“And don’t forget the spinning wheels,” I said, glancing at the mannequin sitting at an antique wheel, while a child’s figure used a spindle whorl to twist fiber into yarn. Unconsciously, my fingers went to the smooth agate stone of a much older whorl I carried in my pocket, one that carried with it the magical protection of an old Norse demi-goddess.
“People have always linked spinning and weaving with magic,” Teag said, peering intently at the old loom in the next display. I wasn’t an expert on weaving, but I could tell that as time moved on, the looms became more complex and added more features.
“There’s certainly an art to planning how to switch back and forth with the different colors,” I said with admiration. Teag had been practicing with a variety of weaving techniques for the love of the craft itself and studying with a local master of sweetgrass basket making, Mrs. Teller, for a couple of years now.
“That’s part of the fun,” Teag replied with a grin. “And most artists end up creating signature patterns and designs that become uniquely theirs. I’m still working on that,” he admitted. “But then again, it’s not like I’m planning to make pieces for galleries or sale. It’s just a hobby.”
I shook my head. “You’ve got a Gift,” I said, and I knew he would hear the word with a capital “g” as I intended, meaning both magic and talent. “Just because you don’t plan to sell what you make doesn’t mean your pieces are any less important.”
He shrugged, and the red flush of his neck told me I’d actually embarrassed him a little. “Maybe,” he admitted. “Come on; there’s more to see.”
The next few displays showed the impact of the Industrial Revolution, with big mechanical looms and factory automation. The massive, metal looms made me sad, thinking of how much artistry got lost in the rush for faster production. Once we passed the final displays with the “looms of the future” and their computerized, robotic, enhancements, we emerged into a bright white gallery showcasing some of the finest textile artists of the Lowcountry and the Southeast, past and present.
I felt a tug at my intuition, a warning that something nearby had at least a touch of magic. That didn’t surprise me since many artists have more magic than they realize guiding their innate talent. The gallery showcased shawls and rugs, delicately woven fabrics, and sturdy blankets, along with all kinds of decorative items and some textile creations that were just meant to be pretty to look at, true art pieces.
Some of the items roused no flicker of awareness from my gift at all, and I was careful to keep my hands away from any of the pieces, just in case. Others filled me with a sense of calm and satisfaction as if I could feel the weaver’s happiness at a job well done.
We moved around a couple of large-scale art pieces that took up the center of the gallery and angled around to see more of the rugs and smaller pieces. I had been idly scanning the crowd and thinking about stopping for a cookie in the museum cafe when Teag stopped so suddenly in front of me that I ran into him.
“Hey, signal next time!” I said, stepping back. Then I realized that he hadn’t moved, and his shoulders and back were stiff with apprehension. “Teag?” I asked quietly, moving up beside him. “What’s wrong?”
I maneuvered him out of the center of the aisle and over to one side, but his gaze remained fixed on a hand-woven rug in a display in front of us as if it might attack. “Cassidy, don’t get too close, but tell me if you pick up anything from those pieces over there,” he said, gesturing as if the rug and its nearby display items might hear him.
I took a couple of steps closer, and recoiled, surprised at the intensity of the emotions I felt at a distance of a few feet. No way in hell did I want to get any closer, let alone touch anything. I closed my eyes and tried to put words to the influx of sensation. Darkness. Fear, Despair. Anguish. I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts, and my heart thudded in my chest. On an instinctive level, my body had picked up on a threat, and my “fight or flight” impulses were working well since my breathing had become shallow and the hair on the back of my neck and on my arms stood up in warning.
I put some distance between myself and the bothersome display and took another minute to get myself under control. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but whoever wove those must have been terribly unhappy.”
“We’ve got to find Alistair,” Teag said, with an edge of desperation in his voice.
I reached out to grab his arm, and searched his face, trying to figure out what lay behind his sudden insistence. I could have sworn he looked panicked. “Teag, what’s wrong?”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about the pieces by that artist,” Teag said. “We need to find out if there are others that aren’t on display.” He noticed my concern and swallowed hard. “Please, Cassidy. Just trust me on this.”
