the lure

by Margaret Cahill

Everyone thought I was mad to move to Kilderrin. I’d never lived in the countryside before and was used to being surrounded by takeaways and twenty-four hour shops. The quaint one-hundred year old stone cottage on the outskirts of the village was the only house within driving distance of the city  I could afford. It had been re-wired and had central heating installed so it was old but comfortable.

I thought it would be easier to meet people out here, that you’d strike up conversations with people you bumped into around the village and make friends quickly. But it wasn’t like that. Most people my age were couples who’d moved out from the city because, like me, they couldn’t afford to buy there. But their lives still revolved around the city for work and school and children’s activities so you only ever saw them coming and going in their big SUVs.  There was only one shop in the village, a small, pokey little place that didn’t even have a proper sign or anything, just the word ‘SHOP’ painted in big red letters above the door. There had been a pub in Kilderrin at one time but it looked like it had been closed down for years. The church was the only institution left and, though it would have been a way to meet local people, I’d given up God when I was thirteen and had no intentions of taking him up again.

I still did my main shopping in the supermarket near work but I made an effort to pop into the village shop every week or two for something. I noticed a pot plant in the shop window the first day I went in and thought it was a nice, personal touch. It reminded me of Ivy but had cute heart-shaped leaves. I remember thinking that you’d never see something like that in the city, where all the shops strictly conform to the look of whatever franchise they belong to. The shop was run by an old woman who’d probably been behind the counter her whole life. She had the same hunched over shoulders my gran had and the wrinkles on her forehead and around her mouth had become deep furrows with age. A bell above the door tinkled when you walked in to alert her to your presence. Her eyes would size you up as you and then follow your every move around the shop. Without her saying a word, it felt like an interrogation. The place had a quaint charm to it but you’d need to check the date on anything edible you were buying. There were packets of soup and tins on the shelf that had been there so long they were faded. The old woman would answer you if you asked a question or passed a remark but wasn’t one for engaging in small talk.

When I called into the shop a few Sundays later, I assumed there was a different plant in the window. It was the same species, with the unmistakeable heart-shaped leaves, but it was at least twice as big as its predecessor.

“I see you’ve got a new plant,” I said to the shopkeeper when I went up to pay for my newspaper.

I nodded my head in its direction.

“What? That old yoke? No, that’s been there for years. It’s only still alive because it doesn’t need any looking after. I’ve no patience for minding plants at my age. I’ve enough to be doing looking after myself.”

A week or so later, I called in for a litre of milk a week and pretended to be looking at bin bags on the shelf beside the window so I could get a good look at the plant. It was still growing at an astonishing rate. It reached the upper pane of the window now and multiple stems had grown over the edge of the window sill and were making their way down the wall behind the ice-cream fridge. The sly old shopkeeper must have been feigning her disinterest in the plant all this time but secretly feeding it with some sort of special fertilizer or something or maybe it was one of those awful invasive foreign plants that thrive in the Irish climate and take over, like the Gunnera on Achill Island or the Rhododendron in Killarney. I tried looking it up on the internet when I got home and must have scrolled through photos of hundreds of plants with heart-shaped leaves but couldn’t find any that matched it. If I’d known something about gardening I might have been able to narrow down the search but plants aren’t really my thing.

I was busy at work for the next few weeks and didn’t have a chance to call into the shop. It was shut by the time I got home in the evenings anyway. When things finally got back to normal and I was getting home at a reasonable time, I went out for a walk on a loop of the village one evening. I’d forgotten all about the plant until I passed the shop on my way home. I couldn’t resist backtracking and going in to see if the old woman had cut back or gotten rid of the plant yet. As I approached the door, it was clear that it was very much still there. It filled the entire window now. The old woman wasn’t at her usual perch behind the counter when I went in so I had a chance too look at the strange plant properly. It had grown right down behind the ice-cream fridge and was now sending out crawlers across the floor in every direction. I heard footsteps behind me and turned to see the old woman coming out of a back room. In a panic, I picked up a packet of Fig Rolls from the nearest shelf, even though I hate Fig Rolls.

“It’s gotten a bit dark in here, hasn’t it?” I said to her when I went up to pay, gesturing towards the obstructed window.

“Well, sure the evenings are bet,” she said. “I had to put the lights on at four.”

“No, I mean, the plant,” I said. “It’s...eh...it’s really starting to take over, isn’t it?”

“The plant? Sure what harm. Isn’t it nice to have a bit of greenery around in the winter months?”

I assumed her nonchalant attitude to the bizarre plant situation was a sign of eccentricity, and that you were likely to run into a character like this out here than in the city.

I had to head home for a couple of weeks soon after that to help out my mother who was having knee surgery. I took a week of annual leave and worked from her house for another week. The evening I got back to Kilderrin, I pulled into the front yard of the shop to get bread and milk but there were no lights on. It was only five o’clock and it had always been open until six. I got out to take a closer look. The glass on the upper half of the door was obscured by a thick layer of foliage that I couldn’t see past. I went to the window. It was the same, completely blocked. The shop suddenly had the appearance of a derelict building, which had been completely taken over by vegetation, the render on the front wall was flaking off to reveal bare brickwork beneath and red letters on the sign above the door were faded and barely visible. It didn’t make sense. I’d been in there just a few weeks before.

I heard steps approaching and turned around to see a woman with a Cocker Spaniel passing by.

“Excuse me,” I called out after her.

“What...what happened to the shop?”

