Madame Pamplemousse and the Enchanted Sweet Shop

by Rupert Kingfisher

  However, it was not just that she had forgotten how to cook a particular recipe. In the past, this happened all the time, but that had never seemed to matter. In trying to recall a recipe she would often come up with something better. Recipes had a way of linking together, mysteriously, like a network of hidden pathways. Her deep feeling for such pathways formed the basis of her technique. But now all that was missing, as if she had lost her intuition, as though her very talent had somehow been removed.

  Just then she heard a burst of laughter. The audience were all watching Mirabelle, who was doing something to amuse them. She was cooking at top speed, slamming pans on the stove, chopping all sorts of ingredients and dropping them into a pot. She did this quite randomly and without any show of skill, but that was obviously the point. She was making a mockery of the whole competition. The audience were loving it. In that uncanny way of hers, Mirabelle seemed to have got them all on her side. Madeleine knew she would soon have them laughing at her. She would show the world what a sad misfit Madeleine really was: a child prodigy without any talent.

  Madeleine turned away from the cameras and reached into her pocket. She grabbed a fistful of truffles and stuffed them into her mouth. And then, to the surprise of the audience and everyone watching at home, Madeleine collapsed, fainting, with a crash.

  x

  Chapter Seven

  For a long time it seemed to Madeleine that she was floating through darkness. She had been half sleeping, drifting in and out of consciousness, but as she awoke fully the darkness became suffocating. She tried to move her arms and legs but discovered that they were bound. Her whole body seemed to be shrouded in some kind of covering. The claustrophobia was unbearable and she would have begun struggling had she not heard a sound.

  It came distantly, as if from another room; the echoing click of heels on a hard tiled floor. They were stepping quickly and, as she lay there listening, they came closer, until it seemed they were only a few metres away. Abruptly the footfalls stopped. The next thing Madeleine knew, the covers were being ripped from her face.

  The Moon Man loomed over her, grinning his cruel smile. Up close she could see how shiny and greasy his face was with its coating of white make-up. His eyes were dark and fathomless, like pools of black treacle.

  Suddenly he reached down to grip Madeleine tightly about the waist. He lifted her over his shoulder and strode out through the door. He carried her into the adjoining room, the great hall that she had spied before. It had a high, vaulted ceiling and tall windows looking out on to a starry night sky. At the far end a fire was burning in the hearth and a woman stood beside it. She turned round as they approached, motioning for the Moon Man to put Madeleine down. It was Madame Bonbon.

  ‘Hello, Madeleine,’ she said. ‘I hope your journey here wasn’t too tiring?’

  With her back to the fire, her face was cast mostly in silhouette; only her eyes could be seen gleaming through the shadows.

  ‘Where am I?’ asked Madeleine.

  ‘In my true home. Somewhere I found when I was only a child, not much older than you are now.’

  As she was speaking she moved closer, to run her fingers through Madeleine’s hair.

  ‘There is a kind of mould,’ she said, ‘which grows only on the walls of caves and damp places underground. Witches call it Silver Moonshine and from ancient times they have used it as a means of travel here – to the spirit world.’ She paused to smile. ‘I put it in my chocolates.’

  Madeleine shut her eyes tightly, shaking her head. ‘This isn’t real,’ she said out loud. ‘It’s only a dream!’

  ‘No, Madeleine, it’s no dream. You are somewhere quite real. And a part of you has always been here, ever since you first tasted my chocolates. That day I found you in the cathedral, do you remember?’

  With these words it was as though she drew aside a curtain, as if Madeleine’s mind were a darkened room and she was letting in the sunlight. It was with horror that Madeleine now recalled every detail she had forgotten. She remembered where she had been going that day: she was on her way to see Madame Pamplemousse. Until now, all memory of her had been erased from Madeleine’s mind.

  But in the act of remembering there came a sudden flash of intuition. From the beginning, none of it had been coincidence. That meeting in the cathedral had been planned. Madame Bonbon had followed her there, just as she had known the reason why Madeleine was crying.

