Chapter 1
“Midnight,” said Ivy. “That’s it. We need to be out of here by then.”
In the beads of light cast by the chandelier hanging from the gable high above, Tempest observed her friend’s chipped pink nail polish, puffy pink vest, and pink work boots. The outfit was Ivy’s way of remaining herself while working construction.
“We can probably finish everything if we stay until one o’clock.” Tempest straightened the rumpled cloth tarp with her ruby red sneaker. “What do you say? I promise to buy you any amount of extra coffee you need tomorrow.”
“I’m serious, Tempest. This job is cursed enough. I don’t plan on being inside this creepy house at midnight.”
“That’s why you want to be out of here before then? You can’t really believe this house is cursed.” Tempest’s long black hair swayed in the breeze that was sneaking into the room from the window they’d cracked open, and she was momentarily distracted by a shadow resembling a gnarled claw. Ivy wasn’t wrong about the creepiness of being alone in the mansion on this deserted hillside street as it approached midnight.
Ivy said nothing. Her face was turned toward the section of the high ceiling they hadn’t yet finished painting.
They were standing in the attic of the Whispering House, Secret Staircase Construction’s current jobsite. The project at a Gothic Revival mansion built by a famed local architect had been cause for excitement at first—constructing a hidden staircase leading from the foyer to the oversize attic, restoring once-grand woodwork details that had been destroyed by termites and decades of neglect, and even building an architectural puzzle into the walls of the attic.
The mechanics of this puzzle room they were standing inside had been Tempest’s biggest contribution, and one she found herself immensely proud of. The sliding puzzle panels of the attic’s wainscoting would reveal a hidden door once you’d solved the puzzle. She reached out and touched the paper they’d taped in place to protect the wooden panels from dribbles of paint. With this job, Tempest felt she was finally an equal member of the team. She’d successfully transferred her skills in creating illusions to the family business.
But now? Not only were they running behind schedule because of the strange items they’d found when they’d opened up the walls, but the specter of losing the family business altogether was never far from their minds.
All because of Julian Rhodes.
The man was a bully, but he’d picked a fight with the wrong family. There was no way Tempest was going to let him ruin the small business her parents had lovingly built from nothing into a home renovation company that built magic into people’s homes through architectural elements like a built-in bookcase that slid open to reveal a secret library, a reading nook accessed by stepping through a door hidden behind a portrait, or a faux fireplace that led to a playroom when you pressed bricks in the right order.
Tempest was now filling her mom’s shoes as the member of the crew who thought up the most magical elements and the stories to go along with them, but she didn’t yet have enough experience to know that you could—and should—say no to taking on some clients. Julian had been a difficult client from the start, but they never imagined how bad things would get. He owned the home across the street from the Whispering House and had hired Secret Staircase Construction when he learned his neighbor would be working with them. He pushed through his project plans so that his renovation at the Rhodeses’ home could be completed first.
“It’s creepy being in this old house after dark,” Ivy said, when she finally spoke. “I know I’m supposed to think it’s majestic or something, but we’re right across the street from where Julian pushed Paloma down the stairs. Do you realize that was the same day we made that horrid discovery inside the walls—”
“You mean the rat’s nest?” Tempest asked.
Ivy nodded. “Between that bad omen and Julian’s actions, I feel like this whole dead-end street is cursed.”
Tempest attempted to shake off all thoughts of the horrid man, which was difficult to do since Julian’s house was the only other home on this narrow street high in the Hidden Creek hillside.
She wasn’t supposed to be here tonight. Her mentor was in town from Scotland along with his assistant Brodie, but jet lag had gotten the better of him. They’d agreed to catch up tomorrow, so here she was.
She and Ivy had come to the Whispering House tonight to paint the interior walls of the upper floors of the home they were nearly done renovating. The secret staircase was complete, as were the puzzle panels and trim that hid its existence. Since coming to work for her dad’s home renovation company, Tempest had learned that the proper term for a camouflaged door was a “jib” door. But the bland word stole the magic of a hidden door leading to a secret room, so she pretended not to have learned the official remodeling term. To Tempest, it would always be a hidden door, and she was sticking to it.
“I thought you didn’t want to stay too late because you had to be up early,” Tempest continued. “Don’t tell me the fearless Ivy Youngblood has turned superstitious.”
“Maybe a little bit of both?” Ivy refreshed her paint roller and stepped back onto the ladder.
A strip of painter’s tape had come undone in the corner. The ribbonlike curl of blue tape swayed in the wind, causing a shadow resembling a claw. Tape. Just tape. Tempest pressed it back onto the wood. It wouldn’t do to have her dad’s delicate carpentry marred by frosted white paint.
