The Juliet

By Laura Ellen Scott

"Ah, the wild west, where the men are tough, the women are trouble, and the emeralds are cursed."

THE JULIET is a novel that braids the history of a cursed emerald called The Juliet with the story of an ailing, retired cowboy actor  who comes to Death Valley to search for her. Rigg Dexon, best known for his role as Holt Br

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pandamoon Publishing
• Release date: Nov 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781945502194

Laura Ellen Scott

Born and raised in the tiny Northern Ohio town of Brimfield, Laura Ellen Scott was named after the classic noir film and song, "Laura," so it makes sense that she enjoys writing dark, quirky fiction in the tradition of Tom Robbins, Kelly Link, and Robert Altman. She started out writing short fiction, and her stories can be found in places like Ploughshares, Pank, Mississippi Review, and Wigleaf, but it wasn't until she received an out-of-the-blue email from the great Dorothy Allison (BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA) that she started writing novels. That email said, among other things: "Damn you are good. You are just seriously satisfyingly good." Eventually Allison would blurb Laura's first novel, DEATH WISHING (Ig PublisHing, 2011), a comic fantasy set in post-Katrina New Orleans. These days she is an author with Pandamoon Publishing, and her latest novel, CRYBABY LANE, is the second book in the NEW ROYAL MYSTERIES, a series set in a fictional college/prison town in Ohio. The first book in the series is THE MEAN BONE IN HER BODY, released late 2016. Prior to launching the series, Pandamoon published Scott's THE JULIET, a western/mystery about a cursed emerald lost in Death Valley. Scott is a term full professor in the English Department at George Mason University, and she divides her time between Fairfax, VA and Great Cacapon, WV.

Book preview

OLD TEETH

Chapter 1

June 1984: Centenary, Nevada

The man with the old teeth knew he was being watched. Ghost towns were never as lonely as promised. He hung a lit lantern over the card table where he ate his meals and moved slowly through the ancient stucco shack like a dancer. He knew there was a boy out there crouched on a flat rock not far from the window, watching him. It was a dangerous perch, but there were so many things young people were brave about in the nighttime. The rock was balanced on the side of the foothill behind the shack; it had pounded down in a slide a month ago, landing atop smaller rocks that had only come down within the last year. The desert was made for fools.

The man moved from the window and left only the view of the lantern, the table, and the Hustler centerfold he’d tacked to the north wall. He dressed for work. It was almost tomorrow.

In one mood he put on his uniform and boots, and in another more reverent mood he pulled on the greenstone belt. He picked up his dog’s blanket and draped it across his shoulders. The dog disappeared years ago. The cat was still around here, somewhere. The man with the old teeth grabbed his walking stick.

Now for his young watcher. Sometimes it was best to look indirectly at a shadow, just as you do with certain stars. When he looked sideways through the window he saw that the boy was actually a man, still and solid with powerful, bare shoulders. A robber, a killer, an arsonist? The man inside the cottage didn’t much care. He had found his greenstone and he was done with the rest. The best part of growing old was that the many fears he’d suffered in his life had finally distilled into a singular blind abstraction called death, the thought of which was more tiresome than terrifying.

The young man on the rock had all his fears ahead of him though. Years of fears.

It was time to make some noise.

The old man went to the front door that faced a canyon road made mostly impassable from the recent rockfall. There was a footpath through it, one only he could see. The valley was crumbling all around, reshaping itself again and coughing up boulders that threatened to bury him. He kept a section of plastic marine pipe by the front door. He carried it outside and placed it over his mouth like a megaphone.

The old man called through the pipe once and let sound bounce among the rocks. It was supposed to be a birdcall, but over the years the impression had evolved into a scream, feminized and brutal, with a clipped finish—the cry cut short. A whole story in a noise.

He went back inside to check on his watcher. The man on the rock was gone, scared off. Finally, the work of the night could begin.

* * *

It was midnight, and Lily Joy’s gravesite was lit with candles. The glow gave away its hiding place behind a hardened dune of rubble. Rhys Nash brought a bottle of Jameson with him that cost eleven of the fifteen bucks he had left in the world, but since he’d be on a plane back to the UK tomorrow, the cost didn’t matter.

