Fearful Fortunes and Terrible Tarot: Wonky Inn Book 4 Page 2

  Dandelion Cottage is one of the dozen cottages tied to the Whittle Estate. As the landowner I derived rent from the cottages. Not a fortune, by any means, but enough to help me keep Whittle Inn afloat.

  Following the mysterious death of Derek Pearce the previous October—the prior tenant of Dandelion Cottage—I had cleared the house. Over the past eight weeks I’d had the whole place stripped out and rewired, re-plastered, re-floored, painted and decorated, and fitted with a new kitchen and bathroom. Even the outside of the cottage had been repainted in a gloriously cheerful dandelion yellow.

  Now I was here to ensure it was ready for new occupiers. I’d had some interest from the estate agents I’d left in charge of letting the cottage, and they had lined up prospective tenants to show around over the next few days. I placed the milk, tea, bread and biscuits I had purchased from Rhona on the kitchen worktop and then switched on the electricity at the mains before stowing the milk in the fridge. I roamed from room to room checking everything was working as it should be, flicking on light switches to check the bulbs, opening windows and running water from the taps and flushing the loo.

  I paused in the main bedroom. The furniture was long gone, the walls freshly painted white, a new dark blue carpet on the floor. It seemed a much bigger space than it had the first time I’d seen it—cluttered with a lifetime’s worth of marital harmony. Now it was a vacuum waiting to be filled with new life and new possessions. But I couldn’t get out of my mind the way I had discovered Derek Pearce on the floor that balmy afternoon in October. As if finding a corpse hadn’t been bad enough, the spinning red orb, chucking glitter around as it rotated, and buzzing furiously like a wasp in a fizzy drink can was far worse. The memory still caused my heart to beat hard in my chest.

  I paced across the room to the window in a few strides. I’d had the glass replaced of course, but my fingers still reached for the ghost of the perfect circle that had been left behind when the orb had smashed its way out of the room. I’d shared everything I knew with George Gilchrist and also with Wizard Shadowmender, but they were as baffled as I.

  One thing I was certain of? The Mori were alive and well in Whittlecombe—and they hadn’t finished with me quite yet.

  I gazed down into the lane below, where Mr Bramble was out in front of his cottage. A keen gardener, and incredibly house-proud, it looked as though he was pulling weeds from the cracks in the pavement. He was an ideal tenant. Ash Cottage was safe in his hands.

  I watched a large tractor as it ambled up the lane, taking up as much of the available road space as possible, wondering who I’d find to inhabit this cottage. Who would nurture it as well as Mr and Mrs Bramble looked after theirs?

  And could I trust a stranger?

  ‘When spring begins, you will meet your winter.’

  I stared down at the new message. The colourful cut-out letters on the now familiar white paper mocked me. My hand trembled ever so slightly as my breath caught in my throat. The venom in these letters was escalating, and for some reason, this message stung more than any of the others.

  When spring begins.

  The first day of Spring in the northern hemisphere is also my birthday. March 20th. This year I would be 31 years old.

  A sudden noise in the corridor outside my office startled me. I looked up to see Florence, my ghost of a head-housekeeper, gliding past the open door, dragging the vacuum cleaner along after herself. Florence wasn’t fond of the vacuum, finding it overly heavy and cumbersome. She preferred a good old-fashioned carpet sweeper, or a straightforward broom coupled with a dustpan and brush. If she was carting around the heavier machine, it probably meant one of the guests had been particularly messy in one of the bedrooms.

  I glanced down at the message in my hand again and shook my head. What should I make of these messages, and how much danger was I actually in?

  Pulling open the bottom drawer of my desk, I rifled through a few items until I could put my fingers on an old leather folder at the bottom of the drawer. I tugged it free and flipped it open. There were over twenty messages—death threats if you like—that had been sent to me since I’d taken over the inn. The first few had been scrawled in untidy, angry handwriting, but from then on the letters had been cut out of coloured paper. The last three, as Charity had identified, had been snipped from the leaflets for the Psychic Fayre.

  And yes, that suggested that whomever wished me harm lived locally.