Her dad didn’t know they were there that night. The remaining members of the small crew didn’t either. Tempest and Ivy had taken it upon themselves to finish the time-consuming cosmetic touches to lighten the load for the others. Stonemason Gideon was barely sleeping as he had his first art show to set up, but he was too responsible to take time off work until this job was done. And Darius, the owner of Secret Staircase Construction and Tempest’s dad, was frazzled nearly to the breaking point by the lawsuit Julian Rhodes had filed and the mess of bad press surrounding Paloma Rhodes’s unfortunate accident.
Unlike the others, Tempest and Ivy had always been night owls, so it was the least they could do to finish painting the rooms that were otherwise completed. If they hadn’t been here at the Whispering House, they most likely would have been at Ivy’s place watching a classic mystery movie projected onto the wall, eating freshly popped popcorn, and arguing about who was the best fictional detective from the 1930s.
Tempest and Ivy had been inseparable when they were kids before a tragedy got in the way. They had bonded over their shared love of mysteries, from Encyclopedia Brown and the Three Investigators to Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden, and as preteens they graduated to the golden age of detective fiction. They had begun to read their way through the classic fair-play puzzle plot mystery novels of authors including Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, and John Dickson Carr, until Tempest’s Aunt Elspeth died live on stage in Edinburgh. At the age of sixteen, Tempest’s happy life in an ever-changing fun house was torn apart. As was their friendship.
Tempest left for Scotland and ended up staying with her grandparents and finishing school in Edinburgh. She didn’t realize Ivy was dealing with a difficult home-life situation and felt abandoned when Tempest left her for a life an ocean away. As a coping mechanism, Ivy disappeared into books. That’s why a decade later, when Tempest returned home from the wreckage of her career as a stage illusionist in Las Vegas, Ivy was the most well-read person Tempest knew. But what was more important to Tempest was that they were approaching their childhood level of friendship once again.
“Could you get the window?” Ivy asked from the ladder.
Tempest stepped across the tarp to the dormer opening in the steep, sloped ceiling and pulled the wooden window frame upward.
“I meant to close it,” Ivy added as the cool night air flowed into the room. “This paint is nontoxic. But the whispers of the wind are getting to me.”
The house was named not for the whispers of the hillside wind but for an architectural feature on the first floor that carried sound through the length of the house. The same architect had built the town’s Whispering Creek Theater, a theater that looked like a miniature cathedral that Tempest had rented for a single performance she was preparing. You had to give him credit for going all in with this Gothic style of architecture even though it was long past being popular.
The wind wasn’t having the same effect on Tempest—until she turned back to the window. Before she could close it, a flash of headlights came into view. This was a dead-end street. The homeowner wasn’t living here during the renovations, and Julian Rhodes had moved out of his house across the street after his wife’s accident.
Who was coming to the Whispering House at midnight?
Chapter 2
A tall man with wild salt-and-pepper hair stepped out of the car. A man Tempest knew well. And one she thought was fast asleep in a guest room back at Fiddler’s Folly. Nicodemus the Necromancer.
That was only his stage name, of course. Nicodemus was not actually someone who could command the dead. He was a Scottish actor who’d built a career performing a classic style of stage magic for the past fifty years and was now getting ready to retire after one last tour, which would begin in a few days. With his pointed goatee and mercurial gaze, he did rather resemble a devil, or at least a stylish demon. Tempest had known him since she was a child, but she couldn’t seem to remember him looking any other way.
Ivy assured Tempest she could finish the last bit of the attic on her own, so Tempest headed down the two flights of stairs to meet Nicodemus at the front door.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Tempest closed the heavy wooden door behind him.
“I could ask the same thing. I thought you slept the hours of the civilized world now.”
Tempest shrugged. “These are the hours I’ve kept my entire adult life. It’s hard to change.”
“You’re in your twenties, lass. There’s plenty of time for you to change into anything you want to.”
He wasn’t wrong. She was simply stuck. Whenever she felt like she was moving forward, something held her back from fully embracing the change. From embracing life. She knew what it was. And what she needed to do. But she didn’t know how to get there. “I didn’t mean to abandon you at the house. You said you were tired and going to bed.”
“I’m knackered, so I tried to sleep. Unfortunately, my body insists it’s morning.” He stroked his goatee. “Why are your arms covered in white paint? Are you a performance artist now?”
“Very funny.” Tempest was well aware that she was perhaps the world’s worst house painter. That didn’t bother her. Her strengths lay elsewhere. Ivy had done 90 percent of the work tonight but had managed to remain paint-free aside from a few streaks on her fingers. Tempest was only on site to help as needed. “How’d you know where to find me, anyway?”
