ON A BLACK MOON SEA ~A Halloween Anthology~

Strange Tidings

When the bounty hunter arrived at the cliffside cottage, the tracking spell on the coral bladed knife in his breast pocket gave a shuddering sigh and petered out. It had found its owner.

The scent of baking bread mingled with the brackish air off the ocean as he approached the dwelling. The cottage could only be described as a hovel, but it was a neatly kept hovel. A tidy stone wall surrounded a well-tended garden, and summer flowers faded in the window boxes thanks to the autumn chill.

Before he could knock on the weathered door, a flash of red caught his eye. A winding path led down to the beach where a young woman with hair the color of sunlight through amber meandered through the shallows.

His heart stumbled. Is this the monster?

Before he could seek the answer, the door opened.

A woman of middling years with grey-touched hair tucked under a black lace cap stood in the doorway. She didn't look surprised to find a stranger on her doorstep.

Her eyes flicked to the hunting rifle slung across his back, and the blade sheathed on his belt.

She turned and moved deeper into the cottage. "Come in, traveler," she called back to him.

He followed her into the home. She doesn't suspect a thing.

The woman busied herself with a pot of tea and while she poured two cups, he took the coral dagger from his pocket and placed it on the table.

~

BOSTON MORNING POST

SEPTEMBER, 1889

HELP WANTED - 193 LIVERPOOL ST, sensible shop assistant need for Mr. Grange's shop of curiosities. A good cleaner preferred. The witless need not apply. Respectable wages will be offered to qualified candidates. Please call at 9:30 a.m.

~

From the moment she first set foot on the cobblestones of Liverpool Street, Cora decided she liked the shop of curiosities. It's jovial blue facade and faded gold lettering was a brilliant break in the endless, pallid grey of Boston harbor. She liked the shopkeeper, Mr. Grange, just as well, but he wasn't quite so jovial as his storefront.

"I don't like tomfoolery, do-nothings, or idle gossips." Mr. Grange led Cora through an aisle of the shop crowded with clocks, both functional and not. "Keep the shop tidy and help customers when they come in and you'll do fine."

The store was full of many things Cora expected to find in a curiosity shop: mismatched sets of silverware, empty watch fobs, souvenir bells, and trinkets of every sort. But there were many more unusual things that sailors sold or traded when they got into port. Mr. Grange paused in front of a heavy velvet curtain. "Has anyone ever told you about the memory of objects."

She shook her head.

"The objects in this room have memories stored in them. Some are good memories. Others hold darkness inside. It is probably best if you do not touch any object in this room."

Cora eyed the red curtain warily. "Why keep things like that?"

"Profit. People will pay a hefty price for objects with certain memories."

"Why? What do they use the memories for?"

Mr. Grange shook his head. "It's best not to ask. They never should have been brought here in the first place."

~

Dearest Grace,

I cannot go an hour without thinking of you and our sisters back home. Boston is so very diverting, but Mr. Grange keeps me so busy I've scarcely had the chance to enjoy it. He's a stern, particular man but I think he has taken a liking to me. He says if I keep on like this, he may even teach me how to sure up the ledgers. I think in a years time I'll be running the shop myself. I'll tell you this: the day he hands the keys over to me, I'm taking everything from the back room and dumping it into the river Charles. I can hardly stand to go into there to dust, let alone take customers back there. Mr. Grange says it's the foul memories in some of the objects. I don't even want to know what kind of person would want a teapot that a housekeeper once used to poison an entire family. I get the shivers just thinking of such things.