Page 27 of The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street
We reached the top step and stopped. “Yes,” I said. “I thought it needed to be refinished, but Amelia liked it the way it was—said it added ‘character’ to the piece.”
Greco was frowning, and I didn’t want the jewelry chest to be the reason he quit. I was ready to agree to painting everything neon green and adding a Harry Styles mural on the ceiling if that’s what it would take to retain him. “But it doesn’t have to stay if you don’t like it. And I like Harry Styles.” I was proud that I knew who that was, if only because Jack had taken Nola and me to seeDunkirkand she’d mentioned that the actor sang, too.
Greco smiled, looking a bit confused, but it didn’t erase the frown lines over his nose. “No, it really is a beautiful piece and if your daughter likes it, we can certainly incorporate it into the new design. It’s just...”
Jack walked toward the bedroom and grabbed the doorknob. “It’s just such a tangled jumble of chains and baubles that you can’t see how she can find anything?” He pushed open the door, then stepped back for us to enter.
We stopped at the threshold. Nola and I had scrubbed the walls clean, leaving only faint traces of the muddy letters that had appeared and had, thankfully, remained gone. But the jewelry cabinet, emptied by Nola when she’d moved to the guest room, stood in the corner now with every drawer open, the lid pulled all the way back like a gaping mouth.
“You want to use it more as a sculpture than a jewelry cabinet?” Jack suggested helpfully.
I smiled pleasantly as if that had been exactly what I’d been thinking, too, instead of what Greco was about to tell us.
“I appreciate your creativity,” he said to Jack. “But there seems to be something wrong with it. I’ll close all the drawers and the lid and turn my back, and the next thing I know, everything’s opened again.”
“How strange,” Jack and I said in unison.
Greco crossed his arms and regarded us under lowered brows. “Something tells me that it’s not.”
Jack took a step toward the jewelry chest and pulled a drawer in and out as if testing it. “You know how these old houses are, with uneven floors and varying humidity....”
Greco held out his hand palm up to stop Jack from continuing. “Please. Don’t. Ever since my first visit here, I’ve been getting weird vibes from the whole house—and this room in particular.”
I held my breath, preparing myself for his words of resignation.
“I kind of like it,” he said. “I find it rather creatively inspiring. I actually grew up in a house on Broad that always had things that went bump in the night. I found it more interesting than frightening, and since I couldn’t see whatever it was causing the ruckus, nothing really bothered me.”
“Is that so?” I asked noncommittally, feeling a little jealous that the odd sounds never bothered him because he couldn’t see anything. Until I’d learned how to block out all the sights and sounds, I’d spent my childhood sleeping with my eyes open. “Well, this is an old house, and Charleston is supposed to be one of the most haunted cities in the world, so I suppose it wouldn’t be out of the question that there might be the odd spirit here or there.”
“Phew,” he said, doing a mock swipe of his forehead. “I was afraid I would scare you. Glad to know you’re not easily scared.”
Jack put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close. “Who, us? Never.”
“Good. Because I found something else you might find... interesting.” He walked over to the large four-poster bed, the intricate rice carvings winding their way up to the acorn finials. Lowering his tall frame, he pointed at the ball-and-claw foot, tapping his finger against something near the bottom edge.
As usual, I wasn’t wearing my glasses and couldn’t see what he was pointing at no matter how much I squinted.
Jack shook his head at me before leaning forward to see. “A carving of a peacock.”
“A peacock,” I repeated, trying to recall why that seemed significant.
The designer straightened to his full height. “I’m not sure if it’s connected, but the peacock was a secret symbol used here in the Carolinas during the Revolutionary War. I do a bit of Revolutionary War reenacting—on the British side—which is how I know this factoid. Of course, it could be something else entirely.”
“What do you mean by ‘secret symbol’?” Jack asked. He was wearing the expression he used when dissecting reams of information to boil down into something he could write about.
“A spy ring. From what I’ve read, it was as instrumental in leading us to an American victory as the Culper spy ring, but far less known. Mostly because to this day, historians aren’t really sure who the major players were and, of the ones whose identities are known, what side they were on.”
“Really?” Jack asked, and I could almost hear the wheels whirring in his brain.
Greco nodded. “I know you said this bed has been here for a long time, but do you know where it originally came from?”
I began shaking my head, then stopped. “The Vanderhorsts were the original owners.” I smiled at my own cleverness. “And they also owned Gallen Hall Plantation. My mother-in-law said a lot of the furniture in this house was most likely brought here from the plantation house, since so much of it predates this house. And I bet it was all made on the plantation, too, since it has the peacock mark.”
Greco lifted his eyebrows. “Well, then, this would make sense. So it probably doesn’t have anything to do with the spy ring at all.”
Jack bent down to get a closer look at the carving, touching it with deference. He turned his head to look up at me and smiled, his eyes dark. “Or maybe it does.”
Because there’s no such thing as coincidence.Neither one of us said it out loud, but we didn’t have to.
