Unforeseen Circumstances (A Short Story)

By Karen Stollznow

Antiques dealer Aleister Price has a secret: he can peer into the past of any item merely by touching it.

He makes a comfortable living selling objets d’arts to rich tourists in Aspen, Colorado, but when a stranger shows up with a dark power of his own, business takes a deadly turn.

Unfortunately, having the ability to see the past won’t help him to predict the horrors to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karen Stollznow
• Release date: Jun 8, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370709816

Karen Stollznow

Bestselling author Karen Stollznow's non-fiction works include Missed Conceptions: How We Make Sense of Infertility; On the Offensive: Prejudice in Language Past and Present; Language Myths, Mysteries and Magic; God Bless America; Haunting America, and Would You Believe It? Her fiction includes the anthology Fisher's Ghost and Other Stories; the novel Hits & Mrs.; and the short stories Unforeseen Circumstances; Don't Leave Me; Welcome Home; The Dark Road; I Am Me; Room for One More: Lord Dufferin's Tale; The Screaming Skull; The Way We Weren't; Leap of Faith (The Guardian Angel); and Oliver & Olivia.A host of the popular science podcast Monster Talk, she has spent many years investigating urban legends and folklore. A Doctor of Linguistics, she has taught at several universities in the United States and Australia. She was formerly a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently a researcher at Griffith University. Karen was born in Sydney, Australia, and she currently lives in Denver, Colorado.

Book preview

Unforeseen

Circumstances

(A Short Story)

By Karen Stollznow

Copyright © Karen Stollznow 2017

All Rights Reserved

www.karenstollznow.com

Front cover design: Matthew Baxter

With thanks to Matthew Baxter, Steve Cuno and Rick Duffy.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Also by Karen Stollznow

Would You Believe It?

Hits & Mrs.

God Bless America

Haunting America

Language Myths, Mysteries and Magic

Aleister Price owned the finest antique store in Aspen, Colorado.

There were several antique and bric-a-brac stores in the mountain town, although none was quite as elegant as Aspen Antiques. It was more like a museum. Aleister traveled the world searching for rare artifacts and treasures that were snapped up by wealthy tourists and locals seeking to adorn their multimillion-dollar ranches.

He marked up the price obscenely on his wares, but his clientele didn’t mind. After all, this was Aspen. If anything, the higher the price tag, the better. Then they could brag to their friends about how much they spent.

Aleister was known for having an eccentric habit, which was no small feat in Aspen, a town full of eccentric people. He always wore a pair of bright white silk