The Joy vigil had already begun with a couple of party guys and three girls in anachronistic hippie dresses, all laughing at the slightest provocation and gulping wine from a jug. Rhys liked his chances. It didn’t matter that he was cartoon skinny with a nose like a hatchet; for the first time in his life, he was turning heads. He had the hair, now down to the middle of his back, and he had the accent. This was his first trip to America, and he’d backpacked from desert to sea and back again over a period of three months, letting his hair grow to further distinguish himself from the American boys who were trying to look British, all poofed up like the singers they saw on MTV. And he drank whiskey, the good stuff. Or at least he carried it with him. He couldn’t miss.

Rhys walked shyly into the candlelight. The grave was protected by a chicken-wire fence that didn’t keep anyone out. A long-haired girl in a peasant skirt and bikini top crouched on the mound in the middle to light a series of votive candles she’d arranged into a heart shape. A couple of guys with gelled hair and designer jeans stood outside the fence to offer her advice. Along with the candles, the mound was littered with trinkets and tributes—shoes, beads, empty bottles, feather boas, cat-eye masks—stuff that prostitutes liked, apparently. From what little information Nash had acquired, it would appear that while she was living, Ms. Joy was one of the demimonde.

Rhys and his bottle were received warmly. He took the first swig before passing it on to his new friends. To Lily Joy, he said. He leaned forward to squint at the letters stenciled on the plain wooden cross that was planted at one end of the grave. He added, AKA Becky Akins. The name Lily Joy had been printed on the horizontal bar and Becky Akins on the vertical. Where the names intersected, they shared the Y.

When Rhys spoke, the girl on the mound noticed, and she smiled at him as if he were a rock star. He could tell she was holding in the question, mulling a strategy. The Americans he didn’t want to talk to always asked where he was from, while the more interesting ones liked to figure it out for themselves.

She kept her eyes on his as she gathered her skirt to climb back over the chicken wire. The heart of tiny candles blazed next to her sandaled feet. One of the Gel Boys reached across to give her a hand. When she made it back to the side of the living, she angled towards Rhys to accept a swig of whiskey.

How’d you hear about poor Lily? she asked, as if the site was some sort of American secret.

Rhys shrugged. Back in town. It’s my last night in the States. I thought I’d do something a little unusual.

You know the legend?

It looks like the lady was popular. Rhys knew some of the details and guessed at others. A woman with two names, buried on her own behind the jail in a grave decked out like a rubbish bin in carnival season. There had to be a whore with a heart o’ gold deep under that mound.

Not with the Good Women of Centenary, the girl said. Lily was shot by her pimp. Four times in the back. They were carrying her to the cemetery. Here the girl raised her arm and pointed her finger into darkness over Rhys’s shoulder.

But the Good Women wouldn’t have it?

No, they wouldn’t. So the men buried her here. She was only twenty-one. The girl looked down to the candles. I’m twenty-one, she said, as if her birthday had just happened in that instant.

Rhys resisted the urge to say you better be careful then. His smart-ass tendencies had left him lonely on many a night on his American journey. He considered Lily Joy, and what passed for legend in the US. The woman had been dead for a mere 80 years, and she was best remembered for a bit of garden-variety post-mortem humiliation. Back home that would just be Act One, and the audience would be hollering for the players to get on with it. Bring on the ghosts already, before we miss last call.

The girl said, A real tragedy.

Sad story to be sure.

The girl stood a little closer. He could smell coconut on her hair. Someone gave out a shout in the distance, but no one cared. It was just lovers playing grab-ass over by the opera house. The girl caught the bottle of whiskey again and held onto it, sharing only with Rhys, who thought the whole business was going very well.

Someone climbed up from the bottom of the slope, almost materializing from the base of the bluff. Rhys reacted with a twitch as he recognized the sound of boots on rubble. Boots came with authority, law enforcement or military, the kind that was skeptical of non-Americans. He relaxed when he saw a long-haired shadow preceded by the perfume of marijuana. The guy was big, a Native American, in fatigues and a dark tank top that showed his muscles.

He looked Rhys hard in the eyes and made a decision. Larry, we gotta go. He seemed to be talking to the girl. Larry? The guy handed a nearly spent joint to one of the Gel Boys.

The girl was annoyed. She turned to Rhys and explained, Larissa. Tony thinks he’s funny.

Tony was reading Rhys. What is that accent. You Irish. His tone wouldn’t allow for normal inflection, as if questions were unmanly.

Welsh, actually.

Larissa grinned. Tony guessed wrong. I’m not ready to leave, she said and nodded towards the candles on Lily Joy’s grave.