  Without examining the others, I filed the new threat on top of the pile, closed the folder and returned it to the drawer. Just in the nick of time. Charity bustled in as I re-organised staplers, hole punches, tins of paperclips, mobile phone chargers, an old tennis ball, numerous biros, packets of tissues and mints, and blocks of post-it stickers, to cover the incriminating file.

  I sat up straight and smiled at her. In return she regarded me with suspicion. “What are you up to?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I replied breezily. “Just looking for something—” I trailed off, as though completely disinterested. “What about you? What are you up to?”

  “We’ve got a leak in the Stoker en-suite.”

  Stoker referred to our Bram Stoker themed bedroom. At some stage I’d thought it would be fun to theme the rooms. Stoker, as you might expect, had been done out in blood red and black with a vampire theme. I had since discovered I had an aversion to our fanged friends and had been seriously considering re-theming the room to something a little less angst-ridden for myself, Charity and Gwyn. Not to mention Florence, whom had been shamefully lambasted and abused in spades by the vampire wedding party on account of her burnt appearance, and the lingering smell of smouldering fabric she left behind wherever she went.

  “Oh that’s a nuisance. Whom do we have staying in there currently?”

  “Frau Kirsch.”

  Frau Kirsch: a witch from somewhere near Luerwald, East of Dortmund in Germany. I’ve met a number of eccentric witches in my time, but Frau Kirsch was as daft as a brush. In her sixties, she was kindly, unconventional, and completely crackers. At any time of the day and night you could hear her hooting with laughter, without any clue as to what was setting her off. She spent much of her time in Speckled Wood. Her stay at Whittle Inn appeared to be some kind of busman’s holiday, given that she lived and worked in her own forest back home. Perhaps she was comparing ancient British woodland with something similar in Germany. To be fair, she was harmless enough and I enjoyed having her around.

  So did Mr Hoo. He and Frau Kirsch were quite taken with each other. He’d flutter into the bar when I opened the window in the evening and settle on the arm of her seat by the fire. They would then commune with all seriousness, in gentle twits and twoos, while I looked on from behind the bar, worried that she intended to spirit my feathery friend back to Germany.

  I needn’t have worried though. Mr Hoo always extended me the honour of his company when I bathed in the evening, settling on the arm of the window-stay, to listen as I shared my thoughts aloud. When I snuggled down in bed, he’d sometimes spend the night in my room, perched on my bedstead, or he would take wing and soar in the direction of Speckled Wood seeking a feast of small unfortunate mammals. Every morning without fail, if I’d closed the window in the meantime, he would tap to be let in. Then he would warm himself by the fire and watch me start my day.

  “How serious is it? Anything Zephaniah can try and fix?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so. He’s having a look now, and we’ve turned the water off to that bathroom, but I think I’ll have to get Perry out.” Charity had everything under control. Perry the plumber would come as soon as he could.

  “Okay.” I nodded. The inn wasn’t at full capacity anyway. If I needed to I could move Frau Kirsch to another room, perhaps The Shelley Suite on the top floor, or The Throne Room, our Stephen King themed room.

  “I’ll let you know what Perry’s verdict is.”

  “Thanks.” I turned my attention to the spreadsheet on my computer. Accounts. Ugh.

>   Charity hovered by the door. I looked up wondering what else she needed. “You’re going into the village today, aren’t you?”

  She knew I was, I’d told her so. “Yes. I’m meeting George for a quick coffee a bit later.”

  “Put your face on then. There’s a TV crew down there.”

  “In Whittlecombe?” The village is tiny. Hardly anything newsworthy happens here. The last media coverage we’d had was when the scout hut had been caught in the landslide on Halloween and two little boys had been trapped under the rubble.

  “What’s happened?” I asked, alarmed at the idea that I was the last to know something serious had happened. Perhaps someone had been killed or injured, or maybe one of the pretty thatched cottages was on fire.

  Charity giggled. “No need to think the worst, Alf. It’s just that they’ve started setting up the Fayre down on the green and in the field behind The Hay Loft, and the cameras are covering it. It’s a big event you know. Nothing like this has taken place in Whittlecombe for years. It will put the village on the map.”

