full 3/4 1/2   skin light dark       
 
Business as usual by Lilachigh
 
Chp 28 Just Like Home
 
<<     >>
 
Business as Usual

Chapter 28 Just like home

Agnes Pringle, English spinster, reluctant vampire and now proud owner and manager of the Olde English Willow-Tree Tea Shoppe, Sunnydale, USA, stood and surveyed her domain.

Tears – she hadn’t realised she could still cry – trickled down her cheeks. It was all so beautiful! She could have almost been standing in her own little shop back home in Winchester. There were thick blue and white flowered curtains at the windows – double lined to keep out the sunlight - dark oak tables and chairs with neat royal blue cushion pads, little blue vases with flowers in each – which she realised she would have to remove after tonight because the Ostvxysch demons had a bad habit of eating them. The vases, not the flowers, of course, because they were by nature vegetarians, so much that they also slaughtered all carnivores they came across - which made seating arrangements after midnight extremely complicated.

She had wondered about having a “non-person-eating” zone at one side of the shop, but it really would be difficult to police.

The Willow-Tree Tea Shoppe was opening only four doors down and across the street from The Magic Box, which Spike had told her was a good idea because Dawn was in and out of there all the time and he could keep an eye on her without getting under everyone’s feet.

Agnes would have preferred a site further away from where Buffy’s friends hung out, but this shop had become vacant and she had to admit it was suitable in so many ways. She now had her own kitchen and a little room for a bedroom. There was a basement for storing flour, sugar and all sorts of ingredients. And the tunnels that ran beneath most of Sunnydale passed right by her basement door. So convenient! She could go to the Library, the Mall, the bank, even the Laundromat and dry-cleaning shop without ever having to brave the streets again. Everything about it was perfect.

Also, that very nice gentleman, Mr Giles, who owned the Magic Box, had come along to say good-morning and offer any help she might need with settling in. He was so well spoken; his accent reminded her of home.

At the moment, Dawn Summers was here at the Willow-Tree, sitting at one of the tables, carefully writing out the menu cards. Her face was still white and strained from the loss of her sister, but she was enjoying the task because Agnes had agreed with her ideas to draw little blue flowers and birds on the top of each menu.

She inspected the master card that Agnes had handed her earlier. “You don't have any angel cake for sale, Agnes. Don’t you know how to make it? I could show you. Mom – ” her voice wobbled slightly – “Mom taught me and Buffy, but she….my sister wasn’t really interested in cooking.”

Agnes surreptitiously mopped her tear-stained face with one of her best handkerchiefs. This was obviously not the right time for sentimental journeys into past memories. “Well, being the Slayer, I expect she was always very busy.”

“Did you ever meet her?”

Agnes bit her lip and gazed down with affection at the dark head bent over the menus. “No, I never had that – pleasure.” She thought it wouldn’t be wise to add that if they had met, she probably wouldn’t be standing here now! “And as for angel cake - I did make one once, but it wasn’t a great success.”

“Didn’t your customers like it?”

Agnes made a non-committal sort of noise and turned away. There was so much she couldn’t tell Dawn, including the fact that Spike had picked up the angel cake and hurled it to the ground when she mentioned what the bright pink concoction was called! Such a waste and so messy, sugar and sponge ground into the carpet. She really didn’t understand what he had against angels. But perhaps he didn’t believe in them, or didn’t understand that everyone has a guardian angel looking after them, even vampires. Although, to be fair, she was a little hazy about that last fact.

The door to the basement steps opened and Spike appeared. He glanced across to Dawn, who waved a hand languidly at him and went on with her work: then he turned to Agnes. “You’ve made a nice job of the basement. I like the door into the tunnels! Who made it?”

Agnes sighed. Spike had obviously walked straight through her back door without ringing the little bell she’d had installed. She had pondered the possibility of having a lock fitted, but knew that would be the way Spike came in and out of the shop during the day and even if she gave him a key, he would only lose it.

“Your friend Clem built it for me. He’s very handy to have around.”

“Good poker player, too,” Spike said absently, wandering around the shop, inspecting everything. “You should see him with kittens.”

Agnes smiled. “Oh, does he have a cat? I’ve thought of getting one. It does help to keep down the mice and you always get vermin when you have lot of flour and sugar around. There were – “ she shivered in distaste “rats at the garbage dump.”

“Oh, are you getting a kitten?” Dawn heard the word and bounced enthusiastically in her seat. “Oh do, Agnes, do get a kitten. Willow and Tara had one. Rats are OK, too. Willow has one: it lives in a cage in her bedroom. She’s very fond of it.”

Agnes shuddered. Really, the more she heard about this girl Willow, the less she liked her. How could anyone keep a nasty, dirty rat as a pet? “We’ll see. Maybe Spike will ask Clem if he knows where we can find a nice kitten.”

Spike raised an eyebrow but valiantly didn’t enlighten his friend as to where Clem got his betting chips and what he actually did with them. “Are you opening tonight?” he said.

“Yes. That was the plan. I’ve told all my old customers to call in after midnight. I thought I’d open for the Unturned from tomorrow onwards, but I think it’s only fair that the demons come to the grand opening.”

Spike frowned. He looked tired, the cuts and bruises on his face had taken a long time to fade. “Are you sure you want to serve humans, Aggie? What if someone guesses you’re a vamp? There could be all sorts of trouble and I might not be around to help out.”

“Why – are you going away?” Dawn’s voice rang out, scared and shaking.

