The Curious Case of the Cursed Spectacles (Curiosity Shop Cozy Mysteries Book 1)

by Constance Barker

  I drank Uncle Mason's whiskey and nibbled on some crackers while the music played. Benny Goodman, Miles Davis, Wynton Kelly, Dollar Brand… I played them all. When I finished I washed the glass and plate I'd used for the crackers along with my breakfast dishes, then stretched out on the couch where I fell fast asleep.

  * * *

  I woke in the morning with a start. Someone was calling my name, saying it short like family and friends do, so that it comes out "See" instead of the clunkier, more formal Cecelia. There was no one there. It was in my head, of course. I couldn't shake the fact that it had seemed real, a real voice. I dragged myself off the couch, got up and took a look around. As I'd known would be the case, I was alone and the door was locked.

  Probably because of waking that way I felt uneasy. That sense stayed with me even while I showered and put on fresh clothes. It was strong enough that I skipped my all-important breakfast, grabbed the keys Jeff Wiggens had given me and went downstairs, unlocking the back door and going through into the shop. Somehow I was sure that my uneasiness, and maybe even that voice, had something to do with the locked back room in the shop. I was going to find out what was in there.

  When I walked in the shop, going in through the back door, I caught my breath. Someone had trashed the place. Shelves were knocked every which way, and things that hadn't moved in forty years were scattered all to hell.

  When I started breathing again, I took out my cell phone and called the police. Just as I hung up, Clarence came up to the door, looked at it curiously, then swung it open. He stepped in, saw the condition the room was in, saw me, and then just stared.

  "The lock on the front door is broken. What happened here?"

  "I'm not entirely sure. I just walked in myself, but from the look of things, I think we were robbed."

  "Robbed? That can't be. This is Destiny's Point and that sort of thing doesn't happen here."

  "It sure looks like it has now. Something happened here. I don't know if anything is missing yet, but the way things are tossed around it looks like someone was looking for something."

  Clarence straightened his tie. "Then what do we do?"

  "You're asking me?"

  "You are the one who inherits the place." He seemed to tremble. "Nothing like this… ever…"

  I started to worry that the shop might soon have two people in the hospital with heart problems. I wondered if we had business insurance to cover that sort of thing. "I've called the police," I said calmly. "We will tell them what we know and let them do their job. When they are done doing whatever they do, then we can decide what needs to happen next."

  My calm voice, the fact that I was telling him what we would do as if I was in charge, seemed to help him. The color, such as it was, came back to his face and he started breathing again. "I suppose we shouldn't touch anything."

  "I suppose not."

  When the police arrived it was clear that the officer didn't have a lot of experience with this sort of thing. He seemed to be more interested in the idea that someone in Destiny's Point was actually robbed than finding out who did it. His questions were all over the place and got Clarence all wound up again. But finally, he finished taking our statements.

  "Will you dust for prints?" I asked.

  He laughed. "You probably have the fingerprints of half the town in here."

  "There could be some others of, say, criminals."

  Reluctantly, he took fingerprints from the front door and the cash register, even though that didn't appear to have been touched and was empty anyway. Then, almost as a punishment for bothering him, he asked us to prepare a list of anything that was missing. I wondered if Clarence knew the inventory well enough to do that. I was sure there was no written record.

  "We'll get it to you as soon as we figure out what is missing."

  He looked around and shook his head. "How will you do that?"

  "I'm not sure yet."

  "Well, if and when..." And then he left.

  I stood and looked around the shop at the antiques that were scattered around the place. It made my heart hurt for Uncle Mason. Here he was sitting in a hospital room with a bad ticker and his antiques were scattered about like a pile of trash. In a way I was glad he wasn't here to see this. Hopefully not much was missing and Clarence and I could get everything back in its normal place in a whip stitch. However, I wasn't prepared for what I would discover about my Uncle Mason's little shop of curiosities.

  Chapter Four

  "We might as well see if there is anything major missing," I said."anything obvious."

