November 6, 2024. Our apartment above Moonlight Curiosities. Nothing says pie like a little skullduggery…

Dorian’s two-week deadline gave us plenty of motivation, so we dove into the research with a vengeance.

It was four days of clawing through half-forgotten library records, sketchy auction listings, and old estate sales. I wasn’t sure about Cassidy, but I’d read enough fountain pen collector forums to make my eyes cross.

Every time we thought we had a lead, it turned out to be a dead end. It felt like chasing smoke in a dark room. But for every four of those false leads, we’d get one hint of a real one.

Also, there was pie. A lot of pie. Maybe a couple of casseroles, too, but I lost those among the pie.

The soft reopening of Moonlight Curiosities brought a parade of well-meaning neighbors offering sympathy. Every one of them came armed with well-wishes served with a side of casserole. If it wasn’t casserole, it was enough pecans or other pies to build a sugar-powered shrine.

I was caught a little by surprise, but Cassidy handled it in stride.

“It’s fine,” she explained midway through the multi-day meal parade. “Gloamstead handles tragedy like any other small Southern town. You know, feed the survivors, smile politely, and—in our case—don’t get too nosy about the boarded up, scorched front window of our shop.”

I quickly caught on that a little nosy was still fine. After all, town gossip needed its own tender loving care. In any case, by the fourth day into it all, we’d turned it into the world’s oddest taste test.

“This one’s definitely squash,” Cassidy said around a bite, handing me a bowl. “That, or possibly revenge.”

I took it, eyeing the golden crust on top with suspicion. “Squash casserole is revenge?”

Cassidy gestured at the innocent casserole nestled in the white ceramic dish.

“If you grow more than you can store, add a lot of pepper, or both, it is,” she replied, before taking another bite.

I wasn’t entirely convinced, but tried my own bite anyway. At least I didn’t get ambushed by pepper.

“Mrs. Adelyne really didn’t have to do this,” I said between bites.

“Oh, yes, she did,” my wife said with a wry look. “Southern hospitality comes with a body count in the gossip circles.”

I snorted out a laugh, then ate more of the squash casserole.

“Did you get a chance to talk to Maggie Winsom about the pens?” I asked.

Cassidy nodded, pulling her laptop across the kitchen table while we ate. We’d closed the shop for the night, so she’d shed her human disguise for her natural skinshaper human-bat shape. It was her way of ‘letting her hair down’ to unwind. She sighed, combing fingers through her hair and dark fur, before giving a slow stretch of her arm wings.

“I did. Maggie said she had sold one online, but it wasn’t a Waterman. Just a 1942 Parker pen,” Cassidy said. “Looked similar though. Mrs. Adelyne’s story was better. She’s convinced her leaking pen is haunted.”

I nearly coughed on a piece of pecan pie.

“What?” I stammered, wiping my mouth.

“Haunted.” Cassidy grinned. “Not the right pen, but I almost thought it was. Her pen doesn’t have the weird amber lacework.”

Her claws raced over the keyboard.

“But other than that, I found something this morning while you were opening the shop,” she added.

I leaned over her shoulder to see her screen.

“Turtles?” I blinked.

Fur along her cheeks ruffled from a faint flush as she slammed the browser tab shut in a second—she clicked open another one.

“No, those were tortoises. Totally different.” She squeaked then pursed her lips. “Tortoiseshell pens got me thinking about tortoises. I got distracted.”

“You also like tortoises,” I teased.

“Yes, I do. Shut up. You know I do,” she admitted gently, even more embarrassed.

I held up my hands in defense. “Just kidding, honey. I get it. It was like me and ‘how did people make ink in 1722’ rabbit hole.”

“Exactly,” she replied, flicking her ear at me with a sheepish smile. “Anyway, like I said, I think I found our first real lead.”

She tapped the screen, giving me a proud, determined expression.

“Over the last hundred years, pens matching that Waterman pen Dorian dropped off have popped up in estate sales and other places.” She showed me a list of historical auctions. “Mostly in the Northeast. They show up, then vanish. Then a set of four—with one that looks like a perfect match for Dorian’s pen—gets purchased by a bookkeeper named Henry Vanil. He lived in Sleepy Hollow, New York.”

I blinked, setting down my serving of squash casserole before I pulled up a chair next to her.

“Wait. Sleepy Hollow?” I asked incredulously. “The Sleepy Hollow? Headless Horseman Sleepy Hollow?”

“Not making that up,” Cassidy replied with a fanged grin. It was hard to miss the delighted glint in her eyes.

“Was he Ichabod’s cousin?” I joked, grinning back. “Maybe a pen pal?”

“Didn’t say, but wouldn’t that be fun?” She tapped the screen. “It just says he lived there in the nineteenth century and had a thing about wanting to collect these pens.”

Cassidy tapped the keyboard again, pulling up a historical records site. It looked like it belonged to a library in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

“Then… he abruptly died.” Slowly, the amusement drained from her face.

A few clicks later, she dredged up scanned copies of a time-yellowed death notice. There wasn’t any mention of a headless horseman or burning pumpkins—just the date of October 12, 1919, and the method of death.

“Wait, Cassie. Hold on. It says they found his body withered, with his mouth and fingertips stained black?” I said slowly, raising my eyebrows. “That’s how he died?”

The words sat in my stomach like ice water.

“Murder ink,” she quipped morbidly.

The air felt like it chilled two degrees. Even the shadows at the corner of the room seemed a touch longer. Silently, we stared at the laptop for a long, uncomfortable moment, until neither of us could stand the silence.

“Dan, I really don’t like how close ‘withering’ and ‘black mouth’ are to ‘murdered gleefully by a supernatural thing’,” Cassidy said at last, voice thin. “Sure, I’m a skinshaper, but there are a lot of really nasty things out there.”

