A Spelling Mistake

by Nancy Warren

  “I hated to do it—what a waste of money—but I can’t be running up the stairs to use the loo. I must come out in the morning freshly showered and dressed and all made up. Can’t be running up and down the place in my nightgown.”

  I agreed that she couldn’t.

  She took me at last upstairs to see the guest rooms. Each held either a queen-size bed or two singles, and armchairs and dressers that she’d either refurbished or painted white and embellished with new hardware. Once more, she’d chosen pretty china and antiques either from her father’s collection or her own and furnished the beds with luxurious linens. The rooms were beautiful, and I told her so. I loved the way she’d mixed the antique and quirky with modern comfort. She was very anxious for my seal of approval on the bathrooms, and I was able to reassure her that they were completely up to my American standards. Each had a shower, sink and toilet and beautiful, thick and luxurious towels. She’d gone high-end with the soaps and lotions. I’d love to stay here, but I suspected I wouldn’t be able to afford it.

  Each bedroom also had its own television. She said, on a light laugh, “At least the TVs aren’t on. Sometimes I walk in and they’re all blaring away.”

  “You really should get that seen to,” I said. Though I had a pretty good idea how they were getting turned on. I felt Biddy there, an unseen presence creeping along behind me. I bet if I swung around, I could catch her sliding out of sight. But, of course, I didn’t.

  Karen showed me the main bathroom last. She’d left the layout the same but changed all the fixtures. Even though the mirror was brand new, this was where Biddy O’Donnell had first made contact with me. I glanced fleetingly into the mirror and caught not only my own reflection but a pale shadow behind me. I’d been right then. The old witch was following along, listening to every word.

  I told Karen, honestly, how amazed I was and how beautiful it all looked.

  She seemed pleased but anxious too. “Quinn, it’s so important to me that this goes well. Especially at the beginning. I’m keeping my rates quite reasonable until I get some nice reviews. I so want my early customers to be happy ones.”

  “I’m sure they will be. It’s absolutely gorgeous.” So long as they weren’t frightened by an ornery ghost-witch.

  She was showing me the final room, what had formerly been the master. “I’ll charge the most for this room, as it’s got the king-size bed and the en suite has a bathtub as well as the shower.”

  “It’s a lovely room.” I was about to ask her what her rates were and offer to carry her brochures in the bookshop when I heard a familiar tune. A striking melody, heavy with brass, and even though I recognized it, it took me a second. Then Karen threw up her hands. “There it goes again. It’s the big telly downstairs. Why does it always turn on to Antiques Roadshow?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s go down and see.” I led the way so I could catch my witchy ancestor in the act. Naturally, the minute I stepped into the living room downstairs, she disappeared so fast there was nothing left but the scent of decay.

  Fiona Bruce was smiling from the big TV and welcoming us to some gorgeous manor house. “It’s not that I don’t love Antiques Roadshow,” Karen said as she switched the TV off, “but I keep stopping to watch it, and I don’t have time to be distracted. Though, yesterday, I discovered that the vase there on the mantel is worth eight hundred pounds in England.”

  I looked to where she was pointing and saw a pretty vase, dark blue with what looked like clouds and birds on it. “It’s early Moorcroft,” Karen said. “I had no idea.”

  “I have a gift for you,” I said. I went to my backpack and pulled out the wrapped suncatcher.

  She said, “Oh, you shouldn’t have,” but opened it so eagerly I knew she was pleased.

  As she took out the crystal ornament on its silver chain, I felt the power of the spelled stones casting out their protective energy. There was a rude sound from behind me, and Biddy backed off. Good, it was working then.

  “You must hang it in the window,” I told her. That way, sun and starlight and moonlight would help keep its energy high. On impulse, I said, “I can do you one for every room if you like. They’re awfully pretty when the sun hits them.”

  “No, that’s all right. You’ve done enough. But I’ll hang this one here. It’s so pretty.”