  Clarence nodded and we started taking a closer look. "The back door," he said. "The locked door is open."

  I looked at the back wall and saw what he was talking about. The large mahogany door had been cracked and knocked off its hinges. Passing through it, we entered the narrow back room for the first time. It was dusty but largely empty. Clearly whatever the thieves were after had been in here. The back wall was lined with sturdy shelves made of thick planks of unfinished wood. They weren't for show. Now they sat empty, with rings of dust marking the spots where things had sat, probably for years.

  To one side, sitting on the floor under the shelves, I spotted a small wooden box. "They missed something," I told Clarence who still stood in the doorway, taking it all in.

  I got on my knees and fished it out. The box looked familiar. It was covered with marks, patterns, possibly some pictographs. My knowledge of Sanskrit was sketchy, but the marks bore a distinct resemblance to pictures I'd seen of Sumerian tablets. The box was hinged with leather that was, amazingly, still supple enough not to crack when I opened the box. Inside was a pen—identical to the one Uncle Mason had given me when I graduated...I could vaguely remember opening it, being pleased.

  "A pen?" Clarence asked.

  "That's why the box looked familiar," I said.

  "It did?"

  "Yes. I have one just like this in the city."

  "How?"

  "Uncle Mason gave it to me a long time ago. He sent it to me as a present. He was always sending odd things." As I picked the pen up and turned it in my fingers, I heard a voice. "Goodness! We've been robbed!"

  I turned to see a man in Victorian dress standing there, looking around with a shocked expression. He seemed to be in his thirties and he had a mustache. He looked around the room with rapid jerky movements. I could see him clearly, yet at the same time, I could see right through him. "They've taken it all, taken all of them."

  "Who are you?" I asked.

  Clarence stared at me, looking right through our visitor. "It's Clarence, of course. Who did you think."

  "My name is Edgar," the man said. He tipped his head then looked at Clarence. "I suppose you've figured out by now that your friend can't see me."

  "Why not?"

  "Why not what?" Clarence asked.

  "I'm not entirely sure. I'm relatively new to this, but I believe I'd need your permission to let him see me. That's why. You haven't given it."

  "Why do you need my permission?" This was strange indeed. I was talking to a ghost like I would any old soul who waltzed into the shop. I didn't know if I was more amazed by Edgar the ghost or that my voice and manner remained ultimately calm. It was almost like deja vu. Like it felt normal...at least in this moment.

  Clarence scratched his head. "I seem to be missing half of a conversation here. What's going on?"

  I nodded at Clarence. "That's exactly it. You are missing half a conversation. Hang on a second and I'll see if I can fix that." I pointed at the ghost. "Let him see you and hear you," I said.

  "As you wish."

  As I watched, nothing seemed to change except that Clarence suddenly jumped back in shock. Obviously, Edgar had become visible to him. "Clarence, this is Edgar, who was providing the other half of the conversation." I kept my voice calm, trying to sound like nothing out of the ordinary was happening and that I thought everything going on actually made some sort of sense. I did it as much for me as for Clarenc
e.

  "Edgar?" Clarence said.

  Edgar held out a hand. "Pleased to meet you, Clarence." As Clarence put his hand right through Edgar's our visitor laughed while Clarence took a step back. "Sorry. I can forget that shaking doesn't work any more. It's hard to let go of the idea of physical contact, especially since… well, it is good to meet you." Then he looked at the empty shelves again. "I wish we were meeting under better circumstances, whatever that might mean."

  "Better than what?"

  "Well, that these things are gone… after all this time. This… is bad. It's very, very bad, I'm afraid."

  "Why is it bad, Edgar? Can you explain what's going on? We have no idea what was in here or why it was taken. Do you know what was stolen?" As odd as it was to be asking for information from a ghost I thought it was worth a try. If you are going mad you might as well do it whole hog.