  ‘It was you!’ Madeleine cried. ‘You were using her – you made Mirabelle bully me!’

  Madame Bonbon nodded approvingly. ‘That’s very clever of you, Madeleine. And girls like Mirabelle can be easily led. You were much more difficult. But it was your great weakness, don’t you see? Your desire to be ordinary, just like everybody else. And now that’s exactly what you are.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Madame Bonbon tipped her head to one side. ‘But can’t you tell? Surely you felt it on television?’

  ‘No!’ Madeleine whispered.

  Madame Bonbon nodded slowly. ‘That’s right, Madeleine. I took away your talent.’

  ‘But you can’t!’ Madeleine cried. ‘No one can do that! It’s not possible!’

  ‘Oh, but there’s a great deal which is possible, thanks to the power granted me by the spirits of this realm.’

  She nodded respectfully to the Moon Man, who responded with an enigmatic smile.

  ‘But, you see, I had to do it, because you have something I need. A certain piece of information. Just a tiny thing really, but in return for it, I promise to give you back everything I stole.’ She paused a moment, then added quietly, ‘I want to know how she travels through time.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘I d-don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Madeleine stammered.

  ‘Don’t lie to me,’ Madame Bonbon said coolly, with a distinct note of warning. ‘You know exactly what I’m talking about. I’m going to ask you a second time. Where does Madame Pamplemousse keep the time machine, and how does it work?’

  Madeleine gave no answer, though inwardly she despaired. She understood then just how badly she had been used. But it was all her own fault, her own weakness that had led her into this trap. It was no surprise Madeleine should lose her talent, since she did not deserve it. Nor did she deserve the faith that the Underground had placed in her. But that was also the reason why Madeleine would never betray their secret, because that faith was now the only hope she had left.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said again, but this time with defiance.

  Madame Bonbon’s face showed no emotion, her eyes shining darkly in the firelight. There was a brief pause before she nodded to the Moon Man, who picked Madeleine up and hurled her straight through the window.

  x

  Chapter Eight

  Madeleine crashed through the glass, shattering it into a million tiny fragments. For a split second she hung suspended in empty space, the glass shards about her glimmering like the stars above her head.

  Madeleine had been thrown from the high window of a castle. The castle was tall, shining white and made entirely out of marble. Far below, the castle was surrounded by a moat of dark water and it was towards this moat that Madeleine began falling.

  She shot down like a dead weight, hitting the surface with a giant splash. Then she carried on dropping downwards, going deep into the murky blue. She drifted down slowly until she reached the moat’s bed. It was covered with smooth sand, like the bottom of a fish tank. Sitting there, on a lone rock, was a woman. Or at least, the top part of her was a woman; the lower half was that of a fish. She had long, seaweed-green hair that drifted lazily about her head. The Mermaid was combing it with a fish-bone, but at the sight of Madeleine she stopped. The Mermaid smiled. She had a thin, delicately boned face, with transparently pale skin. Her eyes were slit-pupi
lled and oily like a reptile’s. They also looked somewhat frenzied and it occurred to Madeleine that she was not really smiling but baring her teeth, which were tiny and razor sharp like the teeth of a piranha.

  In a single motion the Mermaid sprang up and uncoiled her tail. She hovered before Madeleine with her tail gently rippling, then it began beating faster as she propelled herself through the water.

  With all her strength Madeleine kicked up from the moat’s bed. She pummelled the water furiously in a frantic doggy-paddle. She managed to climb but with awful slowness, while the Mermaid’s sleek form swam ever closer towards her. She would have gained on her completely had it not been for a long root that Madeleine saw growing out of the bank. It dipped down into the water and Madeleine grabbed hold of it, using it to haul herself up on to the ground.

  Just as she did so, the Mermaid’s head burst out of the water. She opened her mouth to shriek; a sound so shrill and piercing that it might have shattered glass. Madeleine picked herself up and began running.

