The Curious Case of the Cursed Crucible

by Constance Barker

  I nodded. Somberly, we got the artifacts and then drove to Enid’s house where we were treated to the inevitable, ubiquitous chamomile tea while we recounted the adventure to her.

  “So do you want me to ask Beatrice to store them for you?” Enid asked when we’d finished. She and Clarence were both staring at me. The crucible was sitting on the coffee table, already inside a box that shielded it and muffled the curse. But I was holding the compass. I hadn’t been able to put it down. Fortunately, Enid seldom cared to examine the artifacts and hadn’t asked to see this one.

  “I have a thought... about that,” Enid told me.

  “About what?”

  “The crucible,” she said. “There is a place it might do some good.”

  “Some good?”

  “With a lady I know. Agnes Astor Smith. She is a collector, more than that, a student of alchemical artifacts related to Nicholas Flamel. She might be able to find out how it could be used without the side effects.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t see that as possible,” I said. “And anyway, after all we went through to secure it, I’d rather have it in the Grand Storehouse where it can’t be misused.” I believed that, but I wondered if I was being petty. Maybe this woman could unlock some secret.

  “What’s bothering you?” Clarence asked me. “We came here to get the artifacts stored away but you are clutching that thing as if you thought someone was going to take it from you.”

  I tapped it. “Leopold said that this compass could find anyone.”

  “And?”

  I saw that Enid’s ears had perked up. “Yes, what’s going on?”

  “When we were in England, Lila Twill told us that her father, Daniel Twill was trapped in the Grand Storehouse. He’d somehow gotten lost.”

  “I remember that. Of course, she could’ve been lying.”

  “With Lila that is always a possibility,” I said. “But what if she wasn’t?”

  “Daniel Twill?” Enid asked. “I don’t recall anything about that.”

  “We could use the compass to find him. That would certainly make Lila happy, and perhaps right a wrong.”

  Clarence reached over and took my hand, surprising me. “I want to make a couple of points, but I assure you I will follow your lead on this. Just consider these things first.”

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  “First, there might be, as with Walter...” he waited for me to cringe and I did. “There might be a reason he got trapped in there. We don’t know what it is, but it could be a good one.”

  “True,” I said.

  “Secondly, we don’t know if the compass will work in the Grand Storehouse. It isn’t in this world, whatever that means. We don’t really know enough about it to know how the place works.”

  “Also true,” I said. “But if it does... maybe we could reunite her with her father. She’s a friend, after all.”

  “Mostly,” Enid said with raised eyebrows.

  “I understand how you feel,” Clarence said. “And I feel that way too. She is a complicated friend, but still a friend. I would love to help her too, but somehow I think this is about more than Daniel Twill. It is, isn’t it?”

  I shrugged and put the compass into an open box, a magic box, that Enid had set out to contain the artifact’s curse. “The thing is that I’ve been doing a lot of thinking... about what we do, about what I’m doing.”

  “We often don’t know what we are doing,” he said.

  “That’s part of the problem,” I said. “Initially, I thought we were tucking away dangerous objects, keeping people safe from them. But that’s not always the case, is it?”

  “Not always.”

  “Quite often it doesn’t work out as we thought,” Edgar put in from his window seat.

  “And we have just one perspective. The Cabal, the DuLac family, and other people we’ve encountered all have different ideas about what is right and wrong. We think that when we use the artifacts it is for good and when other people use them it's bad.”

  Enid sniffed. “Your Uncle Mason certainly thought that way.”

  “And you didn’t, I know. I’m pretty sure we are right, but as you point out, that’s complicated too. It isn’t black and white.”

  “Little in this world is,” Enid said. “Which is why your Uncle Mason and I agreed on most things, but on the practical aspects, on whether it was all right to use the artifacts under any circumstances, well, we almost came to blows.”

  “Exactly. And even though everything I’ve done, the things I’ve tried to do... and you too, I know, have been aimed at helping people, people have gotten hurt. From the start, my intention was to make the world a better place. And now, maybe we’ve got a chance to make Lila’s life, not to mention Daniel’s life, better. We have a chance to save someone.”

  “If that plan works...” Clarence was musing out loud,” we have to acknowledge the possibility that we might also be releasing a dangerous person. We don’t know that he wasn’t left there for a good reason.”

  “I know,” I said, with a long sigh. “It’s a dilemma.”

  “And using the artifacts is a bad idea,” Enid said. “You know how I feel about that.”

  We did. We knew all too well how much she opposed any use of them. I could think of arguments to propose to her, but she had sacrificed her relationship with Mason on that issue. I doubted she was prepared to listen to my ideas on the subject—or anyone else’s.

  “How about a deal?” Clarence asked.

  “What sort of deal?”

  “You promise me you won’t do anything in that direction, you won’t try to find Daniel Twill while we do some research. We need to find out who he was and what he did, if he did anything at all. If we find out it was an accident or that he was unfairly trapped somehow, I’ll help you find him.”

  “You will?”

  “Absolutely. But also... not a word to Lila until we know something.”

  “Fair enough. We wouldn’t want to get her hopes up.”

  “No,” Enid said. “That wouldn’t be fair to her.”

  “What else?” Clarence asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s more to your deep thinking than finding one lost soul or helping a friend.”

  He was getting to know me far too well. I was glad that Clarence was such a good and kind person. That kept me safe from his knowledge. “I was disappointed that we didn’t get a chance to speak with Bel about Edgar.”

  “My sentiment exactly,” Edgar said. We’d finally gotten to a topic that engaged him—himself. “I’d very much like to know who I was before I was this... whatever I am now. For that matter, I would like to know what I actually am. This ghost idea is fine, but not always accurate, I suspect. Or perhaps whatever I am defines what a ghost is. I’d like to know.”

