Tapestry, page 1
TAPESTRY
A DEADLY CURIOSITIES NOVEL
GAIL Z. MARTIN
eBook ISBN: 978-1-64795-081-1
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-64795-082-8
Tapestry Copyright © 2024 by Gail Z. Martin
Green Man Blues Copyright © 2023 by Gail Z. Martin
Cover art by Lou Harper
Copyright of Intellectual Property for the Caynham Castle Universe
Boar and Knight pub is ©2019 by Jeanne Adams
Cadwell’s Bookshop and the interior décor of the Boar and Knight are ©2019 by Gail Z. Martin
Caynham Brewing and Distilling and Caynham Honey are ©2019 by Jeanne Adams
Caynham Castle Folly is ©2019 by Jeanne Adams
Caynham Castle garden lovers statue is ©2019 by Anna Sugden
Caynham Castle receptionist Priscilla Donovan is ©2019 by Gail Z. Martin
Caynham Castle True Love Gargoyle and Legend are ©2019 by Donna MacMeans; legend of gargoyle coming to life is ©2021 by Donna MacMeans
Caynham Castle, including but not limited to the Keep Tower Bar (rooftop), Lady Neville’s Tea Room, the Great Hall, and all castle towers, layout, gardens, grounds, and room blocks are ©2019 by Jeanne Adams and Nancy Northcott except where otherwise specified
Caynham-on-Ledwyche is ©2019 by Jeanne Adams except otherwise specified
Clarence Edward Arthur Mortimer, Earl of Caynham, Dr. Denby “Bee” Alden Mortimer, Countess of Caynham, and the Mortimer crest are ©2019 by Jeanne Adams
Curiouser and Curiouser Antiques and Oddities and clerk Mr. Cooper are ©2019 by Seressia Glass
Ewe & Ply and The Eclectic Tearoom name is used with kind permission of Ewe & Ply of Shrewsbury and Oswestry, United Kingdom, but the Ewe & Ply and Electic Tearoom in the stories in this collection is a fictional one. The tearoom in this story is ©2019 by Anna Sugden.
Herb garden (walled), garden well, and well legend are ©2019 by Jeanne Adams
Midsummer Fairy Legend is ©2023 by Anna Sugden and Donna MacMeans
Midsummer Fayre name is ©2023 by Anna Sugden
Saxon’s Hundred Wood is ©2020 by Caren Crane
St. Paul’s church and crypt are ©2020 by Gail Z. Martin
Standing stones in Saxon’s Hundred Wood are ©2020 by Jeanne Adams
The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), locales, and incidents are either coincidental or used fictitiously. Any trademarks used belong to their owners. No infringement is intended.
NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models. No AI was used in the creation of this book.
SOL Publishing is an imprint of DreamSpinner Communications, LLC
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Green Man Blues
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Gail Z. Martin
This book is dedicated to all the wonderful readers who love Cassidy and the gang, to my amazing editor, Jean Rabe, and to my awesome husband, Larry N. Martin, who makes sure all the essential behind the scenes stuff happens right. Thank you, all!
CHAPTER ONE
“If I had a secret room, I’d think of better things to do with it.” Teag Logan looked around the dusty space with wariness and disappointment.
“Oh really? Like what?” I asked.
Teag stood with his hands on his hips and slowly turned to take in the whole room. It was bigger than the average modern powder room or walk-in closet and smaller than most bedrooms.
“It would be perfect for a reading getaway.” He sounded a little wistful. “A daybed, plenty of squishy pillows and soft throw blankets, a little table for drinks and snacks, and good Wi-Fi. Add a nice rug and some pictures on the walls for a little punch of color, and it would be the perfect retreat.” He sighed. “I would have loved a space like this when I was a kid.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I can see that. I’d do the same thing. But I don’t think that’s what the previous owner had in mind.”
From the room’s contents, whoever last used it had been a practicing witch. An altar with occult symbols and pillar candles stood on a small mahogany table. A tarnished silver bowl held a mixture of dried leaves and flowers. Next to the bowl sat divination tools—yellowed Tarot cards, a crystal ball, and flat, rectangular ivory tiles marked with runes. Several old leather-bound books were on a nearby shelf with glass bottles that had questionable contents.
The circular rug made from a coiled cloth braid marked an arcane workspace. Materials used in spell work hung from hooks on the wall or dangled from the rafters—animal bones, carved stone amulets, and small leather poppets, along with other items I didn’t want to examine too closely.
Other than the altar and bookshelf, the room held more shelves with dusty boxes and glass jars, a wooden chair, and a pallet and pillow for sleeping. The only decoration in the room hung above the altar, a tapestry of a forest glen. The wall hanging was three feet square and, despite the neglect of being locked away, appeared to be in good condition.
