Antiques & Amulets (eBook)

A Paranormal Women's Fiction Series

Mercedes Bogomila Iljaž (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
382 Seiten
Lofty Dreams Publications (Verlag)
978-0-00-110987-2 (ISBN)

Infos

In the quaint coastal town of Mystic Grove, divorced art history professor Zephyra Blackwood inherits her eccentric aunt's dusty antique shop-and a hidden world of magic she never imagined. At forty-two, fresh from a shattered marriage and an empty nest, Zephyra expects a quiet fresh start. Instead, she discovers her touch awakens objects' long-buried secrets, revealing visions of love, loss, and danger. With a mysterious gray cat named Ember as her enigmatic guide, Zephyra uncovers her psychometric gift, drawing her into a secret society of magical merchants guarding supernatural artifacts.

As shadowy threats emerge- from a rival collector scheming to harness deadly relics to a community plagued by energy-draining curses-Zephyra must embrace her powers or risk losing everything. Amid blooming friendships, a slow-burn romance with the town's charming historian, and pulse-pounding mysteries, she transforms from skeptical academic to empowered guardian of the arcane. This spellbinding tale of midlife reinvention blends cozy witchy vibes, heartwarming humor, and edge-of-your-seat suspense. Discover how one woman's second act becomes her most magical adventure yet. Dive into a series where destiny calls after forty, and magic proves it's never too late to shine.

Textauszug

Chapter 2

The morning light filtering through Blackwood Antiquities' front windows revealed what the funeral's chaos had hidden: her inheritance was drowning in dust and disorganization.

Zephyra stood in the center of the main floor, legal pad in hand, and tried to find something resembling a system. Victorian jewelry cases sat beside Depression-era glassware. Art Deco lamps perched atop Colonial writing desks. A stunning mahogany armoire—eighteenth century if she wasn't mistaken—served as a display surface for what appeared to be a collection of ceramic cats from three different decades.

"Aunt Vivian," she murmured, "what were you thinking?"

The shop smelled of old wood, lavender sachets, and something else she couldn't quite identify—a metallic sweetness that reminded her of thunderstorms. Three floors of accumulated inventory sprawled before her: the main sales floor, a second level visible through an ornate wrought-iron staircase, and according to the property survey, a basement storage area she hadn't yet braved.

Her phone buzzed. Another text from Jeremy, her ex-husband, asking about the house sale timeline. She silenced it without reading the full message and returned to her assessment.

The cash register was an antique itself—a 1920s brass National that probably belonged in a museum. Zephyra found the sales ledger underneath it, a leather-bound book with Aunt Vivian's spidery handwriting filling page after page. The entries stopped abruptly three weeks before her death.

She flipped back through the months, tracking the numbers with growing concern. Sales had been declining steadily for two years. The last entry showed a single purchase: one Depression glass plate, twelve dollars. Before that, four days with no sales at all.

The financial records painted an even grimmer picture. Zephyra spread the bank statements across the mahogany counter, organizing them by date. Property taxes due in six weeks. Utility bills stacking up. A business loan she hadn't known existed, payments three months behind.

Her practical mind calculated rapidly: available funds, necessary expenses, potential income. The math wasn't encouraging.

"I could sell the building," she said aloud, testing how the words felt. They echoed in the empty shop, absorbed by old furniture and older secrets.

But something in her chest tightened at the thought. Not sentiment—she'd never been sentimental. This was something else, a sensation she couldn't quite name. Like standing at the edge of something important and not yet knowing what it was.

She needed a complete inventory before making any decisions. The systematic approach calmed her: catalog, assess value, identify marketable pieces, create a turnaround plan. She'd built her academic career on methodical research. Running an antique shop couldn't be that different from curating a museum collection.

Zephyra started with the main floor, photographing and noting each significant piece. A Tiffany-style lamp that might be authentic. A set of Chippendale chairs that definitely were. Persian rugs that had seen better decades but still held value. She worked steadily, losing herself in the familiar rhythm of observation and documentation.

By noon, she'd covered perhaps a third of the main floor and her stomach was demanding attention. She'd seen a café two blocks over during yesterday's walk from the lawyer's office. But first, she should check Aunt Vivian's apartment upstairs—her apartment now, though she couldn't quite think of it that way yet.

The second floor had always been off-limits during childhood visits. "My private space," Aunt Vivian had said with a mysterious smile that Zephyra had found equal parts intriguing and annoying. Now she climbed the wrought-iron stairs, each step creaking a different note, and pushed open the door at the top.

The apartment was smaller than she'd expected—a combined living area and kitchenette, a bedroom visible through an open doorway, and a bathroom she could glimpse beyond that. But what it lacked in size, it made up for in personality.