Tony wasn’t going to fight with her, but he wasn’t going to leave her alone with Rhys, either. Everyone understood that.

A temporary setback, then. Larissa liked Rhys enough to stick by him, but she was obviously off limits. The other two women were getting drunk and high with the fancy boys, and Rhys was going to have to work fast to peel one off for himself. And there was Tony, fixing him in place with a snap-neck stare.

This is girl’s stuff. Tony meant the grave. Larissa shushed him, but he ignored her. I just hiked up to The Mystery House.

Rhys asked, What, like in the song?

You think it’s a joke, but it isn’t. Mystery House is real.

One of the drunk girls started to sing: Ride your mystery horse to The Mystery House, and…something, something.  It was a sugar-sweet song with a dark history relating to the singer’s connections to Satanism, so it appealed to almost everyone.

Rhys flashed a grin at her. Your hippie mum sing you that one in the cradle? She laughed, and he knew he needed to get over there. She was a redhead, plenty of those back home, but he couldn’t be picky.

Rhys handed the whiskey to Tony who took the offering as an invitation to lecture. The Mystery House was built the same time as all this other shit, but it’s literally on the outskirts. Like, almost a quarter mile around this rock, tucked up a canyon road that goes nowhere. Not anymore.

Larissa was annoyed. You’re ruining it. You’re spoiling the magic.

I’m tired of magic. I grew up with it. He gestured with the bottle. What about you, Welshman? You grew up with magic too, right? Spooks and goblins in the bog and all that.

A fair amount, yes.

You religious now?

Not at all.

See? Tony was speaking to Larissa. Your folks screwed you over, raising you atheist. Now you’re always looking for stuff that isn’t there.

Larissa rolled her eyes. Installment number 97 of the Never-Ending Argument.

Not this shit again. One Gel Boy nudged the other, who seemed to agree that they could find something more interesting to do than listen to their friends bicker. They rose together and wandered away from the party, disappearing in the starlit ruins.

Rhys took the opportunity of their departure to slide closer to the redhead and her dark-haired friend. He retrieved the whiskey and made sure the redhead got another taste while Tony and Larissa distracted each other. He guessed they were married or something, and not for long, either in the past or the future.

Rhys asked, And it’s called The Mystery House because of its location?

Larissa had given in by now. She was no longer having fun with her mystic dream. She took the bottle back and raised it in a sarcastic toast. To Centenary. Civilization at its swiftest and aspirational best.

I’m not sure I follow, Rhys said.

Look, said Larissa. Top to bottom, highest to lowest. It’s not even symbolic or ironic. It’s just raw.

Tony concentrated on rolling another joint, but he couldn’t resist shooting a professorial look at Rhys. She means the layout of Centenary. The banks and the opera house up on the edge of the basin, and everything getting shittier and shittier till you get down here behind the jailhouse and the red-light district.

With Lily Joy behind the garbage, Larissa said. And that only looks like the bitter end.

Rhys said, Until you find The Mystery House.

Right, Tony said. So who would be more of an outcast than The Whore of Centenary? The place is well built, dug in if you will. Like it was a choice but not a choice, you know?

Not even a century ago, Larissa said. Her speech was slurring a little, but she was focused on an ancient and persistent wrong. "There are deeds and records for every stick, brick, and pit in Centenary, except that house. It’s on the maps but never identified."

Rhys giggled. Larissa glared at him.

Sorry, he said. Back home that’s where the witch lives.

Tony liked that. Larissa thought Rhys was poking fun at her.

Tony said, Could be the case here as well, except we have more diversity to consider. I’m thinking it was where Timbisha Shoshone workers, my people, might have been quartered. Or maybe Blacks. For cheap labor. But Witches, Indians, Niggers, it’s all the same, right?

And you went back there tonight?

There’s an old dude living in the house now. I saw him standing at the window.

Who would live out here?

I would, said the redhead’s girlfriend. She was young, maybe young-young, and she hadn’t spoken a word all night. Black hair and a blue skirt with a loose, white blouse showing off country girl flesh. The redhead giggled, told her to shut up. Maybe a little sis, but not so little. Tony and Larissa seemed to make a point of ignoring her.

Tony said, Might be a squatter. You get a lot of ‘em in these ghost towns. The house is actually on private land. The real owner is some environmental activist who lost his steam or got bored. He abandoned the house after a rockfall closed the canyon road on the park side. Used to be a lot more accessible.