  She ran to the nearby forest that surrounded the castle. A dense mist hung over the trees and she could hardly see her way, just the dark silhouettes of the tree trunks immediately in front of her. The trunks were long and spindly and grew sinuously about each other like the bodies of snakes. At times it looked as if they were moving, although this could have been just an illusion created by the drifting trails of mist. Madeleine also thought she could hear whispering. It was only faint but it was all around her and seemed to be coming from the trees. However, when she stopped to listen, the whispering would stop as well.

  Just then she heard another sound and Madeleine froze still. It was the sound of footsteps coming through the forest. Madeleine dived down out of sight.

  Ahead of her there was a clearing, a wide circle in the trees, and moving across it she could see two figures: a woman and a cat. The woman wore black and the cat was wearing an eyepatch.

  ‘Madame!’ whispered Madeleine.

  Neither of them seemed to hear her.

  ‘Madame!’ She tried again. ‘Madame!’ she hissed louder. ‘It’s me, Madeleine!’

  They stopped dead in their tracks. The woman looked about quizzically, squinting through the mist. Madeleine stepped out from her hiding place.

  ‘Madeleine!’ cried Madame Pamplemousse. She opened her arms wide and Madeleine ran towards them.

  ‘Oh, Madame!’ Madeleine gasped. ‘I’m so glad to see you!’

  Madame Pamplemousse hugged her tight. Camembert joined in with the embrace, nuzzling his head against Madeleine’s leg while purring affectionately.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Madeleine. ‘It’s all my fault! I’ve put us all in terrible danger!’

  ‘Hush now,’ said Madame Pamplemousse soothingly. ‘There’s no need to panic.’

  Madeleine glanced up. ‘Then there’s a way out of here? We can escape?’

  Madame Pamplemousse nodded. ‘But it’s not going to be easy. I’m afraid there is only one way out of here, Madeleine.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘We have to give Madame Bonbon what she wants.’

  Seeing the shocked expression on Madeleine’s face, Madame Pamplemousse laughed.

  ‘Of course, I don’t mean we’re really going to tell her! I mean we’re going to trick her. Listen . . .’ She lowered her voice, speaking softly in Madeleine’s ear. ‘Madame Bonbon is very clever and so the lie we’re going to tell her has to be a good one. It has to be very close to the truth, do you understand?’

  Madeleine nodded.

  ‘So now I want you to tell me the truth. I want you to tell me everything you know about the real time machine so we can turn that into a lie.’

  Madeleine frowned slightly. ‘But why are you asking me?’

  ‘Because it has to be in your own words, silly! I told you, it’s got to sound like the truth!’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Come on, Madeleine,’ she said briskly. ‘Quick as you can!’

  But still Madeleine did not reply.

  It was her use of the word ‘machine’ that had confirmed Madeleine’s suspicions. She had referred to the ‘time machine’, a term Madame Pamplemousse herself would never use. She would have called it ‘the Generator’, or to give its full title, ‘the Taste-Automated Space-Time Déjà-Vu Generator’. The woman’s questioning was suspicious, but it was actually Camembert who had first raised her alarm – or the creature who looked like Camembert. It was the way he had greeted her so affectionately, nuzzling her and purring. In many cats this might have been perfectly normal behaviour, but in Camembert it was completely out of character.

  Madeleine tried to look as if she were recalling a memory. ‘All I remember is what you told me the first time we went travelling –’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘When we were in ancient Rome, you said the machine was essentially classical in design . . .’ She trailed off.

  ‘Yes?’ said the woman. ‘Go on, Madeleine.’

  ‘We never went to Rome,’ said Madeleine coldly.

  The woman stared back at her with a face equally cold. Her eyes, Madeleine now saw, were not those of Madame Pamplemousse at all. They were beady and lifeless, like the glass eyes of a doll.

  ‘I’ve heard it said that imitation is the greatest form of flattery,’ came a voice through the mist, ‘but don’t you think this is taking it a little too far?’

  The woman turned sharply towards the direction of the voice. And there, coming through the trees on the fringes of the clearing, were the real Madame Pamplemousse and Camembert.

