Chester Hill had been dead for a century, and he was driving Tempest crazy.
The architect was, after all, the reason Julian Rhodes had been suing Secret Staircase Construction. No, that wasn’t fair. She knew Chester Hill wasn’t personally responsible, but it was his house that had brought Julian to their renovation company. And it was his theater that had been used to kill the loathsome man.
From the front seat of her jeep, parked in front of the Whispering House, Tempest started the engine, eased away from the curb to turn around, and watched Gideon and Ivy drive away before stopping on the other side of the street. Her dad and grandparents were expecting her home for dinner, but she wasn’t ready to leave.
She turned off the engine, but kept the doors firmly locked. After all, she would hate Ivy to accuse her of being TSTL: Too Stupid to Live. If a character in one of Ivy’s mystery books was TSTL, by doing something like going alone and unarmed into a dark basement because of the sound of scraping coming from the subterranean room, Ivy would throw the book across the room.
She knew she should go home, but she needed a few more quiet moments with her thoughts. Paloma’s connection to the Whispering Creek Theater and the Whispering House was a stretch. But both were linked to Tempest.
When Tempest had rented the Whispering Creek Theater earlier that year, a group of local architectural historians had got in touch to make sure she had no intention of tearing down or overhauling the place. Since she was only leasing it, she thought their concern was unfounded. But it turned out to have a positive effect as publicity for Secret Staircase Construction. A Bay Area architecture association newsletter noted that the historic Whispering Creek Theater was back in use thanks to stage illusionist Tempest Raj, who was also now working for Secret Staircase Construction.
Lenore Woods read the article and knew she’d found the perfect company to do the renovations to the house that Chester Hill had built in the 1880s for himself. She was one of Chester’s descendants, and an architect herself. The house had gone through various incarnations after Chester’s death more than a century ago, so Lenore wanted to renovate it according to Chester’s original intent and, in doing so, get a historical home designation from Hidden Creek.
There was nothing sinister about the chain of events that had led Tempest to perform at the Whispering Creek Theater and renovate the Whispering House. With a regenerating booby trap, however, her imagination was in overdrive looking for tenuous connections.
She was about to start the engine once more when a car pulled up in front of the Whispering House. Headlights in the twilight blinded her enough that she couldn’t see who it was, only that it wasn’t Ivy’s pink moped or Gideon’s distinctive Renault.
The newcomer turned off their headlights and stepped out of the car. Tempest let out a breath. It was their client Lenore Woods. She unlocked her car door and stepped onto the road.
“Tempest?” Lenore held a paper grocery bag against her hip. She adjusted her glasses with her free hand and frowned, which wasn’t a normal expression on her usually affable face. “Your dad said you’d all wrapped up and gone home for the day.”
“I’m the straggler.” Tempest crossed the deserted street and reached Lenore’s side. “Thanks for continuing to play Santa Claus with the gifts of food you’re secretly leaving every couple of days. The mini chocolate cupcakes were an especially big hit.”
Lenore wasn’t much taller than Tempest’s grandmother, who barely came up to her chin. She wore large round glasses with copper frames and a chunky silver and turquoise necklace. Lenore had once told Tempest that all of her jewelry held some meaning for her, be it a necklace she’d bought when she worked in the Southwest or an elastic bracelet made of cheap plastic beads from one of her grandchildren.
“I have an ulterior motive.” Lenore grinned and led the way up the path to the house. “I’m well aware that I was overly demanding in the initial phase of the renovation, which is why I’m not on site every day as you finish up the last cosmetic details we agreed on.”
Tempest took the bag of groceries as Lenore fumbled for her keys.
“But I’m still particular about my house,” Lenore continued, pushing open the door. “The groceries give me an excuse to look things over but also let your dad and his crew do their thing to get back on track and finish soon. I’ve already told you how much I love your puzzle panels in the attic. They’re even better than I imagined.”
“Credit goes to my dad for building them.” Tempest set the bag on the kitchen island.
Lenore shook her head as she put away the food from the bag Tempest had set on the kitchen island. “You came up with the puzzle box idea as an imaginative explanation for why Chester drew sketches for sliding panels. Then your dad added those dazzling woodworking details. I don’t give compliments easily, but you two are a great team.”
