Murderous Matrimony (Renaissance Faire Mystery) Read online

  It was what I expected for a Village evening, but whoever had killed Dave—and now sneaked into the museum—had taken away my peace of mind.

  The front door was closed and locked, but I saw the small light go by the window again.

  “Stay here,” Chase whispered close to my ear.

  “No way,” I whispered back. “There’s no one else here to help you.”

  He sighed. “At least stay behind me. This could be Dave’s killer, for all we know.”

  “Okay. You go first.”

  We crept to the back door that was on the ground level. It was slightly open. Chase pushed it open a little further and glanced inside before he walked in. I followed right behind him, wishing I had a taser.

  The area downstairs was used for storage. There wasn’t much here yet since the museum hadn’t opened. I planned to eventually have various exhibits kept here that we could pull out in case one of our crafters cancelled.

  It was dark and quiet. I saw the flashlight beam again, and pointed it out to Chase.

  The intruder tried to brush by us in the dark. Chase moved quickly after him, as he got close to the basement door. I heard a scuffle, and someone cried out. I flipped on the overhead light to see what was going on.

  Chase had tackled Pat Snyder, who played William Shakespeare in the Village each day. Pat was sitting on the floor with his head held down, slowly rocking back and forth as Chase held his arm in a taut grip.

  Pat was a middle-aged man with a pointed gray beard and thick gray hair. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. He was attractive—especially when he was in his Elizabethan garb. Even the young girls giggled when he spouted a fresh sonnet for them. He struck his thinking pose at his podium, feather quill pen in hand, and women listened.

  “What are you doing in here?” I asked him.

  “This is the only place I get any peace from Wanda.” He wiped tears from his face. “I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t work. She won’t leave me alone. I don’t know why, but the few hours I can hide in here are different. Maybe there’s some kind of protection spell on the museum that keeps her out.”

  “Protection spell?” My doubt carried into my voice. “Where would that come from?”

  “I’m desperate, Jessie. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Have you tried leaving the Village?” Chase asked. “I’ve read that some spirits are tied to certain places.”

  “You’ve been looking up ghost facts?” I couldn’t believe it. I was glad that he was finally interested, but I was surprised.

  “We’ve got a ghost.” He shrugged. “I need to know all I can about them.”

  “I tried spending the night at a hotel,” Pat said. “It didn’t matter. She followed me. Any other suggestions?”

  “That’s about the extent of my ghost knowledge right now,” Chase admitted. “Sorry.”

  “We should talk to Madame Lucinda about it,” I suggested. “Maybe she knows why Wanda can’t get into the museum. I noticed that Wanda can’t enter her tent either.”

  “We should go see her right now then.” Pat struggled to get off the floor.

  Chase helped him up. “None of us expected to have this problem. We’re going to have to figure it out as we go along. I think Madame Lucinda is a good place to start. But breaking and entering isn’t necessary.”

  “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

  “How did you get in?” I asked.

  “The back door there was left open. I started hiding in here each night. She’s worse at night, you know.”

  “I don’t see any reason why you can’t stay here downstairs, until we can control Wanda a little, or get rid of her. I’m waiting right now for someone who’s supposed to be able to do that.” I smiled at him, knowing how hard it was being around our resident ghost.

  She was hardest on her ex-husband.

  “Thank you.” Pat threw his arms around me and sobbed into my T-shirt. “You don’t know what this means to me.”

  “I’ll have a key made for you so you can lock the door when you’re not here. We don’t have many thefts, but there are a few.” I was thinking of the crossbow that had disappeared from next door. Some of our first exhibit about tapestry weaving was old and worth a fortune. I didn’t want to go through what Phil was going through.

  Chase and I followed Pat outside.

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” Chase whispered to me. “We gave up the only place we know of that Wanda can’t go.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. Maybe we could sneak in here for an hour or so while Pat is working. We could block off time on a calendar.” I smiled and touched his face. “It’s not that I don’t miss having time alone with you.”

