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Ingredients
Instructions
SNEAK Peak of Masquerade Murder (Novella #2 in the Victoria Town Mysteries)
Viv Barton’s shoulders ached from the packages she carried. She stood, gathering her strength, and gazed at Gaylord Hall, the elegant Victorian mansion where the Halloween Masquerade Ball would be held tonight, the night before Halloween. It was a yearly shindig for Victoria Town, a well-preserved, historic town that had built a community and a commodity by banking on their architectural gem of a town.
Viv carried bags of extra chestnuts and apples. Chestnuts were scarce. When her boss Irene , at Mourning Arts, found a fresh supply, she sent Viv along to the mansion with her nut donation. They were a traditional nut the Victorians ate during Halloween festivities. Nothing more to Viv than a pain in the shoulder. Gaylord Hall sat on a small hill, surrounded by a fences and gardens, built and owned by one of the first families to settle here. The Gaylords had owned a train line and the train station. Aunt Libby was on the board and loved to regale her with the history of the house.
Viv stood and wondered who’d want to live in a place like this—huge, cold, and gloomy.
“Hey, Viv,” a familiar voice came from behind her.
She turned to find the weak-chinned Wes Paul, who was still dating Irene. Viv couldn’t wait for them to end it. “Hi.” She managed a smile.
“Do you need help with those? I’m heading inside to help move furniture and the museum collection. I can take your package,” he said. He was so thin Viv wondered if he could manage.
She handed him the bags. “I’ll take you up on that. Thank you.”
He took the bags from her and her shoulders. The pulling between her neck and shoulders stopped. “I’ve got a few other deliveries, so this really helps.”
“It will be a blast,” he said.
Did people say blast these days? “Yeah,” Viv said. “Catch you later.” Awkward. Why did she not like the man? Maybe it was because he’d been the first person she saw after she found the body of Eliza Hartwell. Hard to shake. She shivered and zippered her jacket. The autumn weather in Victoria Town shifted quickly. The skies darkened and wind picked up as she walked toward her home, Sweet Victoria B & B, where she lived with and helped her aunt Libby.
As Viv walked along, leaves danced across the sidewalk. Trees shook and swayed. Must be one heck of a storm coming in from the west. A rose scent rode the breeze—odd, since roses were long gone in late October in Virginia.
Something soft, black, and feathery flew across her face. She stopped, swatted at nothing, crouched, her hands snapping to her chest, head tucked. What the hell was that? A bird? A strange leaf? Big insect? And where did it come from?
The empty cobblestone street on the right? Or the quiet, unlit house to the left? Her teeth pulled at her lips. Sweat beads pricked her head. Her hands clutched in fists against her coat, beneath it her heart raced. What was going on here?
Up ahead, a small, dark, crumpled form lay on the sidewalk. She unclenched her hands and straightened her legs, standing, finding her feet, as air drew into her lungs. She scooped up the object and studied it. A black lace handkerchief. Nothing to worry about. She licked her lips and stopped biting them as she held the lace up to the darkening sky. The patterns were delicate, lace so soft, it must be vintage. Surely someone must miss such an exquisite handkerchief. She’d ask around tomorrow. Viv folded it and slipped it in her pocket. As she reached up to pull her scarf closer to her face, she caught the potent scent of rose.
As she walked along, checking off the things she had yet to do for the Halloween Ball, tonight. She needed to print off the game instructions and go over them one more time. She would be in charge of a game where the women stood in front of a mirror with apples, saying a charm, and hoping to get a glimpse of her future husband. Oy, so many of the Victorian parlor game centered on girls trying to find a husband, which made Viv sick. But whatever.
The one Halloween party she’d ever been to in her life, partiers bobbed for apples and told ghost stories. That was fun. As she’d researched her game for tonight, she’d found that bobbing for apples was also something the Victorians practiced—but only boys and men. The women rarely played.
Viv walked by the cemetery, which she still hadn’t set foot in since the unfortunate day last spring when she’d found a body in the cemetery—and it wasn’t buried! She ran her fingers along the iron fence and kept walking toward the B & B, lit with Halloween decoration. Aunt Libby loved to “dress the house” for the holidays. Whatever holiday it happened to be. Because they lived in Victoria Town, the decor had to be historically appropriate.
Warmth hit Viv when she entered the house. She’d not realized how cold she was. Aunt Libby approached her as she slipped off her coat.
“Did you get it all done?”
“Yes.” As Viv dropped her jacket, the handkerchief fell out. She reached for it.
“What is that?” Aunt Libby squealed.
Viv lifted the soft black lace. “Isn’t it gorgeous? It flew onto my face in the wind.” She held it up, the lamplight streaming a lacy shadow onto the wall.
Aunt Libby paled. Her mouth dropped open and snapped shut. Jaw clenched.
Viv dropped the lace into her other hand. This was not the reaction she expected. “What’s wrong?”
She shrugged and waved her off. “It’s just a silly Victoria Town superstition.”
But Aunt Libby’s face implied otherwise. Her jaw was still clenched and her color still off.
Viv dropped the lace from one hand to the next. “Are you going to spill it?”
Aunt Libby frowned, one hand on a hip, the other extended.
Evidently she wasn’t in a talkative mood. Must be serious. Aunt Libby was a talker. Sometimes she talked so much it made Viv’s ears ring.
Viv dropped the lace into her aunt’s hand and followed as she marched into the sitting room. Libby removed the fireplace screen and chucked the lace into the fire.
Viv’s jaw dropped, gasping.
“You don’t understand what that was.” Aunt Libby’s voice sober and intense.
“What? What?” Viv tried not to scream, but her voice raised at least two decibels and her throat pinched from the force. As the scent of burning lace filled the room, she wondered if she had slipped into a strange alternate universe. One where otherwise sensible women had hysterical reactions to black lace handkerchiefs.
“Every year at Halloween someone in Victoria Town happens on a black lace handkerchief. It seems to appear out of nowhere.”
“This one did,” Viv muttered. She shifted weight from her left leg to the right, left to right again.
“Exactly,” Aunt Libby said. “And every year something odd or even tragic happens to the person who finds it. Mamie Rogers died of a heart attack. She was healthy as a horse. Tracy lost her leg. She was bitten by a poisonous spider and became infected. Lily had a nervous breakdown, and she’s never been right since.”
Viv couldn’t believe she was standing here listening to this as the beautiful black handkerchief fizzled into ashes. “All because they found a black hanky?”
“No, no dear,” she replied impatiently. “It’s who—or what—the handkerchief belongs to. Supposedly.”
“But the street was empty. It was windy, and it just blew across my face. I mean, nobody was around.”
“Did you smell roses?”
Viv batted her eyes, trying to clear her brain. How did Aunt Libby know that?
“It was the ghost then. I’m sure of it.”
“Ghost? What?”
“Mathilde Rose. She makes her presence known every year. And she’s not happy.”
Aunt Libby walked out of the room to greet guests who had just entered the foyer, leaving Viv standing, shivering in front of the fireplace.
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To pre-order, click here: Masquerade Murder
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About the author
Mollie Cox Bryan is the author of the Cora Crafts Mysteries, the Cumberland Creek Mysteries, the Buttermilk Creek Mysteries and the Classic Star Biography Mysteries. Her books have been selected as finalists for an Agatha Award and a Daphne du Maurier Award and as a Top 10 Beach Reads by Woman's World. She has also been short-listed for the Virginia Library People's Choice Award. She also writes under the name Maggie Blackburn, whose first book comes out in Sept. 2020: Little Bookshop of Murder. Visit her website at molliecoxbryan.com. Sign up for her newsletter at the website or click here.
Books by Mollie