But that event alone hadn’t been enough to cement the story of the curse. There’d been several other strange and sudden deaths over the years since December 31, 1929.
All on New Year’s Eve.
All during weddings.
All unexplained.
All cursed.
Callie shivered a little, and not just because it was mid-December in Michigan near one of the Great Lakes.
Why did I decide to do this again…?
Because CQEvents is going to be one of the premier wedding planners in West Michigan and this is a great marketing move.
At the top of the stairs, she found herself on a spare landing with a door that she knew opened into a small room, along with dust motes, cobwebs, and piles of other stuff she didn’t care to examine too closely.
The lock to the room was a little cranky, but the key she’d been given eventually turned, and she pushed open the door.
Sixteen years hadn’t changed much about the place—including the fact that it was still as shadowy, dank, and eerie as she remembered from that fateful night.
Callie walked over the threshold, her breath making short, compact white puffs in the chill air. The small room—which was hardly more than a waiting area for the Clock Tower’s extravagant balcony—had two large windows on either side and was cast in the long shadows of a late afternoon in December.
A few straight-backed chairs were angled around a low table, and Callie wondered if they’d even been moved since she and Ben and the others had high-tailed it out of there that night. Some dusty bottles—including one still lying in the center of the table from their Spin the Bottle Truth or Dare game—littered the floor.
They’d been there to celebrate the New Year while “braving” the Curse of Tremaine Tower…and to have a few bottles of champagne and a little bit of weed, unseen by their parents. Ben brought his iPod and portable speaker, but they dared not play the music too loudly for fear they’d be discovered inside what was supposed to be a dark and empty building beneath the illuminated clock face.
They’d reveled in the idea of being in the tower when the clock struck midnight and the ball lit up above it, unseen by the crowds of people that would gather in the square below.
So, in anticipation of the big moment, the seven of them had gathered around the low table, listened to music, spun the bottle…and waited to see what would happen with the curse.
“What a stupid thing to do,” she said aloud now, needing to hear something other than the rustling of vermin—mice, she hoped, and not rats—and the creepy clattering of a tree branch against one of the windows.
Thud.
Callie stifled a gasp as she spun around. No one was there, nothing had moved…
“Stop it,” she told herself sharply. Aloud again. “You’re being—”
Thud, thud, thud…
Now she recognized the dull, ringing sound of boots or shoes as they ascended the metal stairway.
Okay, okay, it’s just the caretaker, she told herself. They said he’d stop by to make sure everything was all right.
“Hello?” she called in a jaunty voice, but she curled her fingers around the can of pepper spray on her keyring. It didn’t hurt to be too careful nowadays.
Especially in an abandoned building.
“Yo,” returned a deep voice as the clanging sound drew nearer. “Everything all right up there?”
“Yes, I—Ben?” She goggled when her old friend came into view at the doorway. It actually took her a second to recognize him, because he’d grown a beard and mustache since she’d last seen him a couple years ago.
“Callie? Is that you?” He stepped onto the landing as she backed up into the ante room once more. “Hi.”
She was suddenly, wildly relieved she hadn’t taken off her hat, and that the deep blue slouch—which she was fully aware made her eyes look bluer than blue—was keeping her wild, bright-penny-colored hair under control. With static electricity and the dry winter air, an unhatted head would make her look like she’d stuck her finger in a socket—or like a too-curvy candle with a flame on top. “Wow, Ben…it’s been a long time. Are you the caretaker here?”
He was wearing a hat against the winter cold as well—a stone gray beanie that sat just above his dark blond brows—but unlike Callie, no gloves or boots and only what looked to her like an impractically light athletic jacket. And the short beard, which…wow. It looked really good on him. “No—the caretaker’s off for the weekend. So when I heard someone was coming in to check out the tower, I volunteered to be the one to check on things.”
He stood there, ungloved hands on his hips, and looked at her as if he wasn’t sure what to make of the situation.
“Right. That makes sense. After all, your family still partly owns the place, I guess.” She felt like she was babbling even though she’d only said a few phrases, and so she clamped her mouth closed and reminded herself that silence is power.
That was one of the first things she’d learned in the business world: be quiet and let the other person speak.
Ben Tremaine looked around the room, then walked casually to the door that opened onto the infamous balcony. But he didn’t open it. Instead, he circled around and brushed a hand lightly over the back of one of the chairs. He seemed just as uncomfortable as Callie felt…which wasn’t all that surprising, considering what happened the last time they were in this room.
She swallowed hard and glanced over to where Frida had laughingly hung up the mistletoe all those years ago. Her eyes widened.
It was still there.
Tattered, dusty, chewed on…but still hanging there.
Callie yanked her eyes away and her attention bounced around the room, touching on the two paintings that hung on the walls and finally the tattered curtains that swagged the pair of windows.
“Uh…so what exactly are you planning to do…here?” Ben asked after the silence stretched.
“I’m having a wedding.”
His attention snapped to her. “You’re having a wedding? Here?”
“On New Year’s Eve.” Even as she said those words—strongly, boldly; as if she were tossing down a gauntlet—Callie felt something move in the air. A wisp of hair that had escaped from its fuzzy blue covering buffeted her cheek, giving proof that the sudden waft wasn’t her imagination.
Her breath puffed out in a white cloud, much more solid and dark than it had been a moment ago.
Ben’s breath was doing the same.
And it felt a lot colder all of a sudden.
Their eyes met across the shadowy space as the air eddied around them. A few crisp leaves—how they’d come to be in here, Callie didn’t know—tumbled and swirled on the floor.
“At midnight,” she said, figuring she might as well go all the way. “The wedding will be at midnight on New Year’s E—”
Something crashed behind her, and she spun around as Ben bolted toward her, nearly flying across the room to get to her side.
The large picture that had been hanging on the wall had fallen.
Even though the painting had landed facedown, Callie already knew whose portrait it was.
Brenda Tremaine.
She and Ben stood next to each other without touching—but close enough that she could feel his warmth—breaths heavy and white as they looked at the painting. She refused, absolutely refused, to look at the aged plastic mistletoe that hung just a few feet away.