I set the glasses down and sighed. “Nothing unusual. But that’s what she said – strange things only happened when she took the glasses to the theater.”
“There’s a production of Arsenic and Old Lace at the Academy Theater,” Teag said, naming one of Charleston’s many wonderful refurbished old theaters. “Are you doing anything tomorrow night?”
Since my love life at the moment was also ABD (All But Defunct), the chances of me having big plans on a Saturday night were slim. And since Maggie, our part-time helper, had called off sick, I’d be spending the weekend working at the shop anyway. I checked the calendar on my phone, just to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. I hadn’t.
“Sure,” I said. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen the City Players, and I’d love to go.” I frowned. “Don’t you and Anthony have anything planned? I don’t want to mess up date night.”
Anthony was Teag’s other diversion from finishing his Ph.D. With his blond hair, blue eyed boy-next door good looks, and his Battery Row charm, I could definitely see the attraction. Anthony had just finished law school and taken a position with the family law firm. He and Teag had been a couple now for over a year, and the three of us often went out together, or double dated when I was seeing someone.
“He’s got a couple of big cases going right now,” Teag said, shaking his head. “I’ve barely seen him all week, and he warned me that he’d be working late all weekend. So I was resigned to spending the night alone with a movie.”
“In that case, let’s see the show,” I said. I don’t mind a quiet evening at home, but the idea of an impromptu night out was sounding better and better.
“How about if I slip over and see if I can get tickets?” Teag suggested. “I’ll be right back.” “Sounds good,” I agreed. “Did you get a name for our seller?”
Teag nodded. “Trinket Ellison. Of the Battery Park Ellisons. Don’t you ever read the social page? Her family has been in Charleston as long as yours has; in other words, practically since the first ships dropped anchor.”
“I don’t pay a lot of attention to that kind of thing,” I said, and it was true, although in Charleston, the old families all knew each other socially. “The real mystery is, how did a woman from up north – no matter how wealthy – end up marrying into an old Charleston family like the Ellisons back in the day?” I shook my head. “Some folks in these parts hadn’t gotten over The War by then.”
Truth be told, even now, some folks hereabouts still weren’t over The War. That would be what folks up north called the Civil War and what Charlestonians were more likely to call the War Between the States if they were being polite and the War of Northern Aggression if they weren’t.
Teag shrugged. “Beats me. I’ll ask Anthony. He usually knows everything about everybody.”
Trust a lawyer from an old established family to know all the dirt, I thought.
While Teag went out for tickets, I went through my email. One of the messages caught my eye. The sender was ‘Rebecca@GardeniaLandingB&B.com’ and I was almost ready to hit ‘delete’ expecting a sales pitch before I read the message.
We’re having some problems with several antique décor pieces we recently acquired. Maggie told me that you’re good with this kind of thing and I was hoping you could please stop by. She says you have a knack for dealing with haunted items. I’ll be happy to comp your stay for a night or two if you would come. I don’t know who else to ask, and I can’t put up with things the way they are.
I sat back and stared at the screen. At first, I thought maybe she had purchased some items to decorate her bed and breakfast and changed her mind about them. It happens. Several local interior decorators shop at our store on a regular basis (of course, we only show them the mundanes or the tame sparklers).
But it didn’t sound like the problem had to do with a decorator’s style. Maggie didn’t know the full story about what we do at Trifles and Folly, but she did know I had a gift for recognizing haunted things.
She was discreet enough to only mention that if the client raised the issue first. Rebecca’s last line sounded desperate, and scared. I frowned. If Rebecca was correct, how on earth had she gotten her hands on a sparkler without my knowing about it?
I thought for a moment, then hit reply. I’ll be glad to help, I wrote, but can you please tell me more about the problem? I hit send and went back to my email, deleting a few spammy messages. I figured Rebecca probably wouldn’t get back to me until tomorrow, but just as I was getting ready to step away from the computer, a new message popped into my inbox.
You really need to see for yourself, Rebecca had written. Please, please come – soon.
Well, that was interesting. The desperation was unmistakable. Although it was Friday, I wasn’t quite spontaneous enough to consider packing up and heading out to her B&B.
But come to think of it, I was due to have some work done on my house next week. I live in the house my parents inherited from my great-uncle Evanston, the same one who left me Trifles and Folly. It’s what folks in Charleston call a ‘single house’, a two-story brick house from the 1880s that’s only one room wide, with a porch (called a piazza) that runs along one side. It’s a lovely house, but its age means there’s a lot of upkeep. My parents happily sold the house to me for a token payment when they moved to Charlotte, leaving me the proud owner of a home I absolutely loved and couldn’t possibly afford otherwise.
I was getting the hardwood floors refinished, and between the mess and the smell, that meant that that Baxter, my little Maltese, and I were going to have to find another place to stay for a few days. I’d already booked Baxter into the local puppy spa, and I’d made reservations for myself at a chain hotel, but Rebecca’s invitation could turn necessity into a mini-vacation – depending on just how much of a problem Rebecca was having, and how easy it was to fix.
How about next Tuesday and Wednesday? I emailed back.
THANK YOU!!! Rebecca replied, and I figured from the all caps and the extra punctuation that she was very happy.
Teag wasn’t back yet, so I plugged Gardenia Landing into Google and did a little online sleuthing. A tasteful web page popped up, with images of an idyllic old home that looked both restful and expensive.
The bed and breakfast looked charming.
I read through the home’s history. The house dated from the 1850s, practically qualifying it as new construction in a city as old as Charleston. That meant it had seen a lot of history, and stood a good chance of having a few resident ghosts, like many of the older homes in Charleston.
Heck, if you believed the guides on the nightly ghost tour carriage rides, every house, garage, and alleyway was haunted. Some of that made for good fun for the tourists, but there was an uncomfortable undercurrent of truth. Charleston was a beautiful city, but it had been built on the blood, toil, and misery of African slaves. Pirates had been tried and hanged here, duels were once common, and the plagues, earthquakes, and hurricanes that claimed thousands of lives over the years left restless spirits aplenty. In nearly four hundred years, Charleston also had more than a few sensational murders. Stories of the taverns and brothels of long ago – and the inevitable fights they spawned – still made good gossip. Charleston might prefer its nickname of ‘the Holy City’ for its many churches, but it was one of the most haunted places in the country, for good reason.