I nodded, knowing that something had seriously freaked him out, and hoping he would tell me more later. “All right. Let’s go.”
Teag and I were very familiar with the museum from attending many events over the years. Alistair knew a little about my gift, enough to call me in as a consultant for an antique appraisal, or whenever a new acquisition created problems of a supernatural sort. We wound through the crowd and slipped into the corridor toward Alistair’s office. A light shone under the door, and Alistair answered Teag’s knock with a look of surprise.
“Hello. Didn’t know you’d be here. What’s up?” Alistair McKinnon had the buttoned-down decorum donors loved in a museum director, and the degrees and pedigree to go with it. I admired his work with the museum and knew that his very proper demeanor hid a wicked wit and dry sense of humor.
“Are there any other pieces by Edna Willers that aren’t on display?” Teag asked, sounding breathless enough Alistair’s brows furrowed with concern trying to figure out the problem.
“I don’t think so. Why? Is something wrong?”
Teag seemed at a loss for words, a true rarity, and another indicator that whatever bothered him meant trouble. I gave him a worried glance and jumped in. “I picked up some very strong negative emotions from her pieces in the gallery, and it was enough of a shock that we’re worried that there might be other pieces that give off an even stronger vibe,” I said, filling the gap. Now, I was really concerned.
He knew something he wasn’t ready to talk about, and it scared him shitless.
“Do you think they’re dangerous?” Alistair asked, looking from me to Teag. Anyone who’s worked long in museums has had experience with ghosts and curses and knew to take them seriously, even if it’s nothing they’ll admit in public. We’ve helped Alistair out with some hauntings and other spooky situations, so he trusts us to be discreet, and knows that if something gives us the heebie-jeebies, it’s worth worrying about.
“Maybe,” I said, and Teag gave a curt nod.
“I’m not sure where the items for that exhibit are stored, but I’ll have one of my staff look into it, and if there are other pieces, I’ll let you know,” he promised. “In the meantime, should we remove the works of hers on display?”
I looked to Teag since he knew more about the possible threat than I did. He deliberated for a moment, then shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to take them home with me, but I don’t think they’re going to hurt anyone. People who are sensitive to those kinds of things will probably give that display a wide berth.” He frowned. “None of your staff had anything bad or weird happen when they were mounting the pieces, did they?”
“No, and I think I’d have heard,” Alistair replied. “Museum people have their superstitions, you know,” he added with a smile. “Then again, I don’t think anyone handled them for long. It got pretty chaotic in there before the opening, since some of the items came in at the last minute, so we had everyone who could lend a hand hanging and tagging. Not exactly the kind of environment for anyone to have time to notice feeling unsettled.”
“Thanks for checking,” Teag said, sounding a little sheepish. “It’s probably nothing, but I thought it was worth checking into.”
> “No problem at all,” Alistair reassured us. “I’ll let you know as soon as my staff can get a chance to look.”
We thanked him and found our way back to the main lobby. Teag still looked flustered, so I decided to forego the museum coffee shop and try to get Teag’s mind off whatever had spooked him. “I could use some caffeine and sugar,” I suggested. “Let’s stop by Honeysuckle Café on the way back to the shop and pick up lattes and cookies.”
Teag looked relieved and readily agreed. When we arrived, the place was packed. Honeysuckle Café is a favorite of the King Street crowd, both merchants and shoppers, and tourists in the know have also gotten wind of it. Rick, the barista, slings joe with the hangdog charisma of a modern-day Bogart, and Trina, the owner, always seems to know everything that’s going on in town.
“Hi, Cassidy! Hi, Teag!” Trina greeted us when we worked our way through the line to pay for our order.
“Busier than usual,” I said, noticing that not a single table sat empty. “What’s going on?”
Trina shrugged as she rang us up. “Nice weather brings people out,” she replied. “But most of the buzz is about the murder.”
