There was a shop on the outskirts of town, one of those magical little places that seemed to sell nothing but half-remembered dreams and broken promises. It sat at the end of a long forgotten cul-de-sac, nestled amongst the elms and maples, idling away its days in a seemingly eternal springtime. Its only customers were small children, fallen teenagers and forlorn lovers, all seeking answers to unspoken questions.

The answers were supplied by a dark-eyed woman who sat behind an ancient cedarwood counter. She greeted her clientele with an indulgent smile, her lips curving in a startling, gloss red crescent, a gilt-edged deck of tarot cards splayed beneath her lacquered fingertips. As young and ageless as a waxworks gypsy, she watched in tacit amusement while her visitors foraged through the racks and shelves at the back of the store. Few could explain precisely what they sought, but each knew the moment they found it, squirreled away amongst the books and bells and Halloween masks.

Sometimes they might search for days, drawn inexorably back to the shop with its country-fair collection of everyday marvels. Opera glasses and china dolls; pocket watches and baseball cards; black satin gloves and the sweet, mocking lies of a beautiful woman. It was a museum of the strange, the exotic and the wonderful, housing a thousand scattered fragments of a thousand scattered lives. Trade was never brisk, but no one who entered the premises ever left empty handed. The Shop at the End of the Road sold everything. The cost was naturally excessive, but then again, happiness never comes cheap.

Happiness comes at a price very few could afford – and which none could ever resist.

Robin Lindale walked in the deep green shade by the side of the road, thirteen years of late September sunshine in the body of a child not quite his age. He strode the verdant lanes with a light, easy step, meeting the world with a gaze that could calm an angry sea. Fair and slight and willow thin, he possessed a naive beauty that drew the eye of everyone who saw him. Many would turn to remark on his lush, Autumn features, thinking him a girl hiding beneath a boy's careless denims. Their unsuspecting whispers often brushed the truth, although no one would have guessed what lay concealed below Robin's alabaster countenance.

He was on his way to The Shop at the End of the Road, treading a path he'd followed since early childhood. A life-long devotee of the arcane and the inexplicable, Robbie had become the Shop's sole regular customer. Its dark, aromatic interior had held him entranced from the moment he'd stepped through its leadlight doorway half a decade before. His once-intermittent journeys were now a regular pilgrimage, a ritual he observed with an almost Catholic devotion. Like most children his age, Robbie was a creature of custom and ceremony. The Shop was a great unspoken mystery in a grey pedestrian world, and his life would have been incomplete without this weekly dedication.

He approached the store through a grove of pines clustered around the front entrance. In previous centuries, the Shop had been a small parish church with bluestone walls and mahogany floorboards. Stained-glass windows lent it a surreal quality much in keeping with the owner's Gothic personality. Robbie had always found this melancholy atmosphere vaguely menacing, like the moaning of the wind through a moonlit graveyard. He trotted up the front steps, inhaling an intoxicating mixture of Indian Rose and pine resin.

He paused just inside the threshold, adjusting his vision to the perpetual night inside. Dim, looming shapes gradually resolved themselves into art deco lampshades and glass-topped display cabinets. Nothing looked familiar; the merchandise altered from day to day like the colors of an April sunset. Robin stood silhouetted in the wide Victorian doorframe, savoring the fresh aura of mystery.

Then: a distant, nocturnal voice, drifting through the darkness:

"Hello Robbie."

The woman behind the counter waited in a pool of indigo shadows, silently reading the inscrutable cards with her long, spiderling fingers. She didn't need to look up to know who had entered her store. She divined the future the way the blind read brail, and was rarely – if ever – caught off guard. Long accustomed to her enigmatic presence, Robin approached her with the careless trust of a five year-old.

"Hi Felicity," he replied, using the name she'd told him to use, which wasn't her name at all. He halted before the counter, glancing absently down at the Tarot cards. Her finger hovered over The Queen, an image which held a special significance for the boy. It always turned face up whenever he entered the store.

"Earlier than usual," Felicity commented indifferently.

"Yeah, I thought I'd drop in before the place got too crowded," Robbie replied ingenuously, unaware that such a comment could easily be misconstrued as the grossest sarcasm. Felicity dealt another card, whicker-flicking it into place with a dark, effortless grace.

"Seven of Cups," she remarked, unsurprised. Mystic numbers and the search for meaning.

"Cool," Robin nodded as if he understood the first thing about the Tarot, then looked towards the back of the shop. Like everyone who came here, Robbie was searching for something – though he wasn't sure how to describe what it was at this point. It was kind of silly, kind of embarrassing, now that he stopped to think about it. Maybe if he just went out back and had a look round ...

"Felicity, would it be OK if I –" he began, inclining his head towards the old Lady Chapel. A crumbling, circular alcove packed with skirts, trinkets and hat-boxes, it was sure to house the object of his desires.

"Of course," the woman agreed in a subtle, knowing tone Robbie was too young to recognize. He was thirteen, and a boy; guile was an artform beyond his understanding. He sauntered into the rear of the store, past a framed poster advertising a French magician named Robert-Houdin (Suspension Chloroform, the legend read). He felt confident that he'd locate his prize out in the Lady Chapel or some other part of The Shop. That was the true enchantment of Felicity's place; nothing was ever out of reach if you sought hard enough...

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