Trifles and Folly Page 3

  The attic walls melted away, and once again I saw the sunlit battlefield I had glimpsed before through the eyes of the button’s owner.

  Fear coursed through me, making my heart pound. All around me, I heard the sharp crack of rifles and in the distance, the steady, deadly pounding of cannons that shook the ground beneath my feet. The uniform I wore was gray, or had been once. Now, it was faded from the sun, stained where it had been splashed with the blood of other men, brown from the red clay dirt. Just as I raised my rifle to my shoulder, I heard another loud crack, closer this time, and staggered backwards as if someone had shoved me. My own shot went wild, with the rifle barrel pointed toward the sky as I nearly fell. When I put my hand down to my side, my fingers came away stained with blood.

  “It’s open!” Teag shouted in triumph, setting the board to the side. A dark hole gaped in the wall. From that hole, Teag drew out a small bundle wrapped in old rags. He unwound the rags and withdrew a yellowed skull. He jostled it, and the lower jaw fell away, revealing a gold coin that had been placed in the mouth.

  I stared at Teag and the bundle, then my gaze shifted behind him, to the wall. The thin dark crack had grown wider, and from it, a shadow slipped out like smoke.

  “Get back, Teag!”

  Teag followed my gaze, but I could tell from the look on his face he didn’t see what I saw. Still, he acted, scrabbling backward, clutching the skull and coin. The shadow grew larger, briefly taking the form of a man and then shifting, with tendrils that unwound themselves like a black kraken uncoiling. Behind me, one of the light bulbs flared and then burst with a crack like gunfire. I searched with my senses, and knew that the dark crack was a fissure between more than the attic siding. The Allendale house had been rumored to have been a hotbed of paranormal activity for long before Edward brought home his battlefield treasure. Now I knew why. The dark space was no ordinary splintering of old boards, no settling of the foundation. It was a threshold between the world of the living and the place of the dead.

  “Get out of here.” I could barely make words come from my throat. The dark shadow was growing larger.

  “The hell I will,” Teag said. “Maybe it wants the button.”

  But I could feel what the darkness really wanted; it wanted fresh meat, warm blood, and the life that animated our beating hearts.

  My gaze went again to the crack between the boards. I reached for the amulet around my neck for moral support, and pressed the smooth silver disk against my palm.

  An image formed in my mind of a woman in an antique bridal gown. A heavy lace veil covered her face. I could sense an aura of power around her.

  Leave the shadowed one to me, my child. Send the curse where it belongs, and close the rift.

  How? I wondered. How do I close the rift? I looked again at the dark crack, a thin opening, or a small rip. Or a buttonhole.

  “I’ve got an idea,” I said, eyeing the skull Teag still held and the distance between me and the wall. “Can you get the coin out of the skull’s mouth?”

  Teag juggled his macabre charge. “I think so. Dammit! Someone wired it in here.”

  “Try not to handle the coin if you can help it. Put it on the floor, where it’s easy for me to get it,” I instructed, keeping my eyes on that damned shadow.

  A coin in the mouth of a corpse, a penny for the ferryman, I thought. Perhaps at some point, Edward Allendale had tried unsuccessfully to send his unwanted visitor to the great beyond.

  “Got it,” Teag said.

  I reached into the pocket of Teag’s jacket and my hand closed over the plastic box with the button, and I fumbled with the latch to open it. The box gave way, and the button tumbled into my palm.

  For that instant, the contact with the long-dead soldier was complete. Darkness washed over me, drawing the warmth from my blood. Anger and despair filled me, and my gut contracted with the pain of a rifle wound that was more than one hundred and fifty years in the past. Then another presence filled me, and the image of the bride grew brighter and brighter, becoming a light that flared and forced the shadow to retreat.

  Now! The voice shouted in my mind. I dove across the floor, grabbing the coin with my right hand and clenching the button in my left. I skidded toward the wall, and used my momentum to thrust both the coin and the button through the crack.

  Maman Brigitte’s light struck the shadow man, just as I forced the coin and the button into the darkness. I heard a scream, although I could not tell whether it came from the shadow or whether it was my own.