“Murder?” I echoed. Charleston’s a fair-sized city, and bad things can happen in cities, but murders rarely become big gossip unless there’s something unusual or the crime involves someone famous.
“They found a woman dead down in White Point Garden,” Trina said, noting the park down along the Battery by the harbor. “And according to the rumors, it looks like there might be a serial killer on the loose.”
We couldn’t find seats inside, so Teag and I found a bench in the shade a little ways from the café. That suited me fine since I hoped to get him to spill the beans about what had him so jittery.
“You ready to talk about what happened at the museum?” I asked, giving him a hopeful smile and laying an encouraging hand on his arm.
Teag shifted uncomfortably and shrugged. “Not much to tell,” he said, looking down at the cup in his hand. “The pieces by that weaver, Edna Willers, felt wrong. She was an art teacher of mine, back in college. That’s why I was so surprised to see her work. I’m sure she had magic, Weaver magic, but those pieces in the museum carried so much despair, I don’t know how you could even breathe around the display. It made me think of some stories I’d heard, about weavers who used their magic to do really bad things, which is why I wanted to find out if there were more pieces that might be even worse, down in the storage area.”
“What kind of really bad things?” I asked.
Teag had such a tight grip on his cup I thought he might squeeze it until it exploded. “Weaver magic has a very checkered history,” he said quietly. “It’s never gotten the respect it deserves, in part because for a lot of centuries, it was put down as ‘women’s magic,’” he said. “Same old misogyny and homophobia,” he sighed. “In fact, back in the Viking days, a male witch could be put to death for being a seiõr, a Weaver.”
I stayed silent, letting Teag tell the story at his own pace.
“Some of the negative feelings had to do with a fear of being manipulated,” Teag said, easing his grip on his cup. He took a sip of the latte and tried to relax. “There are stories about Weavers using spells in the cloth to control people—love spells, business deals, major decisions. Of course, the magic was used to make the person who received the woven item act against his own interests. You can see why people would be afraid.”
“Sort of sounds like the Salem witch trials to me,” I replied. “Someone gets a run of bad luck and blames it on some poor woman who doesn’t have the power to fight back.”
Teag shrugged. “I imagine there was some of that, as well. A lot of people would rather claim to have been bewitched than admit they made a bad call.” He drank some more coffee. “I got really bad vibes from the pieces at the museum. And you know how it goes sometimes with art that’s tainted by bad magic or haunted somehow. The original owners guard it, and then when they die, the heirs sell it off or put it on display somewhere, and then things go wrong.”
“Maybe when we go back to the store, you could look up the artist and see if there’s anything in the bio that clues you in on why the mojo was so freaky,” I suggested. “We ought to go—Maggie’s coffee and cookie are going to get cold.” Maggie was our godsend assistant who knew the truth about what Trifles and Folly did and hadn’t run away screaming. She had nerves of steel and a heart of gold.
Teag nodded, and I had the sense he still hadn’t told me everything that bothered him about the display, but he’d probably said all he intended to for now. I gave him a hug when we stood up. “C’mon. Put it out of your mind for a little while. If there’s a problem, we’ll handle it. It’s too nice a day to let it get you down.”
Teag managed a smile, but as we walked back to the store, neither of us really felt any better.
When we got back to Trifles and Folly, Maggie accepted the coffee and cookie with enough reverence you’d have thought it was the Holy Grail. “You’re the best!” she squeaked. “I’m glad you’re back. We’ve been slammed, and everyone wants to talk about the murder.”
I blew out a long breath. “Yikes. Thanks for holding down the fort.” I glanced to Teag. “Why don’t you look up that weaver from the museum? Maggie and I can handle the front.” He nodded gratefully and went into the break room.
Maggie gave me a look. Is he okay? she mouthed.
