I lower my voice. “They say that Costa was possessed by the spirits of the four children. He and his wife had just moved into a new home. Little did they know that it harbored a dark secret.”
My sister fairly vibrates with glee, and I have to bite my cheek to keep my expression suitably somber.
“An entire family died in that house,” I say. “Parents and their four children. They perished in a fire. Except . . . that’s not the whole story.”
Hope bounces, glowing as if she’s seven again, the two of us under her covers while I unspool a new ghost story.
I continue, “They say the parents died first. And it wasn’t a fire. It was . . . the children.”
I let that one hang for the required three seconds. “They say the oldest girl and oldest boy murdered their parents. Killed them in their sleep. For the next month, no one knew. The kids said their parents were busy, their parents were sick, their parents had just stepped out. All the while they were rotting in their beds. The youngest girl wouldn’t stop crying. She missed their parents and didn’t understand why she wasn’t allowed in their bedroom. Then came the fire.”
“Did the little girl set it?”
“That, my dear sister, is the question. Some say it was indeed the little girl. Some say it was the younger boy, the one who looks so determined in the painting, perhaps determined to punish his murderous siblings. Some say it was the older girl, and that explains her expression—she’s broken by guilt and remorse. Or it’s the older boy, who’d had enough of the crying and decided to stop it for good. There is another story, though. One where the youngest—the girl in this painting—escaped and ran to tell the neighbors. The neighbors came back . . . and set the house on fire. At the last minute, they pushed the little girl into the flames to perish. After all, she shared the same blood as the two who’d killed their own parents. A bad seed.”
Hope gives a delicious shiver. “That’s a good one.”
I lean back. “I think so. Anyway, that’s the origin story for the paintings, which this seller doesn’t even seem to know.”
“Lousy marketing.”
“Right?” I scroll through the listing. “They don’t seem to know there are other paintings, either.”
“What about the deaths? Do the children come out of the paintings at night and kill the owners?”
“Kill them or drive them mad. Everyone who has survived insists they saw the child in their painting come to life. My guess is that the curse is actually a hallucination, causing the owner to believe they see—”
Hope sticks her fingers in her ears. “What’s that? You’re trying to explain away a cool story? La-la-la, I can’t hear you.”
I smile and shake my head. “Fine. I’ll keep my theory to myself. The point is that, yes, it’s widely believed that the paintings are actually cursed and that the curse has killed people. Better?”
“Much.”
“And, since it’s a deadly curse on an item that is for sale, I am honor-bound to buy it and uncurse it.”
“Then resell it, with the full story, for double what you paid.”
“That’s the idea.” I sign into my account. “Looks like the bidding is at a hundred bucks. Let’s make it two.”
Chapter Two
I’ve lost hope. Three of them, in fact. One, I keep getting outbid on that damned painting. Two, I conceded defeat in the phone-checking battle, only to discover Connolly hasn’t read my message. Three, I’ve lost the actual Hope, who got a call from Ani needing her at home. Ani runs the family business: Unhex Me Here. As the name suggests, they uncurse whatever people need uncursed. Or, more often, whatever people believe they need uncursed. Ani needed Hope to handle a client trying Ani’s patience, which is honestly not hard to do.
Business is brisk for a Tuesday. I’ve already sold three items, and I’m closing in on the sale of a doll. I may have told Hope that our clientele was mostly middle-aged antiquers, but her dolls—and my jewelry finds—pull in a different crowd: fifty percent Gen X former goths, twenty-five percent my fellow millennials and twenty-five percent Hope’s fellow Gen Zs. These two fall into the last category. Trust-fund babies who think that a cursed doll is exactly what their tony Boston apartment needs. So ironic! Can you believe people actually thought it was cursed?
“So the curse has been removed,” the blond one says. “You can guarantee that?”
“I can guarantee that the doll is not cursed.” Because it never was.
“Is there a certificate or something?” Blond smirks at Brunette. “A certificate of de-cursing authentication?”
A click behind me, as Hope must come in the back door. Both young women look over.
“Well, hello,” Brunette murmurs. “Please tell me you’re for sale.”
I presume she’s talking about my sister. Then Blond says, “Wait, wasn’t that Aiden Connolly?”
I turn so fast my sneakers squeak. I don’t see Connolly. I do, however, see the storage room door swinging shut.
“That was Aiden Connolly,” Blond says, her voice as breathy as if she just spotted a movie star. Which tells me two things. One, Connolly just walked in the back way and immediately turned tail and fled. Two, I was right about the background of these young women. When I called them trust-fund babies, I was kinda snarking. Seems I hit the bull’s-eye because Connolly isn’t a movie star . . . unless you’re a society girl who’s memorized Boston’s most eligible bachelor lists. Connolly is on those lists. Hell, he’s in the top three.
Hope has shown me the lists. At first, I thought she was creating fake ones to tease me. Oh, I know Aiden Connolly is hot. I have eyes. Also, I know he’s rich. Son of a very wealthy, old-money family, and he has his own successful insurance company. But, well, he’s Connolly. A little straitlaced, a little standoffish, not exactly a charming playboy. I mean, the guy runs an insurance company. He geeks out over actuarial tables. Except that kind of ambitious stability is catnip to many of the women who pore over those lists. And if they prefer the “charming playboy,” well, there’s always his younger brother, Rian . . . who has been secretly dating Hope for the past month.
“That was Aiden Connolly,” Blond says again. “I know it was.”
Her friend curls her lip as she looks around. “Here? No way.”
“Yes way. I heard he’s been slumming it with some . . .” Blond’s gaze turns to me. “Oh my God.”
I fix on my most neutral expression and pause before speaking, as if they are engaged in a personal conversation, which I hate to interrupt.
“We don’t have certificates of de-cursing authenticity,” I say. “However, I do offer a store guarantee. You may return the doll within three days, no questions asked.”
“That was Aiden Connolly, wasn’t it?” Blond asks.
I pause, again so politely that Ani would be proud. Then I fix on my blank shop-clerk look, the one that says I know my clients aren’t addressing me.
“Hello?” Brunette says, waving her hand in front of my eyes. “We asked if that was Aiden Connolly who just came in your back door.”