A/N: Thanks so much for all your wonderful thoughts!
Sorry guys! I missed yesterday's update! I had a long day at work, then came home and conked out for the night! But here ya go, and we should have another one tomorrow. ;)
Chapter 15 – The Nightmare Before Christmas
"Now, Bella, the document before you goes into detail about everything we've discussed, including those pieces we agreed would be part of the contract and excluding those that won't. I'm assuming nothing has changed since we last talked, but, of course, if there's anything in there you're uncomfortable with or want to negotiate…"
Rosalie and I sat on a gorgeously reupholstered antique sofa at the back of her Restoration shop, reviewing the contract by which she'd begin working on Edward's handcrafted furniture after a century of abandoned neglect and restoring the pieces to their glory days. I, however, only half-heard what she was saying, though I got the general gist enough to fill in the rest. As she said, we'd already gone over most of this when she visited the Victorian to inspect the pieces in question visually. Moreover, I had a hard copy of the contract, even if I only registered every other word. Either way, I wasn't concerned that Rosalie might use my distraction to bamboozle me. She'd struck me from the beginning as an honest and unapologetically straightforward person. What's more, I fancied myself not someone easily bamboozled.
Which was a good thing because my head was close to explosion mode. Here was the central question blowing my mind this morning:
Who was the young, good-looking man I'd just met at the front of the store bearing an uncanny resemblance to my ghost of Christmas past?
While humming and hawing in what I hoped were the right places of the discussion, I performed some mental math. Edward was twenty-six when he was murdered and left behind his pregnant fiancée, Charlotte Gray. Assuming Charlotte was about the same age then, that would've put her in her mid-twenties in the early 1920s. Further, assuming she and Edward's child eventually also had a child, Edward's grandchild might've been born sometime in the 1940s or 1950s. Even further assuming that the grandchild had a child, Edward's great-grandchild might've been born sometime in the 1970s or 1980s. Taking this mental family tree yet another branch down, if Edward's great-grandchild had a kid, there was a generous chance that Edward's great-great-grandchild would've been born around the turn of the twenty-first century, around the year 2000, give or take a few years.
Today, Edward Masen's great-great-grandchild would be somewhere in her or his mid to late twenties.
Holy fu-
"Bella?"
Blinking profusely, I turned my attention to a frowning Rosalie.
"Oh. Uh…Rosalie, sorry, what did you say?"
She quirked an eyebrow. "You're sure distracted this morning."
I offered her a weak smile. "You have no idea."
After scrutinizing me quickly, Rosalie gestured toward the small, round, antique coffee table beside us. Like any thoughtful host aiming to separate her guest from a significant sum of money, she'd prepared well. A lovely and tempting repast sat before us in a priceless, vintage porcelain set, hand-painted with swags of red and green holly and complete with a pouring pot, matching mugs and saucers, and a matching three-tier pastry plate. The pot was filled with a steaming and rich-scented brew, while the tray held a tiered selection of cookies, tea cakes, and small sandwiches – the type with the edges already cut off.
Despite my earlier mental upheaval, I hadn't failed to note how quaint Rosalie's Furniture Restoration shop was. The space spilled over with a jumble of antiquities of every shape and size, all arranged in a dizzying pattern that initially appeared to have neither rhyme nor reason. Almost every particle of space was occupied. Yet the ensuing result wasn't a sensation of stifling suffocation, thanks in part to a large, five-paneled bow window that looked out on snow-capped mountains, falling ivory flakes and allowed in a stream of light that almost appeared to herald the shop. I felt like I'd stumbled upon a long-lost treasure trove at the end of a rainbow or hidden inside a fairy-tale castle. Into this composite picture of relics crafted in the admittedly muted shades of woods, tapestries, and metals, Rosalie Hale stood out like a winter angel dressed in white from head to toe.
"Would you like more coffee?" she asked, hovering the coffee pot over my mug.
I covered my mug with my hand. "Uhm, no, thanks. I'm good."
She set the pot down and gestured with a hand to the three tiers of the pastry plate. "Cookie?"
"No thanks."
"Cake? Sandwiches?"