I reached for her furry hand out of reflex, caressing her fingers.

“Maybe he just chewed on ink sticks?”

Sure, that was unlikely. But it felt safer than the alternative.

Cassidy gave me a pained look, eyebrows bunched.

“Oh sure. Maybe he also died of chronic writer’s cramp.” Then she added with a small, worried look at the screen. “Are you sure we need this work? Supernatural shenanigans aside, do we really?”

I knew that hollow-eyed look, and right where her thoughts were headed. Even her voice held that same thin edge when we were being treated by the paramedics outside the Briarwood murder mansion. Before she retreated into that memory, I lightly kissed the knuckles of her hand, trying to interrupt her train of thought.

“We do,” I sighed. “The front window,” I reminded her solemnly. “All the remodeling we’d planned on to make this place work, so I don’t have to go crawling back to my former toxic tech job.”

Cassidy gave me a wan smile, before sliding a hand along the side of her face and snout.

“I really hate your old job. So. Right.” Her words came out soft, but serious. “We got this.”

“So, where did the pens go after Vanil?” I prompted.

Cassidy pulled up the shared document we’d filled with notes, website links, and more. Scrolling down, she tapped the screen lightly with a stubby claw.

“Yeah, and sorry, love, no trip to Sleepy Hollow. The pens vanish for decades,” she explained. “But then, two pens resurfaced in Gloamstead, 1977, which matches what Dorian told us. They were part of an estate sale for a Professor Martin Altamont.”

On the screen, Cassidy brought up an old black-and-white photo of a balding, mustached physics professor. He had that look of everyone’s favorite, happy uncle. The one who told the best jokes.

“So, who bought them from the estate?” I leaned forward a little toward the laptop. “Any idea?”

Cassidy’s claws ticked out a quick pattern against the table while she scrolled through the shared document.

“I found that,” she murmured. “It was here yesterday. Oh! There. This lady. She was a local collector who purchased them. Records got hazy, but I saw her name come up more than once.”

She stopped on a small entry in our document about a Meredith Rawls. I squinted a little as my mouth went dry.

“Wait. I know that name. She’s a friend of my uncle’s,” I explained in surprise. “I remember her from when I was a kid. She’d always have a box of old antiques with her for my uncle when I saw her.”

Cassidy’s smile faded in favor of a thoughtful nod.

“Sounds like she was your uncle’s antique ‘picker’,” she said. “Daniel, if that’s the same Meredith Rawls, she’s our best real shot at the pens. Not to mention any local history.”

“My uncle did have a Meredith that worked as an antique picker. She’s in one of the photos with him in the office.”

We found Meredith’s obituary online a few minutes later. Neither one of us spoke. We just read, and were a little too unnerved to talk at first.

“So, it was her,” I said softly, knocking the silence aside. “Died last year. Her memorial service was at Gloamstead United. I think I remember a little bit about this. No one wanted to talk about it. Closed casket. All anyone would say was ‘it happened very suddenly’. No one talks about how. Won’t even gossip about it.”

Cassidy turned to me, lightly running a hand softly along my back.

“Everyone who gets these pens dies in a really bad way,” she said, eyes filled to the brim with concern.

The comment hung in the air between us. Thanks to Dorian, we had one of those murder pens here in our shop.

“Everyone but Dorian,” I added in a brittle tone. “He didn’t even blink when he handed it to us. Which isn’t surprising since, well, Dorian’s a,” I waved a hand a little, “you know.”

“A bloodleech,” she replied. “Who’ll think it’s just fun that all the previous owners died horribly.”

Cassidy’s frown deepened.

“Now I wonder how many other cursed things he’s handled without batting an eye.”

“We need better clients,” I moaned slightly, putting my head in my hands.

Cassidy leaned over, touching her forehead against me a moment. I gave her hand a squeeze, relishing in the feeling of the velvety fur there.

“So,” I sighed. “It might help to know how Meredith died. But you know? We might have been sitting on the answers all along.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, squinting at me.

“If Meredith was an antique picker for my uncle, the pen or pens might have gone through here. This shop.” I explained. “My uncle kept alarmingly detailed records. If Meredith brought the pens to him, he’d have a record of it. Not to mention, he’d have some notes about the history of the pens.”

Cassidy sat up straight, wide-eyed.

“If not, surely Meredith Rawls kept her own records. Just to keep up with your uncle.”

“So, we just need to search my uncle’s old records from what? Forty-seven years ago?” I said with a thoughtful, mild frown into the middle distance. “Those won’t be in the shop’s digital records. It’ll be in the store-all. My uncle didn’t digitize records that far back. Said it wasn’t worth it.”

She clasped my upper arm gently with her hands, snout wide with a toothy grin.

“Yes! If that doesn’t pan out, we can dive into Meredith’s records. She died a year ago. Those have to still be stuck somewhere. People here in Gloamstead stash stuff for decades.”

“There’s one other bright side,” I told her with a grin. “We also have an amazing amount of suspicious squash casserole to buffer us against imminent, and gruesome, death.”

Cassidy broke down into a wheezing laugh, shattering the tension like cracked glass.

“Daniel. I love you so much,” Cassidy said, hugging me fiercely. “Seriously, if I die of suspicious causes, I’m haunting you until you die of vitamin A toxicity.”

Suddenly, I had a vision of the world’s most judgmental ghost haunting me with a casserole dish.

I raised my nearby portion of the squash casserole in a toast.

“I love you, too, Cassie. So, to loving spouses, weaponizing beta carotene, and dumpster diving into dusty antique shop records.”

“Maybe with less death?” Cassidy suggested.

“Maybe that, too,” I agreed.