“I knew you and your da were behind schedule renovating the Whispering House. It’s not difficult to find the address of a house that has its own name. It’s far more challenging to find a restaurant or even a pub that’s open at this hour in Hidden Creek, but I finally found one not far from here. Can I treat you and Ivy to a midnight snack? I’m desperately in need of breakfast and would love some company.”
“I can do even better than that,” said Tempest, turning toward the kitchen. “Follow me. Ivy is just wrapping up painting the attic, but our client Lenore insisted we help ourselves to the food she left in the fridge while we’re finishing the house. She’s been stealthily restocking while we’re not here. What can I fix you? Looks like we’ve got the ingredients for French toast.” She held a loaf of fresh sourdough bread in her hand that definitely hadn’t been there the previous day.
“If you’re cooking, I’ll stick to toast.” He plucked a bottle of strawberry preserves from the door of the fridge.
“I choose not to be offended by that comment.” She wasn’t insulted. She didn’t actually know how to make French toast, but how hard could it be? She’d spent the last decade honing her skills to become one of the world’s greatest illusionists at the expense of pretty much everything else. Even though things hadn’t turned out as she’d expected, she wouldn’t trade the skills she’d gained both creating and seeing through misdirection to know how to cook a midnight snack.
Tempest had moved back home after her career as a stage illusionist in Las Vegas had crashed and burned the previous summer. Tempest Raj. Twenty-six years old and living in her childhood bedroom while she was learning the ropes at her dad’s company. It was solely his now that Tempest’s mom was gone. Even though she’d lost the career she thought she wanted, she was surprised by how much she loved her new job. Creating architectural misdirection wasn’t so different from crafting stage illusions. Her bedroom even came with its own secret staircase.
Like her mom before her, Tempest had an eye for how to elevate mundane objects into magical experiences. Her dad was a good general contractor and a brilliant carpenter, but his wooden creations were best when he executed other people’s visions. Tempest was skilled at imagining what could be. Her new life creating architectural magic wasn’t the job she’d envisioned for herself, but it was quickly becoming more perfect than she ever imagined.
Tempest sliced two lopsided pieces of bread and popped them into the toaster. You’d think with how precisely she could shuffle a deck of cards that she could cut a decent slice of bread. You’d be wrong.
Nicodemus twirled what looked like a folded greeting card of thick kraft paper in his fingertips. He pulled it open, revealing an intricate pop-up of a Gothic cathedral, its paper spires so detailed that vaulted windows appeared in the pinnacles. A top hat made of black cardstock paper sat in the open space of an arched main door. This wasn’t a cathedral. It was the Whispering Creek Theater.
“My theater.” Tempest took the card and wondered how long it had taken him to cut, fold, and glue. This wasn’t one of his most ornate paper designs, even considering the delicate spires, and the edges weren’t as crisp as she remembered some of his old pop-ups, but it did the trick to make her smile. Paper people and sets had more freedom than real ones, Nicodemus had always said, and pop-up paper art creations created their own magic.
“I wish you wouldn’t think of it like that.”
“You still don’t approve of me renting it?”
“It’s an exquisite building. Since you’re taking me there tomorrow, this is what came to mind when I couldn’t sleep. Though I still don’t think it’s a good idea to rent the theater where Emma—”
“Don’t.” Tempest slammed the card shut and her smile vanished. She squeezed the card even harder in her hands, but it popped back open, this time revealing the stage inside the Gothic exterior. She blinked at the paper theater in her hands—a double pop-up, with this layer hidden beneath the last. Red paper curtains were drawn back, revealing a stage, and a row of metallic silver stage lights swayed above the main attraction: two paper people center stage.
A sleight and a misdirect. Just like a magic trick. It was his specialty, and he’d expressed his disapproval just enough to get her to activate the magical theater he wanted her to see.
She looked more closely at the deceptive pop-up card. One of the paper people on the stage had long wavy hair that flowed almost to her waist, and she was posed with her muscular arms outstretched, as if about to begin spinning like her stage persona, The Tempest. What she hadn’t noticed right away was that the flat paper shadows of the two people weren’t mirror images. In Tempest’s shadow, her hair billowed wildly as if caught in a fierce storm, and in the man’s shadow, a top hat on the stage’s trapdoor rested squarely on the shadow’s head. Their shadow selves.
“Are you going to do more with your paper art in your retirement?” Tempest asked.
He snorted. “The whole point of retirement is to relax. These paper creations help me imagine the possibilities of what I can create on stage. But being on the stage is what’s relaxing.”
Tempest loved what the stage could do and the joy it could bring so many people, but she’d never call it relaxing. It was both exhilarating and exhausting. Never easy. “Then why are you even retiring? Why—”
Copyright © 2024 by Gigi Pandian