I shook my head apologetically, and Rosalie sighed. Still, I was sure that if I took a bite of food or a sip of a drink right now, I'd vomit all over her one-of-a-kind, irreplaceably delicate table, dainty lace tablecloth, delicious delicacies, and all. I was even more sure that Rosalie wouldn't appreciate that.
To appease her and turn our attention away from food and drink, I scanned the contract with more attention, nodding as I moved from line item to line item. I turned the pages and repeated the process until I arrived at the end. Then I met Rosalie's eyes and smiled.
"This all looks good."
"Well, of course it does," she replied. "I'm very meticulous. It's why I'm the top furniture restorer in the entire state. So now…" She offered me a pleased grin while holding a vintage wooden fountain pen. "If we're good, let's sign this thing on the dotted line and get the show on the road!"
I chuckled at her undeniable enthusiasm. Taking the proffered pen, I set the contract on an empty portion of the coffee table. Leaning over, I turned to the bottom of the last page and put the pen to paper. Instantly, black ink pooled to the fountain tip, marring the pristine page.
Especially at this moment, I couldn't help thinking of Edward…of Edward and his possible progeny, even though I'd tried to set the mind-bending odds aside for now. Edward should've been here, signing on a separate signature line. After all, it was his craftwork that we agreed on. Still, although Rosalie hadn't been able to see him, Edward was with us for the walk-through when Rosalie came to the house. Afterward, he and I bumped heads about it – as we usually did – but then we agreed, also as per our usual. And since he could neither be seen by just anyone nor leave the Victorian, I'd figured that had to be enough.
But now…
This possible new revelation of who, conceivably, perchance, mayhap I'd just bumped into threw everything into mayhem. Because if Edward had surviving descendants, then that changed all else regarding ownership of the house – and its furnishings.
I looked up and met Rosalie's wary gaze. My pause had warned her, and now she shot me a deep-set frown or irritation.
"Is there a problem?"
"Rosalie, would you mind giving me a few more days to review this?"
She held my gaze implacably for a moment. Then, her perfect posture faltered. Her shoulders slumped, and she threw back her head, expelling a low groan.
"I knew this was too good to be true," she muttered. "I told Emmett this was too good to be true, but he said you struck him as a genuinely nice person who really cared about the house and its furnishings and wasn't there just to…" She sighed. "I wanted it too much. The Masen Victorian. The G.O.A.T.! I should've played it cooler."
I couldn't help chuckling. "Rosalie, no. It's not that. I…" Picking up the contract from the table, I leafed through the pages, my eyes scanning each item, then trailing to the shut office door. On its other side wandered an assistant – cleaning, dusting, sweeping, shoveling snow – doing whatever assistants did at an antique furniture restoration shop. But this assistant possibly had the power, by his existence, to give Edward a new outlook on his own existence.
I had to speak with him.
Rosalie pursed her lips. "I mean, I don't have much choice here, do I? Not if I want to work with you on the Masen Victorian Furniture restoration project. And I want to," she nodded vehemently.
"And I don't see a reason why we won't," I said, offering her what I hoped was a reassuring bone. "I just need a few days. Something unexpected came up that I should resolve first."
Giving a loud snort, she threw up her hands. "All right then. All right. I guess that's that – for now. But don't think I won't charge you for wasting my morning!"
"I'd expect nothing less from a Forkster," I smirked. "But thank you for understanding." Then, anxious to find Tony Edwins to get to the bottom of things, I gathered my coat and bag and stood. "So, I'll text you-"
Rosalie rolled her eyes and began pouring out coffee. "At least hang out and help me finish this stuff. It's the least you can do. I'll even consider not charging you for a wasted morning."
"Uhm…"
She stopped and looked up at me again, huffing. "I pulled out all the stops here! I set out one of my nicest tables and got the best coffee and the priciest cookies. I had Tony cut the damn edges off the sandwiches." She waved a hand toward the table, coffee, cookies, and then the door when she referred to Tony. "We might as well enjoy it. Pretend it was…a lunch date between friends or something."
I hesitated. A few strands of my hair had gotten wet in the snow and morphed into unruly flyaways that kept spiraling in front of my vision. I pushed them behind my ear. "Uh…okay?" I hedged. Then I settled back in my seat and removed my coat.
"Great." Rosalie picked up her mug and saucer. I followed suit.
"So, tell me a bit more about yourself, Bella."