  “It’s okay.” He kissed my fingertips. “We’ll find a way. She can’t be everywhere.”

  Wanda decided to join us as I struggled to lock the museum door. It had a tendency to stick which was probably why it wasn’t locked properly. “How touching. I love lovers, don’t you? What is my stupid, ex-husband doing now? Honestly, the man is completely hopeless.”

  “Why don’t you leave him alone?” I said to her.

  “Is Wanda here now?” Chase searched the night around us.

  I dropped the key and had to find it. “She’s here.”

  “Now lover boy believes in me, eh?” Wanda chuckled. “Wonder what happened?”

  “Polo’s Pasta,” I told her. “I think you convinced everyone. Of course that encouraged everyone to figure out ways to get rid of you too. You should’ve been a good ghost and you could’ve hung around.”

  “You can’t get rid of me.” Wanda laughed in that evil maniacal manner reminiscent of cartoon characters. She floated up into the night air, getting larger and even scarier, if that was possible. Her eyes glowed with phosphorescent brilliance. She spread her arms and the stadium lights came on for a moment. Then they crackled, and exploded into sparks.

  “I can’t see you, Wanda, but if I find you, I’m going to wring your neck!” Chase took out his radio to call his security team. “Meet me on the Village Green for damage control in ten minutes.”

  “Hide me! Hide me!” Pat wailed as he tried to run back inside the museum.

  I’d finally locked the door. I wasn’t going through it again that night. “You’ll be fine. Stay with me until we get to Madame Lucinda’s tent.”

  We walked around to the front together, Shakespeare clinging to my arm.

  Madame Lucinda limped out of her tent, belting her robe closed. “What’s going on out here? Oh. It’s you again. Be gone. I’m trying to get some sleep.”

  Wanda disappeared in the middle of a loud cackle that echoed around the Village, and brought several residents out on the cobblestones to see what was going on.

  “That’s better.” Madame Lucinda sighed and started back to her tent.

  “Wait!” I ran after her. “You have to help us. This is Wanda’s ex. She won’t leave him alone.”

  “Lady Jessie.” She inclined her head. “Wanda’s ex.”

  “Shakespeare, Madame.” He struck a pose. “William Shakespeare.”

  “Interesting.” She shook her head. “As we’ve discussed, there are only two lasting ways to get rid of Wanda Le Fey. The first, you have refused. The second has not come to pass.”

  “What are you talking about?” Pat kept his eyes on the sky around us. “What is she talking about, Jessie?”

  I briefly explained. “I’m not wishing Wanda off on some poor, unsuspecting person. We’ll have to see about the sorcerer.”

  “There’s a sorcerer? My goodness!” Mrs. Potts, in a pink mob cap and matching robe, had wandered out of her apartment in the Herb and Honey Shoppe. “I hope he’s handsome. He is a man, right?”

  “He is, according to Wanda,” I said. “I haven’t met him. At least I don’t think I have.”

  “Are you saying all of this that’s been happening in the Village is a result of dark magic?” Brother Carl had left the Monastery Bakery without hi
s sandals.

  “I’m not saying anything one way or another.” This was getting out of hand.

  Madame Lucinda was leaving. Dozens of residents were discussing magic and ghosts. There were many more people than I’d realized who’d seen Wanda in the last two weeks.

  I didn’t want to get involved in creating more gossip. Instead I followed Madame Lucinda into her tent. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Pat grab Mrs. Potts and hold on tight.

  When the tent flaps parted, I saw something I thought I would never see.

  Madame Lucinda was a human woman from the waist up. Her legs, which she had so much trouble getting around on, were something else. Only one word came to mind.

  Dragon.

  Her legs were squat and thick, covered in scaly, green skin—just like Buttercup who was perched on the shelf over the table. There were claws on her large, non-human feet. She had a large green tail too, also covered with scales. No wonder she had such a hard time sitting in a chair.

  She quickly pulled her robe around her and growled at me. “How dare you? Leave at once.”

