Silenced by a Spell Page 3

  Lacey grimaced. She adopted a forced pleasant tone. “That’s a fun idea. But Tom and I have decided not to have gifts. We’re going to set up a donation page for Alice instead.”

  Lacey had recently become a donor for a donkey sanctuary, a gift her friends had organized for her fortieth birthday. Her adopted donkey was named Alice.

  “You want your wedding donations to go to a donkey?” came Shirley’s nonplussed reply.

  “It doesn’t go to her specifically,” Lacey said. “It’s shared out between her and all her donkey friends.”

  Shirley sighed. “Fine. If you say so. But please just have Santa in there somewhere for the kids. Or an elf? Ooh, you could hire reindeer! Perhaps your donkey friend knows some…”

  “I’ll think about it,” Lacey said, humoring her.

  There would of course be no Santas, sleighs, or elves anywhere near her wedding. Reindeer on the other hand… While that did somewhat interest an animal lover like herself, she wasn’t sure Tom would be persuaded. She’d have to ask him at their dinner date tonight.

  “Anyway, Mom,” she said, as she reached her car and unlocked it, “thanks for all your ideas. I’ll add them to the list. Speak later, okay?”

  Chester jumped up into the Volvo and plonked himself firmly in the driver’s seat. Lacey shooed him over with her hands but he refused to budge.

  “You’re going already?” came Shirley’s incredulous voice from her cell phone as Lacey wedged it between her shoulder and ear in order to give Chester a nudge. “Where are you rushing off to now?”

  “Halloween’s coming up,” Lacey explained, as her dog finally moved his furry backside over to the passenger seat, allowing Lacey to slide in after him. “Turns out everyone in this town goes gaga for it. So I’m stocking up on creepy things for an auction…”

  Her voice trailed away as she spotted the coffee stain on her legs and was reminded of the letter from her father. She’d been so distracted by Gina and Finnbar’s horrible prank, and the odd man searching for taxidermy, and the sudden appearance of a big oak tree outside her store, she’d completely forgotten about it.

  She was hit by a sudden urge to talk to her mom about it. But she held back. Shirley was never able to stay impartial on matters pertaining to her ex-husband. It was near impossible for Shirley to keep the scathing tone from her voice when discussing him, and no matter how true or justified her criticisms of him might be, he was Lacey’s dad first and foremost and she simply didn’t want to hear it.

  “How dreadful,” Shirley was saying, in response to her creepy auction announcement. “Whatever you do, don’t buy a Ouija board. It’s not sensible to mess with the occult, even if it is all ludicrous nonsense. No tarot cards. None of that mystical stuff. Just stick to the usual bats and gargoyles.”

  Their dislike of Halloween might be one of the few things mother and daughter shared.

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” Lacey replied. “I have no intentions of messing with the occult.”

  “Good,” Shirley said. “I’ll call you later to discuss table runners. I know you said taupe and ivory for the color scheme, but I’ve seen the most amazing gold-trimmed ones.”

  “You can tell me all about it later,” Lacey said.

  She ended the call and looked over at Chester beside her.

  “Your grandmother thinks we should have reindeer at the wedding,” she told him, starting the ignition. “What do you think about that?”

  He wagged his tail excitedly and barked.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Lacey said. “You’d find them far too interesting, and you and Boudicca would get distracted trying to herd them and forget all about your bridesmaid and groomsman duties.”

  She petted him under the chin affectionately, and was about to head off on her journey to Ippledean when her phone rang again.

  “If that’s her calling back…” Lacey muttered between her teeth.

  Shirley wasn’t very good at accepting that Lacey had other things to be getting on with. If she was calling back with some ridiculous idea like a fifty-foot Christmas tree or an ice rink, Lacey wasn’t sure how levelheaded she’d be able to remain.

  But when she checked her cell, the number was unrecognized.

  Lacey frowned, wondering who might be calling her, and Chester barked to alert her to the fact her phone was still ringing in her hand.

  Lacey answered. The sound of a very plummy man filled her ear.

