bale of linen.

  “That’s the best Irish linen that we have,” said Mabble Merlin.

  Miles looked at the label on the linen. It read, ‘Made in County Cork, Ireland, in 1925’.

  “That’s just perfect,” said Miles, “just perfect.”

  “Now, how can I help you two children?” said Mabble Merlin. “What are you looking for?”

  Daisy piped up: “We’re looking for a piece of jewellery for Mum’s birthday.”

  Mabble Merlin pulled a beautiful trinket box from a glass cabinet and opened it up to reveal a silver charm bracelet. They all just looked at it; they were all speechless.

  “This, I think, would make a beautiful gift,” said Mabble Merlin.

  Mabble Merlin placed it on the shop counter. The charm bracelet had seven silver charms: a heart-shaped locket, a dice, a pixie, a key, a miniature locket watch, a horseshoe and a fairy. Mabble Merlin explained to the children that all the lucky charms were very lucky indeed, and they all had a magic of their own. Mabble Merlin explained that the miniature locket watch could help the owner to get into the kingdom of the little people. The owner of the charm bracelet had to find out how each of the charms worked; Mabble Merlin couldn’t tell them. He could only say that each charm had a different lucky power.

  The children were very impressed with the charm bracelet.

  “It’s really pretty,” said Daisy to Mabble Merlin.

  “Yes, it’s very eye-catching, and I don’t think your mum will be disappointed.”

  He then popped it into a gold trinket box, placed it in a gold satin bag and handed it to Daisy. Daisy was over the moon with it. She thought it was a delightful gift.

  Oliver piped up: “I think we should buy something else for Mum, to go with the bracelet.”

  Mabble Merlin handed Oliver a gift voucher.

  “Here is a gift voucher for the Magical Mystery Tour - a holiday for two. It can be for a week or longer, and the destination is a s
ecret.”

  “That sounds exciting,” said Oliver. “I’ll definitely take that.”

  “That’s an excellent suggestion,” said Daisy.

  “Well, you won’t be disappointed, because it will be out of this world.”

  Mabble Merlin wasn’t exaggerating - all Mabble Merlin’s trips were beyond the imagination.

  Mabble Merlin was wearing a 1920s suit with spats, a waistcoat and a bow tie.

  Suddenly Miles piped up: “Where did you get the suit?”

  Mabble Merlin turned to a corner of the shop and pointed to a rack of 1920s clothes that Miles hadn’t noticed before. He flicked through the selection of 1920s suits and dresses, accessories and shoes. He was sure that the forty-eight guests coming to the party would want to be dressed in outfits like these. Miles pulled the guest list out of his pocket and he was pleased to find that there were suits and dresses for everyone. The clothes looked brand new, and they had all been designed by the most famous 1920s designers.

  Mabble Merlin piped up: “If you leave a list of the names of people attending the party, we’ll have their names sewn into their outfits, and we’ll have them specially delivered with shoes and accessories to match. Leave it to me, Miles. I’ll enjoy very much choosing their outfits.”

  Miles had intended going to an exclusive vintage-clothing shop in Oxford Street, but these clothes were perfect. They seemed so expensive and exclusive-looking!

  Miles just thought, ‘Gosh! This is going to be such an exciting 1920s party. The guests will be delighted.’

  Mabble Merlin’s Business Card

  Miles and the children were very pleased with their purchases. They had purchased everything they needed in one shop.

  Miles decided it was time for some lunch, and he knew the perfect place: a restaurant in Kensington High Street called The Pecan Pie. It was very popular. It sold organic wholefoods and had large wooden tables and a stone floor. Some of the food was on display.