Chapter One
THE STATUE
Summer
I push my glasses higher up my nose and glance over the small group of tourists in front of me. Like most of the people that find their way into the dusty depths of Hopkins’ Museum of the Strange, their expressions are a mix of intrigue, curiosity, and… disgust.
The kid beside me, who couldn’t be more than five years old, presses his hands against the glass display case. “That’s a big tooth. Does it have a story too?”
I smile at him. “Everything here has a story.”
“A dragon’s tooth, eh?” the kid’s dad says as he reads the label card out loud. He chuckles under his breath, making his skepticism obvious. “It looks like a cross between a megalodon and a sabretooth fossil… What creature is it really from?”
“A dragon,” I state dryly. “Just like the card says.” The dad holds back a laugh as I continue.
“The Helmsdale Dragon was found off the coast of Scotland.” Pulling out my keys, I unlock the cabinet and grab the faded polaroid pictures tucked behind the tooth, showing the excavation of the dragon’s skull.
I give them to the father and son. “No one knows where the rest of the head is. It vanished shortly after its discovery in 1983, though several of its teeth are still in circulation. There’s a running conspiracy that the dragon’s skull was seized by the Vatican. ”
The boy gawks at the pictures as he and his father flip through them. Several of the other tourists join us, looking over their shoulders.
“Dragons aren’t real,” the father says. He hands me back the polaroids, his eyes threatening to roll into the back of his head.
My smile turns saccharine. “Some would beg to differ.”
They amble off to inspect the next curiosity that grabs their attention, and I return the polaroids to the display case.
Every day is like this—the same people, just in different shapes and sizes, filtering in here hoping for magic, supernatural, and above all, the mystery of both.
They’re equally unwilling to believe any of it, despite the proof all around them.
Hopkins’ Museum of the Strange is full of things that don’t belong in our reality.
It’s the stories that actually draw the few visitors in, not so much the objects themselves.
Anything could be strange… if there’s a bizarre story attached to it.
It took me several months of working here to figure this out because my boss wasn’t going to connect the dots for me.
Without a proper story, this dusty old museum would never stay in business. I’m sure of it.
Because like ninety-nine percent of our customers, I’m still skeptical. And I work here.
But it’s my job to pretend I believe everything I say. It’s how we make money, and with only a handful of tourists coming in each day, I fear each paycheck will be my last.
It doesn’t help that the museum is in Elmstitch, a small rural town surrounded by farmland and far from big cities. It’s a minor tourist trap. People only stop here when they need a break from the highway and someplace to stop for the night.
The wood floorboards creak as the visitors creep around, disappearing from my view as they weave through cluttered rooms of junk.
After a few more minutes, I lead them into the windowless backroom, to a display of formaldehyde jars filled with animals and organs.
Some have small fairy carcasses floating inside them.
I point at a large jar containing a rat with three heads and three tails.
“One of the Giant Cerberus Rats. The rat was discovered in NYC in the 1920s, along with dozens like it. To this day no one has figured out why these rats developed the way they did. The city had them hunted down and eradicated. There hasn’t been another Cerberus Rat since.”
We move deeper, toward a collection of dolls.
Indicating one of the central displays, a doll of a little boy wearing faded blue overalls, I lower my voice and face them.
“The Boy of Saint Krass. Handmade by famed dollmaker Royce Holl. The doll was commissioned by Saint for his son, Patrick, after the boy’s twin brother, Brandon, died the year before.
The very night the doll was delivered, the Krass’s house burned while the family slept.
Hours later, Patrick and the doll were found, completely unharmed, within the smoldering rubble.
They say Brandon’s spirit possessed the doll and saved his brother—”
“Really, a possessed doll?” the disgruntled father quips. “What’s next, a vampire’s coffin?”
I point to the heavy curtains behind him. “Viscount Hydes’ famed coffin is through the room to your left, beyond the curtains.”
He glances at them before turning back to me. “Seriously? You’re serious? I pulled that out of my ass.”
Yes, seriously.
Luckily, his son is several feet away, staring at the formaldehyde jars.
“Hydes and his wife, the Viscountess of Valin, traveled to America in the early nineteen hundreds where they patronized an orphanage in Boston. Several of the children died, completely exsanguinated, and the police visited the Viscount and Viscountess’s estate with a warrant.