Sipping my coffee, I stifled a groan of impatience. It was a small town, after all. A half hour or so of hanging out with Rosalie wouldn't affect anything, even if I somehow missed Tony this morning. He couldn't go far. So, as I pulled the mug away, I forced a smile that I hoped appeared more genuine than my earlier ones, and I attempted to carry on a regular back-and-forth conversation with a live human as opposed to the dead ghost around which my world had revolved for the past few weeks.
"You know," Rosalie said after a few minutes, "if the Masen Victorian's restoration job weren't the G.O.A.T furniture restoration job this side of the Olympic Mountains region, I'd tell you where to go with your obvious distraction." She sipped her coffee. "However, as you can see from my shop," she added, waving around the cookie in her hand, "I live and breathe good antiquity." She bit into her cookie, and I offered her a rueful smile.
"Rosalie, I apologize. Not for a second do I doubt you're the best woman for the job. The pieces we're discussing were crafted with lots of…love and care, and I appreciate your taking the time to meet with me to apply your genius to my…" I stumbled and cleared my throat – "to my furniture."
Rosalie chuckled heartily. "I'm just messing with you, Bella, since you did waste my morning. But you make me laugh, talking as if you were there when the furniture was first crafted."
"No. No, I wasn't there, but…I can imagine." I sighed wistfully.
"I do happen to agree with you, though," she said, missing the sorrow in my tone. "Those pieces were crafted with the long term in mind. You know about the rumors surrounding the Victorian, right?"
"Who around here doesn't?" I smirked.
She snorted. "True enough. It's local lore. The original owner, Ed Masen, and some cousin of his or something" – she waved a hand carelessly, indicating her level of interest in Edward's cousin…whose name currently escaped me – "were Prohibition-era gangsters who ran an illegal rum-smuggling ring before the entire operation was busted up by the cops and killed in the ensuing gunfight."
"Well, it was a rum run," I corrected, "and Ed wasn't a gangster so much as he was a bootlegger," I added, knowing how much Edward hated being called a gangster. "And it wasn't a gunfight since Edward wasn't armed, more like a sting operation gone awry."
Rosalie angled her head sideways. "I never heard about that."
"I've done some research."
"Ah." Rosalie shrugged carelessly. "That's right. You're a writer. Anyway. Tomato, Tomah-toe. Gun or no gun, he was a gangster either way and if you ask me, the saddest part of the entire tale is that Mr. Masen missed his true calling. The top-grade materials he used, the wood he selected, the detail he included…" She shook her head, eyes glazed with undeniable awe.
In me, however, her words, the implication that Edward missed his calling in life, roused a deep pang of sadness that rippled in my chest.
Rosalie continued. "You know, I know that the other day, when we conducted the walk-through at the Victorian, I said I was only there as a favor to Emmett. But the truth is that my family has been itching to work on the Masen Restoration as far back as Great-great-grandmother Victoria Hale."
She jerked her jaw, and I followed its trajectory to a large, gilded, oval picture frame hanging on a wall. Inside the frame was an old-time, sienna-toned portrait. The woman in the portrait sported a stylish, chin-length bob underneath a close-knit cloche hat. Her eyebrows were long, thin, immaculately shaped, and far apart. Her eyelashes were long, thick, and strikingly prominent. And though the monochrome of the picture made it hard to gauge color accurately, her lips were a rich, dark shade set in a half-smile that made it seem as if she were privy to a private secret. It all gave her a doe-like appearance – if that doe was Vixen. She was undeniably gorgeous, appeared intelligent, and looked a sophisticated woman of the times.
"She's stunning."
"She was. She founded this furniture restoration business back in late 1922."
My head jerked back. "That sounds like quite an accomplishment. She must've been some woman beyond simply beautiful."
"Oh, yeah. Great-great-grandmother Victoria was quite the entrepreneur, all right." Rosalie snorted, and I got the impression that she was enjoying that same personal, inside joke her ancestor's smile hinted at in the picture. "When I was little, my great-grandma Lauren used to tell me Christmas stories about her. One in particular was a favorite."
I took a sip of coffee. It really was a rich, delicious brew. "Yeah? What was the story?"
