_ Granny Wobbly’s Old Fashioned Fudge Shoppe
It was the first Monday of the season and already it smelled of vanilla, cinnamon, and rain. Serpetina sniffed, lifting her head like a hunting dog. Despite the whiff of moisture in the air, the sun was beginning to burn brightly on the horizon, which meant the tourists would soon descend, lured by the ruins overlooking the sea. In fact, a caravan already labored up the steep hill outside her shop, even at this early hour. Serpetina’s top lip lifted slightly and she sniffed vigorously, as if she was trying to catch the vehicle’s scent.
She lit the cooker, stoking a small fire, and placed the ten-gallon, black iron cauldron on the hob to slowly warm. She filled a small bowl with cold water and sat it on the serving shelf that ran the length of the counter behind her. She wiped her hands on her apron, reached into the pocket and pulled out a ring of keys. So many keys, most of them to locks in places long forgotten. Her grandmother’s keys, then her mother’s, now hers. Some of the keys had markings carved around their thick and ornate handles, ancient ideograms of pre-literate cultures, shapes and symbols that signified nothing to Serpetina here in the present. Keys, portals to small cramped rooms, shops stuck in low- ceilinged quarters at the dark ends of curvy, medieval roads. Shops that had long been closed, boarded up as evil, often left sparkling with still settling dust as her ancestors had been driven out of towns.
The keys fluttered through her fingers like the feathers of a bird’s wing, until the thumb and forefinger found the key to the larder and closed on it, plucking it from amid its brethren. The rest of the keys fell in a musical clatter as she poked the peg into the hole and, with a flick of her wrist, opened the lock.
The room was icy and dark, even in the rising summer sun. This room was the reason she had rented the shop after looking all over for suitable premises. A natural larder, it had no windows, was constructed of blood black brick that, instead of soaking up heat, as its color would suggest, seem to repel warmth as if it were a plague. The room was a bit on the smallish side, but Serpetina had managed thus far to make do.
She fumbled her fingers along the wall, searching for the brass matchbox. She found it and lit a match in a single, sulfurous stroke. She lit one candle, then two, both high on the wall in twisted iron sconces, letting the door close behind her now that she would no longer be shut in darkness.
Serpetina placed two blocks of semisweet chocolate on the stained worktable that centered the room. Along side them, a block of butter, a bottle of vegetable oil, a flask of milk plugged with a bit of rag, and a vial of Tahitian vanilla. She scooped golden brown sugar that glistened like amber in the candlelight into a small burlap bag, which she nestled between the butter and oil.
She still needed one more thing. One more exquisite ingredient.
She turned to the back wall, studded by a spine of sharp coat hooks and jumbled by an ancient set of dark, sagging wooden shelves. A cat was pinned there by a thick nail fixed between its shoulder blades, splayed out long, its stomach pressed flat against the brick. Its two front paws were missing, as were its eyes and half its tail. Serpetina moved forward and poked it. The cat creaked back and forth, stiff as the nail that held it in place. She could perhaps use its organs if she did so in the next day or two, otherwise, she would have to get another. Hanging from the ceiling in the corner was an adolescent rabbit, its throat slit and still dripping into a bucket beneath it. It always amazed Serpetina how much blood such little creatures held—Peter Rabbit had been draining since yesterday. The coat hooks were bundled with dried intestines of a variety of animals, pelts, strings of herbs, a winter coat, and several ladles and spatulas. All, except the coat, tools of Serpetina’s trade. She caressed each hook’s jewelry, but none of these items were exactly what she was looking for.
Serpetina moved her eyes to the jar-crammed shelves, inhaling the coppery scent of her workroom. She started to hum. Her eyes scanned the jars, some clear, some dark blue, some bronze, some black, jars that contained several hundred years worth of ingredients, painstakingly collected from all over this world and many others. Even when the outraged citizens had set fire to the shops, Serpetina’s grandmother and mother had taken the time to gather these jars. Fortunately, being the women they were, they had rarely been taken off guard, so, much of the collection had survived the many years.
