Mistleton and Other Men

“Nobody’s going to believe it, Noah,” Sharon said, crossing her arms and eyeing him skeptically.

“Sure, they will, Sharon,” Noah replied, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. “You should see how the people on the tour eat it all up and go away believers. And it’s not just the tourists from out of town either. Locals buy into it, too.”

She glanced down at the small figurine he was holding out to her, hesitating. “And you really think this little… stunt is going to work?”

“Just pierce it with the thorn and then pop into the salon and leave it where Stella’s sure to find it,” he insisted, his eyes bright with something between excitement and mischief.

Sharon shook her head, half amused, half exasperated. “If this backfires, I’m blaming you.”

“Fine by me,” Noah said, shrugging. “It’ll just add to the legend.”

Sharon wrapped the cloth poppet and thorn in a piece of burlap, dropped it in her messenger bag, and headed out the door towards Main Street and the Glamour Palace. For her life, she couldn’t explain how or why she and Noah were still together.

Here they both were, more than a year after the university had cancelled their programs, forcing them to choose between an emotionally difficult and expensive uprooting to the main campus on the one hand, and an admittedly unambitious transfer to the community college for associate degrees in public history (his) and digital media (hers) on the other. She felt she had pivoted reasonably well to her new reality with the help of her musician friends who welcomed her into their Indie folk band.

As for Noah, she wondered. On the surface he seemed fine, and in their daily interactions Noah was still the same person she had met that summer after high school. It was in his interactions with other people—strangers, mostly—that she noticed a change.

He attacked his work as the tour coordinator with cynical energy and seemed to draw satisfaction from getting people to believe the lies. And Vex kept encouraging him. Just the other day, Sharon asked Noah point blank if he was studying public history for the sole purpose of mastering the dark art of manipulating public opinion. She wondered if beneath it all lay a simmering resentment of the university and academia in general for devaluing his passion and for forcing them to make hard decisions about their lives at such a young age.

Could he be caught in the rage stage of abandonment and hellbent on screwing the world?

On top of all that, they were an odd pairing, sometimes drawing attention for all the wrong reasons. Sharon was petite and thin, her long, straight dark hair emphasizing her pale complexion and fragile appearance. Noah, on the other hand, was stocky and slightly overweight with a scruffy beard, and his glasses held together by tape gave him an unkempt look.

As Noah instructed, Sharon made her way from their apartment on Bank Street to Main, cutting diagonally across Vintner’s Square to avoid running into anyone who might want to strike up a conversation about the weather or this year’s harvest. She could have made the journey with her eyes closed because the Glamour Palace was right next door to the Tangled Vine.

The salon and tavern anchored the east end of Main Street Mercantile, a row of awninged brick storefronts built at the turn of the 20th century when the town council was full of ambition and optimistic about the community’s future. Remarkably, none of the storeowners over the years took the financial risk to alter their facades, which is why the block remains one of the town’s best preserved and most photographed landmarks from the Victorian period.

To Sharon’s dismay, the brass bell attached to the door of the Glamour Palace announced her entry into the building.

“Why, do my eyes deceive me? Miss Sharon Needles!” Stella’s voice rang out with the exaggerated warmth of an antebellum hostess, her accent just a bit too saccharine to be natural.

At the Palace, she greeted Sharon with the same out-of-place Southern charm she used to smother her regulars—most of whom were the proud descendants of Union Army veterans or early 20th-century European immigrants.

“What brings you to the Pal-lay de Glammer?” Stella asked, sweeping her arms in a grandiose gesture around the salon. “You need a blowout? Here, have a praline. They’re from Paris! Says so right here on the box.” She held out the candy box, her lacquered nails tapping its lid insistently.

“Um, no, and no thanks, Stella. Nut allergy,” Sharon replied, eyeing the box as though it might attack her at any moment. “Just here for some product.”

Stella drew back, undeterred. “Nut allergy, bless your heart! Well, suit yourself. We’ve got a new line of hair gels and conditioners you might like.” She pointed, her smile widening as though she were sharing a well-kept secret. “They’re right over there on the shelf.”

Sharon nodded, moving past Stella’s outstretched arm and giving a polite smile. “I’ll take a look. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it, sugar,” Stella called after her, already reapplying her charm for the next unsuspecting client.

Stella Stiles, the Glamour Palace’s ebullient and unsophisticated esthetician-owner, was enjoying a month-long streak of good luck. She found a $100 bill on the street and won $1,500 at Bingo within the timespan of a single week, and her salon business got a big boost the following week when the owners of the Beauty Boat, her main competitor, abruptly abandoned ship, leaving their clients adrift. Neither inclined nor equipped to contain herself, Stella shared and reshared the news of her good fortune with co-workers and clients alike, not to mention with her French club. It was all that she could talk or post about.

Sharon turned and headed to the shelf of haircare products against the wall. After about a minute, she spun around and returned to the counter, where Stella was in the middle of crafting her next social media post.  

“Um, Stella. I found this behind the curl enhancer,” Sharon said, holding up a small, handcrafted doll.

Stella’s eyes widened, and she clapped her hands together, her grin spreading like wildfire. “Well, butter my backside and call me a biscuit, Miss Sharon! If that ain’t the cutest thing—and she’s a plus-sized Ginger just like me! Pretty as a peach, she is.”

Stella leaned in, inspecting the doll with fascination, her voice dropping to a whisper. “My daddy used to tell me stories about juju dolls just like this one. Old country superstitions, you know, all about luck and curses.” She straightened up, a spark of excitement lighting up her face. “And here I thought my good fortune of late was just, well, good fortune! You might’ve heard about it—the money and how the Beauty Boat sank, bless their hearts, and yet here I am, pulling in business like never before. Now, I wonder if this little doll’s been behind it all along!”

“Ouch!” Stella suddenly pulled her hand back, rubbing her finger. “What in the world?”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry, Stella. There’s a thorn sticking through her.”

Stella’s face took on a dreamy, distant look. “Do you s’pose it’s one of them magic thorns from Mistleton?” she asked, her voice laced with reverence. “They say some of those thorns carry a charm.”

“Um, I dunno. Possibly?” Sharon replied. She could feel the weight of Stella’s unwavering belief.

“Well, I declare,” Stella said, clutching the doll to her chest. “Just wait ‘til all the ladies hear about this. My good news about finding that ring I thought I’d lost can wait! This little doll and her magic thorn will be the talk of the town!”

As Stella drifted off, already spinning tales about her newfound good-luck charm, Sharon slipped out, the bell on the door failing to break Stella’s trance.

“I said ‘possibly,’ not ‘yes,’” Sharon reassured herself on her longest walk home ever from Main Street. “And Stella herself made the connection to Mistleton. I didn’t put that stupid idea in her head.” And where did Noah get that thorn anyway? He didn’t say, and she didn’t think to ask him.

Why didn’t she just leave the poppet somewhere for Stella to discover on her own like Noah had instructed? She knew why. Because there was no way to make sure Stella would see it unless she put it right in front of her barbecue-stuffing face. In the short time span of a couple minutes, Sharon had gone from being a courier to being an accomplice to Noah’s deception.

“Ugh! This is so stupid. A stupid little prank that’s unlikely to go anywhere,” Sharon said to herself.

Talk about stupidity. Stella didn’t even notice that Sharon walked out without paying for the curl enhancer. And enhancer? For her straight hair? She’d go back to the Palace in the morning and either pay Stella or exchange it for something she could use.

By the next morning, Stella Stiles was dead.