  “I’m calling from Knightsbridge Auction House,” he said. “I have been given your contact details from a gentleman named Percy Johnson.”

  “Yes, I know Percy,” Lacey replied.

  The kindly old antiquarian had become something of a mentor to Lacey when she first started her business venture. She was very fond of him. He had a wonderful grandfatherly energy that always put Lacey at ease.

  She was suddenly struck with a fear that something might have happened to him. “Is he okay?”

  “Why yes, he’s perfectly well,” the man replied. “The reason I’m calling is because we have a vacancy for an auctioneer. We approached Percy, but he declined and put your name forward instead, along with a very glowing recommendation indeed. We’d like to offer you a job.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lacey’s hand tightened around her cell phone with astonishment. A job offer? At one of the most revered auction houses in London? She was almost too stunned to speak.

  “I—I’m taken aback,” Lacey said. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Shall I post you the details of the position?” came the plummy man’s voice in her ear. “Salary, hours, and the like? I have your address as Crag Cottage in Wilfordshire. Is that right?”

  “Y—yes, that’s right,” Lacey confirmed.

  “Wonderful. Do take your time thinking it through. We shan’t be holding interviews for at least two more weeks. I look forward to hearing your answer. Tatty-bye!”

  “O—okay,” Lacey said. “Thank you.”

  The brief call ended. In the mere minute it had taken, it had set Lacey into a total tailspin about her life and future.

  She hadn’t given much thought to her long-term plans. She was happy in Wilfordshire. She had a wedding coming up, a thriving business, a home, friends, a dog. A whole life. But was this where she stopped? Did that just mean this was her life now, forever? Or were there more opportunities for her on the horizon?

  Outside the window of her car, she spotted a young woman leading a little clan of children dressed as ghosts across the street, hand in hand. A maternal urge stirred in Lacey’s chest. She watched them in the rearview mirror until they disappeared around the corner.

  “What is in the future?” she asked Chester.

  In the passenger seat, her pup yipped his reply.

  Lacey revved her rust-bucket secondhand car to life, and drove the short way to the neighboring town of Ippledean.

  The weather turned a little grisly as the car puttered up the steep hills to the town’s border. There was a church at the highest point, something Lacey had noticed seemed to be customary in old English towns. The church’s bell tower doubled up as a viewing post; now open to the public as a tourist attraction, but likely used in the past to keep a watchful eye on all the streets, houses, and townsfolk below, as they went about their farming work in the marshy fields filled with grazing sheep.

  “Well, isn’t this charming?” Lacey said to Chester. She drove down the bumpy cobblestone road toward the medieval town center. “It looks like something from a storybook.”

  Chester barked his acknowledgment, watching out the window with interest at the tiny black timber-framed houses they passed, with their pitched roofs and Hobbit-sized wooden front doors.

  Despite being a quaint place, with the same cobblestone streets as Wilfordshire, Ippledean’s gruesome history became very apparent the moment Lacey reached the town center and happened upon a large grassy commons. Right in the middle of it was a stone statue of a gallows, a commemoration to three elderly women
who’d been hanged on the spot for “conversing with the devil” centuries ago, though their odd behavior had since been re-attributed to dementia.

  Many of the pubs had themed names, too. Lacey drove past the Three Witches, the Burning Oak, and the Hangman’s Noose.

  It was all a bit gruesome, and Lacey felt slightly on edge as she parked in a small gravel lot and headed to the shopping streets with Chester.

  She quickly got lost in the maze of tiny roads. There was an abundance of independent stores—cute boutiques, jewelry shops, and a fair share of flea markets. But none of them appeared to be selling the types of macabre oddities Lacey had been led to believe Ippledean had to offer.

  That was until she spotted a very narrow, dark alley in between two very closely positioned stores. It would have been very easily missed, had Lacey not been focusing so intently on the window display of a children’s clothes store with cute little Halloween onesies in the window.

  Feeling adventurous, Lacey decided to follow the narrow alleyway.