  For all the wrong reasons, my gut told me, but I held my tongue.

  The village, usually so peaceful, had become a hive of activity. Trucks and vans were queuing up to enter the fields behind The Hay Loft. As I stood and gaped at the activity, I could see flat-pack shacks and Portaloos being unloaded in the main field at the front, along with what looked like marquees. Different teams were working in different areas of the fields. To the right of the main field, the rides for the Funfair were being set up, including an enormous Big Wheel that threatened to dwarf the village, judging by the size of the components.

  I stood by the gate, joining a small group of interested villagers including Mr Bramble, and my witchy best friend Millicent Ballicott. As usual Millicent was a sight to behold, sporting a neon yellow rain mackintosh, with purple trousers, bright red wellies—hand painted with yellow flowers and green ivy—and a rainbow coloured beanie hat. She had a tight hold of Jasper her hairy lurcher, and was clasping Sunny, the Yorkshire Terrier she’d adopted after the demise of Derek Pearce, to her chest. We all stood back, out of the way of the heavy vehicles. The field nearest The Hay Loft had to be where all the action would take place, with good access to the bar—handily for Lyle. The field at the back had obviously been requisitioned for camping.

  I pulled my black Puffa jacket a little tighter around myself. Brrr. Camping in a field in Devon in March? No thanks. Next to a fun fair? That was a double no. You’d have to be hard-core.

  Or crazy.

  “It looks like it’s going to be a big event,” Mr Bramble said.

  “Fun for everyone,” Millicent sang, her voice merry with amusement. I caught her eye and she smirked, raising her eyebrows. She had the same thoughts as me then. She wouldn’t be found dead in a tent, no doubt.

  “Will you go along, Mr Bramble?” I asked. The old man had to be a likely barometer of what the locals would make of it all.

  Mr Bramble shrugged non-committedly. “I’m not sure it’s quite my bag, Alf, but Mrs Bramble is a different matter. She’s always had a bit of a thing for Romany fortune tellers. Her Granny used to swear by them, apparently, and would never turn them away. I think it rubbed off on the rest of the family. Yes, Mrs Bramble tells me she intends to cross someone’s palm with silver.”

  “As long as it’s not the family silver you’re parting with, Ernest,” Millicent joked, and they laughed together.

  “I’m sure she won’t go that far, Millicent,” Mr Bramble chuckled. He was a good-natured man.

  I hoped Mr Bramble was right, I’d hate to see them lose the little they had to a prospective swindler.

  “And ever since I was a lad I’ve loved riding the Big Wheel.” We all gazed in awe at the size of the iron struts as they were hoisted into place by a huge industrial crane.

  Whittlecombe had never seen the like.

  Millicent’s attention however, had wandered elsewhere. “Ooh look, Alf.” She nudged me hard in the ribs. “There’s the BBC camera crew.” Sure enough, a large bearded man with a camera and a petite blonde woman with a large furry microphone were trailing along the path with a black-haired woman wrapped in an expensive-looking cream coat, teamed with green Wellington boots.

  “That’s Kylie Griffiths!” Mr Bramble uttered, his voice full of excitement and awe.

  “You’re a little old to be a fanboy, Ernest,” Millicent tittered.

  “I think she’s lovely,” Mr Bramble protested. “A voice like caramel.”

  “That’s true,” Millicent agreed. “Rich and deep. Quite unusual actually. Do you like her on the news, Alf?”

  I had never seen the woman before. “I don’t have a TV,” I shrugged. That wasn’t strictly true. There were a few television sets at the inn, but for the most part we only set them up when a guest specifically asked for one. From the moment I’d conceived the idea of the type of guest I needed to market for, I had understood that TV, Wi-Fi and the like, were probably not the reasons my guests would visit Whittle Inn. They came for the peace and tranquillity we offered, the beautiful setting and the non-judgmental company we kept.

  Kylie smiled at us, then turned her back. “How’s this?” she asked the cameraman.

  He stared into the viewing screen and twitched his fingers to move her slightly sideways. “Yep. Good. Go for it.”

