Haunted Secrets: Tales of James Moran Vol. 1

A Gamble

James Moran looked at the small, paper-wrapped parcel on his desk. The handwritten note that came with the package offered little information.

“Use caution when opening,” it read.

Black ink on white cardstock. The penmanship was simple, neither messy nor particularly artistic. It was blocky and masculine. The note was signed R. J. Dante.

James had to think for a moment to recall the name. It rang a bell but was not immediately known to him. A man from Nevada, he recalled, that he had met decades earlier. Dante was not a dealer of haunted items, but he had sold some ancillary to his actual business which was—if James remembered right—fortune telling. He supposedly offered Vegas gamblers an edge by letting them know when luck was in their corner.

It had been a full twenty years since James spoke to R. J. Dante and he had never given him another thought. They had met at an estate auction during which several haunted items were made available. They’d been seated next to each other by chance and had chatted during lulls in the evening. He must have given the man his business card.

James flipped the card over to find more writing in smaller script on the back:

Came across this near Tahoe. Thought maybe you’d know what to do with it. Wasn’t as lucky as I had hoped it would be.

Nothing else was included, not even contact information for Dante so James could inquire about whatever he’d been sent. The return address on the package had not been filled out, but there was a Nevada postmark.

It was James’ initial assumption that any mysterious package he was sent was dangerous. Even one that someone chose to send through the United States Postal Service. It did give him pause, however. What would have happened if inspectors opened it for a routine search to make sure it was not contraband?

He carefully removed the paper, though he was certain the warning had not been meant specifically for the wrapping. No ghost was ever held at bay by brown paper. Still, he didn’t want to miss anything should something have been loosely packed inside.

Within the wrinkled paper exterior was a cheap wooden box. It looked to be balsa wood, perhaps, or maybe even some kind of pressboard formed in a factory from glue and wood pulp. He doubted it cost more than a few dollars.

The box was tied shut with twine and taped with plain sticky tape on two sides, which James couldn’t help chuckling about. Mr. Dante was no expert in haunted items or their handling, if that was indeed what he’d sent James.

There was grit on the wood and the paper. He rubbed his fingers together, feeling the grains, and lifted his fingers to inspect them more closely. White crystals. Salt. He’d been sent a box of salt.

In a pinch, salt would hold any haunted item safe and secure. Lead was the preferred method as it was much sturdier. It confirmed that there was something hidden in the box, however. Something Dante felt needed caution to handle.

James set the box aside, still tied and taped. If he needed caution to open it, he would exercise caution just as the note had warned.

After finishing up the work he’d been attending to before the mail arrived, James locked the doors and headed to the basement. Hidden away behind his office, the basement below Moran and Moran was home to several rooms in which he was forced to store highly valuable and often highly dangerous items. It was also the safest place to inspect new items to determine what he was dealing with.

The first room at the bottom of the stairs was what James had dubbed the study. It held a simple cell sealed with lead-infused glass from which no spirit could escape. It also afforded him the ability to inspect haunted items safely from the other side and, occasionally, chat with ghosts whom he did not know enough to trust out on their own.

No living soul besides James had been in the study before, though Shane Ryan had seen a work-in-progress version that had since been dismantled upstairs. It was something he wished he’d had years earlier.

“Now, let’s see what sort of artifact you are,” James said, setting the cheap wooden box on a table in the glass cell. He cut the twine and removed the tape before leaving the room and closing the glass door behind him. The lead in the glass would seal in any spirit and prevent it from leaving.