  Luckily, there was a bracket in the middle of the window that helped support the curtain rod with the new plum-colored drapes. Karen hung the crystal from it, and even though it was evening, the crystal glowed. I pictured the evil eye glaring at Biddy.

  I had to get Karen out of the house because I knew that Biddy wouldn’t appear while she was there with me, obviously.

  When I pulled out the second item I’d brought along, a bottle of Malbec, she struck a match and lit the fire in the living room. We sat in two of the overstuffed chairs and sipped wine. It was glorious. Cozy and comfortable. She told me she’d contemplated going with a gas fireplace but decided wood was both more authentic and more cheerful. She sighed. “Also a lot more work.”

  “Are you worried about the amount of work?”

  “I’m strong, and I’m used to working hard. There are women in the village I can hire if I need extra help. I’ll see how it goes running both of the businesses. At first, of course, the B and B will be slow. If I get very busy, then I might think about renting the shop out to someone else.”

  We chatted for an hour, and then she said, on impulse, “You know the pub is offering pizza now?”

  I felt my jaw drop. “Are you kidding me? That is a luxury I never thought I’d find in Ballydehag.” Along with a bagel place, a decent hair salon, Starbucks, and a hundred other conveniences I missed from Seattle.

  She giggled. “I know. I think it’s ever such a good idea. And the more we support it, the more likely it is to remain.”

  “Are you suggesting we order a pizza?”

  “I am. They don’t deliver. I’d have to pick it up. Would you care to join me?”

  “I think that’s a fabulous idea.” Also a great way to get rid of Karen, as I wanted a few minutes alone with Biddy. I shrugged. “I foolishly only brought my bicycle. I didn’t think I’d be staying for dinner, otherwise I’d go and collect it.”

  “No worries. I’ll run up and get the pizza. And I’ll drive you home later. I don’t want you riding around in the dark.”

  We happily agreed on the pizza with the works, and she went off to fetch it.

  The minute the door shut behind her, I stood and put my hands on my hips. I was about to call out to Biddy, but I didn’t have to. I heard one of the televisions go on upstairs. What was with that woman and the TV? I ran lightly up the stairs. The sound was coming from the biggest and most luxurious of the bedrooms. Naturally.

  I opened it and went in. Biddy O’Donnell did not improve with age. She did not improve with a closer knowledge of her, either. She looked like a terrifying, old witch from fairy tales. She was lying on the beautiful, new bed with pillows propped up behind her.

  She glanced up when I came in. “Very comfortable, these beds. That woman’s restless and flighty, but she has made my old home very comfortable.”

  “Biddy, this hasn’t been your home for four hundred years. And anyway, yours burned down. This wasn’t built till two hundred years ago.”

  “Stop arguing about straws, girl. And shut that door. There’s a draught.”

  “Biddy, what are you doing?”

  “Shh. Will you look at that, girl? Why, it looks like it’s been trodden on.”

  I followed her gaze to the television screen. One of the antique experts was raving about a small thimble. Biddy was right. The thimble was dented and squashed. It did look like it had been stepped on.

  “To find a silver thimble of this age is very unusual. How did you come across it?”

  “I was mudlarking in the Thames,” said a bearded man who looked bashful, as though he didn’t want the viewing public to know he spent his free time sifting through old river
mud looking for treasure.

  After pointing out various features of the thimble, the antique expert told the bearded man it was worth at least five hundred pounds.

  Biddy was beside herself. “Five hundred pounds for something that prevents your thumb from getting pricked? All the old rubbish I used to have around my house is worth a fortune. Do you know what the fools will pay for a tankard like ones I used in my pub?”

  My lips twitched in spite of myself. “Quite a bit, I imagine.”

  Those crafty, cunning, black eyes looked straight at me. “There’s fortunes to be made, Quinn. Fortunes.”

  I was going to argue with her that finding old tankards wasn’t going to be easy. That’s why they were worth so much now. But even as I opened my mouth to speak, she shushed me. And turned the volume up on the television.

  But I wanted her attention. I pointed at the television and turned it off by magic.

