The Unlucky Mister Locke (Shadowvale Book 8), page 1
To Rachel C. Thank you for your support and enthusiasm!
CONTENTS
About The Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
THE UNLUCKY MISTER LOCKE:
Shadowvale, Book Eight
Copyright © 2025 Kristen Painter
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published in the United States of America
Shadowvale isn’t typical small-town America. The sun never shines, the gates decide who enters, magic abounds, and every resident bears some kind of curse.
For Gideon Locke, that curse has haunted his family for generations. Branded a jinx since boyhood, he’s retreated into the quiet sanctuary of his repair shop, The Clockwork Owl, determined to keep his bad luck from touching anyone else. Better to live alone than risk destroying anyone else’s life.
Sabrina Moreau has her own burden: an irresistible compulsion to rescue broken things. From cracked teacups to tarnished silver, her antique shop, Bits & Pieces, is a refuge for forgotten treasures, but nothing has ever called to her quite like Gideon does.
Hired to restore an antique music box for the powerful witch Amelia Marchand, Sabrina ropes reluctant Gideon into the job. The work draws them into each other’s lives—and into a mystery that hints Gideon’s curse may not be what it seems. As secrets surface and the past refuses to stay buried, they’ll have to decide if some things are better left unrepaired … or if two damaged hearts might finally be worth mending.
Upon rising, Gideon Locke did the bare minimum necessary to get himself out of the house. Got up, made his bed, went for a run, did some pushups, showered, shaved, dressed. Anything more than that was inviting trouble.
Even so, he stubbed his toe, broke a shoelace, and caused a light bulb to pop simply by turning on the light.
Home was, sadly, where he often ran into the most problems. What was that statistic about how most accidents happened at home?
He was living proof of how true that was. Or at least living proof that his family curse of being a jinx was alive and well. His curse thrived at home. It shouldn’t be that way. His home should be his sanctuary. His safe place. It wasn’t. At best, he resided in a state of perpetual caution.
Which wasn’t to say he wasn’t cautious everywhere. He was. Accidents happened to him wherever he went. Which was why he rarely went out other than to go to his place of business. There was just no point in tempting fate.
He headed for the door, stopping in the foyer to carefully take his keys from a bowl on the table there. The edge of a key caught the rim of the bowl, tugging and tipping it toward the edge of the table.
The bowl fell, clattering to the floor.
With a sigh, he picked it up, replaced it, then slipped the keys into his pocket. The bowl looked ceramic but was actually melamine and relatively unbreakable. As were most of the things in his house. He survived via paper, plastic, and metal.
Not the nicest way to live but needs must.
He checked the time on the stately grandfather clock that had stood guard since the day he’d moved in. It was the clock he’d grown up with. The only real thing of value he owned. He touched one of the watchful eyes carved into the wood. For some reason, fate had spared it from the Locke curse. Tomorrow was winding day. After which, he’d polish the wood and clean the glass. Carefully.
He glanced at his image in the mirror above the table and removed a tiny piece of tissue covering the spot where he’d cut himself shaving. Only once today. He took that as a good omen. As much as good omens existed in the life of a jinx.
He locked the door behind him and walked to his shop on Fiddler Street. The Clockwork Owl was much more like his sanctuary. His curse seemed to give him a pass when he was at his shop. Or at least something of a respite.
He liked to think it was because the work he did there—fixing watches, clocks, music boxes, windup toys, pretty much any small mechanical item—was understood by the universe to be his attempt to balance out his curse.
Maybe that was true. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe nothing too awful happened to him at the shop because he spent most of his time sitting at his worktable concentrating on the job at hand. Hard for things to go too wrong when you didn’t move.
Nearly 8 a.m. and Fiddler Street was quiet in the soft gloom of the early morning light. Shadowvale was never sunny. That was the town’s own curse, although it had a purpose. To protect the vampires who lived here. He didn’t mind it. The gloom suited his mood more often than not.
The scent of coffee wafted toward him. He inhaled, stopping for a moment to breathe it in. He’d start a pot of coffee as soon as he got into the shop. He would much rather have had his first cup at home, but he’d learned the hard way how many ways that could go wrong, and drinking coffee from a plastic mug offered no enjoyment. He knew stainless steel was also an option, but that would do nothing to safeguard the process of making coffee.
He started walking again. Past experiences had not gone well. The glass pot had shattered twice. The water reservoir had leaked. And overflowed. The handle had come off the pot. And on the last attempt, the machine had simply failed to work.
He’d never had an issue at the shop. He knocked on the tree he was passing. He was not an overly superstitious man, but there was no point in wasting an opportunity to possibly prevent a mishap.
