Secrets of the Specter

The ghost waited, hand steady, paper extended.

I reached forward, half-expecting my fingers to pass through the missive. When they didn’t, I wrapped them around the thick folded paper and yanked it back.

She lowered her arm, but otherwise didn’t move.

Mr. Cat meowed and looked from my face to the item in my hands, then back again.

I raised the folded sheet to my eyes and made out a scrawl of ink. A letter. She’d given me a letter. But why?

I raised my eyes to hers and began to form the question with my lips, but she merely pointed toward the letter in my hand.

At this point, I was reasonably certain she didn’t want to hurt me, but I still had to be careful. I backed toward the bedroom door, keeping my eyes on her the entire time.

When I bumped into the wall, I turned slightly and groped about the wall until I found the light switch.

The female phantasm stayed near my bed, letting me have my space like a good Southern guest was wont to do. She’d practically vanished with the addition of the overhead lighting. I may not have seen her if I didn’t already know she was there.

With another deep, cleansing breath, I glanced away from the almost impossible sight and down at the paper I was now grasping in my slightly shaking hands.

I flipped it around and found a wax seal, keeping the trifold in place. And the seal was old. Really, really old.

I should know, I not only worked with wax day in and out, but I also had candles in my blood—or at least my bloodline.

This seal was made up of beeswax, which was used until the nineteenth century, combined with turpentine and maybe vermillion, for the color, although that hadn’t become widely available until the nineteenth century.

Laura Ingalls Wilder over there definitely looked like she could’ve popped right out of the seventeen- or eighteen-hundreds.

Under any other circumstance, I would have left the seal alone. Choosing to preserve the artistry of it rather than relegate the thing to its base function. But a ghost had handed me a message, and I needed to read it.

As carefully as I could, I used my fingernail to pry the wax away from the paper, trying not to break it. It was no good, though. It had become too dry and brittle with age, and quickly broke apart from the subtle force, its crumbles falling to the ground.

Gingerly, I unfolded the paper, which also looked and felt impossibly old. Then again, I was indirectly communicating with a ghostly visitor. Anything was possible tonight, it seemed.

I glanced toward my specter one more time.

She nodded, encouraging me to go ahead.

And so I did. My mouth fell open as I dragged my eyes across the elaborate calligraphy.

The letter read:

My name is Margaret McAllister. I was murdered in the year of our lord 1776. Thou must solve my murder, or thou shall suffer the same fate. Please, I implore thee, save us both from a most terrible end.

The missive was punctuated with an ornate signature.

And that was it.

I looked up at the ghost with my jaw agape. Now I had even more questions.

But she’d vanished!

And so had Mr. Cat.

Where the heck was he? What was he? A ghost, like my possible ancestral spirit? Yes, it hadn’t escaped me that the ghost and I shared our exact name—though I’d always refused to go by Margaret, preferring instead short and sweet “Mags.”

This whole thing was getting well out of hand. Hey, maybe I was having a psychotic break. That would make more sense than accepting that I’d just received a ghostly visitor who’d informed me of her murder and foretold of my death.

Or that somehow a strange cat was involved in this whole thing.

Yup. That was it for sleeping for tonight. Possibly for the entire week.

I headed downstairs for a huge mug of hot chocolate. Heavens knew I needed a treat after this encounter.

As I sipped my toasty cocoa and tried to forget what had just happened, one fact kept returning to the forefront of my mind again and again.

The ghost had the same name as me.

That had to mean something.

Was I some sort of reincarnation of that person, or was she a relative? Families sometimes passed down names—father to son, mother to daughter—especially hundreds of years ago. Just look in any family bible that goes back a few generations. Toward the top of the list, you wouldn’t see any of those fancy, modern names like Mercedes or Brooklyn, nor would you see funky spellings like Kleo or Ashleigh.

But Margaret?

Pffft. No way. This had to be a coincidence or, even more likely, a strange dream.

Yeah. Maybe I’d hit my head harder than I thought when I crashed the car earlier today?