  Before she could turn it back on, I said, “Biddy, Karen Tate has put a lot of work and money into making this house an inn.”

  Biddy nodded. “Aye. She’s a hard worker. And she’s a good eye for business. She’s our kin and kith, no mistake.”

  I was pleased to see that she approved of Karen Tate’s enterprise. “Good. You were an enterprising businesswoman in your day too.” She had been. She’d run an inn and made a lot of money. Unfortunately, she had a bad habit of marrying men and murdering them, plus putting curses on her enemies, which was how she’d ended up with her unfortunate end.

  Her mangy and miserable familiar, Pyewacket, humped beside her on the bed, one suspicious eye open. She turned on me, her head at an odd angle on her paws.

  Pyewacket had been hanged too.

  “So you’re not going to bother the guests? You’re not going to ruin Karen Tate’s business?”

  “No. Why would I? She’s made a nice home for me. We’ll get on fine.”

  “But you have to stop turning the television on all the time.”

  “But I must watch my show. It’s how I find out the value of things.”

  “But even if you could find old tankards and things, how will you sell them?”

  She looked at me like I was a dimwit. “What are you? An eejit? On eBay, of course.”

  Chapter 4

  I closed my eyes and opened them. “You’re a hanged witch. You haven’t been alive for hundreds of years. How on earth do you know about eBay?”

  “I may be dead, but I’m not an eejit. I watch what that girl’s doing. She buys things on eBay. Sells them too.”

  The thought of Biddy O’Donnell as an eBay seller was almost more than I could bear.

  “Please, just promise me you won’t cause trouble. If Karen has guests, you mustn’t put the television on.”

  She sniffed. “Well, I suppose I shall have to come to you then. How big is your television?”

  Oh, the thought of me and Biddy O’Donnell curled up on Friday night watching Antiques Roadshow, with our two familiars hissing at each other, made my skin twitch.

  “I’ll put a television in the upstairs of my shop. You can watch it there.”

  Those sly eyes flitted my way and then away again. “We’ll see.”

  That sounded ominous, but I didn’t have any more time to chat, as I could hear Karen Tate returning. Besides, I was starving. I couldn’t wait to see how the pizza tasted in Ballydehag, Ireland.

  Sean O’Grady ran the local pub and also did catering. “Sean had a brick oven installed,” Karen said as we munched on pizza that was as good as any I’d had in the States. “What do you think?”

  “I think I want to marry it and have its babies,” I said, through a mouthful thick with cheese and oregano-flavored sauce.

  She laughed, but we agreed we’d likely be regular partakers of Sean’s latest delicacy. “I wonder if I should serve pizza at the book launch,” I mused, then told Karen about the gala book launch.

  She was very supportive of this event that would bring business to our small village. She wiped a speck of sauce from her lower lip and then said, “And if anyone needs a place to stay…”

  Bartholomew Branson was as good as his word. Unfortunately. I had hoped that he would quickly lose interest in organizing a gala launch for his book, a launch he couldn’t even attend, but he was made of sterner stuff. His desire to see his last book come to market was stronger than his sadness at not being there. In fact, he invited so many people, they’d never all crowd into my shop.

  Lochlan Balfour stepped forward and offered the castle for a gala cocktail party for the launch. We’d have book sales at the shop and then a much bigger party that I realized was going to be a literary wake for the sadly departed author.

  The nice thing about moving the big event to the castle was that I didn’t have to do so much work. Sean O’Grady agreed to do the catering with the help of the nice, young couple that ran the coffee shop and bistro. This was an event that began to get all of Ballydehag excited. It wasn’t often that we had a major event taking place in our sleepy little town. At least not anything the mortals usually knew about.

  I couldn’t shake the feeling that there might be trouble ahead, but once the event got moving, there wasn’t much I could do about it. Bartholomew wrote the emails and the letters that I signed, and we were all getting excited about the big day. I had the front window stocked with all of Branson’s thrillers front and center.

  I’d tried to keep Bartholomew’s expectations from getting overheated. He was so certain he could snap his undead fingers and bring publishing professionals to the literary wilderness, but I wasn’t so sure.