Tempest agreed, even though the plans for this house had been challenging from the start. Lenore had only a partial set of the original blueprints, and she’d done some initial renovations herself, including removing two odd structures in the backyard that were added in the 1950s: a gazebo and a tiki bar. Though she didn’t have the entirety of the original blueprints, she had some of Chester’s papers that described what he had envisioned.
As soon as her neighbor Julian heard about Lenore hiring Secret Staircase Construction, he rushed to hire them as well. He was “so close” to having Architectural Digest feature his home that he’d be damned if Lenore Woods beat him to it. Never mind the fact that she had no interest in inviting the magazine’s cameras into her home. Julian had tried to argue it was a conflict of interest for the crew to work with both of them.
Darius had considered rejecting the Rhodeses as clients even before that ridiculous request; he could tell Julian would be difficult from the start. But they needed the money. Installing the fencing and high-end security system at Fiddler’s Folly after the events of earlier that year had been expensive.
After Paloma’s “accident,” it was clear Julian had an ulterior motive. Perhaps he really had planned to have his home showcased. Now they’d never know. What Tempest did know was that in Lenore Woods, they had an eager client who was a pleasure to work with and didn’t believe her unpleasant neighbor’s lies, but who was also serious about getting her historical home designation from the city.
Usually, when planning a large job, about half of a client’s desires were standard-issue renovations, and the other half were the reason Secret Staircase Construction was selected. Tempest and her dad interviewed clients extensively to find out what was at the heart of each of their requests. There were countless ways to create any bit of architectural magic, so the important thing was how each client wished to interact with their home. A “magical fireplace” for one client could mean that it lit up automatically when they played certain keys on the piano from the first song their child learned to play. For another, it meant a faux fireplace that was actually a door to a secret library. Or perhaps it meant a stone dragon sculpture inside a hearth sleeping with its eyes and mouth closed, which would transform into an open-mouthed, fire-breathing dragon when you pressed certain bricks. Most dreams were possible. It was only a matter of discovering the heart of the dream.
Tempest came up with the idea for the attic’s built-in puzzle after interviewing Lenore and looking at the remnants of original blueprints and notes that existed from a century ago. The job of architectural misdirection was much like a magic trick. Misdirection that led you to have one set of expectations, then revealed an enchanting surprise.
Or a horrible surprise, as was the case with the regenerating booby trap.
Tempest couldn’t help but feel that the booby traps must have been created by someone who understood the ideas behind magic and the components of construction.
“Tempest?” Lenore asked, craning her neck to look up at her.
Tempest got the feeling it wasn’t the first time Lenore had just said her name. “Sorry. I’m a bit distracted by everything that’s happened.”
“What’s happened?” Lenore whipped her head around the kitchen and stormed back to the foyer to open the secret door leading to the attic. She pressed a special knot in the wood and the door popped open. “Everything is in working order,” she mumbled as she slid her fingers along the inner doorframe and stepped inside.
“Nothing’s wrong at the house.” Tempest jogged after Lenore, who was charging up the secret staircase. Motion sensor lighting from electric wall sconces clicked on as they wound their way around the stone treads of the castle-like circular staircase. “You haven’t read the news today?”
“Why would I read the news?” Lenore pushed open the panel that opened into the attic and smiled as she caught her breath. “I’ll be eighty next year. Life’s too short to catch up on the news more than once a week. Today isn’t my news day.”
“It’s about Julian Rhodes.”
“If you’re talking about his gruesome death,” said Lenore, “I know all about that. Your dad called earlier. He told me about Julian and your friend. I’m truly sorry to hear that someone you care about was injured. For someone so young, you’ve lost too many people you care about. But Julian? If you’re looking for me to express false niceties about that horrid man, you’ll be here until you’re as old as I am.”
Lenore paused as she ran her fingertips over the intricate rose patterns Darius had carved into the wooden paneling and looked Tempest straight in the eye. “I’m glad the man is dead. It makes all our lives easier. Sometimes the world is better off without a person who’s wronged so many people. Don’t you agree?”
The thought had crossed Tempest’s mind that it was surprising nobody had tried to murder Julian before. For all she knew, maybe they had.
