Cordelia “the museum curator”'s Arc

Chapter 4 of 8

The certificate sat in the portfolio on her desk all week. Cordelia could not work the 1908 question from her chair, so she went back to the floor. The tapestry wing drew a small crowd that afternoon. She moved among the guests with a practiced smile, pointing out the stitching on the carousel-horse tapestry, the gold thread under the saddle, the dark border that swallowed the light. A woman asked where she had found such strange pieces. Cordelia said she had found them one at a time. She was crossing the dark rug under the center tapestry when she saw it. The bottom corner of the tapestry had slipped from its hook and pooled on the floor. Behind the slack fabric, a thin crack ran up the wall. It widened near the baseboard into a small dark opening. She straightened the corner with one hand and kept her face calm. A guest was watching the next panel. Cordelia made a mental note of the spot and moved on. She waited until closing. When the last guest left, she locked the front doors and went to her office for the lantern. It was a small black thing with a carousel horse etched on the glass, left over from an estate lot she had bought years ago. She lit the wick and carried it back to the tapestry wing. The cat followed her at a distance, silent on the rug. Cordelia pulled the tapestry to one side and crouched. The crack was wider than it looked from the floor. She held the lantern through the gap. The light fell on rough brick, then on a square of old wood set into the ceiling above the gap. Iron straps held it at the corners. A hatch. A ladder ran up the inside wall to meet it. The hidden door at the back of the wing did not open into a room. It opened into a shaft, and the shaft climbed to the attic she had never been able to reach from the main stair. Something moved at her elbow. The cat shot past her hand, scrambled up the brick, and used the ladder rungs like a staircase. He stopped under the hatch and looked back at her. His eyes caught the lantern light. He pawed once at the wood above him. The hatch shifted. It was not locked. Cordelia set one hand on the lowest rung. The gap was no longer a question. It was a way up. She did not know what the attic held, or why the cat had known the route before she did, but the painter who had drawn her face in 1908 had used this building, and the building had an attic she had never seen. She lifted the lantern and started to climb.