The girl in the blue skirt sort of faded away. Rhys had been marginally aware of her, and then he noticed she was gone. Wandered after the Gel Boys, perhaps. He hoped she wasn’t upset at how she’d been shot down, but he wasn’t going to let her distract him from the more pressing goal of getting somewhere with her redheaded companion. Rhys learned that the redhead’s name was Ginger, after all. The night had started with great promise, but now it seemed so unimaginative. Still, Ginger was from Louisiana, and that was pretty exotic.

You eat alligators? he asked.

She winked at him. Rhys didn’t think he’d ever been winked at by a woman before. He had an old uncle in Swansea with alarming eyebrows who winked all the time, but the poor fellow couldn’t help it.

Rhys winked back, and Ginger laughed so hard she almost stumbled, giving Rhys an excuse to snake his arm around her back.

Larissa said she wished they had her Ouija board.

"My granny called it a planchette," Rhys said.

Your grandmother spoke to spirits?

So she said. I’d never go against her. 

The girl in the blue skirt had returned. She brushed Rhys’ arm.

He said, Oi, where’d you come from! And everyone laughed. He’d finally said something properly British-ish, which was what they’d all been waiting for, apparently.

The other girl’s name was Miranda, of all things. She definitely gave off a wildcard vibe. I just wanted to see if there was anything in the cells, she said. Most of the buildings of Centenary had been reduced to piles of rubble, but the jail cells and the bank vault were intact and standing, sturdy as ever.

Don’t go wandering off like that, Mandy, Tony said. You could fall into a hole. No kidding, this place is rough.

In a half-protective, half-predatory gesture, Rhys looped his free arm around Miranda’s, taking a quick peek at Ginger. She didn’t seem to mind. Aye, stick close, love.

Tony laughed out loud and called him a pirate, but all the women shivered. Rhys gave Tony a look that said, Watch out, I might go for yours after all.

There was another shout in the night, one that jogged Miranda’s memory. Oh yeah, there’s kids doing it in the school.

Not in the jail cells?

Miranda shook her head. You can’t get in there. Sealed up tight.

The joint was passed around, and the mood turned cozy. Rhys pulled a sweater out of his backpack and urged Ginger and Miranda to sit on it with him. It was impossible, but once they had arranged themselves on the ground to stare at the gravesite trinkets and candlelight, it seemed like the most comfortable seat in the world. Miranda even stretched out with her head on Rhys’s crossed legs while he and Ginger kissed.

Eventually Tony and Larissa began to make out, too. There was another short scream. Tony said it was an owl.

You know that. Rhys’s comment was almost involuntary.

Yes, White Man. I do.

Rhys loved that, but he knew better than to show it. You and I are a lot alike.

How so?

We’re both full of shit.

No male bonding, please, said Larissa. We’re here for Lily.

That was enough for Tony. You ever come back to the states, dude. You and me. Friends for life.

Oh my god, Larissa said.

There were two lengths of chicken wire that separated Miranda, Ginger, and Rhys from Tony and Larissa on the other side of Lily’s grave. The links flickered in and out with the candlelight, making it look like Tony and Larissa were in a movie.

So there has to be more to the story, Rhys said. He meant Lily Joy. Where I come from, a legend’s not a legend ‘til there’s revenge from the grave.

Sure, sure. We got that, too. Tony nodded. There are always sightings.

And Lily’s moans, said Larissa. Her cries in the night, etcetera. You can’t tell if she’s miserable or in ecstasy, because, of course, she’s still out there doing business somehow with her ghost clientele. 

* * *

Ginger took Rhys to the jail cells. They carried candles to light the way. The facade and roof of the sheriff’s office were completely gone as if blown away from the inside out, but the back wall of brick cells and two crumbling side walls remained. Rhys and Ginger found a good corner inside, kicked away the debris, and made a pallet out of the clothes Rhys pulled from his jammed backpack.

Ginger turned out to be everything he had been hoping for that night: enthusiastic, brave, and American as hell. He put his back into it, and she did the same. They heard the owl again, but Ginger said it was Larissa. That meant every living person in the ghost town of Centenary was having sex, except maybe Miranda and the boys. It’s like we’re possessed, Rhys laughed.

Don’t say that, baby. Be careful.

Oh right. You’re from Louisiana.

She told him she’d also done the dirty at the tomb of Marie Laveau. He’d been there too, at St. Louis Cemetery #1 in New Orleans to drink a toast on his American tour. Missed you and I didn’t even know. 