“What do you make of the tapestry?” I asked Teag. Woven items are his specialty.
He kept his distance and looked at the wall hanging as if it might bite. “I don’t like its energy. There’s something wrong. Don’t get close to it, and for God’s sake, don’t touch it.”
“Haunted?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Dark magic. Not exactly cursed, but it’s definitely bespelled—and since we don’t know what the spell does, that makes it a loaded weapon with a hair trigger.”
Unfortunately, this kind of thing wasn’t unusual for us at all.
I’m Cassidy Kincaide, and I own Trifles and Folly, an antique and curio store in historic, haunted Charleston, South Carolina. The store’s been in my family for 350 years, and it’s more than it appears. I’m a psychometric, which means I can read the magic and history of objects by touching them. Teag’s a Weaver witch, so he can weave spells into cloth, and he’s also one hell of a hacker. My business partner, Sorren, is a nearly 600-year-old vampire who founded the store with my ancestor back in the 1600s. We’re part of the Alliance, a coalition of mortals and immortals who keep dangerous supernatural objects out of the wrong hands and protect the world from supernatural threats.
We don’t advertise that part of our work for obvious reasons, but a few key people are in the know. The store has been around long enough that we have a reputation for being “good” with spooky stuff, so people contact us when they run into something that might be cursed or haunted.
Which is how we got the call to come look at the hidden room.
The new homeowner had discovered the hidden space when he needed to replace wiring in the historic house and contacted Trifles and Folly to see if anything locked away in the forgotten room might be valuable.
I wasn’t convinced anything here would bring a windfall at auction, but there were definitely occult items that should be handled with extreme care—including the tapestry.
“Any guesses on the tapestry’s history?”
Teag’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the panel, deep in thought. “It looks old. Older than the house. From the subject and art style, I’d say northern European, Flemish maybe? And in spite of being locked up for a long time, it’s still got a lot of magical juice. That makes me wonder if there aren’t spells blind stitched into it to reinforce its magic and add focus.”
He’s been studying weaving since before he realized his talent was partly magic. Teag takes his craft seriously and looks into the lore and history.
I thought I saw something move in the tapestry, deep in the shadows under the trees.
It probably wasn’t my imagination. I’d seen Nephilim step out of cursed paintings and ghosts move through mirrors, so I had no reason to trust a wall hanging that could turn out to be a doorway to somewhere I didn’t want to go.
“We should get Rowan in on this.” Teag named a mutual friend who is a powerful witch. “She can help contain it until we figure out more. Right now, we don’t know whether the tapestry was meant to store power, like a magical battery, or focus power for another reason.”
“Freaky, isn’t it?”
The homeowner’s voice behind us made both Teag and me jump. Ron Zimmerman was a corporate accountant with a passion for restoring old houses. With his collared polo shirt and chinos, he looked like he would be right at home on a golf course or at a barbecue. I didn t figure him to be the type carrying out clandestine occult rituals, but I’ve been wrong about people before.
“What do you know about the people who owned the house before you?” I asked.
“This house was built in 1822 and stayed in the same family until last year,” Zimmerman said. “Passed down through the generations until the line basically died out. I had been watching it for a while and snapped it up when it came on the market. It’s a real gem. I just didn’t count on finding something like…this.”
“Are there any stories about the house?” Teag asked. “Ghosts, scandals, strange things that happened?”
Zimmerman laughed nervously, and I figured he knew something that made him uncomfortable. “You know how it is in Charleston—every house is haunted, depending on who you talk to.”
“Good stories add to the provenance.” I kept my tone light as if I didn’t believe such things could be real to put him at ease.
“I heard a few things, while I was arranging financing,” Zimmerman admitted. “Apparently there were rumors about the family back in the day, which might have contributed to why the house never passed to other owners.”
“What kind of rumors?” Teag pressed.
“I’m not saying I believe any of them,” Zimmerman disavowed. “I thought the real estate agent might have been embellishing things to justify the price. Some people will pay extra if they think a place is haunted.”
“I promise you won’t shock me. My family’s been in Charleston—running Trifles and Folly—since the city was founded. I think by now we’ve heard it all.”
“One of the stories said a man disappeared from the room next to this. Went inside, never came out. No one ever found him.” While Zimmerman tried to pass it off as gossip, I could tell he was nervous. “There’s also a story about a gray man who shows up before a tragedy.”
“Like the Pawley Island Gray Man?” Teag asked. Everyone around here knew the legend of the protective ghost who showed up to warn about disasters.
Zimmerman gave a bitter chuckle. “Not exactly. People believe he causes the tragedy instead of warning people.”
That certainly didn’t sound good.