  The darkness vanished, and I slumped to the ground, too spent to move. In my mind, I saw the image of the bride again, bending over the rift, sealing it with her veil. Teag grabbed my wrist, yanking me to my feet, and together we barreled down the stairs and out of the house. We reached the other side of the street and looked back, half expecting the house to disappear into a vortex or tumble to the ground. It did neither, although for an instant, a light flared brilliantly from the attic window, then went dark.

  “Want to bet no one sees a shadow at the window again?” Teag asked. I looked down. He was still holding that damned skull. He caught the direction of my glance, and shrugged. “Poor guy is long overdue for a decent burial. Without the coin, it’s just a skull. I have an old friend who works at the mortuary. I’m betting he can make sure old Jonah gets a proper burial.”

  Teag might have said more, but my head was swimming, and I swayed on my feet. He reached out to steady me as I passed out, but there was someone else as well. In my mind’s eye, I saw the veiled bride standing over me. She bent down, and touched a finger to my amulet and the metal disk felt warm on my skin. As consciousness faded away, so did her image, but I had the feeling she approved.

  I woke on the couch in my temporary apartment over the shop. Consciousness returned slowly, and with it, warmth. I felt a presence, safe, reassuring, and it carried a honeyed compulsion to rest. I opened my eyes, and found Sorren, looking down at me, concern clear in his features. He helped me sit up enough to sip some sweet tea, and then eased me back onto the pillows.

  “Rest,” Sorren said, and his voice felt like balm poured over a throbbing wound. “When you’re feeling better, there’s a new situation to discuss.”

  “Oh, goody,” I murmured, but as I drifted off to sleep, I knew the truth, and so did Sorren. Trifles and Folly was far more than just another antiques store. It helped make the world a little safer, one haunted item at a time. I couldn’t walk away from that, not when my gift could make a difference. Not for all the damned buttons in the world.

  The Restless Dead

  “WHAT DO YOU make of it, Cassidy?”

  I looked at the piece of metal that lay on the counter, and frowned. “Off-hand, I’d say it looks like the balance wheel off an old Singer sewing machine, probably from the late 1800s,” I replied. The old wheel was dirty and scratched, but on the whole, not in bad shape for something that might have been made that long ago. “Where did you find it?”

  Blair Hunt had been leaning across the counter, intent on the old machine part. He stood up and sighed. “We found a bunch of stuff in the sinkhole that opened up behind the Palmetto View Plaza.”

  I let my hand hover above the old sewing machine part, but I did not touch it. Even at a distance, I could feel tragedy and betrayal, and knew its former owner had come to a bad end.

  I’m Cassidy Kincaide, and I’m a psychometric—which means I can read the history of objects by touching them. I’m the most recent in a long line of my relatives to be the proprietor of Trifles and Folly, and antique and curio store in historic, haunted Charleston, SC. Most people think the store is a great place to pick up a one-of-a-kind vintage gift. Our real business is much darker. For over 350 years, nearly since Charleston was settled, this store has been part of a conspiracy to get dangerous magical objects off the market and out of the wrong hands. When we do our job right, people remain blissfully unaware of the danger that surrounds them. And when we screw up, lots of people die.

/>   “In a sinkhole?” I mused. “That’s odd.” I examined the wheel more closely. It was steel, made with the kind of graceful design most things today lack. The outer rim was gleaming silver, and the spokes inside were black. Built to last. I’d have bet it came from a Model 15K, circa 1879, a real workhorse of a machine. Rumor had it travelers spotted the old machines still at work in remote areas of China and India. The body of the machine was heavy steel, painted black with gold embellishment, run by a foot pedal so it didn’t need electricity, sturdy enough to sew winter coats, delicate enough to make wedding dresses. Not much could break one, and they almost never wore out on their own.

  “No idea how it got there,” Blair said. “I’m with the architecture firm trying to update the plaza’s look, get it back on its feet again. The sink hole opened up out of nowhere on Friday, swallowed a large part of the loading dock area. We were lucky no one fell in.” Blair ran a hand back through his red hair. From the side, he looked like an older version of Britain’s Prince Harry. Normally, he had the prince’s jovial manner, too. Today, he looked like he hadn’t slept well.