  The buildings either side were so close together there was barely enough room for two people to pass side by side. Luckily, it was also very quiet here, in stark contrast to the bustling market area she’d just left.

  It didn’t take Lacey long to realize she’d stumbled upon the place where Ippledean’s more unusual stores were tucked away out of sight. Among them she found an art store selling strange abstract murals, a brimming plant store with steamy windows, and a clothes shop that seemed to specialize in PVC catsuits.

  Then Lacey spotted a very interesting window display up ahead. A beautiful ram’s skull was in pride of place, next to an old typewriter and a battered accordion. It was the sort of window display Gina would love to recreate at the antiques store.

  “This looks promising,” Lacey told Chester.

  The sign above the door read The Ducking Stool. Lacey headed inside.

  The smell of dust wafted into Lacey’s nostrils as she surveyed the gloomy store. There was very little artificial light, just a couple of yellow bulbs hanging from the ceiling, and not much daylight streaming in through the small curb-side window. It had a very creepy vibe that made prickles go up and down Lacey’s spine. Chester clearly felt uncomfortable in this environment too because his fur was standing on end.

  Just then, Lacey noticed a large counter to one side, behind which sat a bored-looking goth girl with lots of metal in her face. She had her nose in a large book.

  The girl neither looked up nor greeted Lacey. In fact, she didn’t bother to even acknowledge she was there. Lacey took that to mean she had free rein to peruse at her leisure, and headed for the shelves.

  To her surprise, she quickly realized the store wasn’t actually an antiques store at all, as she’d guessed it to be from the window display. It was in fact a pawn shop, but none like Lacey had ever seen before. Rather than the standard acoustic guitars and computer games she’d expect to see in the average pawn store, this one was full of bizarre and esoteric items.

  Lacey quickly found four Victorian apothecary bottles, the type used by pharmacists to store pills (or poison) in amber- and blue-colored glass. They were on sale for twenty pounds for the lot, though Lacey immediately knew they were worth at least that much each. She felt a little thrill of excitement that she’d found her first auction item.

  She carried the bottles over to the counter.

  “Can I leave these here while I keep looking?” she asked the clerk.

  The goth girl’s eyes barely flicked up from her novel. She grunted apathetically. Lacey took that as a yes and continued scouting for treasure.

  Next, she happened upon several blocks of insects in resin—scorpions, beetles, giant centipedes. Each one was labeled as a “paperweight,” though Lacey could tell they weren’t made from acrylic resin like the types easily found online. These were proper Victorian collectibles, probably from a museum. The Victorians had been absolutely obsessed with the natural world, cataloguing and stuffing every species they could get their hands on. Though each insect block was on sale for five pounds, Lacey was confident she’d be able to sell each one on for fifty.

  She felt elated as she carried the collection over to the counter and placed them alongside her chemists’ bottles.

  “Your store is a treasure trove!” she commented to the goth girl.

  The girl merely blinked at her through her kohl-rimmed eyes.

  Trying not to pay too much mind to the girl, Lacey continued her hunt. She was starting to feel quite excited by what she might find, and headed to the back portion of the store.

  She was not disappointed. Here, she found a whole range of taxidermy animals—a tortoise, an owl, and a red squirrel—in glass display boxes.

  “Jackpot,” she told Chester.

  Her dog was staring at the squirrel in particular with a peculiar expression. Chester loved chasing squirrels up trees, and was clearly perplexed as to why this one was completely motionless … and dressed in clothes.

  “I wonder what kind of people live in Ippledean,” Lacey whispered to her sidekick dog as she retrieved the squirrel from the shelf. “If they have taxidermy to pawn off…”

  Chester followed alongside her as she carried the three stuffed animals to the counter and placed them alongside the rest of her macabre findings.

  “I’ll be taking the ram’s skull in the window too,” she told the clerk. “If you don’t mind fetching it for me.”

  The girl shot Lacey a daggered look, as if her request was the biggest inconvenience in the world. She dumped her book down loudly on the countertop and clomped over to the window in chunky black boots.

