Free Deadly Curiosities by Gail Z. Martin

cocktails.
    “I’ll show you the other two rooms,” Rebecca said, as we stepped back from the doorway and she locked it up again. We turned toward the opposite side of the hallway, where the doorways were staggered so that one room wasn’t directly across from another.
    These doors weren’t locked. The first room was shadowed, and although I knew that, outside, dusk had fallen, something about the darkened room made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
    Rebecca turned on the light, but the faux gaslight glow didn’t dispel the feeling that something was not quite right.
    “This room was the first place we got reports of problems,” Rebecca said. She nodded toward the large oval mirror with a broad bronze ribbon-like frame. I was certain it came from our shop.
    “What happened?” I asked.
    Rebecca looked chagrinned. “Guests said they felt uncomfortable in the room, as if they were being watched. A few reported waking up to see a shadow moving across the wall.”
    Shadow men, again.
    “Could it be car headlights from the street?” I asked. “That’s given me a start now and again.”
    “Not up here,” Rebecca replied. “The angle’s wrong.” She sighed. “This is one of the places guests and cleaning staff have reported cold spots and small items moving around on their own.”
    “Were there problems before you bought the mirror?”
    She shook her head. “We brought all the pieces from Trifles and Folly in at the same time, so it’s hard to say whether it’s all of them, or just some of them.” Rebecca gestured toward the room. “You can see why I don’t want to return the pieces. They’re just perfect for the décor – if we can get them to stop scaring the guests.”
    The furniture in this room was oak, with a bed, dresser and old-fashioned washstand. The bed still had the very tall headboard and footboard, but lacked the ornamentation of the last room’s furnishings.
    Other than the troublesome mirror, there was an oil portrait of a pretty young woman, and a seascape that seemed a bit moody and dramatic for a bedroom. A Chinese Foo dog statue and a pewter lamp sat on the nightstand. The room had the requisite overstuffed chair, and also boasted a small fireplace.
    “Do the fireplaces work?” I asked.
    Rebecca nodded. “Several of them were bricked over before we bought the property, and the contractor advised against opening those back up. But the ones you see all work, and in the winter, guests like to cozy up to a fire even though as you know, it never gets all that cold here.”
    I was glad when we left the room. I wondered whether my imagination was running away with me or whether I really was picking up the vibe from the mirror, but there was no way I would have been comfortable sleeping there.
    “This is the last guest room,” Rebecca said, opening the door wide. She turned on the light, and I found myself looking at an imposing bed that had a small wooden half canopy protruding from the very high headboard, a detail that made it look like a throne. A vintage quilt covered the mattress, along with needlepoint throw pillows which made the bed only slightly less intimidating.
    I spotted another set of silver picture frames on the dresser, ones I immediately recognized from our store. The pictures were old tintypes of a man and woman, authentic and completely unremarkable, yet instinctively, I wanted to draw back from the frames in unaccountable sadness.
    “What happens in this room?” I asked.
    “It’s odd,” Rebecca said. “The last room gives guests the willies, although no one has reported being hurt – thank heavens! But in this room, it’s almost as if something gradually drains the happiness out of the guests who stay here. Guests have cut their trip short, saying that they just didn’t feel like vacationing anymore. One woman told me that she broke down sobbing for no reason. My cleaning lady says the same thing.”
    “So the problems have been witnessed by people