In the carriage, Charlotte could not help but to feel a bit melancholy about this unexpected turn of event in her life. She began to reminisce back about the happier time that she spent with her late parents.
Charlotte and her family lived in a normal fishing village. Despite living a hard life in the country side, she cherished the short moment that she spent with her parents. No one shouted at her for dropping a spoon nor she would get a smack for dropping a vase. Well, it's not like her family could afford a vase either. Regardless of lacking so many things in their household, but it was warm and cozy for them.
In spite of that, Charlotte and her parents actually kept a big secret from everyone else in the village. Unbeknown to other people, Charlotte was actually bestowed with the ability to see a lot of things that ordinary people could not see.
In other word, she could see supernatural entities that was normally invisible in the field of vision of everybody else!
This is supposed to be useful ability, particularly when the supernatural entity was camouflaging between the ordinary humans.Charlotte had the ability to discern them through their disguise while they were hiding among the human beings.
She still remember seeing one of the villagers brought home a wife with red eyes and fangs. It was two of her feature that no one else could see but Charlotte. She was genuinely terrified of the wife. Her parents insisted that they should kept quite about that. Three days later both the villager and his wife vanished from their village.
A lot of people were saying that they were running from debt collector as the husband was a known gambler addict. But Charlotte knew better about their fate.
She knew that the wife had killed and hide away her husband's body! After she grew up, she realized that the wife was actually a vampire!
The ability was both a gift and a curse to her. With this extraordinary ability, Charlotte and her family manage to evade a lot of unfortunate incident. However, due to be easily spooked , she was also in constant state of anxiety where she ended up breaking things that lead her being chased away from the Duke's house.
Charlotte let out a heavy sigh. Her loud sighed seemingly attracted the attention of the carriage's owner.
"What's the matter young lady?" The man inquired with a concern look on his face.
"Ouhh…nothing." she shook her head politely.
The old man was looking at her skeptically. However he decided to dropped the subject as the young lady seemed reluctant to speak about it.
"Pray tell me, what business do you have going to the Holly Oak lane? Is this your first time going there?"
"Yes. It is my first time going to the place"
" Do you have interest in antiques?"
"No. I am going to the antique shop to apply for a job"
"A job?" the old man turned to her with a quizzing gesture. " Did they mademoiselle offered you a job?"
"Mademo…?"
The old man shook his head as if he was disappointed with her.
"You don't even know the mademoiselle, but you jump into this carriage right after someone told you there might be a job available at the antique shop. Young lady, you should be more careful after this"
Charlotte went quite after listening to an old man she barely knew lamenting about her bad decision making.
Seeing that he had crossed the boundary he had no business getting into, the old man felt bad for spoiling the young lady's mood.
"My name is Seymour Jones. You can call me Mr.Jones. I am the owner of the tavern that located at the upstairs of the antique shop. In fact the mademoiselle - er….the owner of the antique shop, was one of my tenant"
"Ohh…." was the only respond he could acquired from the solemn young lady.
"Listen young lady, the mademoiselle is a good lady. I can assure you that. But she was quite strange. Just a week ago I found her lying on the street with bleeding forehead in the middle of the night. That being said, does not mean that she was a bad woman nor sum'. Only that…she is weird. Her shop is weird." The man continued babbling about the antique shop.
If he thought he was doing a good job calming the young lady, Mr.Jones had it wrong. The further they are moving away from the park , the more Charlotte regretting her initial decision.
"You know what. I might be in need of another housekeeper in my tavern. If things does not turn out they way you expected at the shop, feel free to come to the tavern" he tried to comfort her.
This time, it worked. Charlotte once again managed to break into a smile thinking that now she have a place to go if something went wrong at the antique shop.
Not long after the conversation, they had finally arrived at their destination. Charlotte alighted the carriage and thanked the old man. Mr.Jones -however- refused to take the coins in her hands and wished her good luck instead in getting the job.
It seemed like, Mr.Jones needed to go somewhere else first, hence he drove away passed the alleyway.