  “Problems on the site?” I asked. “I mean, other than the sinkhole?”

  Blair shrugged like he didn’t want to talk about it. “That plaza has been down on its luck for a while. It’s been standing empty now for several years. Turning that around was already going to be a major challenge without something like this. Now we’ve got to stop work until the engineers can make sure there’s no structural damage.” He shook his head. “Some days, I think it might not be a bad idea if the earth did open up and swallow the whole damn place.”

  I knew where Palmetto View Plaza was. It had been new back in the 1970s, and then lost out to bigger, better, fancier retail centers as the years went by. Charleston is lucky to have a vibrant downtown shopping district, but many of those shops are for tourists. For necessities like everyday clothing and shoes, residents headed for the nearby malls. Palmetto View was a relic of a bygone era, and I figured Blair had his work cut out for him.

  “If you find the rest of the sewing machine, I’d love to take a look of it,” I said. Something about the piece that lay in front of me made me terribly sad, and I wanted to know its story. I didn’t hold out much hope that even a vintage Singer machine found in a sinkhole would be in working order, but stranger things had happened.

  “Sure,” Blair replied. “I’ve given the guys orders that anything antique-y they find needs to be boxed up to come over here for appraisal. But I still don’t know what stuff like this is doing in a hole in the ground.”

  “When you figure it out, let me know,” I said. “You’ve got me curious.” Blair agreed to keep me in the loop, and the bell over the door jangled as he headed out.

  Teag Logan, my assistant store manager, best friend, and occasional bodyguard, sauntered over. “For all your curiosity, I notice you haven’t touched it,” he observed, raising an eyebrow. Teag knows about my psychic gift, and he’s got some gifts of his own. He’s a Weaver, able to weave magic into the warp and woof of fabric, and able to weave data streams together to find information. It makes him an unbeatable researcher and an unstoppable hacker.

  It was the middle of a cloudy autumn afternoon, the day before Halloween. The main tourist season was over, and since clouds threatened rain, walk-in traffic had been sparse. I left Maggie, our part-time assistant in charge of watching the door. Teag picked up the hand wheel and we headed to the break room in the back.

  “I still can’t figure out why a sewing machine piece would be in a sinkhole,” I said. Teag put the steel wheel on the table and poured me a glass of ice-cold sweet tea. The tea was just the way we like it in Charleston, strong as love and sweet as passion. We both knew the tea was there to revive me in case the impressions I read from the wheel were overpowering.

  Teag shrugged. “Maybe it was the basement of an old house that got forgotten and built over top of,” he said. “Maybe they unearthed an old garbage pit.”

  I shook my head. “Nobody just threw out one of those Model 15s,” I said. “Folks back then made use of something until it fell apart, and then figured out how to use the pieces.”

  “Touch it and see,” Teag prompted. We both knew I was stalling. My visions could be intense, depending on the emotions connected to a particular antique. Most people don’t realize that the strong emotions of their lives are recorded in the objects around them. Not every emotion or every old piece, but the resonance is especially strong either in items used every day or things associated with a major life event. When the circumstances are good, the piece gives a happy, calm reading. But when the circumstances were bad—well, like the rhyme about the little girl with the little curl, it can be very, very bad.

  I drew in a deep breath. One hand went to my agate necklace, which is supposed to have protective properties. So many of the readings I had done on objects with an upsetting past had ended with me flat on my butt or passed out cold that Teag and I had a routine. I had the sweet tea near to revive me. I was sitting down, so there wasn’t far to fall, and Teag was there to catch me. It was as good as it was going to get.

  I laid my hand on the cold, dirty steel. Memories flooded my senses—and none of the memories were my own. Green rolling hills, and the crash of the sea on a rocky coast. The stuffy, cramped confines of a ship packed full of hard-scrabble people in Victorian-era clothing. Fear, Loneliness. Courage. Doubt. Resolve. I saw hands—my hands—working the sewing machine with skill. Whatever else happened, whatever hardships came my way, fabric, needle, and thread made me feel safe, confident.