  Enid wrinkled her brow. “Is that true?”

  “Of course, Enid.”

  “What if we found out that you were someone... not very nice? An unpleasant, even odious person.”

  Like Tomas De Torquemada, I thought. I watched Edgar consider the possibility then smile sheepishly.

  “That was a possibility I hadn’t thought of at all,” he said. “I seem likable enough, but you are right. I might learn something rather awful.” He turned away. “Ugly to think about. But you can’t know, can you? I suppose there might be some things you want to know but are better off not knowing them.”

  Now that sentiment I could understand.

  Clarence chuckled. “A wise man said: ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.’”

  Enid choked. “Now who said that little bit of silliness?”

  “Albert Einstein.”

  “Oh...”

  “Unfortunately, there is the danger of learning something you don’t want to know, but somehow I don’t think that ever lessens the desire to know the truth, does it, Edgar?”

  Edgar turned and looked at me for a moment. Then he turned away again. “No, it certainly
does not. Not at all.”

  Clarence rubbed his hands together. “Well, we have to sort out the business so we can stay in business, and it seems we have some research to do.”

  “As a wise man said, there is no time like the present and I don’t seem to have much present left,” I said.

  “All these fancy quotes. Now who said that?” Enid asked.

  “Leopold DuLac,” Clarence said.

  Enid sat upright. “I see,” she said.

  And that made the point. She saw, but I wasn’t certain at all what Enid saw. “Once again we lurch our shaky craft into uncharted waters,” I said, feeling somewhat weary.

  “Have we ever actually been out of them?” Edgar asked.

  It didn’t seem like it. Not to me. But we did have options, and if we decided to use it, we had the compass, although clearly Enid would have to be kept in the dark if we ever decided to use it. I didn’t like feeling sneaky, but...

  “Well, so far we’ve survived it all,” Clarence said. “And I got some nice things for the shop. I’ll start getting them on the website.”

  “Too bad about the fork,” Edgar said.

  I knew the fork he meant—the one I’d thrown at Leopold Senior’s men. But too much was happening to stop and wonder why that was of particular interest to Edgar or if I'd made a mistake in leaving it behind. It was too late for a lot of things.

  Unless, of course, the time line was shifted... possibly again. I sighed. Thoughts like that were almost becoming normal. A typical day in the life of an Antique Dealer.

  THE END

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  Catalog of Books

  The Grumpy Chicken Irish Pub Series

  A Frosty Mug of Murder

  Treachery on Tap

  A Highball and a Low Blow

  Cursed With a Twist

  THE CHRONICLES OF AGNES Astor Smith

  The Peculiar Case of Agnes Astor Smith

  The Peculiar Case of the Red Tide

  The Peculiar Case of the Lost Colony

  OLD SCHOOL DINER COZY Mysteries

  Murder at Stake

  Murder Well Done

  A Side Order of Deception

  Murder, Basted and Barbecued

  THE CURIOSITY SHOP Cozy Mysteries

  The Curious Case of the Cursed Spectacles

  The Curious Case of the Cursed Dice

  The Curious Case of the Cursed Dagger

  The Curious Case of the Cursed Looking Glass

  THE WE’RE NOT DEAD Yet Club

  Fetch a Pail of Murder

  Wedding Bells and Death Knells

  Murder or Bust

  Pinched, Pilfered and a Pitchfork

  A Hot Spot of Murder

  WITCHY WOMEN OF COVEN Grove Series

  THE WITCHING ON THE Wall

  A Witching Well of Magic

  Witching the Night Away

  Witching There’s Another Way

  Witching Your Life Away

  Witching You Wouldn’t Go

  Witching for a Miracle

  TEASEN & PLEASEN HAIR Salon Series

  A Hair Raising Blowout

  Wash, Rinse, Die

  Holiday Hooligans

  Color Me Dead

  False Nails & Tall Tales

  CAESAR’S CREEK SERIES

  A FROZEN SCOOP OF MURDER (Caesars Creek Mystery Series Book One)

  Death by Chocolate Sundae (Caesars Creek Mystery Series Book Two)

  Soft Serve Secrets (Caesars Creek Mystery Series Book Three)

  Ice Cream You Scream (Caesars Creek Mystery Series Book Four)

  Double Dip Dilemma (Caesars Creek Mystery Series Book Five)

  Melted Memories (Caesars Creek Mystery Series Book Six)

  Triple Dip Debacle(Caesars Creek Mystery Series Book Seven)

  Whipped Wedding Woes(Caesars Creek Mystery Series Book Eight)

  A Sprinkle of Tropical Trouble(Caesars Creek Mystery Series Book Nine)

  A Drizzle of Deception(Caesars Creek Mystery Series Book Ten)

  SWEET HOME MYSTERY Series

  Creamed at the Coffee Cabana (Sweet Home Mystery Series Book One)

  A Caffeinated Crunch (Sweet Home Mystery Series Book Two)

  A Frothy Fiasco (Sweet Home Mystery Series Book Three)

  Punked by the Pumpkin(Sweet Home Mystery Series Book Four)

  Peppermint Pandemonium(Sweet Home Mystery Series Book Five)

  Expresso Messo(Sweet Home Mystery Series Book Six)

  A Cuppa Cruise Conundrum(Sweet Home Mystery Series Book Seven)

  The Brewing Bride(Sweet Home Mystery Series Book Eight)

  WHISPERING PINES MYSTERY Series

  A Sinister Slice of Murder

  Sanctum of Shadows (Whispering Pines Mystery Series)

  Curse of the Bloodstone Arrow (Whispering Pines Mystery Series)

  Fright Night at the Haunted Inn (Whispering Pines Mystery Series)

  MAD RIVER MYSTERY SERIES

  A Wicked Whack

  A Prickly Predicament

  A Malevolent Menace