Being a newcomer to the big city, Charlotte had never been to this side of London before as she barely stepping outside of Duke of Earlington's estate. However, a glance at the surrounding , she immediately believed that there were no Lords and Lady living in this area.
Those who were walking on this alleyway were different set of people than the ones she served at the Duke's castle. They resembled the simplicity of the people back in her village even though they were a bit less friendly than the villagers. That, made her felt quite relief even though the place was vastly different than her hometown.
Well, she was trying to get a job at a shop isn't she? At least she won't meet arrogant Lord and Ladies in here.
As she turned toward the antique shop's direction, the young girl was flabbergasted to see an eminently eldritch aura enveloping the entire shop. This is bad! When she was in her village, she learn to understand that this type of aura is where dangerous creatures were usually lurking around!
Mr. Jones was right! There was a special quality possessed by this shop that was appalling to normal people.
Even without any special ability, any ordinary human would avoid going to a somber and gloomy place like this antique shop. Putting a creepy human sized mannequin on the display added the eerie feeling as if one is being watched by the mannequin itself.
Ouhhh wait! Charlotte had caught the glimpse of the mannequin's eye moving just now! Is that a living mannequin?!
Charlotte felt the urge to get away from this place! But Mr.Jones' s carriage is no longer around and she was at lost on how to leave this place!
Seeing that she had no choice, Charlotte mustered up all her courage and decided to try to investigate the shop. Charlotte could not help but to think about the nice Mr.Jones who lived upstairs of this shop. His life would be in danger if it was proven that this place is dangerous to people who lived nearby!
She pushed the door leading into the antique shop open. Once inside, she saw no one welcoming her like any other shop she had been into.
In fact, there was no one inside the shop. Just like the gloomy and somber exterior, the interior space of the shop shown the exact ambience.
All the antiques were put randomly on shelf that were glued to the wall. Some of the very big ones were left in lines on the floor. Statues, dolls and boxes dominated the front shop.
There was a fireplace at the corner of the shop. A worn-looking rug was spread in front of the fireplace and a rocking chair was placed over it.
A small table that was piled with books located beside the rocking chair. That particular corner appeared very warmth and cozy and absolutely out of place against the entire gloomy atmosphere of the shop.
"Hello? Anyone here?" Charlotte tried to call for the owner or any working staff of this shop - if they had one.
"Hello?" She called out once again.
" May I help you Miss?" the sound of a voice greeting her from behind surprised Charlotte. She swung her body and accidentally knocked into one of the statue next to her.
Luckily, the woman who was approaching her from behind managed to grabbed the statue before it fall and break into pieces.
"Ahhh…thank you…" Charlotte unknowingly thanked the woman for saving the statue. It was a reflex that she acquired after being scolded numerous times for breaking a lot of things at the Duke's house.
"Well, it will be my shop's lost if I failed to save her" the woman snorted before pulling the statue back to its position.
"Hmmmm…are you the owner of this shop?"
"Yes, I am. My name is Mademoiselle Johanne. May I help you?"
"Err…my name is Charlotte Smith. I come here today to look for a job"
The mademoiselle's left eyebrow lifted when she heard Charlotte's full name.
"Another Smith? Are you sure that it is you real name? Was looking for a job is your real intention? I had never put any advertisement about needing a worker in the newspaper? How come do you know about this place when you are obviously not from around here?"
Too many question was hurled at her at the same time. Charlotte found it confusing to answer each of them. Hence, she decided to answer the important ones.
"I knew about this place from a fortune teller lady" She tried to explain.
The explanation, however, making the owner appeared to be more skeptic toward Charlotte.
" What is the name of this fortune teller lady?"
'I don't know.....I forgot to ask about her name. But she worked with a circus team. They were camping at the Hyde Park right now!"
The mere mentioned of Circus team somehow managed to spark some interest from the shop owner.
"Ahhh...that lady...." the owner mumbled quietly.
"Do you know the fortune teller lady, mademoiselle?"
" Of course. She was this my long-time enemy. She would usually create ruckus every now and then to bring down my business"
"She...What??!"