  "They stored things in here over the years. It's hard to say because there were so many different things, but they were all bad. But what, exactly? The specific items? I wasn't in the best position to notice them all, and anyway it is hard to remember…"

  "Bad how? Were they dangerous things?" I asked.

  "Possibly." He smiled. "My understanding it that a lot depends on how they are used. That's my theory anyway."

  Clarence waved his hands. "Were they old things? Things like in the store?"

  "A few were… yes, some were definitely old," Edgar said. "Relatively speaking, of course. Not old like time is old, but then time is rather flexible so it is also new. These things aren't so flexible, except for… well, yes, I'd say it's safe for you two to think of many of them as old. They are old and definitely dangerous." He smiled. "There were some newer things too. And they were bad as well."

  "What was dangerous about them?" I asked. "Are they toxic chemicals?" I had visions of having to contact the Center for Disease Control or some toxic waste disposal team to let them know and put out a general alert. That would be okay, but the explaining afterward wouldn't be my idea of a good time.

  Edgar considered that. "Possibly toxic, and some of them were made of chemicals, but that isn't the danger. It was something else."

  "Something else made them dangerous."

  "Yes, of course. Now let me think… yes, now I remember the problem."

  "The problem?"

  "What they have in common is that they were once just ordinary things."

  "Ordinary?"

  "Everyday items."

  "Like what? Can you share?"

  "Yes, yes…" Suddenly he looked surprised. "You know, I can't recall them at all. What's important about them is that those things, the objects that were taken, were all stored here because they were all cursed."

  "Cursed?" What the frick! That sounded unpleasant.

  "Many of them, maybe all of them. The room held an interesting assortment of cursed things. With them out there…" he waved a hand in the general direction of the walls, "they are dangerous. The curses become activated."

  I didn't like that the day's bad news seemed to get worse all the time. Edgar's description was turning into something that could be seriously dangerous. "What sort of curse are we talking about here? Are we talking bad luck or misfortune, or serious stuff like pestilence and famine?"

  "Plague?" Clarence put in helpfully.

  Edgar stared at us as if we were fools. "Why they would involve all manner of curses, of course, and whether they are serious or not depends a lot on you, doesn't it. There's no easy answer. After all, there isn't a universal curse, no single curse for all occasions. The powerful curses, and charms for that matter, are specific and directed."

  "Specifically what? And directed at whom?"

  Edgar seemed to be getting impatient with our ignorance. "Well, that would depend entirely on the object, wouldn't it? I mean, it always depends on the object that is being cursed and who put the curse on it, and how intense the curse is, the skill of the one invoking the curse… there are so many factors to consider. It's just common sense. "

  "It is?" Clarence asked, beating me to the question by microseconds.

  Edgar snorted. "You wouldn't go putting a curse of ill health on a health-giving object, would you? Of course not. They'd neutralize each other. No, you'd put a curse of ill health on some everyday object that a person might keep close to their bed. Or if it was a curse on their business, it should be something they'd use during the business day."

  "Like a pen?" I asked.

  He scowled. "That was just an example."

  Clarence touched my arm. "So… are you going to call the police and explain that we can't give them a list of the things that were stolen but we'd appreciate it if they kept out an eye for cursed objects?" He wore a grin that told me he was actually enjoying himself. Evidently I underestimated my bow tie wearing friend. He seemed more enchanted with this situation than I would have given him credit for.

  "Seeing as you are acting store manager, I think that's your job."

  At this point I was uncomfortable with the entire situation on so many levels that it didn't pay to try and count them all. Just considering the big ones, that I had my favorite relative in the hospital, probably dying, was expected to take responsibility for his store, and now had to deal with the theft of cursed objects were enough, and sufficiently unsettling. That the only information we had about the stolen items came from what seemed to be a ghost or spirit. Even that needed clarification. Egads!

  "Edgar, tell me, are you a ghost?" I asked him.

  He paused. "I'm not certain. I do seem to be remarkably similar to what I think a ghost might be."

  "You aren't sure?"

