Fearful Fortunes and Terrible Tarot: Wonky Inn Book 4 Read online

  Fearful Fortunes and Terrible Tarot

  Wonky Inn Book 4

  by

  JEANNIE WYCHERLEY

  Copyright © 2019 Jeannie Wycherley

  Bark at the Moon Books

  All rights reserved

  Publishers note: This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and for effect or are used with permission.

  Any other resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Sign up for Jeannie’s newsletter: http://eepurl.com/cN3Q6L

  Fearful Fortunes and Terrible Tarot was edited by Anna Bloom @ The Indie Hub

  Cover design by JC Clarke of The Graphics Shed.

  Author’s Note

  This book, as with the whole of the Wonky Inn series, is set in East Devon in the UK.

  It therefore uses British English spellings, idioms and vernacular.

  This book is dedicated to my wonderful friends and dogparents

  Rob and Debbie Parker

  With love, respect and sausages

  Xxx

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Wonky Continues

  Add Some Magickal Sparkle

  The Birth of Wonky

  Please?

  The Wonky Inn Series

  Also by

  Coming Soon

  “Is that a death threat?”

  I crushed the letter in my hand as Charity rocked back on her heels in shock. “Seriously, Alf? Is that what I think it is? Let me have a look at it.”

  “It’s nothing,” I said, trying to laugh it off.

  “How can you call it nothing?” Charity’s forehead creased with annoyance as she reached for the ball of paper. Reluctantly I handed it over. It was my fault. I should have opened the envelope in the privacy of my bedroom. Here in the office nothing was sacred. My Wonky Inn Clean-up Crew were forever in and out and of course Charity had full access.

  Not to mention Gwyn, my great grandmother, who was no respecter of boundaries.

  Charity had snuck up behind me as I’d pored over the letter, rubbing my forehead in despair. She glanced at it, then snatched the paper from me in shock. Moving a mug and a stack of papers from my cluttered desk, she smoothed the paper out, pressing down on it, as hard as she could, to iron out the creases. It was a plain white sheet of A4, with letters cut out to create a message.

  “Somebody’s been watching too many old-fashioned murder mystery movies,” I quipped in a half-hearted attempt to ease the tension.

  “It’s not funny, Alf,” Charity said quietly, examining the paper and not looking at me.

  “Well you have to admit, someone has gone to absurd lengths to try and scare me. All that cutting out and sticking things down with glue. A print-out of a letter would have been anonymous enough. I mean, why bother?” I indicated our own printer and the pile of invoices in the tray. “Surely, these days no-one can tell the difference between one ‘printer-that’s-been-used-to-produce-a-death-threat’ and any other?” I picked up the invoices, shuffled them neatly and then plonked them down on top of a leaning pile of admin on the corner of the desk. Charity caught them as they began to topple to the floor. She and I were like chalk and cheese. She liked to work in a clean and orderly environment, while I felt my creativity was hampered if I wasn’t allowed to express myself through sheer confusion and untidiness. Somehow, between us, we muddled through

  “My point is, it’s not like the old days when the police could identify a culprit through the typewriter they’d used.” I threw myself into my chair in exasperation.

  “I can tell you’re rattled,” Charity said, drawing her lips together in a thin line.

  “I am not.” I studied my nails, in need of a file and a tidy-up. Black nail varnish covers a multitude of sins.

  “You are so,” Charity said, prodding me hard with a finger. I swear, at times she was capable of being the annoying younger sister I had been fortunate enough never to have.

  “It’s not the first letter I’ve received,” I told her, and could have bitten my tongue off.

  Charity rounded on me, her mouth a round O of astonishment. “Well how many have you had?”

  I decided it was probably prudent to remain deliberately vague. “A few.” Obtuse, she would have called it.

  “Why haven’t you told me before?”

  I slumped back in my chair like some petulant teenager. “Presumably, because I didn’t want to be grilled about them.”

  “I see.” Charity sounded hurt. She dropped her head and I felt an instant pang of remorse.

  In the ensuing silence I admired her hair, dyed bright green as an homage to the season of spring, which had been making itself felt and heard in the grounds outside Whittle Inn.

  “Sorry,” I apologised. “That was out of order. It’s just that…I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “Have you told George about them?”

  “And I didn’t want you to nag me to tell him either. George has enough on his plate without sorting out my little problems.” She meant DS George Gilchrist, a local detective and my romantic interest.

  “Is that how you see this? As a little ‘problem’?” Charity smoothed the paper out again. Truth be told, I tried hard not to think of it at all.

  I shrugged noncommittedly and Charity twisted her face up. Sighing in exasperation she read out the message, “Time to leave, or time to die. Make your decision. Or we make it for you.”

  We stared at each other, Charity’s eyes wide, me grimacing slightly. “That’s bleak, Alf. Horrible.”