Serpetina caressed the glass, eyes flitting to and fro. There were all the things that one could expect— bat’s eyes, lizard’s tongues, chicken’s feet— all that rot. Tucked deep in the corner of the bottom shelf was a particularly large jar, covered with a violet cloth. Something fat and expanded, puffed and swollen pressed against its side, barely visible under the edge of the drape, something that looked like a little puffed pillow with five stubby toes. But none of these jars interested Serpetina. They were old news, tried and trues, and she was feeling particularly generous today. Today’s crowd deserved something special, being that they were the first visitors of the season.
Serpetina’s arms were crossed over her thin chest, the thumb and forefinger of her right hand rubbing her chin. A smile crept over her lips. Yes, something special. She had just the very thing. She shunted one jar after another to the side, digging for the tiny green bottle that was shaped like a teardrop. It had been so long since she last used its contents, and it was so small, that it took a second going-over of the shelves to locate it. But at last, there it was, stuffed behind the milk bottle filled with mole urine, shimmering like a loose emerald. Serpetina wrapped her fingers around it, carefully, gently, and pulled it to her chest. The exquisite ingredient she was looking for.
She transferred the rest of the materials to the front of the shop and pushed the door ajar before blowing out the candles and locking up the larder. She placed the teardrop bottle on a small shelf above the cooker so it would be safe as she prepared the base.
Serpetina dropped the blocks of chocolate into the hot cauldron, along with the milk. With a long handled, wooden spoon, she stabbed and stirred until the chocolate melted, then added the milk, the white pin-wheeling in the dark black of the sweet. She added the sugar, the oil, the vanilla. No measuring was needed. She had done this so many times, she knew from sight, from the level of the concoction, its color, its smell, if it would be a successful batch. She smiled again. A successful batch, indeed, this. She turned the heat up on the cooker, bringing the mixture to a boil, never letting her spoon rest. The stirring was essential. When the boiling bubbles burst just so, the smell of the sugar was precisely precise, she scooped out a small spoonful of the mix, turned, and dropped it into the bowl of cold water. It curled into a ball like a dying creature. Serpetina’s hum became a whistle.
She heaved the cauldron off the fire and swung it onto the wooden end of the table that was positioned in the front window of the shop so the tourists could stop and watch her as she worked. The wooden end made up approximately one quarter of the table, while the other three quarters was made up of marble, with a tall metal rim running just inside the edge. The table was low, the top of it even with her pelvis. She dropped the butter into the cauldron, but did not stir. There was about half an hour until the mixture reached the proper temperature to complete its first phase. She wiped her hands on her apron and decided to go outdoors, perhaps talk to the family that had just appeared at her window, pressing their filthy hands to the glass.
***
The family stayed to watch, so Serpetina was forced to use the candy thermometer to check the mix instead of her finger, though she felt her finger was a much more accurate tool. The thermometer could not check the crystallization of the sugar, the thickness of the blend, the energy of the potion. But they were watching, eyes gleaming with hunger. The small piglet of a boy pressed his face right up against the glass and licked his lips. The fire from the cooker reflected in all of their eyes.
According to the thermometer, the mix was at the proper temperature to proceed. Serpetina picked up her spoon again and beat it fiercely, beat it until it started to thicken and lose its gloss, until it was twisted with scars and dull with pain. Now, and only now, was it ready. Serpetina abandoned her spoon, breathing harshly from the exertion, her cheeks flushed a happy pink. She took the teardrop bottle from the shelf and popped its cork. A small mist of vapor curled into the air, leaving behind a salty, seaweed smell that almost made Serpetina gag. She held the bottle to the light, checking the level of the fluid within. Only a few drops left, but enough for today. Visions of babies crying in pain from cramping stomach ailments that dragged through their intestines like a rake, parents too busy to comfort them for vomiting their picnic lunches down the sides of newly purchased caravans danced behind her eyes; smoke rising from a nice auto crash, complete with severe head trauma, perhaps a decapitation, smoldered in her imagination; maybe a handful of heart attacks, or even a couple of lovely, paralyzing strokes.
The eyes of the family outside followed the bottle’s ascent and descent as they smiled in wonder. Serpetina smiled back, lifting the bottle again, to them, in a silent toast, though she would be sorry to see the bottle emptied. Her mother had procured its contents from an Outsider, and then died, (or was killed, depending on who told the story) before enlightening Serpetina on how to obtain more.
