Cordelia “the museum curator”'s Arc

Chapter 11 of 12

Cordelia set the third Vale canvas against her office wall and locked the museum for the night. The bakery two towns over could wait until morning. She needed sleep. She needed the ledger. She needed a name for every horse Vale had ever painted, and she did not have one yet. The cat woke her at midnight, hissing at the office door. Something down the hall was moving. Cordelia heard glass rattle. Then a soft thud. Then another. She pulled on her coat and went out into the collection wing. Pale orbs drifted along the ceiling. A display case in the curio room shook on its base, the artifacts inside sliding toward the edge of the glass. The black marble cabinet leaned forward an inch, then rocked back. A bell jar with an old family photograph inside slid across a shelf and stopped at the lip. Isolde stood in the middle of the room. Her dress hung around her like wet gauze. Her eyes were wet too. She was not touching anything. The orbs around her were doing the shaking. "You have to stop," Cordelia said. "You'll break the case. You'll break yourself." "He isn't here yet," Isolde said. "You said you'd go." "I am going. Tomorrow. I promise." "Tomorrow is a word." Isolde's voice cracked. "I've had a hundred years of tomorrows." The bell jar tipped. Cordelia lunged and caught it against her chest. The photograph inside slid; the closed eyes of the man and the girl faced her through the glass. She set the jar down on the floor, away from the shelf. "Listen," Cordelia said. She kept her voice low. "Breaking my collection won't get me there faster. It slows me down. I have to file reports. I have to replace glass. That's a week I'm not on the road." Isolde looked at the floor. The orbs dimmed. Cordelia went to her office and came back with the black stuffed horse from the attic. Its limbs sagged. Its mane stuck up in tufts. She held it out. "This was in the crate with your portrait," she said. "I think it was yours." Isolde did not reach for it. She could not. But she stepped close and bent her face to it, and the room went quiet. The cabinet settled. The orbs sank to the floor and faded. "Keep him with the paintings," Isolde said. "Where I can see him." "I will. On a plinth. Beside the carousel." "And you leave at sunrise." "At sunrise." Cordelia carried the stuffed horse to the office and set it on the shelf between the two framed canvases. The cat jumped up beside it and lay down. Nothing else moved in the museum that night. At first light Cordelia packed a bag, wrote the bakery's address on the back of Kasey's receipt, and locked the door behind her.