Then again, the paramedics had ruled that I’d sustained no injuries, nor a concussion. And I’d felt just fine physically.

So maybe this whole thing was a prank. The ghost could have been displayed with a projector. In fact, this was just the sort of thing my cousin Angie would get behind.

Hmm. Now that I thought about it, though, she was pretty busy setting up her business these days. Not to mention a projection couldn’t physically hold or present me with a letter.

Neither of my pretty little theories explained Mr. Cat’s many appearances and disappearances today.

By the time I finished my hot drink, my eyelids had once again become heavy with sleep. I staggered back to bed, ready to concede that it had all been one very odd and vivid dream.

CHAPTER FIVE

The next morning, I moaned and pulled the comforter over my head when the first of my alarm clocks began singing the song of its people. Nope, I did not want to get up today.

But also, I had three alarms set for this very reason. I couldn’t sleep through all of them.

When the second one sounded, I pulled my pillow over my head.

It wasn’t until the last one went off that I finally got up. It had the most obnoxious tone of all three—the sound of a bugle reveille like the army used. It was seriously annoying but also seriously effective.

“Okay, okay,” I grumbled to the trio of singing clocks. “I’m awake.”

Bleary-eyed and grumpy, I turned off the clocks, then tapped at my phone screen to turn off the final alarm. When I did, I found that I had racked up five missed calls.

Crud. I’d left the thing on silent. Good thing my alarm app worked no matter if the phone itself was on silent mode or vibrate.

All five calls were from Angie. She must’ve gotten up crazy early this morning, which was not like her at all.

I wasn’t quite up to talking yet, seeing as I hadn’t worked the morning frog out of my throat, so I fired off a quick text in response:

I’m fine. Left my phone on silent. Hope you’re okay, call you later.

My message sent, I set my phone back on the nightstand, creating an unexpected crinkling noise.

A letter. Old. With the imprint of a broken wax seal.

Well, that hadn’t been a dream.

Unfortunately, I needed to be more alert to deal with the ramifications of last night. That was the good thing about being so sleepy, I guessed. My brain moved so slowly, I didn’t have the energy or focus to be worried or afraid.

At least not quite yet.

I yawned and shuffled to the bathroom where I showered and brushed my teeth. Same as every morning. Nope, nothing terrifying here.

About fifteen minutes later, I emerged with clean, wet hair and a woken-up mouth. Now my brain was fully switched into gear.

Anxiety mounted as I peered out of the bathroom, looking for any sign of Mr. Cat or the ghost with my shared moniker.

The coast was clear for now.

Geez. I hurried out and threw my robe on the bed, feeling horribly exposed. It was bad enough getting a visit from a ghost. It would be infinitely worse to receive a visit while in the buff. I pulled on my clothes as quickly as I could. I breathed a huge sigh of relief once I had all my private bits covered and returned to the bathroom to blow-dry my hair and drag a few coats of mascara across my lashes—a necessary evil seeing as my eyelashes were just as white blonde as the hair on my head.

I finished minding my appearance and went downstairs to fix myself a quick breakfast.

And then I remembered… I’d run out of coffee pods yesterday. I’d meant to stop in at the grocery store, but with the cat, the car accident, and the storm, it had completely slipped my mind.

“Scotch Bonnet!” I yelled out from the middle of my kitchen. I’d long ago given up cursing. It had always sounded wrong rolling off my tongue. But sometimes “darn it” just didn’t cut it, and I needed to pull out more colorful vocabulary options.

Long ago, my parents had taken me on a beach vacation. While there, we’d found a road near the water named Scotch Bonnet. My young self had giggled and remarked that it sounded like a curse word.

And ever since, when anyone in the family needed a strong exclamation, “Scotch Bonnet” was our go-to expletive. It definitely fit today.

“I need coffee,” I growled as I snatched up my keys and purse from the little table in the front entryway.

There was no one there to talk to, but I wasn’t above talking to myself. In fact, I kept the conversation going with ease. “Coffee. Stat. Preferably in IV form.”