She turned her back to the rays of sun beaming in through the front window of the shop, and the family that beamed along side the rays. She scowled, the daftly happy look on the faces of the family burnt on her retinas. She tilted the lip of the bottle against the rim of the cauldron. A drop of cloudy, corn silk yellow liquid pooled along the lip, thick as semen, streaked and swirled with red, swelling perfectly, pregnantly, before dropping into the mix. A second drop, a third. The bottle was empty.
Serpetina slid the bottle into her apron pocket, spidered her fingers through the detritus of paper bits, half eaten biscuits, needles, a small scissor, until finally they skated along the edge of her knife. Her fingertips carefully skittered along its silhouette until she made out the handle, grasped it firmly and pulled it from her pocket.
It was an average looking knife. Wooden handle, silver blade, sharp on both sides. The knife was the most prized of all her possessions. A gift on her tenth birthday, it had prepared a lifetime’s worth of ingredients, cut the throats of untold numbers of animals, disemboweled them as well, and once, relieved an unappreciative lover of his most prized possession. She checked over her shoulder once again—finally, the family was gone, bored perhaps by only her small back being visible to them for so long. She turned her back again and dragged the knife along the ridge of thick scar that ran down the center of her palm. She clutched her hand into a fist and held it over the bowl. Her blood dripped into the chocolate. It was always thoughtful, Serpetina felt, to give the customer a little bit of yourself in every batch of fudge.
The mix hissed and sputtered where the blood and the exquisite ingredient met. Serpetina grabbed the spoon and heatedly stirred, beating the mix again. A few drops of sweat fell from her brow, leaving marks like rain in mud. Serpetina beat them until they smoothed and were gone. She lifted the cauldron and eased the mix onto the marble slab, where it would remain for two hours as the cool stone sucked all of the heat away. With a large spatula, she smoothed the surface of the fudge until it was like marble itself. Once the fudge set, became hard and creamy, she would cut it into squares, one by one- half inch, and stack it neatly in a pyramid; five pieces, then four, then three, then two, then one. The remainder she would wrap in cellophane bags with the words “Granny Wobbly’s Old Fashioned Fudge Shoppe’s Special Batch of the Day!” written across it in silver letters. Today, she would use the emerald green ribbon from the spool on the wall to tie each of the bags.
It was the first Monday of the season and already it smelled of vanilla, cinnamon, and rain. Serpetina sniffed, lifting her head like a hunting dog. Despite the whiff of moisture in the air, the sun was beginning to burn brightly on the horizon, which meant the tourists would soon descend, lured by the ruins overlooking the sea. In fact, a caravan already labored up the steep hill outside her shop, even at this early hour. Serpetina’s top lip lifted slightly and she sniffed vigorously, as if she was trying to catch the vehicle’s scent.
She lit the cooker, stoking a small fire, and placed the ten-gallon, black iron cauldron on the hob to slowly warm. She filled a small bowl with cold water and sat it on the serving shelf that ran the length of the counter behind her. She wiped her hands on her apron, reached into the pocket and pulled out a ring of keys. So many keys, most of them to locks in places long forgotten. Her grandmother’s keys, then her mother’s, now hers. Some of the keys had markings carved around their thick and ornate handles, ancient ideograms of pre-literate cultures, shapes and symbols that signified nothing to Serpetina here in the present. Keys, portals to small cramped rooms, shops stuck in low- ceilinged quarters at the dark ends of curvy, medieval roads. Shops that had long been closed, boarded up as evil, often left sparkling with still settling dust as her ancestors had been driven out of towns.
The keys fluttered through her fingers like the feathers of a bird’s wing, until the thumb and forefinger found the key to the larder and closed on it, plucking it from amid its brethren. The rest of the keys fell in a musical clatter as she poked the peg into the hole and, with a flick of her wrist, opened the lock.
The room was icy and dark, even in the rising summer sun. This room was the reason she had rented the shop after looking all over for suitable premises. A natural larder, it had no windows, was constructed of blood black brick that, instead of soaking up heat, as its color would suggest, seem to repel warmth as if it were a plague. The room was a bit on the smallish side, but Serpetina had managed thus far to make do.
She fumbled her fingers along the wall, searching for the brass matchbox. She found it and lit a match in a single, sulfurous stroke. She lit one candle, then two, both high on the wall in twisted iron sconces, letting the door close behind her now that she would no longer be shut in darkness.