Afterward they lay exposed to a black, sparkling sky. Night in the desert sounded like an old record when the song was over, a rhythm of scratches in a silence that was otherwise deep as drowning. In fewer than eight hours Rhys would be back in the tin jangle of Vegas, boarding a flight for home.

Ginger asked Rhys what he liked best about America.

I like the desert, he said. I like how you can see everything. Do you know what I mean?

You only think you can.

No, really. You can find any place to stand in front of Beatty or Ridgecrest and see the whole town grid, all the way to the back street where there might be a cat or a tricycle just as clear as anything.

Ginger laughed. Like a toy train set up.

Rhys smiled at the night sky. That was it exactly.

* * *

Rhys woke to Miranda’s form standing over him, blotting out the stars. The hem of her skirt tickled his chest and shoulder as she tiptoed around him.

Ginger was gone.

Miranda whispered, The candles are out. Everywhere.

Rhys rose up on his elbows and made no effort to cover himself. What do you mean?

Sshh. They just went out. All at once. I saw it happen. Miranda lowered herself to sit next to Rhys on the pallet. She pulled her knees up and hugged them.

Where is everyone?

Gone.

Oh, fuck no. How are we supposed to get out of here? Rhys had hitchhiked to Centenary, and he was counting on charming a ride back to Beatty where he’d probably bum a ride from a Vegas-bound trucker.

We’ll have to wait, Miranda said. She seemed insufficiently worried that they were stranded.

"They just left us here? They left you here?"

Keep your voice down. They’re gone is all I know.

Rhys became aware of all the sharp bits pressed into his skin. Aren’t they your friends?

Not really.

I thought you came here with them. I thought Ginger was your sister.

Miranda shook her head. Listen, hear that? There was a rustle and a creak. All that noise from a teeny-tiny lizard. She crooked her thumb and index finger into a c-shape. There’s mice and coyotes and rattlers all over this place, but side-blotched lizards are the only ones that make a racket.

Rhys wasn’t impressed. He pulled on a t-shirt and rummaged around for his pants. He got to his feet and stepped carefully around the site; with the candles out, starlight revealed broken glass shards everywhere, mixed in with the bits of masonry and other debris. He picked his way to the back wall and found his jeans wadded under a barred window. With his privates protected, he felt better able to take matters in hand.

Miranda, how did you get out here?

Lily blew the candles out.

Perfect. They left him alone, naked, in a ghost town with a new age nutter. Miranda.

Her head tilted up at him, but he couldn’t quite see her face. She reminded him of a cat. I live here, she said.

He tried to kid her out of her transcendental mood. You don’t smell like you live here. According to Tony, only wizened hermits, like the guy in The Mystery House, still lived in ghost towns. Miranda might be crazy, but not that kind of crazy.

Nevertheless, she doubled down. I’ve always lived here. She stood and shook her skirt free of dust.

Rhys was disappointed with the situation.

Lily Joy was special, said Miranda. That man in The Mystery House, I know why he’s here. There’s always a caretaker for Lily’s grave. It’s always a man, someone she calls to her side. Very slowly she began to gather her hair into a single handful, smoothing it into a coil that she tucked into itself to form a loose bun.

She said, You know, I’m thinking you were called. That you’re supposed to take over for that old man. The drawstring on her blouse dangled like a dare. He’ll be dead by morning is my bet.

Whack-a-doodle, Rhys’s mother would say, but this was no time for psychology. He had to get out of there—with Miranda, of course, despite her delusions.

Okay, I’ll look into that. But in the meantime gather your things, love. Rhys was stuffing his backpack with the clothes he’d laid out, taking time to fold each garment. He had his habits, and they weren’t worth breaking. We need to make it down to 980, see if we can’t catch a ride. Route 980 was a strip of fast, mostly empty road that led to civilization in both directions.

She approached him from behind and wrapped her arms around his waist, laying her cheek on his shoulder blade. Come on, my turn. Stay with me.

Rhys stepped out of her embrace to swing his pack onto his shoulders. He kissed the palms of her hands, one and then the other. We have to get going.

Miranda tried a different move. She slung her arms around his neck. Her breath smelled like moss. The next scream you hear, she said, will be your own.

Cute. Rhys reached back and took her by the wrists, untangling them. I have a room in town. He tried to make it sound like an invitation even though it wasn’t. He figured it was near four in the morning, and with luck he’d be back in his lumpy motel bed, alone, before breakfast.

