Grams and I had arrived a half-hour earlier to restock the face painting kits and miniature chests he now included in all his treasure hunts. Instead of my purse and the empty box I’d expected her to be carrying when she reappeared at the top of the stairs, she had a sword and swished it through the air as if she were a practiced swordsman or woman in her case. When she came close to catching the end of her ankle-length plaid skirt, I worried she might hurt herself.

“Where did you find the sword?” I took a step back to avoid another swipe. “Maybe you should think about putting it back wherever you found it.”

“It’s actually a pirate saber.” My uncle set the plastic garbage bag he’d used to gather discarded advertising brochures, empty drink containers, and snack wrappers left over from his previous tour near his feet, then pulled the drawstring.

Max Spencer was tall, burly, and had the same hazel eyes as Grams. His uniform, a pirate costume complete with a feather plume sticking out of his hat, was as good as or even better than anything found in a major motion picture. He’d also grown a short beard to make his outfit seem more authentic. On the rare occasion when he wanted to annoy my grandmother, he’d threatened to grow it out and have me braid it for him.

“I bought it over at the Booty Bazaar on Sea Biscuit Avenue.” Max scratched his chin. “Supposedly, it belonged to Martin Cumberpatch. The salesclerk said they bought it from old Clyde Anderson. He wanted to get rid of it because he swears it’s haunted.”

Clyde was the caretaker at the By the Bay Cemetery, one of our local tourist attractions. You didn’t grow up in this area of Maine without hearing stories about how the not so famous pirate our town was named after haunted the graveyard, supposedly searching for buried treasure.

My entire family and most of the town believed in any paranormal, supernatural, or magical entity ever written about. The ghost of our community’s legendary pirate was at the top of everyone’s list.

I’d never seen him and believed the rumors had been generated to encourage more business. Hearing the saber was haunted should have been reason enough not to buy it, and would have been for me. Unfortunately, the other members of my family believed otherwise. Any item given an otherworldly label automatically guaranteed a sale.

“Really?” Grams stopped the saber mid-swish so she could examine the blade more closely. “Have you showed it to Jonathan yet?”

Jonathan was my father, Max’s younger brother, and out of all my relatives, his quest for anything supernatural bordered on obsessive. I didn’t think there was a haunted house anywhere in the entire state he hadn’t toured at least once, including the five he’d dragged me along to visit. If the saber belonged to Martin, and there was a possibility he’d get to see the pirate’s ghost, then he’d definitely be interested.

“Of course, I did.” Max rolled his eyes as if the answer should have been obvious. “I even had it authenticated. It was made in the seventeen hundreds, but they weren’t able to prove whether or not it belonged to Martin.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” Grams said.

“Yeah, but even if it wasn’t Martin’s, it adds quite a bit of realism to the tour, don’t you think?” Max grinned.

Realism or not, I’d feel a lot better if he kept it out of my grandmother’s hands. “Shouldn’t you keep it locked up or something? You know, to make sure no children get a hold of it.” I cringed when Grams took another swipe and mentally amended my thought on the subject to include older adults who should know better.

“I always keep it inside there.” He tipped his chin at the beautiful wall-mounted case with a dark wooden frame and glass door behind us. Inside there were several other pirate artifacts and an empty spot with two hooks where I assumed the saber should have been.

I glanced back at my uncle. “Don’t you keep the case locked?” Max had always been safety-minded, so I couldn’t believe he hadn’t taken precautions to protect his customers.

“I do, but somehow the darned thing finds a way out without any help. Now and then, I’ll find it in the strangest places.” He stared reflectively at the doorway behind Grams. “One time, I even found it in the spare bunk in the room below that I occasionally use as an office.”

I glanced between the two of them. “Does anyone besides me think that’s a little creepy?” I knew better than to ask, but couldn’t help myself.

Grams smiled and stopped swinging. “If this did belong to Martin, then maybe it’s his ghost that keeps removing it from the case.”

Because of my own recent ghostly experience where my friends and I ended up helping Jessica, my tour guide friend who’d been murdered, find her hereafter, I knew ghosts were real. My beliefs about the spirit world might have been swayed, but it didn’t mean I believed a three-hundred-year-old ghost was haunting my uncle’s boat any more than I thought werewolves and vampires existed. At least I wouldn’t think they were real until I’d seen one with my own eyes.

Since I’d seen Jessica’s ghost walk through a fence, I had a hard time accepting the fact that a spirit was capable of actually moving solid objects rather than passing through them. I narrowed my gaze at the round metal lock securing the glass door on the left side of the frame. “Without the key?”

Grams shook her head and tsked, dismissing my suggestion that the laws of physics applied to the situation. I braced, sure that she was about to give my uncle and me another one of her psychic revelations.

The last one occurred a few months ago and involved a mouse who would sneak into my office at the shop and steal tidbits of my breakfast muffins. Supposedly, the rodent was the reincarnation of my great-great-uncle Howard and made a habit of showing up whenever a member of my family needed help. If I remembered correctly, the time before that, he’d shown up in the form of a hamster.

Even though the furry creature had inadvertently helped me find the clue that led my friends and me to Jessica’s killer, I still had my doubts we were related.

“The key never leaves the ring.” Max reached into his pants pocket and dangled the proof in front of me.

Since Grams had added jabs and fancy footwork to her swordplay, and I preferred not to be headline news should one of us end up skewed, I decided to use the one thing that might persuade her to hand over the weapon.

“If the saber is haunted, do you think the owner will be upset that you’re using it?”

Grams widened her eyes and stopped swiping, then glanced around as if she expected Martin to appear magically. “Oooh, you could be right. Maybe we should put it back. Besides, I’m supposed to meet with Nadine when we finish so I can help her finalize plans for this year’s fortune teller booth.”

The residents of Cumberpatch were big on celebrating everything. Next to the Founders Day celebration, the pirate festival scheduled for the upcoming weekend was the town’s biggest annual event. The booth Grams was helping Nadine with was one of many attractions that would be available for the influx of tourists who’d be arriving for the festivities.

“I think that sounds like a good idea.” Max stepped closer to the display case and slipped the key in the lock.

Glad I finally had my uncle’s support, I held my hand out to Grams, then wiggled my fingers hoping she’d turn over the blade so I wouldn’t have to wrestle it away from her.

Reluctantly, and after swinging at an imaginary opponent one more time, she handed me the weapon. The instant I gripped the metal hilt, I received an electrical shock. Only it wasn’t a regular jolt, or anything close to what a person would expect if they’d accidentally touched a household outlet. No, this was a full-blown zap with enough power to send a painful shock that ran from my wrist to my elbow.