The shop was just up ahead. He inspected the storefront as he grew closer. The glass could stand to be cleaned. Not something he’d dare attempt himself, but he had a service that took care of it when he called.
He tipped his head back to look at the sign. Against a rich brown background, the letters were picked out in gold. In the right-hand window was a selection of things displayed as a visual presentation of the things he was capable of fixing: a cuckoo clock, a travel alarm clock, a man’s and woman’s wristwatch, a pocket watch, a windup tin solder, a music box, an antique camera, and an old-fashioned typewriter.
In the left-hand window was the shop’s namesake, the clockwork owl, a beautiful, delicate little thing that gave him great joy. He’d discovered it for sale online in an odd lot of watches and clocks, something he’d only intended to buy for the parts. But once he’d realized what else was in the lot of goods, he’d bid. And bid high enough to win.
The owl was an antique, a relic of a bygone era when such animatronics were considered high technology and utterly fascinating by even the most common individual.
He still found them utterly fascinating.
The owl had taken him nearly two years to repair and rebuild. He’d even had to make a few parts, something that had been a tribulation at the time but had taught him new skills. He kept it in the front window so everyone might enjoy it, and he knew they did.
People came to watch it at ten in the morning and ten at night. Those were the twelve-hour intervals at which the owl performed its movements. The metal bird would blink its large, blue glass eyes twice, turning its head back and forth as it spread its wings and gave three, slow flaps before pulling them close to its body again. Its head would rotate one complete turn, then it would close its eyes, open its beak as if laughing, and finally return to its resting position.
For all the destruction that surrounded him, he’d found a way to add value to his world. He’d saved something meant for the scrap heap. Sometimes, that owl was enough to keep him going.
He glanced at the shop next to his. It didn’t open until 10 a.m., which he found to be rather late, but then the shop stayed open later than his.
The sign read, “BITS & PIECES: Upcycled and refurbished furniture, housewares, and art.” Art, he supposed, was a subjective term. The store windows were a mishmash of things. An
old dresser with a faux-marbleized top, a black rocking chair with flowers painted on it, a display of teddy bears bearing various signs of mending including one with mismatched button eyes, and a ceramic teapot and cups, several of which he was sure had had their handles reattached, although he had to admit the work was flawless. He couldn’t see a crack or seam.
Even so, he shook his head. He didn’t get it. Who would want such things? When he fixed something, that was different. That was repairing an item with intrinsic value. With genuine worth. These things were nothing special. No real antiques that he could see.
Painting flowers on an old chair was fine, but—well, it wasn’t his taste. To each their own.
He unlocked the front door of his shop and went in, turning his sign to OPEN. He had a quick look around at his display cases and at the clocks on the walls and shelves that were for sale. Reassured that all were fine, he retreated to the back room, his workshop. He rarely spent time in the front of the shop unless he was expecting a customer or needed a break from whatever he was working on.
When he did sit out front, he generally read a book to pass the time. Paper or hardback. He’d tried an e-reader once. Loved the idea of it. But several minutes after he turned it on, the screen had flickered and died, never to be resuscitated. So paper it was, and for those he was grateful.
His shop was not the sort of place most people just wandered into. They either needed his services, or they were searching for a specific item for themselves or a gift. He wasn’t bothered by the small amount of foot traffic he got.
The sales were more than adequate, and it was a peaceful existence. It also kept him from too much interaction. He wasn’t antisocial, but he’d moved to Shadowvale to protect the world from his curse and to live out his days as accident-free as possible.
Granted, he was barely middle-aged, so he had a lot of days left to go. Was thirty-six middle-aged? He supposed that depended on how long one expected to live.
The worst part about this life he’d chosen was the loneliness, but it wouldn’t be fair to subject another person to his condition. Marriage was just not in the cards for him. Therefore, neither were children.
He refused to pass on the Locke curse to a son or daughter. That would be immeasurably cruel.
He started a pot of coffee and ordered his usual breakfast from the Red Cup, a café that had opened six months ago. It was across the street and three blocks down. The coffee and food were good, and while the menu was somewhat limited, they delivered.
That alone would have made him a customer for life.
His usual was two eggs over easy with bacon, extra crispy hash browns, and sourdough toast with homemade fig jam.
While he waited for his breakfast to arrive, he dusted the storefront. Just because he didn’t have many customers or spend a lot of time in it was no excuse for it to be unkempt.
Then he settled in at his bench to look over the jobs he hoped to tackle today. He had a wristwatch for Stella Kittridge, one of the owners of the Bargain Bin, the clothing resale shop in town; a stopwatch for Rico Martinez, alpha of the Shadowvale werewolf pack and rugby player; and an antique music box for Gracie Evermore, bookkeeper and all-around lovely woman.