I nodded. “He’ll be fine,” I murmured, though I didn’t feel entirely sure. Teag was one of the steadiest people I knew. We’d been through a lot of freaky and downright terrifying stuff together, and I’d never seen him this rattled. It scared me because I worried about his safety, and I figured that anything bad enough to knock him off his game must really be bad. So I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself.
Which meant turning the conversation to discuss a serial murderer. “What do you know about the Smiley Killer?” Maggie asked me.
“Not much,” I replied. “I’ve heard the name. It was a long time ago. Why? Are people saying he’s back?”
Mid-afternoon is often slow in the shop, so we didn’t have any customers. Maggie perched on her stood behind the counter, and nibbled her cookie. “This would have been back in the late nineties, before you were paying attention to such things,” she added. I’m in my mid-twenties and had to admit she was right, although it made me feel wet behind the ears.
“Let me tell you; it was quite a big deal in Charleston. We weren’t nearly so cosmopolitan then as we are now,” she added without a touch of irony. Maggie gathered her tie-dye broomstick skirt around her as she rutched in her seat to get comfortable. Maggie is an amazing combination of Grateful Dead and general accounting, and all heart, with the spine of a true steel magnolia.
“Some people were a little excited that we had our very own serial killer as if that meant we had made the big time, like New York or Chicago,” she said with a moue of distaste. “Of course, they were being stupid. Five women died, bodies left all over the historic district, all killed the same way. Two punctures on the throat and a curved slice, sort of like a really sick smiley face, hence the name,” she said, rolling her eyes. “The media had to give him some kind of catchy name, and ‘Smiley Killer’ caught on.”
“What happened?” I asked, feeling a knot of suspicion deep in my gut as I recalled the dots and curve the ghost had drawn on the fogged window.
“The killings just stopped,” Maggie replied with a shrug. “Everyone was all keyed up, waiting for something else to happen, but eventually as time went on and no one else got killed, I guess we all figured that either the killer died, or moved on. Although if he—serial killers are almost always men, you know—did move, I never heard of more deaths with that ‘signature’ happening somewhere else.”
I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered. Even the hot latte didn’t take the chill away. “And no one ever found out who it was?”
Maggie shook her head. “Not that I heard. I guess
it’s not that uncommon, killers stopping for years after going on a spree. I read a few ‘true crime’ books when everything happened, but it was too damn depressing. So the Smiley Killer remains one of Charleston’s modern mysteries, and now it seems like maybe he’s come home.”
“Or someone else wants us to think he has,” I replied. I tried to drink the rest of my coffee, but it made my stomach churn.
“On the cop shows on TV, that’s what they call a ‘copycat’ murder. I don’t know what’s worse,” Maggie mused. “Having the real killer back, or having someone who wants to celebrate his greatest hits.”
The bell jingled as a customer walked in. I stood up to greet her. “Welcome to Trifles and Folly.”
The woman looked a little unsure. “I’m not sure I’m in the right place. Do you handle heirloom jewelry?” She wore a nice twinset sweater combination with dress slacks and looked like she might have stopped in on a break from work. The woman looked to be in her mid-forties, with short, neatly cut hair and manicured nails. But from the way she fidgeted, I could tell something made her nervous.
I gestured toward a display case to her right. “Yep. We have a really nice selection, both fine jewelry, and costume pieces. Are you interested in buying or selling?”
She tightened her grip on her purse. “Selling. Do I need to make an appointment?”
I smiled. “Nope. Come over here, and I’ll be glad to do an appraisal.” She followed me to an open spot atop the glass display case and reached into her purse.
“I’m Jenny Mitchell,” she introduced herself. “I’m helping my aunt downsize, and she went through her things,” the woman said. “I’m not sure whether they’re what you handle—”
“Let’s take a look, and we’ll see,” I said brightly. She reached into her purse and took out a wrap-up jewelry holder, which she unrolled. I knew at a glance that most of the items were nice costume jewelry, but not expensive enough for us to resell, although she might find a buyer at a yard sale. One piece, a pretty crystal brooch, caught my eye.
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