Rosalie bit her lip. "Well, it is a bit of a family secret, an old one. I haven't even told Emmett. I was worried he'd think I was just like the rest of the people around here who've always just wanted to…" She trailed off, then threw up her hands. "Oh, what the hell. It's probably not even true. Okay, for background, I don't know if you know that séances were hugely popular in the U.S. from about the late eighteen-hundreds until the nineteen-twenties."
Increasingly baffled by the strange turn the entire conversation had taken and kind of back to wishing I'd just left earlier, I sipped my caffeine and blinked a few times to focus. The last thing I had energy for was some extended, dull family Christmas story. I snorted to myself. If Rosalie wanted to swap holiday tales, I was sure I held the trump card: Try offing your great-aunt at the Thanksgiving table via a bowl of mashed sweet potatoes – and then inheriting her fortune.
"No. No, I didn't know that," I said.
"They were, and the first part of the family secret is that, long before she opened up the furniture restoration business, that gorgeous woman in that frame was a medium."
"A medium," I repeated. "As in someone who claims they can communicate with-"
"With the dead, yes."
"Get out," I scoffed.
"Yep," Rosalie said, sipping her coffee. "She was wildly popular in the séance circles."
"Why? Because she was good at it?"
"Bella, the séances were bogus," Rosalie laughed. "A bunch of people would get together, ostensibly to contact a dead person beyond the grave, but that was usually just a ruse."
"So, what were the séances really for?" I asked with a chuckle.
"They were an excuse for a bunch of bored people to get together and put on wanton, licentious, debauched, drunken shindigs. By the time the actual séances began, everyone was either too intoxicated, overstimulated, or plain didn't care that it was all a show."
"So, Victoria gave them a show," I deduced.
"She gave them a show," Rosalie confirmed. "She'd whine, moan, roll her eyes to the back of her head, speak in tongues, in high voices, in low voices and generalized terms until the questions asked of the 'ghost'," Rosalie chuckled, making air quotes, "grew too detailed and focused. At that point, Victoria would provide the crowd a cockamamie excuse for why her connection to the ghost had been severed."
I burst into laughter, wholly entertained by this point. "And people bought all this nonsense?"
"Like I said, as long as she put on a good show…" Rosalie shrugged. "According to Great-grandma Lauren, Victoria made a fucking killing in the séance business. She only quit the business when…" Her mirth suddenly faded.
"When?" I prompted.
Rosalie sighed. "Well, in early 1922, Victoria was contracted by a man who'd just bought a Victorian house outside of town." She paused. "It was a new house whose builder recently died before he could move in."
Every fine hair on my body stood on its end.
"When Victoria showed up for the séance, she found that…it was different from most séances she'd ever conducted because-"
Rosalie cut off abruptly when the mug and saucer in my hands rattled. She and I looked down and found my hands shaking horribly. I set the set down.
"Because?" I prompted once again.
"Because it was a small crowd, less than a handful of attendees. And because the attendees were the opposite of the usually enthusiastic people she tended to work with."
"What did they want?" I spat, though, of course, I knew the answer.
"Well, the Victorian's new owner wanted to contact the builder to ask him about a stash of cash supposedly hidden in the house."
My hackles rose.
"How the hell did the new owner know of that stash?" I growled, quickly correcting myself. "I mean, what the hell would've given the new owner the idea that such a stash existed?"
Rosalie shrugged, taking another sip of coffee. "Who knows? That's irrelevant to the story."
I wholly disagreed with its irrelevance, but Rosalie continued, and I set my questions on the back burner.
"So, Victoria put on her séance, which ended with a reply of, "Fuck off. I'm not telling you where my stash is.'"
She laughed, and despite my inward outrage, I couldn't help the smile that spread across my face. Even though Rosalie had conveyed that her Great-great-grandmother was a bogus medium, I could almost hear Edward using those same exact words had the séance been real. My eyes swept to the framed picture of Rosalie's formidable great-great-grandmother.
"So Victoria told them to fuck off," I grinned. "Good for her."
Rosalie set down her mug and waited for me to meet her gaze. "According to the story Great-grandma Lauren used to tell me, this time, Great-great-grandmother Victoria wasn't faking it..."
My skin prickled with goosebumps
"…and things just went downhill from there."
A/N: Thoughts?
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