She had also wondered, more times than she cared to admit, what her aunt Elspeth had done to drive someone to murder her on stage. Tempest didn’t believe in the supposed “Raj family curse,” and she didn’t believe in blaming the victim, but Elspeth was no saint. Elspeth and her sister Emma, Tempest’s mom, had fought so intensely that they split up their successful Selkie Sisters act and Emma had felt the need to leave Scotland for California. Emma Raj had been looking into her sister’s murder. What skeletons had she found in her sister’s closet? What would Tempest find in Julian’s if she kept looking?
Lenore flipped off the attic light switch, plunging the puzzle room into near darkness. Without a look back at Tempest, she headed back down the secret staircase.
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND
Ten years ago
Before the house lights go dark, the woman in the wings of the stage catches a glimpse of Nicodemus in the front row of the audience. He’s home in Edinburgh for a short break during a tour of America. He’s made time to see his old protégée. Of course he has. This makes her smile. Her eyes are joyful. She looks as if she’s almost forgotten the curse when she flips her dark hair, places a top hat on her head, and takes her first step onto the stage.
Elspeth Raj doesn’t know she’s stepping onto a stage for the last time in her mortal life. Or that her grave will be desecrated and her hand stolen. As the lights dim, the familiar excitement buzzes through her body, tempered by the weight that accompanies all her performances.
The weight of the Raj family curse.
Nobody knows how it happened that the Raj family curse crossed the sea from the southern tip of India to a cobblestone alley of Edinburgh’s Old Town, but it had arrived as if carried by a tempest.
In an ancient city where the modern inhabitants still speak of selkies dripping salt and seaweed as they emerge from the sea, kelpies dragging unsuspecting victims to their watery doom, and ghosts whispering in your ear as you take a shortcut through a dark and narrow lane to reach the Royal Mile, it isn’t difficult to believe in curses.
Especially with a mentor like Nicodemus the Necromancer. His illusions are all explained rationally, yet Elspeth has always wondered … Is he so successful because he has a touch of the supernatural?
Emma and Elspeth Raj weren’t raised to be superstitious. Their father, Ashok, half believes in the Raj family curse. As a medical doctor, he’s a rational man of science, yet he also witnessed his eldest brother being killed in an accident on stage. The same fate befell his aunt—also the eldest child of her generation. His great-uncle, who worked for the British during colonial rule, had been the first to die.
The story repeats itself across generations.
The eldest child dies by magic.
Was it a curse or a series of unfortunate accidents? Ashok Raj has a big heart and has never been one to take chances. He left India for the University of Edinburgh, where he met Morag Ferguson, and soon afterward, the happily married couple had two children.
The Raj sisters aren’t more superstitious than the average Scot. Still … tonight’s show is listed on the Edinburgh Fringe Festival program as a variety show, filled with stories and songs for all ages. This is not a magic show.
Yet Elspeth knows, deep down, magic is in her heart. Is this what dooms her?
Elspeth is the older of the two sisters. Emma left for California years ago, and Elspeth has performed on her own for more than fifteen years.
Tonight, this night where she is to meet her fate, is her biggest show yet. It’s the opening night of her new show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She wishes her niece, Tempest, could be here, but the girl is a teenager and lives across the ocean in California. She’s seen her aunt perform many times and doesn’t know there’s anything special about tonight.
Elspeth is wearing a new costume. A tailored black dress with silver shimmer, and a top hat that not only reminds her of how she got her start thanks to Nicodemus, but also holds much of the magic she plans to perform tonight. The foundations of stage magic were built into the men’s suits but not into the women’s dresses. Elspeth doesn’t especially enjoy performing in a suit, but she likes the pockets of men’s dress wear, and a top hat can hide many things.
This night, the hat she loves so much fails her. It offers no protection when a prop that is not part of her act is rolled onto the stage so hastily that she is pressed into the restraints before she can react. It does not shield her confusion as her eyes scan the dark wings of the stage for an explanation that does not come.
As the blade of a guillotine that is more than a prop takes the life of Elspeth Raj, Nicodemus watches in horror from his seat. He realizes, a second too late, that this is not a trick. He has never in his life felt so helpless.
Why is there a real blade at the theater that night? Elspeth would never have agreed to such a dangerous illusion.
Elspeth’s top hat rolls away, coming to a stop center stage. Confusion comes first. Then the screams. “A terrible accident,” people begin to murmur, once it is clear Elspeth will not be standing up to take a bow ever again.
Whatever really happened, Elspeth Raj takes her secrets to the grave.