You absolutely do not need to have started reading or have read Rotting Trees to enjoy this. You don’t have to have read any Bezzina’s stories at all. It is quite short, because I wrote it for a zine submission but decided not to edit it after the zine said no. Enjoy!
On a New Year’s Day so damp he could have been walking through a wet flannel, Ernest Bezzina opened his magical antiques shop. He normally remained closed between New Year’s Eve and mid-January; Southend-on-Sea could be cheerful and welcoming, but even Ernie found little to enjoy about the town’s dwindling supply of shops while it got dark at three o’clock and Christmas trees rotted on curbs. Today, though, the wind blowing off the Thames Estuary had woken him far too early.
Faced with a day of television accompanied by a selection box gifted by a customer, Ernie decided he might as well open Bezzina’s Emporium of Magical Artefacts and Antiquities. It would be a quiet one, but he could make a pot of tea and tackle the shop’s perennial clutter. He thought he might start by reorganising the clothing rack. During the run up to Christmas, Ernie’s mundane garments—genuinely vintage, genuinely excellent condition—had gotten badly mixed up with his magical garments—sometimes vintage, always read the label. A customer almost purchased his wife a Chanel scarf that strangled the wearer every time they told a lie. Thankfully, the wife tried it on and said ‘I love it,’ as soon as she looked in the mirror. Ernie whisked it away before it could do more than tighten.
Really, Ernie needed an assistant to help run things. He placed a sign in the door advertising a vacancy months ago, but almost no one expressed interest unless you counted his friend and supplier Mirabel, who Ernie rejected on the grounds that they had both long since qualified for free bus passes. Otherwise the only responder was a teenager who, during a trial shift, set the shop on fire.
So it was just Ernie, his tea and the radio for several hours on New Year’s Day. Moving on from the clothing rack to re-alphabetising some alchemy books, Ernie was so engrossed that he didn’t hear the door open and almost fell out of his skeleton when someone said, ‘hello.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you jump,’ the voice said hastily, and Ernie steadied himself as he took in his customer. Petite and muffled up against the damp in a huge puffy coat and baggy joggers, she reminded him of a cotton wool ball. No wonder he hadn’t heard her come in. She would probably bounce if she fell over. She pulled down her enormous hood to reveal stringy blonde hair, the remains of a black eye and recent stitches on her eyebrow. Perhaps she didn’t bounce after all.
‘How can I help?’ Ernie asked.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ the girl said. ‘I was just wandering. You’re the only place that’s open other than little Tesco.’
‘Little Tesco never closes,’ agreed Ernie. ‘Would you like a tea? I was about to brew a fresh pot.’
Ten minutes later, they both nursed cups of steaming tea, sitting in chairs pulled from behind a cabinet.
‘I’m Ernie,’ Ernie said. He wasn’t one to fill silences, but this young woman was realistically the only person he would speak to today.
‘Bel,’ the girl said. ‘Is that an hourglass?’
Ernie followed Bel’s gaze to Mirabel’s most recent delivery. An hourglass the size of a water bottle, with a wooden casing and sand the same colour as Southend beach. It very clearly was an hourglass, so Ernie said, ‘take a look.’
Bel stood and reached up to the shelf Ernie had perched it on, next to an antique pocket watch. ‘Measures out the time you need,’ Bel read the label. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I’ll show you,’ Ernie said. ‘What needs doing today… ah yes, I meant to move that umbrella stand behind the counter.’
Bel surveyed the shop doubtfully. There was an umbrella stand near the door, but there was no chance of fitting it safely behind the counter without first moving a life-sized statue of Betty Boop… somewhere.
‘How will the hourglass help?’ she asked.
‘Watch this.’ Ernie turned the hourglass over, then strode—okay, shuffled—behind the counter. He hefted Betty into the shop’s back corridor, then went to move the umbrella stand.
‘I’ve got it,’ Bel said hastily and picked up the stand easily, darting behind the counter to deposit it.
‘What now?’ she asked. Ernie gestured to the hourglass. As Bel sat down, the final grain of sand in the hourglass fell through to the bottom.
‘It shows how long something will take?’
‘Exactly. If I want to know how long it’ll take me to cook tonight…’ Ernie turned the hourglass over. A few grains fell through, like a tap dripping.
Bel stared at it for several minutes, while Ernie was painfully reminded of how long it took him to put together a roast dinner these days. ‘If I decide I only want to heat up some soup…’ The grains moved faster now, a steady flow trickling through in a couple of minutes.
‘Will it do really long-term projects?’ Bel asked.
‘I don’t see why not. Do you want to have a go?’
Bel took a deep breath, then turned the hourglass over.
Nothing happened. Ernie drank some tea. Nothing happened. Bel drank some tea.
One grain of sand dropped through.
Bel looked at the hourglass, then down at her cup, then fidgeted with the stitches on her eyebrow. Ernie knew not to interrupt a customer’s internal conversation.
‘I’ll take it.’
‘It’s on the house.’
‘Really? Why?’
Ernie rubbed the compass tattoo on his arm. ‘I know a customer who needs a fresh start when I see one.’ Bel flushed and touched her stitches again, but Ernie flapped a hand. ‘I don’t need to hear your background.’ He wrapped the hourglass in a paper bag, careful not to turn it over. ‘Remember that not being able to see movement doesn’t mean nothing’s moving.’
‘Thank you,’ Bel said when she clutched the bag. ‘I’ll come back next year and tell you how I got on.’
‘I look forward to it.’
Thank you for reading! Please consider sharing with your friends if you liked it. You can read Rotting Trees, a full length novel set in the Bezzina’s Emporium world, here.
Copyright © 2023 by Francesca Astraea
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Short Stories by Francesca Astraea 
A lovely Christmas story, that can be read at Amy time of the year. A good read xx
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