“The shop? That’s been shut for years, dear. There’s a petrol station over in Glanbeg if that’s any use to you. Otherwise you’ll have to head in to the city if it’s a proper shop you need.”

A cold shiver ran up my spine as I watched her walk away. I jumped into the car, feeling the darkness and isolation of the village close in on me more keenly than ever. I forgot all about buying milk for breakfast and drove home as fast as I could.

I couldn’t sleep that night with everything going through my mind. There was no rational explanation for what had happened to the shop. I’d been in it plenty of times. I’d bought milk and bread and biscuits and bars of chocolate there. I couldn’t have imagined all that. But yet, there was no shop there now and that woman said it had closed down years ago.

I only got a few hours sleep before my alarm went off. I hit the snooze button twice before dragging myself out of bed. I couldn’t be late for work on my first day back, so although I had planned to drive by the shop again that morning, I had to leave it until I was on my way home again. On the drive to work, I tried to convince myself that being back in the house on my own again had disoriented me and that it must have been a nightmare I’d had about the shop being derelict. It was the only explanation that made sense. 

There was so much to catch up on at work that I didn’t have time to dwell on things during the day but as soon as I logged off my computer that evening, the shop was on my mind again. I’d drive by on my way home and try to figure out what was going on and if it was all in my head or not. When I pulled into the shop, my heart sank. It was just like I’d seen the evening before, a run-down abandoned building which was being reclaimed by nature.

I got out of the car and walked to the door of the shop. For some reason, my hand reached out towards the door knob. It turned smoothly and with little resistance. As the door swung open, the bell above the door tinkled as usual. Something pulled me inside, propelling me forward involuntarily. It was the shop that I knew alright, with its groceries stacked on the shelves to my right, the milk and cheese in the fridge on front of me, the chocolate and sweets in the display on the left. Everything looked normal from inside. There was no evidence of the place being overrun by plants and vegetation, though they could clearly be seen from outside. The old shopkeeper was in her usual spot behind the counter. When our eyes met, a mocking smile slinked across her face.

I spun around to leave. I still didn’t understand any of this but knew that I needed to get far, far away from it. I grabbed the door knob but the door wouldn’t open. I pulled harder but it still didn’t budge. I heard a laugh from behind me.

“You’ll be going nowhere,” the shopkeeper said. “I’ve been waiting a long time for a bit of company. You’re the first person who’s come into my shop in years.”

“You can’t keep me here,” I said. “Let me out!”

She shook her head.

“Let me out!” I screamed louder. “Where’s the key? Give it to me now?”

“Key? What key? There’s no lock on that door.”

I looked down at the door and sure enough, it didn’t have a keyhole. I tugged at it again, pushing my foot against the wall to give me more leverage but that didn’t work. I ran around the shop looking for a back door or a way out but there was none. The tiny stock room in the back had no doors or windows, there was none behind the counter either. There was only one way out and that had suddenly become impassable. I banged on the glass of the door but there was no one outside to hear me. The old woman stood watching me with amusement, taunting me with a cruel laugh. The more frantic I got, the more enthusiastic her laugh grew. I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, screaming at her to let me go.

“People will realise I’ve gone missing soon,” I said. “They’ll come looking for me...work, my mother, the police.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “They’ll not be able to find you here. You see, this shop has been closed for years.”

Her cackling reverberated inside my head. I was trapped. I wasn’t sure where or how, but I was now her prisoner. No matter how much I screamed and cried and raged at her for days, it didn’t change that. At least I think it was days; time seems to dissolve here.

 I used to stand at the window for hours, waiting for someone to walk by. I was sure that if I could just get the attention of a passer-by, they would rescue me but I’ve never seen anyone or anything since I’ve been here, not one car or person or cat or dog even. It’s like looking onto a still life drawing of the street outside, nothing ever changes. It looks like the village, yet somehow it’s not. It’s as if we’re in some kind of alternate reality. The old woman said the shop doesn’t exist any more. Maybe I don’t either. I’m not sure I want to know the answer to that question, so I don’t push her for one. I should never have moved to this stupid village in the first place and I definitely shouldn’t have tried to do the old witch a favour by buying things in her useless shop, just because I wanted to fit in here.

“Now, if you’re finished feeling sorry for yourself,” she said, when she saw me finally slip into hopelessness. “There’s shelves that need stocking. You’ll find the boxes in the store room.”

I obeyed. What else was there to do now that I was stuck here?

I spend my days in endless futile cycles of replenishing the stock, sweeping the floor and counting the money in the till. No matter how many tins of beans and packets of biscuits I put on the shelves, new gaps keep appearing on them that need to be filled. The till always adds up €12.23 because no one ever comes in to buy anything. I pray for something, anything to change. The monotonous repetition is destroying me.

This morning, a new pot plant appeared in the window. It’s got those small heart-shaped leaves that I recognise from before.

“Let’s see what this might reel in,” the old woman sniggered, when she caught me staring at it. “It worked last time.”

Photo of Margaret Cahill

BIO: Margaret Cahill is a short story writer from Limerick, Ireland. Her fiction has featured in the Irish Independent, Frazzled Lit, The Argyle, Loft Books, Roi Fainéant, Bending Genres, Idle Ink, Bulb Culture Collective, The Milk House, époque press, The Ogham Stone, The Honest Ulsterman, Silver Apples, Crannog, The Galway Review and Headstuff.org. She was short-listed for Best Short Story at the Irish Book Awards 2024.