  The scene wavered and changed. I heard a rhythmic click-clack, like a train on the tracks only quieter. I saw the sleek, black and gold body of a Singer Model 15, saw the needle move up and down in a blur, felt the steady pressure of my foot against the treadle. Once again, fabric slid beneath my hands. The rhythm of the needle was comforting as my mother’s heartbeat in this strange and unforgiving place. Outside the dimly lit workroom, the world was beyond my control. Here, I was the master. And soon, I would be free…

  “Come back, Cassidy.” Teag’s voice coaxed me back to the present day, and he pushed the cold glass of ice tea into my hand. As visions went, that wasn’t bad. I hadn’t passed out or thrown up. But the sense of loneliness and longing, of fear and purpose, remained.

  “I saw a woman using the sewing machine,” I recounted when I had recovered. “That machine wasn’t just her livelihood—it was her life. She was afraid of everything, but there was something else—a big dream—and she was determined to make it happen.” I shook my head.

  “I want to find out who she was, Teag,” I said. “She would never have let someone put her sewing machine in a hole. She would have died first. It was her ticket to… something else, something bigger. Freedom.”

  Teag crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the table. “Let me see what I can find,” he said. I knew he meant the Internet. Teag can hack any database—even the government, and the sites no one is supposed to know are out there. He knows his way around the Dark Web, the hidden web sites where a lot of unsavory activity goes on, but he’s also right at home on the Darke Web, the ensorcelled-encryption sites used by the supernatural, immortal and magical communities. If it’s out there, no matter who’s trying to hide it, Teag will find it, given enough time.

  “Maybe we ought to put in a call to Sorren,” Teag said.

  Sorren is Trifles and Folly’s other secret. He’s my boss, a nearly six hundred year-old vampire, who’s been the business partner for every one of my relatives who owned the store for the last three hundred and fifty years. Sorren is part of a hidden Alliance of mortals and immortals who try to keep those malicious magical items from hurting anyone. He traveled a lot on Alliance business, but he was due back to Charleston any day now.

  “I’ll leave him a message, and send an email just for good measure.” Yes, my vampire boss uses modern technology. Sorren says that vampires who don’t adapt don�
�t live long. He’s made it this far, and I suspect he’ll be around for a quite a while to come. “No telling when we’ll hear back from him though.”

  Even without Sorren, I had my own sources. “Since the store isn’t busy, I think I’ll head over to the Historical Archive,” I said. “It’s been a while since I’ve paid a call on Mrs. Morrissey.”

  Mrs. Benjamin Taylor Morrissey was a true Charleston blue-blood, and the director of the Historical Archive. She was a real history buff as well as a patron of many Charleston museums and arts institutions, and it probably didn’t hurt that the Archive occupied one of her ancestor’s former homes. She was one of my go-to people when I needed to dig up information about old objects gone bad.

  I brought Mrs. Morrissey a latte, which I know she loves. Maybe that’s why I got such a big smile when I walked into her office, but I prefer to think she just likes me. She knew my Uncle Evanston, who willed Trifles and Folly to me, and I sometimes wonder if she has her suspicions about what we really do.

  “Cassidy! How nice to see you!” Mrs. Morrissey is in her seventies, with the kind of runway-model slender figure St. Johns suits were made for. She didn’t believe in things like Botox or face-lifts, so she looked her age in the nicest of ways. Understated jewelry—all of it real, and expensive—completed the outfit.

  “And you brought a latte,” she said with a grin. She gave me a broad wink. “Does this mean you’re doing some detective work about one of your new pieces at the store?”

  If Mrs. Morrissey wanted to believe that we were more P.I. than paranormal that was okay with me. “You got it in one,” I said, chuckling. “But it’s really more a question about a part of town, instead of an acquisition.”

  Mrs. Morrissey waved me toward one of the two lovely Queen Anne-style chairs that sat facing the room’s old fireplace. I suspected this was where Mrs. Morrissey chatted up prospective patrons for the Archive.