  A second later and the two doppelgängers vanished out of sight. Camembert’s impersonator became the Moon Man while Madame Pamplemousse’s image morphed back into that of Madame Bonbon.

  Madame Pamplemousse stopped in the centre of the clearing and for a long moment she and Madame Bonbon appraised each other in silence.

  ‘Hello, Coco,’ said Madame Pamplemousse eventually.

  ‘Hello, Olive,’ Madame Bonbon replied, giving an odd, girlish smile. ‘I must say, I’m impressed. I would have thought myself quite unrecognisable after all these years.’

  ‘But in other ways you haven’t changed,’ said Madame Pamplemousse, ‘and there are ways of seeing that have nothing to do with the eyes.’

  Madame Bonbon laughed. ‘Well, you haven’t changed at all. Is the elixir of youth, by any chance, one of your delicacies?’

  Madame Pamplemousse shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Coco,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry for what?’

  ‘For the way you truly look, and the reason why you must hide yourself behind this illusion.’

  On hearing this, Madame Bonbon’s face briefly registered some emotion. It was only for an instant: a look of anger, or perhaps sadness, playing briefly across her face.

  ‘I don’t want your pity, Olive,’ she said huskily. ‘And I’m not ashamed of the way I look.’

  Once again her appearance changed. Madame Bonbon’s image vanished and in its place stood the most hideous apparition. Her body had contracted, shrinking from its ample form to become thin and emaciated. Her face, meanwhile, now resembled that of a mummified head. The skin was sickly pale and stretched across the bones, with hollow cheeks and a mouth set into a perpetual grimace. Her eyes, however, had not changed, and stared darkly from out of their sockets.

  Madeleine recoiled from the sight in horror. But she did not move far, for the Moon Man stood behind her and gripped her tightly about the neck. She cried out.

  ‘Don’t worry, Madeleine,’ Madame Pamplemousse called across to her. ‘You’re going to be all right, I promise. And by the way, hello.’ She sent her a special smile. ‘It’s very good to see you, even if it has to be in this backwater.’

  ‘Backwater!’ cried Madame Bonbon. ‘Do you realise where you ar
e?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes,’ replied Madame Pamplemousse. ‘On one of the lower levels of the spirit realm. I’ve been to worse, though judging by what it’s done to you, there must be a lot of evil here.’

  ‘You’re envious!’ cried Madame Bonbon, gazing at her in wonder. ‘I never would have believed it: that you would envy me for turning out to be the more powerful witch!’

  ‘Witch!’ Madame Pamplemousse practically spat out the word. ‘I’m sorry to disenchant you, Coco. I am a cook and, if you must, an artist, but I would never describe myself as a witch.’

  Madame Bonbon smiled slyly. ‘But I know what it really is, Olive. Your greatest creation: The Most Incredible Edible Ever Tasted. I know its true name – who apart from another witch could ever tell you that?’

  Camembert growled, as if raising an objection.

  ‘And what do you call this,’ she hissed, jabbing a finger in his direction, ‘if not your witch’s familiar?’

  ‘I call him by his name,’ said Madame Pamplemousse, ‘which is Camembert. And though he certainly is a close friend, I would hardly call him my “familiar”.’

  ‘Don’t patronise me!’ Madame Bonbon screamed.

  Her voice reverberated around the clearing, seemingly echoed by the trees, for just then they began to whisper. From the darkness of the forest came the soft hissing of voices. It wasn’t possible to hear what they were saying, since all that could be heard was the suggestion of words. Their tone, however, was clear: the sound of mounting fury that grew steadily louder. It rose to become deafening, a fierce chattering all around, until Madame Bonbon raised her hand, when abruptly it ceased.

  ‘Now then, Olive,’ she said brightly. ‘Earlier you remarked how you had travelled to worse reaches of the spirit realm.’ She smiled. ‘I doubt that, as you will soon discover to your cost. Or, alternatively, I will give you a chance to spare yourself and your friends by answering a simple question.’