Which was merely an observation. As lovely as Gracie was, he wasn’t interested in her. He wasn’t interested in anyone.
Sabrina Moreau put her cat’s carrier in the passenger seat, buckled the seat belt over it, then closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side. She climbed behind the wheel of her secondhand crossover SUV. “Off to work, Trip.”
Tripod, her three-legged, silver tabby cat, meowed back at her.
She smiled. Trip loved going into the shop with her, and she loved having him there. It was way better than leaving him home alone. He had a bed on one of the shelves across from the register, which ensured he got plenty of pets and loves throughout the day.
The few customers who came in adored him. They usually said hi to him before they greeted her, but she didn’t mind. Especially not when she suspected some of them came in specifically to see him. And if they bought a little something during that visit, even better.
The drive into town was short. She parked on a side street in her usual space, grabbed her tote bag with her lunch, her current repair project, and Trip’s carrier. She nudged the car door shut with her foot, clicked the fob to lock it, and walked to Fiddler Street, where she took a right.
Her shop didn’t open until ten, but she always came in a few minutes early so she could watch the animatronic owl in the storefront next to hers. She had no idea if the owl was for sale or not, but she doubted the owner would want to part with it.
For one thing, the shop was called The Clockwork Owl. Wouldn’t be right to sell the mascot. For another, it was more likely the owl was there to entice people to stop and come inside. She wondered if that worked. Maybe she should get Trip to sleep in the front windows. Surely a live cat beat a mechanical owl.
She believed the shop was owned by a man named Gideon, but that was about all she knew. He was never around. The only time she ever saw him was when he closed up and went home, passing by her windows on his way.
Odd way to run a business, but apparently it was working for him because the shop had been there longer than hers had. He must be doing all right.
Her store, Bits & Pieces, was only a year old. She’d moved to Shadowvale on the recommendation of a friend, who said Sabrina’s troubles would be better understood here. That there would be no need to explain herself.
Sabrina didn’t consider her need to save broken things all that troubling, but it was definitely something. Her house, a small two-bedroom in a nearby neighborhood, was filled with projects. Things she’d been unable to leave behind. Things she was sure she could fix and resell. Things that didn’t deserve to be discarded just because they had some small thing wrong with them.
Some people would probably consider her a hoarder. She hated that word. It sounded so … unorganized, unintentional, and unclean.
She was none of those things. Her second bedroom might be unusable for anything but storage at this point, but everything in it was neat and tidy. Those things just needed to be repaired.
She stopped in front of her shop and set her tote bag near the door. There was a cardboard box in front of the door. She opened it and found the pieces of a broken ceramic figurine in it. A duck, by the looks of it. There was a single sheet of notebook paper folded in half.
Didn’t matter what it said. Whatever was in that box needed fixing. She could feel it in her bones, the pull of a broken thing. It came over her like a siren song that could not be ignored. And nor did she want to. It was better than the scent of freshly baking bread. Better than hearing a baby laugh. Better than the first warm breeze of spring after a long cold winter.
She took out the note and read it. Thought you might be able to fix this. If not, please just throw it out.
Throw it away? She’d do no such thing. Even if she couldn’t fix it or the pieces weren’t all there, she might be able to use it for something. What, she didn’t know, but the duck’s head in one corner of the box seemed to be smiling up at her, thanking her for giving it a new home.
Such were her troubles. With a resigned sigh, she put the box next to her tote and checked the time.
Nine fifty-nine.
“Come on, Trip.” She picked up his carrier and went to stand closer to the window with the owl. It was just about time for him to come to life.
Temperance Beeman from the art supply store two doors down came out and waved as she walked closer. “Did it start yet?”
“Not yet,” Sabrina answered. She looked at her watch. “Any second, though.”
Temperance smiled at Trip. “Good morning, you handsome thing.”
Trip rolled over in his carrier, showing off his tummy as much as possible.
The owl began to move, lifting its wings, rising up a bit off its platform, closing its eyes and turning its head, going through its usual routine, the gears gleaming, the blue glass eyes shining.
Sabrina smiled. It never got old.
“Still cool,” Temperance muttered. She headed back to the store. “Have a good day, Sabrina.”
“You too, Temperance.” Sabrina unlocked her shop, flicked on the lights, and switched on her neon open sign before carrying her cat, the box with the duck, and her tote to the checkout counter. The lemony furniture polish she used on the nicer pieces was a welcome scent. She unzipped the carrier and set Trip free. “There you go, baby.”