Serpetina placed two blocks of semisweet chocolate on the stained worktable that centered the room. Along side them, a block of butter, a bottle of vegetable oil, a flask of milk plugged with a bit of rag, and a vial of Tahitian vanilla. She scooped golden brown sugar that glistened like amber in the candlelight into a small burlap bag, which she nestled between the butter and oil.
She still needed one more thing. One more exquisite ingredient.
She turned to the back wall, studded by a spine of sharp coat hooks and jumbled by an ancient set of dark, sagging wooden shelves. A cat was pinned there by a thick nail fixed between its shoulder blades, splayed out long, its stomach pressed flat against the brick. Its two front paws were missing, as were its eyes and half its tail. Serpetina moved forward and poked it. The cat creaked back and forth, stiff as the nail that held it in place. She could perhaps use its organs if she did so in the next day or two, otherwise, she would have to get another. Hanging from the ceiling in the corner was an adolescent rabbit, its throat slit and still dripping into a bucket beneath it. It always amazed Serpetina how much blood such little creatures held—Peter Rabbit had been draining since yesterday. The coat hooks were bundled with dried intestines of a variety of animals, pelts, strings of herbs, a winter coat, and several ladles and spatulas. All, except the coat, tools of Serpetina’s trade. She caressed each hook’s jewelry, but none of these items were exactly what she was looking for.
Serpetina moved her eyes to the jar-crammed shelves, inhaling the coppery scent of her workroom. She started to hum. Her eyes scanned the jars, some clear, some dark blue, some bronze, some black, jars that contained several hundred years worth of ingredients, painstakingly collected from all over this world and many others. Even when the outraged citizens had set fire to the shops, Serpetina’s grandmother and mother had taken the time to gather these jars. Fortunately, being the women they were, they had rarely been taken off guard, so, much of the collection had survived the many years.
Serpetina caressed the glass, eyes flitting to and fro. There were all the things that one could expect— bat’s eyes, lizard’s tongues, chicken’s feet— all that rot. Tucked deep in the corner of the bottom shelf was a particularly large jar, covered with a violet cloth. Something fat and expanded, puffed and swollen pressed against its side, barely visible under the edge of the drape, something that looked like a little puffed pillow with five stubby toes. But none of these jars interested Serpetina. They were old news, tried and trues, and she was feeling particularly generous today. Today’s crowd deserved something special, being that they were the first visitors of the season.
Serpetina’s arms were crossed over her thin chest, the thumb and forefinger of her right hand rubbing her chin. A smile crept over her lips. Yes, something special. She had just the very thing. She shunted one jar after another to the side, digging for the tiny green bottle that was shaped like a teardrop. It had been so long since she last used its contents, and it was so small, that it took a second going-over of the shelves to locate it. But at last, there it was, stuffed behind the milk bottle filled with mole urine, shimmering like a loose emerald. Serpetina wrapped her fingers around it, carefully, gently, and pulled it to her chest. The exquisite ingredient she was looking for.
She transferred the rest of the materials to the front of the shop and pushed the door ajar before blowing out the candles and locking up the larder. She placed the teardrop bottle on a small shelf above the cooker so it would be safe as she prepared the base.
Serpetina dropped the blocks of chocolate into the hot cauldron, along with the milk. With a long handled, wooden spoon, she stabbed and stirred until the chocolate melted, then added the milk, the white pin-wheeling in the dark black of the sweet. She added the sugar, the oil, the vanilla. No measuring was needed. She had done this so many times, she knew from sight, from the level of the concoction, its color, its smell, if it would be a successful batch. She smiled again. A successful batch, indeed, this. She turned the heat up on the cooker, bringing the mixture to a boil, never letting her spoon rest. The stirring was essential. When the boiling bubbles burst just so, the smell of the sugar was precisely precise, she scooped out a small spoonful of the mix, turned, and dropped it into the bowl of cold water. It curled into a ball like a dying creature. Serpetina’s hum became a whistle.
She heaved the cauldron off the fire and swung it onto the wooden end of the table that was positioned in the front window of the shop so the tourists could stop and watch her as she worked. The wooden end made up approximately one quarter of the table, while the other three quarters was made up of marble, with a tall metal rim running just inside the edge. The table was low, the top of it even with her pelvis. She dropped the butter into the cauldron, but did not stir. There was about half an hour until the mixture reached the proper temperature to complete its first phase. She wiped her hands on her apron and decided to go outdoors, perhaps talk to the family that had just appeared at her window, pressing their filthy hands to the glass.