  “Sticks and stones, Charity.” I smiled, attempting to be cavalier about it all, but unsure whom I was trying to fool; her or myself. “Don’t let it worry you.” I reached for the message, but she snatched it out of my grasp. I’d have to wrestle her to get it back. I couldn’t be bothered. I slipped down into my chair.

  “Where are the other letters?”

  “I binned them,” I lied. “Which is what I want to do with this one. So give it back.”

  “Absolutely not. I think George needs to see this.” Honestly, she could be such a mother hen. “Perhaps I should call Gwyn and ask her what she thinks?”

  “No, no.” I shook my head. “Don’t get Gwyn involved.” I’d never hear the end of it.

  Charity placed the paper on the desk once more and glared at it. “The person sending this has to be local.”

  “Local? How do you figure that out?” I frowned. I couldn’t see any clues as to whom it had come from or where. The postmark on the envelope simply said Exeter. That covered the vast area of East Devon and beyond.

  Charity stabbed the page with her finger. “See these letters? Look at how they’ve been done.”

  Every letter – each about 2cm high, had been meticulously
cut out and shaped to form itself. None of the words had been cut out whole, from a newspaper or a magazine, or other printed source. The overall effect was colourful.

  “Very jazzy,” I offered, and Charity gave me her best withering look.

  “I recognize the colours and the style of the paper used to create this,” she explained patiently. “I know exactly what has been used to form these letters.”

  I was impressed. “Go on.”

  “It’s from a leaflet or a poster for an event that’s happening in the village. I’ve seen it in the window of the café and on the noticeboard outside the post office. I don’t think we’ve had any delivered up here so you may not have seen it yet.”

  “Why haven’t we had any?” I asked. “Isn’t Whittle Inn part of the community? I thought we’d got over all that anti-Whittle Inn feeling last October?”

  “We did. I’m sure we did. The thing is, this poster is advertising an event that The Hay Loft is putting on.”

  “Ah.” That made sense. The Hay Loft was my competition. There was an unhealthy rivalry between us, mainly on their landlord Lyle’s part. He could be thoroughly unpleasant. I avoided him and his cronies as much as I possibly could. “So what’s the event?”

  “It’s a Psychic and Holistic Fayre.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What’s that when it’s at home?”

  “You know…mind, body and soul…your sort of thing.”

  “My sort of thing?”

  “Witchy. Fortune teller-y. Clairvoyant stuff…”

  I shook my head in mock-shocked dismay. “I can’t believe you just lumped me in with a load of amateur masseurs, hippie wannabes, and vegan-dream-catcher-manufacturers.”

  Charity guffawed. “Well I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about your death threats, so I guess that makes us even!” She cocked her head. “Are you saying everyone who attends these events is fibbing about their abilities?”

  The sigh I emitted was deep and heartfelt. “No, I suppose not. It’s just that so many of these folks aren’t all they’re cracked up to be at all. And what’s more, they prey on the vulnerable. I hate that.”

  “How so?”

  “Imagine you’ve been bereaved recently, and you badly miss that person. You desperately want to talk to the person you love again? So what do you do? You contact a medium. The medium takes your money and offers you a few general platitudes that would fit anybody and everybody. Maybe they even say a few cryptic things that’ll have you scratching your head. The so-called clairvoyant will give you just enough to make you believe what he or she is saying is true, but sometimes—quite often—it’s more about them hoodwinking you. Many of these fakes have a good grounding in trickery, using psychology. They have a thorough understanding of human behaviour. They can read the ‘tells’ we have.”

  “Like poker?”

  I nodded. “Yes. Exactly! We give away a lot with our facial expressions and body language. When they watch us, they gauge how close to home they’re hitting, and then emphasise the things we respond well to.”

  “Phew.” Charity pulled a face. “Are any of them genuine? My mum loves this kind of thing. She’s been to a woman in Durscombe for readings a few times.”

  “Oh of course, some of them are the genuine article. I don’t want to suggest they aren’t. But you must be on the lookout for fraudsters and opportunists. And I’m sure, if this Fayre is going to be as large as it is billed to be, then there will be plenty of those around.”

  Charity smiled. “Well given that you know so much about it, and you’re the real deal, you really ought to go and offer your services.”

  “Pfft,” I ejected in mock disgust. “Over my dead body.”

  Charity waved the death threat in my face. “Looks like somebody’s already working on that for you.”

  I suppose I had been a bit slow on the uptake. Now that Charity mentioned it, I did remember the poster. It had been displayed on every available surface in the village for a week or more, and now as I strolled into Whittlecombe I noticed the giant A board on display outside The Hay Loft. This time instead of blithely ignoring it, I crossed the road and made a bee line towards it, intent on taking a closer look.