In their initial search, they found crystal decanters of blood.
Later, under the belief the Valins had skipped town, the police discovered them in the basement of their home, covered in blood, sleeping in a coffin. ”
The father looks behind the curtains. “What happened to them?”
I shrug. “They died. During their arrest, they were brought into the sunlight and their hearts gave out. Their bodies had completely crumbled by the time the officers took them to a hospital.”
The boy, now at his dad’s side, tugs at his father’s arm, his face whiter than it was several moments prior. “I want to leave.”
I almost feel bad for frightening the child, but who brings a young kid to a place like this?
I warned the father upon admittance that some of the exhibits weren’t suitable for children.
My only hope is that the boy’s nightmares don’t last because I’m afraid the kid won’t receive any comfort from his father.
By the time they and the other tourists leave, there’s an ache behind my eyes and my mouth is dry.
This work makes me thirsty. I flip the sign on the door to Closed and walk through the moldering, eclectic rooms of the museum, making certain I didn’t miss any stragglers.
When I’m certain I’m alone, I head to the front desk, grab my water bottle from behind the counter, and face the giant stone gargoyle behind me.
Leaning back against the counter, I sip my water.
The gargoyle is one of Hopkins’ most interesting exhibits, and he welcomes everyone when they enter the museum.
“Until this job,” I tell him sarcastically, “I never knew how annoying dealing with skeptics was.”
And I’m one of those skeptics, sort of, I think. I can never tell anymore. I’ve become too good at pretending. It was inevitable, after spending countless hours in this place.
Rain begins to fall, pinging the dusty front windows. A light flickers, and the gargoyle seems to grow bigger as a shadow dances across his hulking form.
There’s a knock on the door, and I turn around. Through the glass top of the front door, I spot a shadowy figure on the other. “We’re closed!” I shout.
“I think I left my phone inside!”
The father. Of course, it’s the father. I put my water away, grab my keys, and head for the door.
“Thank you,” he huffs, hunkering from the rain. “Do you mind if I take a quick look?”
I do mind. I don’t like being alone with strange, annoyingly skeptical men. Every day, I’m burned by one of them. Regardless, I usher him inside. “Sure. I’m just closing up for the night.”
“I’ll be quick.” He smiles and walks past me, his gaze streaking across the front room’s displays before heading deeper inside. “I promise.”
I follow behind him anyway, staying at the threshold of each room until he finds his phone near the dragon tooth display. He gives me another smile as he sighs with relief, and I lead him to the front.
“Thank you again,” he says, but instead of dashing back outside, he nears the counter.
I glance at the gargoyle like he’s a coworker who can hear my repressed sigh. Still, I head behind the counter, so at least the gargoyle has my back as I face the father. “Is there something else you need?”
Where’s your son? is what I’m really asking.
His lips tilt upward. “Do you really believe this stuff?”
“I do,” I lie easily. Too easily.
“It’s nonsense, though.” As he says it, the light flickers, and when his gaze streaks past me, landing on the gargoyle, his cocky smile slips.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?”
The father’s gaze returns to me, his smile less certain. “Doesn’t this place scare you?”
Sometimes. “Not at all,” I lie again. “I enjoy the mystery of it all.”
That last part wasn’t a fib.
“I like a good mystery too… What do you say about joining me for dinner and telling me a few more of your favorites?”
The light shudders again as a heavy boom of thunder sounds. I swallow shallowly as another, far more annoyed sigh threatens to escape. Except as the shadows expand and retract, the father’s eyes retreat to the gargoyle.
“That’s kind of you, but I can’t. I have plans already.”
His gaze drops back to me, his brow furrowed. “That’s too bad—”
“I’m sure your son doesn’t need any more of this place.”
“Don’t worry about the kid. He’ll be sleeping at the motel. What about a quick drink? Maybe you can show me the Watering Hole? It’s right across the street.”
Eww. I like this guy less and less the more he speaks.
And that’s the problem with small towns.
The good partners are all taken, and the bad ones…
well, they often remain that way—even if they’re just a tourist passing through.
“I am sorry, I do have plans,” I say, heading to the front door to show him out.
My plans include finishing my book and sleeping.