  Remembering when she’d gotten rid of Wanda the first time I’d come in, I expected to be snatched out of the tent by unseen hands, and thrown into the street. I felt a tug, but I resisted. Nothing else happened.

  “That’s surprising.” Her voice was more modulated now. She pulled her robe back on, and secured it around her waist. “There’s more to you than meets the eye, Jessie Morton. We’ll have to explore that in the future. Of course, I knew something was different. You can see Buttercup. Not everyone can.”

  I struggled for words. What do you say to a woman who is part dragon?

  “We need your help.” I cleared my throat as the words barely squeaked out of me. “We need your help, please.”

  “You know what I know about your ghost. Have you changed your mind about giving her to someone else?”

  “No. I can’t do that.”

  “What are you asking of me then?”

  “You can get rid of her, like you just did outside. I’ve seen you do that in here, too.”

  “I would have to spend every moment of every day concentrating my power on keeping her out of the Village. I’m afraid that’s not going to happen. You’ll have to cope until the sorcerer gets here.”

  “Why can’t she go into the museum?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.” She shrugged. “It could be a bad memory that keeps her out. It could be something about the way the place is built. It would take extensive research, and knowledge of the place, that I don’t have.”

  “Could it be because Wanda’s bracelet was put in there to frame me for her murder?” It was a shot in the dark.

  “Probably not—unless she’s no longer bothering you and the Bailiff at home. You said you have her bracelet now?”

  “Yes.” My heart sank. I’d hoped I was on to something.

  Pat ran into the tent. “Does she know anything?”

  “I know a great deal, if you’re speaking about me.” Madame Lucinda’s voice was huffy. “But if you’re looking for a permanent cure for your ghost, you must seek it elsewhere.”

  “Okay.” Pat looked around the tent and swallowed hard. “What about protection? If we can’t get rid of her, is there a magic charm or something I can use to protect myself?”

  I hadn’t thought of that.

  Madame Lucinda brought out a piece of quartz and gave it to Shakespeare. “You must keep it on you always. Never put it aside.”

  He pocketed the rock and thanked her. “You’ve made my life so much better, Madame. I shall compose a sonnet to you.”

  I followed him out of the tent. There was nothing more to say to Madame Lucinda. I knew the answers to the problem. I hoped the sorcerer got there soon.

  “That was weird in there,” Pat said. “Did you see all that stuff? How did she get all that in there?”

  “Yes. Did you see the dragon, the real dragon?” I went on to describe it, but I could tell from the look on his face that he didn’t know what I was talking about.

  “What now?” he asked with an exhausted sigh.

  “We’ll figure out why she can’t get into the museum. In the meantime, you stay there.”

  “Are the police done looking around or were they finished for the night?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll call Detective Almond in the morning. Our tapestry exhibit opens tomorrow. I hope that’s it.”

  Pat got caught up in the large group of people still out in the cold, fall night. No doubt he was telling and re-telling his harrowing account of what had happened. There was some lightning off in the distance, probably the storm heading out to the Atlantic Ocean. It added to the strange mood of the night.

  I went to find Chase. He was busy with the cleanup of the stadium lights. The security guards were with him, and a truck from the electric company was rolling into the Village.

  I didn’t want to bother him. He had enough on his hands. I felt shell-shocked, and wished I had answers.

  Had I really seen a woman who was part dragon?

  It could be a costume. There are weirder things here.

  Surely she didn’t walk around wearing part of a dragon costume at night while she slept?

  Seeing her lower extremities made me understand why she walked with a limp, and seemed to be in pain most of the time. It couldn’t be easy being part dragon.

  Go to bed! You’re not making any sense. How can someone be part dragon?

  I ended up with a large group of other residents at the Pleasant Pheasant. Hephaestus lived above the pub. He was awake, like the rest of us, after Wanda’s crazy escapades. I guess he’d decided to open again. He was charging a quarter for a beer or ale.