“The house has a reputation with housekeeping staff for being haunted,” Zimmerman went on. “Some flat-out won’t work here. Others come, but they won’t stay. The reasons are everything from saying they feel watched to saying that the house gives them the creeps.”
I trusted the housekeepers’ opinions. They had nothing to gain by making up stories.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“The man who built the house, Lee Harris Grantham, was the owner of a shipping company with an uncanny ability to turn a profit,” Zimmerman said. “His luck was so good that his enemies wondered if he had unholy help.”
Contrary to what people see on television, making a deal doesn’t need to involve the devil. A talented witch, root worker, or Voudon mambo can work spells to make a wish come true—for a price. Everything in magic comes with a cost, especially if gain to one person causes harm to another. “What goes around comes around” isn’t an idle threat.
“Did his luck ever turn on him?” Teag asked. “Him, personally, or the family as a whole?”
Zimmerman looked like he was weighing how to answer. “You know this is all hearsay—”
“We won’t repeat it.” I knew he was probably protective of the home’s resale value. People think ghosts are fun, but curses? Not so much.
“Grantham died wealthy. But after the house was built, while he was still in his fifties—relatively young even in those years—he caught a ‘wasting disease.’”
“Yellow Fever? Malaria?” Teag pressed. Both were scourges in the past before modern treatments, and Charleston’s sultry summers were the perfect incubators.
“The documents are cagy, but they don’t name either of those as the cause, which wouldn’t have been shameful at the time,” Zimmerman said. “There are a lot of things that might cause ‘wasting,’ from tuberculosis to other diseases that weren’t understood at the time, but the decline was quick. People started to talk then about what price Grantham paid for his wealth.”
“How did the family fare after that?” I asked.
“They hung onto their money and their interest in the shipping company, but the firm never hit the peaks it did under the old man. On a personal level, wealth certainly didn’t buy happiness,” Zimmerman observed. “The family history reads like a soap opera. Questionable deaths, feuds, and just plain bad luck.”
Teag and I exchanged a glance, and I stole a look over my shoulder at the tapestry like it might be listening.
“Which is how the house ended up coming on the market because all that misfortune left the last remaining Grantham without an heir,” Zimmerman concluded.
“And the story didn’t scare you off?” I was genuinely curious. I know most people don’t believe in “woo-woo,” and some go to great lengths to avoid seeing what’s right in front of them.
“I’m not superstitious.” Zimmerman’s sharp laugh sounded nervous. “Not usually, anyhow. When the workmen opened up the hidden room, and I saw inside, I’ll admit it freaked me out.”
Glad to know his hindbrain warning system is still working.
“Is the house haunted?” Teag questioned. In Charleston, it’s almost a demerit if a house isn’t.
Zimmerman fidgeted. “I haven’t experienced anything malicious, but strange things happen. Cold spots, small items go missing and turn up in odd places, that sort of thing. It’s common to hear footsteps when there’s no one else in the house, or catch a glimpse of movement out of the corner of your eye, but you’re alone.”
“Have you seen the gray man yourself?”
His eyes widened. “No! And I really hope I don’t.”
So the house had active ghosts, and Zimmerman—despite being a professed non-believer—wasn’t denying it. Interesting.
“What kind of help do you want? We know people who can bless the house, help the ghosts find peace and move on, remove questionable objects, and cleanse the hidden room of its negative energy. It all depends on what you have in mind.”
I’ve found that when I’m talking to most people, they respond better to the idea of getting rid of “negative energy” than if I come straight out and tell them we need to break a curse and untangle dangerous spells. Even folks who aren’t comfortable with religious or paranormal phrases seem to be okay with “New Age-speak.”
“I bought the house intending to renovate it and then decide whether to sell it or keep it,” Zimmerman said. “Right now, I can’t do either.”
“Fair enough,” I answered. “Let me make a few calls and gather people I know who have special skills to help. But in the meantime, please stay out of the room and don’t touch anything. We don’t know what materials the person used on their altar and in their potions, and even some natural ingredients can be toxic to the touch.”
Zimmerman nodded, and his eyes went wide. “I definitely won’t bother anything.”
“I’ll let you know when I’ve talked to my contacts. Then we can give you a better idea of how fast something can be done. Do you have somewhere else to stay for a few days?”
“I don’t mind a hotel as long as the situation doesn’t drag on.” He agreed quickly enough that I figured he had been planning his escape before we talked. I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to spend time alone in the house, either.
“Does anyone else have access to the house?” Teag asked. “You’ll want to pass along the warning to them as well. Personally, I’d suggest everyone stay out until we can handle the problem.”
“I can reschedule the construction people. That shouldn’t be a problem.”