He started to climb the hill to Centenary’s main street. From there it was downhill to 980.

Stop, Miranda said.

Rhys kept going. He even made a gesture for her to hurry up and join him.

You can’t leave me here.

Rhys turned. Miranda was posing, her arms out and head raised to a moon that wasn’t there.

"I’m not leaving you. You’re staying. There’s a difference."

I have to stay, she said.

Let me guess. You’re Lily Joy. Bound for eternity to roam the ruins of Centenary. He regretted saying it out loud. No good could come from humiliating someone who should be in a mental hospital. Come on now, he said. I’ll take care of you tonight, but you have to come with me.

The static night crackled all around them. Miranda remained where she stood. She shook her hair loose and it fell to her shoulders. Then she lifted her blouse over her head and dropped it to the ground. Nothing underneath. Her breasts were large and glowed blue in the predawn, and there was a slight breeze that made a parachute of her discarded blouse, blowing it onto a creosote bush where it stuck. Miranda hooked her thumbs into the waist of her skirt, and soon she was completely naked, standing in the middle of a mining road that no longer had its own name.

You’re dazzling, Lily, but we must go. Now. When he took a step towards her he thought he heard the crunch of gravel from behind. Had Tony come back for them? Rhys turned but there was no one there.

And now Miranda was gone, too.

Her blouse moved a little on the bush, but she had vanished.

That was enough. No hide and seek for Rhys. Best thing to do was treat the girl like a bad dog—she’d either follow or not.

He marched up the hill, scuffing to scare off any beasties before he surprised them. He grew angrier and angrier with Tony, Larissa, and Ginger, as he imagined them laughing together about the naïve foreign boy they’d abandoned with a crazy girl. And that was even worse, leaving the poor thing on her own. Rhys had a feeling Miranda was just a kid, despite her womanly build. Only a kid could be so committed to the unreal.

A surprise greeted him as he reached the summit: the shape of a station wagon parked near a pile of stones that had once been the site of the Miners Union Hall. Rhys fished out his flashlight. Yes, he was right. He was looking at a real, functioning car.

With foggy windows.

He flicked the light off. Someone was inside the wagon, maybe sleeping.

Hello?

Nothing. Rhys wasn’t sure he wanted to meet the person who camped out in a station wagon in a ghost town. By the time he halved the distance between himself and the wagon, the vehicle rocked once. The unmistakable motion caused by someone climbing from the back seat to the front.

Now Rhys felt a prickle of fear. Not once during the evening had he been troubled by Centenary’s spooky mysteries, but now that he’d seen what he was hoping for—signs of life—he grew nervous.

A tiny red dot inside the wagon. Someone smoking. Then it went out.

Someone hiding.

Rhys thought he might be done with America, after all.

The car’s headlights blazed suddenly, Stephen King–style. Rhys cursed and began to run, cutting crossways between the roads, but the basin was steep, littered with boulders and a hundred years’ worth of rusted wire and cans. Forced to give up the direct route, he climbed onto Centenary’s high road, and as soon as he did, the wagon’s engine roared.

Fucking ridiculous, he breathed. At least he was running downhill, now.

Rhys expected the

Reviews for The Juliet

[fictionzeal · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

What is The Juliet? It’s an emerald, but it’s also much more. It’s cursed … or at least that’s what legend would have us believe. In contemporary day, Rigg Dexon, an old cowboy, lives in The Mystery House. Tourists would sometimes make their way to his door looking for The Mystery House. He’d lead them astray telling them the house had to be burned down years before because of some ‘Hantavirus’. He’s aware of what they really want. “They were looking for a shiny piece of green rock that had been making fools out of men for more than a hundred years…”The Juliet and The Mystery house were the brainchild of the Stieg twins back in 1893. The Juliet had been broken nearly in half during a struggle. Once rich and powerful, the boys had little in the way of an inheritance from their father. They decide to create an extravagant treasure hunt for the jewel. Clues began to appear in The Inquisitor in 1894 – “Where is The Juliet?”Summarizing this novel is like trying to catch a dozen chickens all at one time. It’s a multi-layered story with quite a number of characters. The story is told through the hundred year history of The Juliet. The author deftly describes the dry and arid conditions of the primary location in Death Valley. While the land is barren, the characters are anything but. They’re vibrant and they’re certainly diverse, even erratic. The Stieg twins were genuinely, and I’m sure intentionally, a creepy addition. Rating: 3 out of 5.