“What – no, of course not, Niblet. I’m not going anywhere.” He threw an anxious glance at Agnes over Dawn’s head, alarmed at the note of hysteria in the teenager’s voice.

“People are always going away. I hate it,” Dawn said, sounding sulky but Agnes realised the girl was terrified of losing someone else close to her.

“I promised your Sis to look out for you,” Spike said briefly, pain cutting across his face like a sword slash.

Dawn jumped to her feet, the menus scattering across the table onto the floor. “What – you’re only hanging with me because Buffy asked you to? I thought you liked me. Well, don't bother. I’m going home!” She flounced out of the tearooms, the door banging behind her, causing the bell hanging over the doorframe to jangle violently.

Agnes began to pick up the menu cards. “She’s still upset about her sister.”

Spike rubbed his hands through his hair, messing the smooth peroxide strands into a riot of curls. “I know. Sometimes I think she’s getting over it, then she’ll explode in temper or tantrums and I’m not certain if it’s because she’s a teenager or something more.”

Agnes sighed. “Or a teenager and something more. That’s a violent combination.”

“What should I do?”

Leave Sunnydale; find another vampire girl to love, travel abroad and start a new life – all these thoughts flashed through her mind. She was desperately worried about her friend. If he stayed here, watching out for Dawn Summers, what would happen to him? Dawn would, eventually, get over her loss and grow up. She would go to college, get a job, marry, raise a family, grow old, die. And Spike would still be there, watching over someone who no longer had any need for him.

“Keep her busy and occupied, but don’t prevent her talking about her sister. I notice you hardly mention her and you should. Do her other friends let her talk about Buffy?”

Spike shrugged and prowled restlessly round the room. “Not when I’m around, but bloody hell, that isn’t that often! I’m extremely useful for taking care of Dawn when they’re busy and I’ve been doing patrolling with them some nights, but we work in silence most of the time.”

He moodily picked a flower out of a vase and began pulling the petals off, one by one. Agnes recalled an old rhyme she used to say with her friends when she was very small. Sitting in a field, making daisy chains, picking off the petals as they chanted, “He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me – “ She did hope Spike wasn’t still thinking that way about the Slayer that way.

“I wondered if she would like to do a little waitressing for me – ” Agnes said. “Oh, not in the evenings, of course, but perhaps for an hour after school and at weekends during the mornings?”

“I’ll ask her,” Spike said slowly. “It won’t happen if I suggest it to the Scooby gang, but if she tells them it’s what she wants to do, then it might work.”

He stared round at the tearoom as if seeing it for the first time, clean, pretty, waiting for the customers to arrive. “You’ve worked wonders in here, Aggie,” he said. “It must have cost you a fortune.”

Agnes shrugged. There was no way she was going to tell Spike about Richard Wilkins’ legacy. She had the feeling he wouldn’t understand how A Great Love could strike you at any age. “Oh, you know what it’s like, Spike. Banks can be very helpful when you want to start up a small business and, of course, they don’t know of my affliction.”

The bright blue gaze swung round to the small English vampire; small, a little plump, wrapped in a vast frilled apron, her light brown hair fluffy, cut in an old-fashioned style. “Is that how you still see it? Becoming a vampire. An affliction?”

“Spike, it’s a long time since you were turned. Perhaps you don’t remember it very well. But only a few years ago, I was one of the Unturned and sometimes I find it – difficult – not to look back and think what my life was like compared to now. Although – ” she squared her shoulders and became very busy untying her pinny and fluffing up her hair. “If you look backwards, you’re more than likely to trip over what’s in front of you! Now, I’ve got baking to do and I think you had better go after that poor child and convince her that she is liked for herself and not because you are duty bound to do so.”

Spike headed for the basement stairs, then stopped. “The stupid thing is, I do like her. She’s a brave kid who’s had more to cope with than most girls of her age. I’d have kept an eye out for her even if Buffy hadn’t – well, if the Slayer was still here.”

The next morning was a Saturday. Aching with weariness, Agnes was standing at her counter, adding up the evening’s takings. Demons and vampires were difficult payers. Sometimes you had to insist and sometimes they just didn’t have cash so would leave you whatever they happened to be carrying with them at the time.

She put the money away safely in a drawer and peered at what was left: two small bottles of a red liquid she had been told was blood, but if so, it had certainly had alcohol added to it! A piece of parchment, which apparently was a genuine treasure map. Four IOUs and a small collection of buttons and tokens that she would have to take to the Magic Shop to get evaluated.

But all in all, her first evening had been a success. It was a great pity about the sausage rolls, of course, but there had been no way she could have known that Vistars were allergic to flaky pastry! She would just have to remember to make them with short crust next time.

And only one fight! And even that was only because of a shortage of chairs that had seats large enough to accommodate the bigger demons’ – well, rear-ends, she supposed was the tactful way of putting it.

Agnes looked up as the doorbell clanged. Surely she had put the Closed sign up? But it was Dawn, a smiling Dawn.

“Hi, Agnes. Is it true that I can come and work for you sometimes? That would be great. I’ve brought two of my friends along to meet you. This is Xander Harris and this is Anya. Everyone, this is Agnes Pringle.”

Agnes blinked and stepped back into the shadows. And that wasn’t just because of the bright sunlight streaming in through the open door. It was because she sensed, very clearly, that this girl either had been or still was, a demon and would have no trouble in identifying the woman standing in front of her!

tbc























 
<<     >>