  Kylie nodded at the woman holding the microphone. “Okay. In three, two and one.” She turned and addressed the camera, pulling herself tall and straight, speaking with an almost intimate tone to the green light.

  “If you’ve ever wanted to know what the future holds for you, now’s your chance. We’ve come to the small community of Whittlecombe today. It’s similar to any of the dozens and dozens of villages you’ll find scattered among the back lanes of East Devon, but for a week or so at least, there’s going to be one important difference. The villagers are beginning preparations to host their first Psychic Fayre, and as you can see from the crowd gathering behind me, the locals are putting their all into this event and offering their full support.”

  Crowd? I wondered. There were six of us and two dogs. That hardly constituted a crowd in my book, although I suppose with a population of well under three hundred, six people by a gate on a week day wasn’t bad going.

  “Over the next few days, this modest field behind local hostelry, The Hay Loft, will be transformed into an extravaganza that may well encourage interest on a national level. Landlord Lyle Cavendish has joined me to tell us all about it.”

  She paused before addressing the camera operative once more. “And cut. How was that?”

  He nodded, and the green light turned to red.

  I looked behind me. The normally scruffy and be-whiskered Lyle was loitering outside his pub, dressed in a suit. I’d never seen him looking quite so smart. He’d obviously had a shave and a recent haircut. Now he waited patiently for the camera crew to come and talk to him.

  “Do we need to go again?” Kylie was asking.

  The cameraman shook his head. “I just want to get some shots of the action in the field,” he said. “Especially the construction of the Big Wheel. Give me five minutes.”

  “We’ll go back to the van,” Kylie nodded at him. “I could do with a warm through.”

  “It is a bit nippy today,” Mr Bramble agreed, and Kylie turned to him and flashed a warm smile. Mr Bramble’s cheeks tinged pink, and Millicent snorted in amusement.

  “Are you looking forward to the Fayre?” Kylie asked the old man.

  “Oh yes,” he gushed, and I inwardly rolled my eyes. “I can’t wait to see what’s lined up for us.”

  Kylie nodded. “Perhaps you would say a few words to the camera for us, Mr …?”

  “Bramble. Ernest Bramble. Oh yes, I’d love to. Will I be on the news?”

  I decided this was my cue to leave so I winked at Millicent and pointed at an imaginary watch on my wrist. She waved me away.

  As I turned to head back up the lane towards the litt
le café where I expected to meet George, Lyle stepped in front of me and blocked my progress. I had to either stop and talk to him or move into the road. Another large truck ambled down the lane towards us, so I halted where I was and offered the landlord a thin-lipped smile.

  “Alf,” he said.

  “Lyle.”

  “I see you’re interested in the Fayre we’re putting on.”

  “Seems to me as though the whole of the south west are interested in the fayre.” I indicated Kylie, still chatting to Mr Bramble behind me. “It’s of regional interest.”

  “If not national.” Lyle smirked. “It’s all good publicity.”

  “I wish you well with it,” I said, trying to squeeze past him.

  “That’s very kind of you, that is.” Lyle nodded thoughtfully. “Given that me and you are rivals and all that.”

  I smiled brightly; large and fake. “I don’t consider us rivals, Lyle. I think of us as competitors in an ever-expanding market.”

  “So you don’t feel like we’re stepping on your toes a bit then?”

  I pondered on whom he meant by ‘we’.

  “Not at all. There’s room for us both and I’m looking forward to coming and having a mooch around when the Fayre opens.”

  “Oh.” Lyle exhaled, sounding regretful. “Oh, that’s a shame that is.”

  “A shame?” I peered at him more closely. His tone said one thing, but his eyes shone in triumph. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re barred, Alf. We don’t want you anywhere near the Fayre. Not the grounds, nor the inn. For the duration.” He smiled down at me, his eyes reptilian. “Do I make myself clear?”

  I gaped at him in disbelief. “Barred? What do you think I’m going to get up to?”

  “You’re a troublemaker,” Lyle growled.

  “I’m a troublemaker?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Lyle and his friend Gladstone Talbot-Lloyd had been instrumental in most of my problems when I’d arrived in Whittlecombe ten months before.