***
The family stayed to watch, so Serpetina was forced to use the candy thermometer to check the mix instead of her finger, though she felt her finger was a much more accurate tool. The thermometer could not check the crystallization of the sugar, the thickness of the blend, the energy of the potion. But they were watching, eyes gleaming with hunger. The small piglet of a boy pressed his face right up against the glass and licked his lips. The fire from the cooker reflected in all of their eyes.
According to the thermometer, the mix was at the proper temperature to proceed. Serpetina picked up her spoon again and beat it fiercely, beat it until it started to thicken and lose its gloss, until it was twisted with scars and dull with pain. Now, and only now, was it ready. Serpetina abandoned her spoon, breathing harshly from the exertion, her cheeks flushed a happy pink. She took the teardrop bottle from the shelf and popped its cork. A small mist of vapor curled into the air, leaving behind a salty, seaweed smell that almost made Serpetina gag. She held the bottle to the light, checking the level of the fluid within. Only a few drops left, but enough for today. Visions of babies crying in pain from cramping stomach ailments that dragged through their intestines like a rake, parents too busy to comfort them for vomiting their picnic lunches down the sides of newly purchased caravans danced behind her eyes; smoke rising from a nice auto crash, complete with severe head trauma, perhaps a decapitation, smoldered in her imagination; maybe a handful of heart attacks, or even a couple of lovely, paralyzing strokes.
The eyes of the family outside followed the bottle’s ascent and descent as they smiled in wonder. Serpetina smiled back, lifting the bottle again, to them, in a silent toast, though she would be sorry to see the bottle emptied. Her mother had procured its contents from an Outsider, and then died, (or was killed, depending on who told the story) before enlightening Serpetina on how to obtain more.
She turned her back to the rays of sun beaming in through the front window of the shop, and the family that beamed along side the rays. She scowled, the daftly happy look on the faces of the family burnt on her retinas. She tilted the lip of the bottle against the rim of the cauldron. A drop of cloudy, corn silk yellow liquid pooled along the lip, thick as semen, streaked and swirled with red, swelling perfectly, pregnantly, before dropping into the mix. A second drop, a third. The bottle was empty.
Serpetina slid the bottle into her apron pocket, spidered her fingers through the detritus of paper bits, half eaten biscuits, needles, a small scissor, until finally they skated along the edge of her knife. Her fingertips carefully skittered along its silhouette until she made out the handle, grasped it firmly and pulled it from her pocket.
It was an average looking knife. Wooden handle, silver blade, sharp on both sides. The knife was the most prized of all her possessions. A gift on her tenth birthday, it had prepared a lifetime’s worth of ingredients, cut the throats of untold numbers of animals, disemboweled them as well, and once, relieved an unappreciative lover of his most prized possession. She checked over her shoulder once again—finally, the family was gone, bored perhaps by only her small back being visible to them for so long. She turned her back again and dragged the knife along the ridge of thick scar that ran down the center of her palm. She clutched her hand into a fist and held it over the bowl. Her blood dripped into the chocolate. It was always thoughtful, Serpetina felt, to give the customer a little bit of yourself in every batch of fudge.
The mix hissed and sputtered where the blood and the exquisite ingredient met. Serpetina grabbed the spoon and heatedly stirred, beating the mix again. A few drops of sweat fell from her brow, leaving marks like rain in mud. Serpetina beat them until they smoothed and were gone. She lifted the cauldron and eased the mix onto the marble slab, where it would remain for two hours as the cool stone sucked all of the heat away. With a large spatula, she smoothed the surface of the fudge until it was like marble itself. Once the fudge set, became hard and creamy, she would cut it into squares, one by one- half inch, and stack it neatly in a pyramid; five pieces, then four, then three, then two, then one. The remainder she would wrap in cellophane bags with the words “Granny Wobbly’s Old Fashioned Fudge Shoppe’s Special Batch of the Day!” written across it in silver letters. Today, she would use the emerald green ribbon from the spool on the wall to tie each of the bags.