  ‘The Largest Psychic and Holistic Convention in the South West!’ the poster announced grandly in big bold letters. I resisted curling my lip and peered more closely at the smaller print.

  ‘Come to a gathering of the world’s brightest and best fortune tellers, mediums, diviners, psychics and clairvoyants. Among our highly-sought after guests you’ll find: Genuine Romany fortune tellers, Scandinavian rune-tellers, Pendle witches, African witch doctors, a voodoo priestess from New Orleans, and a Russian mystic.’

  I sniffed.

  It did sound intriguing.

  I’d associated with a few talented Pendle witches whilst at school. Naturally gifted, they were still repressed by the traumatic history they seemed unable to escape. I’d be interested to meet them and perhaps make a few new useful connections. Maybe I could invite them to a retreat at the inn.

  And a Russian mystic? That sounded most exotic.

  Voodoo though? I whistled through my teeth. That was a little on the hard-core side for me. All that bloodletting and bone rattling. I preferred my fortune tellers to be of the gentle tea-leaf-reading variety. A little more British.

  At the bottom of the poster, the blurb continued, ‘Gifts stalls, food stalls, side shows, rides and displays. The tallest Big Wheel Devon has ever seen. Locally brewed cider and lemonade provided by The Hay Loft. Fun for all the family.’

  Hmm.

  I stared up at The Hay Loft, rising smartly behind the large advertising hoarding, wandering what had motivated them to host such an eclectic gathering. While there was no love lost between Lyle and myself—given that I targeted an entirely different clientele to him—I’d assumed the two inns would never be in direct competition with one another.

  The Hay Loft was good for hikers, tourists and families. As for my wonky inn, well, the more super-natural or extra-ordinary you were, in the broadest senses of those words, the better you would enjoy your stay. My current guests included a headless horseman (and his horse), three witches on retreat from Manchester, a party of druids from the south of France, and three old dears from the goddess-only-knows where.

  Gwyn, my great grandmother, had become quite taken with the old dears. Together they spent most of the day ensconced cosily in The Nook, with a roaring fire, drinking my best sherry and playing cribbage and bridge.

  I was happy to accept anybody at the inn. The weirder and more wonderful the better. That’s what distinguished me from The Hay Loft. The only guests I had vetoed outright were vampires. I’d had quite my fill of those, thank you very much. Lyle was welcome to them, but I couldn’t see he’d find them an attractive proposition either.

  It therefore troubled me that Lyle had stooped to this; treading on Whittle Inn’s toes. Presumably the organisers of the convention had been searching for a venue, and Lyle had heard about it and obliged. I couldn’t blame him for that. Off season, The Hay Loft struggled to make any money. Lyle was a business man. Like me, he had to look to his bottom line at the end of the day.

  “Seems like fun, doesn’t it?” A cheery voice called me out of my musings. Charity’s mother, Peggy stood alongside me, reading the poster. She was a bubbly woman with an infectious giggle, slightly more-scatter-brained than her daughter, but just as friendly. She was relatively young to have a daughter of Charity’s age, early to mid-forties at a guess, with a tendency to wear jeans and brightly coloured t-shirts and jumpers. You could see where Charity had inherited her love of bright clothes from.

  “Do you think?” I asked, genuinely interested in what the villagers would make of it all.

  “Yes. You can’t beat an Easter Fayre. There always used to be one on the village green—set up around the pond there—when I was a kid. It was stopped a few years ago. Rising costs, I think. So it’s good The Hay Loft is hosting something like this
. Brings the community together, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  “I suppose it encroaches on your clientele a bit though? Are you worried?”

  “No, no, certainly not!” My tongue tripped over the fib. “There’s room for us all, isn’t there?” I clapped my hands. “In fact, I’m looking forward to meeting some of these visitors, myself. And it’s another excellent way for those of us at Whittle Inn to ingratiate ourselves with the locals.”

  Peggy nodded enthusiastically. “That’s the spirit, Alf.” She pointed to a box on the right of the poster. It contained a phone number for anyone interested in booking space at the Fayre. “You should think about having a stall or a booth. You could tell fortunes too!”

  That’s what people thought I did, was it? Tell fortunes? I could have howled at being so misconstrued. “That’s what Charity said. Maybe you’re both right and I should.” I nodded at Peggy, feeling somewhat put out and grumpy, and thinking if I did take a booth, it wouldn’t be with the intention of telling fortunes, but so I could practice casting spells. Turning disbelievers into frogs and toads maybe.

  I could just imagine Gwyn’s face if I decided to go down that route.

  That thought cheered me up immensely.

  After popping in to Whittle Stores to pick up some supplies and say a passing good morning to my friends, Stan and Rhona, I headed back the way I’d come and let myself in to Dandelion Cottage. The smell of fresh paint and varnish greeted me, and I looked around with satisfaction.