Books lined every available wall space, their spines cracked and comfortable. Dried herbs hung from exposed ceiling beams, filling the air with a scent she recognized from her mother's old recipes—rosemary, lavender, something sharper she couldn't identify. A velvet armchair sat beside the front windows, positioned to look out over Merchant's Row, a reading lamp and small table arranged for maximum comfort.

Zephyra's throat tightened unexpectedly. She'd barely known this woman, her father's eccentric older sister who'd left Boston for a small coastal town decades ago. Their relationship had been limited to birthday cards and occasional holiday visits that her mother had orchestrated with visible reluctance. Yet standing here, surrounded by Aunt Vivian's carefully chosen possessions, she felt the weight of what she'd lost—not just an inheritance, but the chance to know someone who might have understood her better than her own parents had.

She shook off the melancholy and opened the bedroom door.

The space was simple: a four-poster bed with a handmade quilt, a dresser that matched the mahogany armoire downstairs, a nightstand with a reading lamp and stack of books. But it was the desk beneath the window that caught her attention—a beautiful rolltop oak piece with dozens of small compartments and drawers.

Zephyra sat in the desk chair, running her fingers over the smooth wood. The cubby holes held bills she'd need to address, correspondence with suppliers, a leather journal she'd examine later. But it was the locked drawer at the desk's center that drew her focus.

She tried the small key from Aunt Vivian's key ring—the one labeled "personal" in that spidery handwriting. It turned smoothly, and the drawer slid open.

Inside lay a collection of objects that seemed to have no connection to each other: a bundle of letters tied with faded ribbon, a small velvet bag, a photograph of two women she didn't recognize, and a wooden box about the size of her palm, carved with intricate patterns that seemed to shift in the afternoon light.

Zephyra reached for the box first. The wood was warm under her fingers, smooth with age and handling. She lifted the lid carefully.

Nested in silk that had once been white but had yellowed with time was an amulet.

The piece was striking even to her trained eye—an amber stone the size of a robin's egg, held in an intricate silver setting that wrapped around it like vines or flames, she couldn't quite tell which. The amber itself seemed to hold something inside, a darker inclusion that looked almost like a deliberate design rather than a natural flaw.

She lifted it carefully by its chain. The amulet rotated slowly, catching the afternoon light. The amber glowed with an inner warmth that seemed too intense for mere sunlight.

Beautiful. Probably quite valuable if the metalwork was as old as it looked. She should photograph it for the inventory, maybe get it appraised. Victorian era, possibly? The setting style suggested—

The moment her bare fingers touched the stone instead of the chain, the world fractured.

Hands—different hands, younger hands—holding this same stone. Candlelight instead of afternoon sun. A woman's voice, low and urgent: "Remember, it only works for—"

The shop bell's distant chime shattered the vision.

Zephyra gasped, nearly dropping the amulet. Her hands trembled as she lowered it back into its box. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and she felt distinctly lightheaded, as though she'd stood up too quickly after sitting too long.

What the hell was that?

She pressed her palms against the desk's cool surface, forcing herself to breathe slowly. A trick of the light. Low blood sugar—she hadn't eaten since the stale bagel at seven this morning. Stress manifesting as hallucination. There were perfectly rational explanations for momentary disorientation, for the mind playing tricks when exhausted and grieving.

The bell chimed again downstairs, followed by the sound of the front door opening.

"Hello?" A woman's voice, cultured and slightly uncertain. "I saw the lights on. Are you open?"

Zephyra closed the drawer—she'd examine the other items later—and descended the stairs on legs that felt less steady than she'd like. A customer. Her first customer. She should be pleased.

The woman waiting by the counter was perhaps sixty, dressed in an expensive wool coat despite the mild autumn weather. She had the kind of carefully maintained appearance that spoke of money and attention—highlighted blonde hair in a classic style, subtle makeup, pearl earrings that were definitely real.

"I'm so sorry," the woman said as Zephyra reached the main floor. "I know you're not officially open yet. I heard about Vivian's passing—such a loss for the community—and I wanted to pay my respects. But I also..." She hesitated, her gaze moving past Zephyra to scan the shelves behind the counter. "I've been looking for something specific. A Victorian music box. Vivian mentioned she might have one in her collection."

Zephyra's professional training kicked in, overriding the lingering disorientation from whatever had happened upstairs. "I'm Zephyra Blackwood, Vivian's niece. I've inherited the shop, though as you noted, I'm still in the assessment phase."

"Margaret Whitmore." The woman extended a manicured hand. Her grip was firm, her skin cool. "I live just outside town—the old Whitmore estate, though it's not really an estate anymore, more of an overgrown property with delusions of grandeur." She laughed, a practiced social sound. "Vivian and I had...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 26.11.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-10: 0-00-110987-1 / 0001109871
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-110987-2 / 9780001109872