On my front porch, I froze. Despite my utter desperation to procure a caffeinated beverage of some sort, I felt like I was forgetting something important.

“Oh, right!” I said with a snort.

Whirling around, I unlocked the door, ran upstairs, and grabbed the letter. I might want to study it later. I stuffed it in my purse, then headed out again.

Thankfully, there was a delicious, locally owned coffee shop a couple of doors down from Colonial Candles. Getting a nice cuppa would be no problem at all, especially considering that today was Saturday and on Saturdays, our part-time employee Kim helped open shop. I could arrive a little late if needed, and today it was most definitely needed.

“Laura,” I cried out in desperation the moment I arrived in her adorable little coffee shop. “I need a big one today.”

The older woman, whom I’d always thought of like an aunt, cocked one dark eyebrow at me and smiled. “You look like heck, baby doll. Rough night?”

I bobbed my head emphatically. “The roughest. Almost like I was being haunted.” I leaned against the counter and snickered quietly at my own joke.

“Your usual? With an extra shot?” Laura asked as she began pumping ingredients into a cup before I even confirmed. She never missed a beat, and I loved her for it.

“You’re an angel on earth,” I declared as someone new and unfamiliar walked in.

A tourist, it had to be.

And a very good-looking one at that. I couldn’t help it: I stood up straight and may have sucked in my stomach and pouted my lips a little. Just a little, mind you.

“Hey, Wes,” Laura called. “Do you want your usual?”

“Please,” he replied in a British accent.

Dang. British accents were so charming and attractive, but how did Laura know him when I didn’t? We both lived in the same small town. Hmm.

“Good morning,” I said cordially, if only to get him to look at me.

Wes nodded once at me, shooting me a quick grin complete with a dimple, then sat at a table by the window to look at his phone.

“Order up, Mags,” Laura chimed in a sing-song voice. She lowered her voice. “Stop drooling, but yeah. He’s single.”

I scoffed in mock outrage. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But as I left, my gaze drifted back to the ridiculously handsome being seated at the window.

He glanced up and smiled one more time, causing me to nearly drop my coffee right down the front of my blouse.

No, not today. I needed every drop of Laura’s delicious fresh-ground brew.

After making quick tracks out of Laura’s shop—it was rather aptly named Jitterbug, by the way—I strolled into Colonial Candles and found Aunt Linda standing behind the counter with Kim as they both reviewed a stack of paperwork.

“Well, good morning,” I said brightly as I headed toward them with a smile on my face and a piping hot coffee in my hand. “If I’d known you were coming in today, I might’ve slept in a bit later.”

Aunt Linda shook her head and clicked her tongue but smiled at me all the same. “And that’s precisely why I didn’t tell you.”

I snorted before taking a long, nearly scalding drink of my extra-potent latte. Mmmm. True divinity.

I left her to go over the books—she was my lifesaver. So good with money and numbers. I was more the creative sort, always coming up with new candle designs and new methods to showcase them in my videos.

When Kim disappeared around back to take inventory our supplies, I nabbed the opportunity to talk to Aunt Linda on my own. “What do you know about our family history?” I asked.

She squinted at her laptop, then looked up at me and furrowed her brow. “What? Why are you asking?”

“Well, I was just curious if you’d ever heard of another person in our family named Margaret McAllister?” I tried to sound casual. “Maybe in the late eighteenth century?”

Aunt Linda blinked slowly and tilted her head to the side in thought. “Why would you be interested in that all of a sudden?”

“Just a name I came across doing some family history research online. Of course, I was intrigued since it’s also my name.” I laughed and shrugged my shoulders. My laugh sounded unnatural to me; I could only hope Linda wouldn't notice.

“Actually, there was another Maggie, and she did live during the eighteenth century. She was a lesser-known player in the Culper spy ring.”

I raised an eyebrow. “The what now?”

“Well, it was the most famous spy ring of that period. They were involved in the Revolutionary War, led by George Washington himself. Mostly the people were tailors, farmers. Patriots.”

I nodded and kept trying to look busy. “Okay. So how was Maggie, Sr., involved?”