  “I’ll prove you wrong, Quinn,” he said. “Have a little faith.”

  To my shock, he was right. We had Bartholomew’s British editor and his British agent coming, as well as key staff from the Dublin publishing office.

  They were staying over for a couple of nights at O’Donnell House, so Karen was pretty excited about the event, too.

  I’d never known before what a big deal publishing was behind the scenes. It wasn’t just a guy delivering a bunch of typed pages and the next thing, a book turned up. There was a lot of marketing and promotions planning that went into supporting a big-name author. I did feel bad for him that he wouldn’t have a role in the limelight, but at least at the castle, he’d be able to overlook the event without being seen.

  But for the book launch, there was no way he could be here. He’d just have to make do with my firsthand account, and I had promised him I’d take lots of photographs. I drew the line at hiring a camera company to film the entire thing. He tried to argue, but I reminded him that Lochlan would be at the launch, and how would it look when he didn’t show up on film?

  The day before the launch I spent tidying up the shop so it looked better than it had any time since I’d been here. I made a nice, big space for customers to pick up their copies of A Killer in His Sights. Sadly, they couldn’t be autographed, and no matter how many awesome strategies Bartholomew came up with, none of them made sense.

  Cerridwen was, naturally, very curious at the changes I was making and insisted on rolling over and doing cat acrobatics on the chair I was dragging out of the way when she suddenly flipped to her feet and stared toward the door.

  The woman who swept into The Blarney Tome was hard to describe. More than a visual, she was motion and energy and overpowering friendliness. She didn’t even look at the books but came straight up to me and said, “Hey there, you must be Quinn Callahan,” in a New Jersey accent.

  I agreed that I was.

  “It’s so great to meet you. I’m Candace Branson, but everybody calls me Candy.”

  She was as sweet as candy too, that kind that sort of sticks in your teeth and makes you feel sick if you eat too much of it.

  I must have continued to stare at her, looking stunned.

  “Bartholomew Branson’s wife. You must have heard of me. I’m so excited about his launch.” And then her face went ludicrously sad as though someone had pushed a button.
“It was a terrible tragedy. When I lost my Barty.”

  Bartholomew wasn’t my favorite vampire, but had he seriously gone through life being called Barty?

  She said, “It’s great to have a fellow American here. Let’s face it, we’re the ones who get things done. Let me know if I can help. I’d be happy to help you organize this thing. The Irish are wonderful people and all, but they’re kind of disorganized, if you know what I mean.”

  Weirdly, I did. It was one of the things I loved about Ireland. The slower pace, not such a focus on money. Well, probably if you were in the Dublin business district it might be as hectic as New York or London; I really didn’t know. But out here in Ballydehag, life moved slower. People had more time to stand around and gossip. And if you wanted something done, you had to be prepared to wait. I’d already become so accustomed to the pace that it was a shock to have someone so very American and energetic already offering help when we’d been acquainted all of about a minute and a half.

  Still, I wasn’t one to turn down help. Although I was quite puzzled to find that Bartholomew Branson had a wife. It was the first I’d heard of it.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I finally managed. And in so many ways, I wished she hadn’t had that loss. My life would sure be easier if I didn’t have to balance the egos of Oscar Wilde and Bartholomew Branson.

  “Thank you.” She sighed deeply. “Barty was the love of my life, and I was his.”

  I said, “I didn’t know he was married.”

  She laughed, but it was a forced sound. “Honey, we were married for twenty-three years. I couldn’t have been happier.” She fished around in a large handbag festooned with fake diamonds and pulled out a packet of tissues. One of those that have a slogan on it. Her tissues were bright pink and said Don’t blow it.

  She took one out, and I noticed her manicure was bright purple with sparkles. She dabbed at her eyes. I was impressed, as she barely budged the false eyelashes. Her eyes were a bright, bright blue, her hair frosted blond, and I suspected there were some cosmetic miracles going on to keep her lips that plump and her skin that smooth.