  What a charming young woman, Lacey thought sarcastically, before heading off in search of more treasure.

  As she scoured every inch of the shop, Lacey thought about the job offer she’d just received. If she worked for someone else, she’d never be able to put on her own themed auctions again. She’d never be able to go on her exploratory stock trips around England with Chester. If she sold someone else’s goods, she’d lose all agency. She was quite certain that she’d be turning down the job offer from Knightsbridge Auction House, but she at the very least wanted to check the job specification when it arrived in the mail. Maybe once she saw how much salary they were offering, it might be a different story.

  Suddenly, Lacey felt eyes on her. A prickle went up her spine. She glanced over toward a shadowy corner of the store. Two large, round eyes were fixed on her.

  Lacey leapt out of her skin, her heart racing in her chest. Then she realized what it was staring at her—a ventriloquist’s dummy in a three-piece suit. She let out a nervous giggle.

  “I think we’ve found our next item,” she said to Chester.

  If a toy could make her jump out of her skin, then it definitely deserved a place in her spooky auction.

  She headed over to the shadowy corner to collect the ugly wooden dummy. But as she rounded the shelving unit protruding part way into the corridor, she discovered the best find of the day.

  An entire anatomical teaching aid skeleton.

  It would make the perfect addition to her auction, and Lacey leaned in closer to inspect it.

  “It’s real,” she told Chester, shuddering.

  Her gaze fell to the label. The pawn shop was selling it for two hundred pounds. But with Lacey’s skilled auctioneering techniques, she hoped she’d be able to sell it on for closer to five.

  She tucked the dummy under one arm and took hold of the bronze pole the skeleton was affixed to, wheeling it across the shop floor beside her over to the counter. Chester could hardly contain himself as he skipped and raced around it in circles. If a frozen squirrel had perplexed him, a life-sized skeleton on wheels had blown his little doggy mind.

  “That’s everything,” Lacey said to the store clerk, bringing the skeleton to a stop beside the counter. “I’ve searched every nook of the place.”

  The bored goth girl had fetched the ram’s skull for her from the window and la
id it out beside the rest of her finds. It was exciting seeing them all together, and Lacey began imagining them displayed for her audience at the auction. She was confident she’d be able to use her flourishing auctioneering skills to turn a profit. Perhaps she should buy some crushed black velvet to display them on?

  The girl began silently ringing up Lacey’s purchases. It was quite uncomfortable, Lacey thought, standing there in silence with nothing but the beep-beep-beep of the till as the girl keyed in each price.

  “I’m an auctioneer,” she explained, in an attempt to ease her discomfort. “I’m holding a Halloween-themed auction. In Wilfordshire. Everyone loves Halloween there, with the witch trials and all. Violet Jourdemayne. You know the one?”

  The girl looked at her through her black-rimmed eyes, blinked slowly, then returned to ringing up her purchases. She clearly didn’t care one jot about what Lacey was saying.

  Feeling even more awkward now with a failed interaction under her belt, Lacey rocked back on her heels, whistling to fill the silence. She glanced about, looking everywhere but at the girl.

  As her gaze roved around, Lacey noticed a book on a disorganized and cluttered shelving unit behind the counter. She guessed it was a storage shelf, either full of items not yet displayed or items that had been bought and subsequently returned. The book that had caught her attention looked absolutely ancient, with dog-eared pages and a thick, battered leather spine. There appeared to be some strange shapes etched onto the front cover. Symbols? Or runes?

  “Can I take a look at that?” Lacey asked the clerk, her intrigue getting the better of her.

  The bored girl looked over her shoulder to see what Lacey was pointing at.

  “The book?” she said.

  It was the first time she’d spoken and Lacey almost fell over with surprise. “Yes, please. If I may.”

  The girl shrugged and lifted the book from the shelf, carelessly knocking over a bunch of other things as she did and making absolutely no attempt to tidy the mess. She handed the book lazily across the counter to Lacey.