  "No. Whatever I might be, an authority on ghosts is not one of them." He thought for a moment. "I will say that I'm certain that I'm not human, although I remember being one at some point. Of course, memories… Could I be a post human, perhaps? I suspect I'm a spirit of some kind, but with a stronger connection to your world than I'd expect a ghost to have." Suddenly he smiled. "Of course, maybe that's what a ghost is—a spirit with connections to the human world. From several perspectives that makes sense."

  "Can we skip past the philosophical musings and deal with facts?" Clarence asked. He was growing impatient. "Either you are or are not a ghost, sir. If you aren't, we'd like to know what you are."

  I thought that was well stated, but Edgar disagreed.

  "I'd like to be concise and precise, but after all, what is a ghost? Do you happen to know of some defining characteristics? Is it a disembodied spirit or perhaps a projection of the living into ethereal domains? Is it a way the universe has of speaking to the living?"

  "Can we get specific and address the question of you? We need to know who and what you are? And why are you here?"

  He pointed to the pen I was holding. "Something to do with that, I suspect. And so you know, I find it rather hard to think when the person addressing me is waving a cursed object around so cavalierly."

  "Cursed."

  "Oh yes. It was among the other objects and it virtually reeks of darkness. Or should I say that it 'literally' reeks of darkness? At any rate you can smell it from a mile away. It's not a true evil, just a curse."

  "You can smell it?"

  "Figuratively. Don't you feel a cold around your hand?"

  "Actually, my hand is rather warm."

  He smiled. "That's just your human blood pumping in response to the adrenalin flow. It isn't every day you have the honor of meeting a ghost, especially someone as special as myself."

  Clarence rubbed his nose. "I thought you weren't sure what you were, or what a ghost is?"

  Edgar gave us a grand smile. "I took the liberty of changing my mind. Humans have no exclusive claim to being capricious you know. In the short interval since we had that conversation, I've been thinking. I rather decided that I like the idea of being a ghost. It appeals to me at some fundamental level. So, as of now, I am Edgar, the ghost, at your service." And he bowed. Then he pointed to the pen again. "Not only does the
idea of being a ghost charm me, but I'm rather of the opinion that a ghost would have less to fear from a cursed object than a human would."

  Clarence snorted. "Based on what? You've only been a ghost for a couple of minutes."

  "It's all supposition, of course, but I'll take comfort in that idea if you don't mind." He pointed at the pen again. "But to be safe, would you mind putting that thing back in the box?" The way he said the word 'thing' made me realize that he wasn't at all sure of his immunity to its effects.

  I thought this entire situation overly dramatic. "But Edgar, aren't you the curse? I mean, you only appeared when I opened the box."

  The idea caught him off guard. "I think you're right."

  "I wonder how that's a curse."

  "You'd have to admit it isn't exactly a blessing for me, being tied to a pen. And a rather bland one as well."

  "And if I put it back?"

  He shrugged. "How would I know? Try it and see."

  I opened the box, watching Edgar.

  "Carefully," he said.

  I sat the pen on the indents that formed a cradle for it in the box, then closed it. "Anything?" I asked.

  "I feel exactly the same," he said. "Considering what I do know about cursed objects, there is probably some incantation we should say about now," Edgar said.

  "Go ahead," Clarence said.

  Edgar put his hands out, empty palms up. "I'm afraid I have no idea what it would be." Then he smiled. "I suppose we have to take our chances. Or you will. Good thing I'm a ghost."

  Clarence and I exchanged looks—skeptical looks. On the one hand, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that there were no such things as ghosts; on the other hand, if Edgar wasn't a ghost, how did he appear and disappear? More importantly, if he wasn't a ghost, what was he? At that moment, talking to a ghost seemed to be the lesser freaky thing of the many freaky possibilities that came to mind.

  "I need some tea," Clarence said. "I'm going to go…" he pointed into the shop, "in there and put on a kettle."

  As he left, Edgar smiled at me. "I don't think he likes me a lot."