She raised her eyes to the ceiling as she thought, then leveled her gaze with mine and said, “She was entangled with some man who was in the Culper ring. That’s all I know really.”

Aunt Linda went back to her computer, effectively ending the conversation. Was that really all she knew? Or just all she was willing to say?

She didn’t seem too interested in this part of our family history, which was unusual for her, seeing as she normally took such pride in our heritage and made it a point to know anything that was worth knowing.

Her easy dismissal only made the fires of my curiosity burn that much brighter. She was holding something back. I was almost certain of it.

But she had given me a place to start.

I needed to research this Culper thing as soon as possible.

CHAPTER SIX

Aunt Linda stuck around shop long enough for both Kim and I to take quick lunch breaks. After that, I had the small back office to myself while Kim covered the storefront. I plunked myself down in the desk chair and fired up the store laptop.

Within minutes, I had a wealth of information about the Culper spy ring at my fingertips. Thank you, Google.

The first thing of note I came across was that there hadn’t been many women involved, although there was someone who worked under the pseudonym “Agent 355” and was suspected to be female.

George Washington, who at the time of operation had gone by Agent 711, had started the network of spies, and it ultimately grew so large that even he didn’t know who all was a part of it.

So if even the ringleader hadn’t known, why were the historians so confident that women weren’t involved?

I reached into my purse and retrieved the letter the ghost had given to me, then studied it behind the cover of the laptop. For some reason I felt an intense need to keep it secret. Only the left part of the seal had crumbled at my touch, leaving the right side mostly intact. Studying it now, I was able to make out a swirly, uppercase H. That had to mean something.

I scoured the web for even more information about the spy ring and any of its members whose last names might’ve started with an H but couldn’t find my smoking gun.

With so many results to sift through, it was hard to narrow anything down.

“What are you looking up?” Kim asked from immediately behind my shoulder. I had been so engrossed in studying the seal she’d been snuck right up without me realizing it.

I shut the lid of the computer and sighed, trying to make my secretive search seem uninteresting, so that she wouldn’t ask any follow up questions.

“Oh, nothing. I was just doing some family history research and came across some stuff.” I slid the paper under my laptop surreptitiously, hoping she wouldn’t notice. There would be no way to explain this, especially if she started studying it and realized how old the paper actually was.

“I thought it would be interesting to see what I could learn to add some more dimension to my videos. Some of the commenters have been asking questions, and I wanted to have more of an answer than I don’t know.”

Kim looked interested and opened her mouth to say something, but just then a customer called out from inside the store, “Hello? Is there anyone here who can help me?”

“I’ll get it,” Kim said and quickly departed.

I tucked the letter back into my purse and went out to help. Saturday was our busiest day, and this one was especially bonkers.

Too bad Aunt Linda hadn’t been able to stay to help out. She’d mentioned something about a hotly anticipated dinner date, and I’d hate to call her back in.

Oh, well. Kim and I could handle it. We always did.

The next several hours whizzed by, bringing customer after customer after customer.

I kept my greetings short and to the point. Aunt Linda would have been so proud. Meanwhile the back of my brain ran a number of what if scenarios.

What if the ghost came back tonight?

What if she didn’t?

What if Aunt Linda knew more than she was letting on?

What if I failed to solve the ghost’s mystery in time? Would I really die as a result?

That was the big one.

I liked my life and had no desire to end it early.

Also I felt bad for Mags, Sr. I couldn’t discern her age, but she didn’t seem like she could be much past her twenties. And she’d been murdered—murdered and then doomed to walk the earth for over two centuries without closure.

I had to help her, and also me.

Okay, the both of us. We both depended on me now. No pressure or anything.

At one point four out-of-towners came in, specifically looking to meet me. They were part of my wax nation, as I liked to call my fans and followers, and I made sure to put on a good show for them as I spun and dipped and carved. Still, I didn’t chatter as much as usual. I felt bad about that, but I simply had too much on my mind. The waxxers seemed happy with my demonstration and made sure to spend a small fortune in the shop before saying goodbye.