The Auction House

Molly Short wore a fleece jacket, jeans, and boots, but she still shivered in the cold rain of October. She ran the brief distance between her car in the parking lot and into the large, bright red building of Beltran Antiques. Inside, she did not immediately look around but pulled her beanie off, her brown hair full of static and clinging messily to her face. Once she brushed it out of the way, she smiled at what she saw: old furniture and old clothes, odds and ends, from floor to ceiling.

She had promised herself that on her 25th birthday she would visit an antique store she had never been to before and spend $100 on whatever she wanted. Even as she walked around, checking out grandfather clocks, old suitcases, and rocking chairs, she had no idea what she wanted to buy, but she knew she would find something. She explored the first floor thoroughly, making note of a beautiful ivory lamp. Then she found a staircase to the upper floor, but when she placed a hand on the end of the banister, she drew her hand back immediately.

Molly did not know why she did that, but she gazed up the stairs, and though she was warm, she shivered as if she were cold. But curiosity prompted her to go up, and she did so, albeit slowly and without looking at the pictures lining the walls. A sort of nervousness came over her, but she told herself that she would be fine once she reached the second floor. She did not know why she was nervous, or why she needed to tell herself that she was all right, but she felt both to be true. However, when she was finally upstairs, she did not feel much better.

A few ceiling lights gave off a dim yellow glow, throwing corners into darkness. Molly had to move closer to everything to see what she was actually looking at. But the heavy rain was loud on the roof right above her, and she felt compelled to glance over her shoulder now and then. It was as if she expected someone to be there, but there was no one. She moved around absent-mindedly, fingering an old, framed photograph here, an old pen there. She did not feel the same burning interest in what she looked at as she had downstairs. Then she saw her favorite thing to collect: teacups.

Delicate white teacups, edged with gold and decorated with flowers, stood in their saucers on a sideboard table. The sight of them cheered up Molly, and she inspected them closely. She decided on a white teacup with blue flowers, and picking it up carefully, she moved to go downstairs, but suddenly she tripped. Falling to her knees, the cup and saucer were flung out of her hands. Terrified, she looked up from where she landed, expecting to find both cup and saucer broken. But miraculously, they were not. The floor was carpeted, and while the saucer was nearer to her, the cup was further away, upside down. Molly, shaken but relieved, stood and picked them up.

She was near the top of the stairs when she halted, alarmed. What she was alarmed at, she did not know right away, until she saw to her right that a coffee table was standing on its side. She gaped at it. Apart from the strangeness of it, she was fairly sure the coffee table had been upright when she passed by it earlier. She hugged the cup and saucer to her chest, and started again, but then she heard something that made her jump. She heard music.

Her first thought was that she might be going crazy. Then she realized that the music sounded like chimes, and she remembered seeing chimes somewhere in the back. She turned around to look, and she saw chimes hanging from a hook in the ceiling. Inexplicably, the long, slender chimes bumped gently into each other, though she could not imagine what was causing them to move. Her breaths were now shallow, and she began walking backwards. Her hands were trembling, and she looked down to focus all her energy on keeping her hands still so she would not break the cup and saucer.

Then she froze. No longer trembling, she saw that the teacup held tea - hot tea that steamed at her face. Gasping, she threw her hands up in the air and let the cup and saucer fall to the floor. Once more, they did not break, but neither did tea spill out on the carpet.

Convinced that she had lost her mind, she ran downstairs and found her way to the small counter where the owner of the shop sat. She was an old, fragile lady, her gray hair tied back. She looked concerned as Molly leaned over the counter, her face white.

"Can I help you?" asked the owner.

Molly jabbed her finger in the air, pointing at the floor above her. "Upstairs," she said, shuddering. "Upstairs."

"Oh!" She smiled sympathetically. "The ghost scare you a bit?"

"Ghost?" repeated Molly.

"Many people go up there and come down at least a little nervous," she said apologetically. "The ghost here is subtle but not less scary. What happened?"

Feeling calmer, knowing that she was not losing her mind, Molly described what happened.

"What did the cup and saucer look like, the one you picked out?" asked the owner.

"White with blue flowers."

"Oh, my goodness," she exclaimed. "That was the ghost's cup and saucer. I mean, it belonged to the man whose ghost haunts my store. You see, it's a famous story in our little town. Seventy years ago, there was a man named Douglas Fisher whose wife cheated on him, and he killed her by poisoning her tea. He served the poisoned tea in that very same cup and saucer, and every time someone tries to take them from here, something happens to prevent them. We don't think it's the wife's ghost because why would she want to keep that around? We think it's the husband's ghost, still angry at his wife's unfaithfulness."

"Well, he can keep his teacup," said Molly firmly. "Thank you, but - I need to go."

"Of course, I understand. Have a good day."

Molly left, deciding that she would take a break from antique stores for the day,.