  “What was that awful racket?” Sam DaVinci, the artist, asked. He was working on his second pint of ale.

  “Something smashed into the stadium lights. Probably birds, confused by the storm.” Lord Maximus yawned. He was the master of ceremonies of the Birds of Prey show at the Hawk Stage. “I think they were struck by lightning.”

  “It’s just the storm,” Mother Goose said like it was gospel. She’d been at the Village longer than almost everyone else. She had her goose, Phineas, with her. She rarely went anywhere without him.

  “Guess we better batten down the hatches.” Fred the Red Dragon was still in the bottom half of his costume as he swallowed the last of his beer.

  Seeing Fred in that partial dragon costume made me shiver. It was too much like what I’d seen for real in Madame Lucinda’s tent.

  It wasn’t for real!

  On the other hand, seeing him that way made me realize that she wasn’t necessarily part dragon-part woman. Sometimes things were unbelievable here in the Village. On a crazy night like that, anything seemed possible. In the clear light of day, it wouldn’t seem the same.

  “More ale, Lady Jessie?”

  I looked up. It was the young man from the Field of Honor that Chase had saved. He didn’t look old enough to serve alcohol, but I knew Hephaestus would have checked him out thoroughly before he let him work there. We had to abide by the same laws as businesses outside the Village.

  Like many others here, the young man probably had to moonlight at another job to make a living.

  “Sure. Why not?” I flipped him a quarter—my last one. “How are you doing after all the excitement?”

  He smiled as he poured the ale. “I’m fine. A little excitement is good for the soul, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe. A little.” I marveled again at his smooth good looks. He was so young. I knew he had to be twenty-one, but he didn’t look more than twelve. “I’m sorry. I forgot your name.”

  “Tim.” He sat down opposite from me. “Did you see the lightning hit the stadium lights?”

  “No.” I mulled over how much to tell him. He’d been at the jousting field. He had to know something was up. “It was the same ghost again. She’s determined to do whatever damage she can. She’s dead before her time, you know.
I don’t really blame her. It wasn’t her fault that she was murdered.”

  His clear, sky-blue eyes stared into mine. He didn’t seem surprised by what I’d said. “You mean Wanda Le Fey.”

  “Yes. Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “I guess I’d be foolish not to, wouldn’t I? It would mean doubting the evidence I’d seen with my own eyes.”

  “That’s very mature of you.” I sipped my ale. “I wish I could be more mature about it.”

  “Wanda annoys you?”

  “She’s annoying the whole Village. With me, it’s more than that. I think she’s taking it out on me because she has to go through eternity painted blue.”

  He laughed. “Is that what happened? I was wondering.”

  I lowered my head and whispered, “You can see her?”

  “Yes. Can’t everyone?”

  “No. They can’t. And if you’re smart, you won’t let on that you can see her either. She’ll ruin your life. Her ex-husband, Shakespeare, is hiding in the only place we know of that she can’t go in for some reason—except for Madame Lucinda’s tent.”

  “You mean the fortune teller.” He nodded. “I haven’t been to see her yet. They keep the squires busy during the day.”

  “I know. I was a squire for a while.” I sipped more ale. “I’m going to have to do some research. There has to be some reason why Wanda can’t go into the museum.”

  “I know why.” My brother, Tony, joined us. “Adventureland probably buried bodies at all four corners of the foundation as eternal sentinels to prevent evil from getting inside.”

  My brother and I were fraternal twins—and there the likeness ended. He thought responsibility was a dirty word. He had a hard time committing to anything. He went through money like there was no tomorrow—a problem I’d had to bail him out of many times.

  Tony got my father’s brown eyes, and I got my mother’s blue ones. We were both almost exactly the same height—six feet—and we both wore size twelve shoes.

  “That was a common practice many years ago,” Tim agreed with him.

  “Come on. Nobody buried any bodies in the Village to prevent evil,” I scoffed. “Yes, they did it centuries ago, but the Village isn’t that old. There’s something else.”