The Curse of Eelgrass Bog, page 2
But Mam told me to take care of the museum, and that means Oliver too. Especially because he isn’t very good at taking care of himself.
How was Mr. Misery this morning? Shrunken Jim asks when I return to my room. The Most Petulant Pedrock? Our Cantan-kerous King?
“Cantankerous,” I say. “That’s a good word.”
Shrunken Jim smiles through his mouth-stitches. Obdurate is a good one too. It means “pigheaded.”
I get dressed in my favorite red cardigan and Da’s old mustard waistcoat, muttering “obdurate” to myself as I fumble with the buttons. It isn’t a weekend, which means I’m supposed to spend the day reading schoolbooks. However, textbook facts never stick in my cobweb-brain very well, and I’ve got more important business today than trying to learn far-off capital cities or how to properly measure a triangle.
So instead, I go back to the broom closet. This time I take an actual broom.
Shrunken Jim fits into the special mesh pocket I made just for him on the outside of my backpack. We choose the loudest record from Mam’s music collection, a soaring, drum-heavy symphony, and put it on full blast so the whole building vibrates. It’s perfect. Even if Oliver yells at me to turn it off, I won’t be able to hear him.
Sometimes I almost enjoy cleaning days, especially when the music is loud enough to drown out gloomy thoughts. I dance around the museum, knocking down cobwebs, polishing display cases, and singing with Shrunken Jim at the top of my lungs. My parents always encouraged loudness. Plenty of time for silence when you’re dead, they’d say, even though Shrunken Jim can sing pretty well too. It makes me wonder if they have music at their research base in Antarctica. Maybe I’ll send a couple of records with my next letter, just in case.
I sweep, scrub, and chase away hordes of silverfish and spiders. I polish the plaques on display cases, especially the ones that have my parents’ names: Discovered by Dr. Ellen-Jane Pedrock or Cataloged by Dr. Hugh Pedrock. It’s incredible how much stuff in the museum was found directly by them. It does make me feel a bit useless since I can’t seem to find more than a couple of badger bones. But that’s the kind of gloomy thought I want to banish. I turn the record player louder, singing until my throat hurts. For a while, it feels like I really have brought the Unnatural History Museum back to life. The woolly whale skeleton seems to dance on the ceiling, bog mummies bask in the weak morning sunlight, and even the doorknobs seem less rusty. I paste wallpaper back onto walls. Scrub mold from the second-floor bathroom. Clear ash from all six fireplaces. Rearrange bone dolls in the Hall of Curses exhibit. Water mandrakes. Brush dragon teeth.
Not bad, Shrunken Jim says when we take a break. If your parents walked through the doors right this minute, I don’t think they could find a hair out of place.
“Liar.” I tie my hair into a ponytail. My head is pounding from the music, and my palms have blistered. But that’s part of the job. Someone has to act alive around here, or else the museum might forget what “alive” means.
Shrunken Jim bobs in his jar. You do them proud.
I grin tiredly and lean against a tank of preserved flesh-eating seaweed. He’s being sweet, but he really is a fibber. No matter how hard I work to polish its surface, the Unnatural History Museum is crumbling in places I can’t seem to reach. I can dust exhibits, but I can’t stop them from growing brittle and rotten and mildewy. I can’t chase away all the spiders. I can’t catch all the moth eggs. Not by myself. Perhaps if I wasn’t rattling around in here like a pea in a whistle, I might be able to make a real difference. But caring for the Unnatural History Museum by myself is like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom.
There are photographs lining the walls from before Mam and Da left. Things were different then. Everything, from the staircases to the display cabinets, shone with care. The pests were always under control. The wallpaper wasn’t peeling and mold spotted. People came from across the country to visit us, bringing ticket money that helped the museum thrive. I try and try and try, but I’m missing the kind of magic Mam and Da had. They never needed to work so hard to keep the museum from crumbling away.
It’s unfortunate that I lost my body, Shrunken Jim sighs. Otherwise I could help.
I shift upright. “Tell me that story again?”
I’ve told you a thousand times, Kess.
“Ages ago. I barely remember the details,” I say, blowing a stream of dust from the seaweed tank. It swirls like a galaxy. “Tell me again, please? And don’t leave the nasty parts out.”
Shrunken Jim sighs louder, though I reckon he loves talking about himself. His voice always goes wistful whenever he mentions Eelgrass Bog, no matter how he insists it’s full of danger and darkness. My favorite tales are about his adventures in the Drowned World, which is exactly where today’s tale takes place.
The Drowned World is a secret place beneath the bog, so deep underground, it has its own impossible stars. It’s a place full of creatures so ancient there aren’t human words to describe them, with a river brimming with pure gold. Shrunken Jim says this is the source of all the unnatural magic on Eelgrass Bog. He also says he was kicked out and stuffed into a jar by a witch who was jealous of his beauty, so it’s tricky to know how much he’s telling the truth. But it doesn’t matter. Real or unreal, hearing about Eelgrass Bog is like settling into a favorite armchair. Soon I feel wistful too, even though I’ll probably never visit. But that’s what the best stories do. They let you see yourself perfectly, all your dreams and complicated parts you can’t otherwise put your finger on, as though the words know you better than you know yourself. Even now, I don’t really understand why stories about Eelgrass Bog feel so right. They just do. It must be like how science feels to my parents. Like maybe we aren’t so alone after all.
Hey, it’s not bedtime yet, Shrunken Jim says. Are you falling asleep on me? Am I that dull?
“Course not,” I yawn.
Uh-huh. You’ve got drool on your chin.
I wipe it off. “Guess it’s lunchtime. Hungry?”
Excuses, excuses, Shrunken Jim grumbles. But his mouth-stitches are tugged upward.
My body is extra stiff after lying down for so long. When I stand, I knock a fresh cobweb from the seaweed tank. It falls slowly through a sunbeam before coming to rest on the floorboards, where a spider is scuttling out of view.
Lunch is another cockle sandwich. I choke it down, then fetch clippers from our very, very tumbledown shed and start on the hedgerow. The fog has finally started to burn off. A hawk soars overhead. I watch it circle and imagine sprouting wings of my own. I’d fly over the watch fires to Shrunken Jim’s Drowned World, find monster skeletons, and bring them home with daylight to spare.
Focus, Kess, Shrunken Jim says gently.
“Right,” I say. Daydreaming probably isn’t sensible when I’m holding gigantic gardening scissors.
I chop tangled branches until the footpath is bare again. Ivy has knotted itself into the boxwoods, so I cut that away too. All the while, Shrunken Jim and I hum the same song, one that my parents used to dance to when they thought Oliver and I were in bed: Take my hand, oh my darling; we’ll outrun the dark. Don’t go away now; you have stolen my heart. Oliver would hold a finger to his lips, and we’d spin in dizzy circles on the landing until I laughed too loud and Da shouted for us to go back to bed.
Now those days seem longer ago and more impossible than Shrunken Jim’s stories.
Hey, Kess? Shrunken Jim says. We have company.
“Company?” I say, confused.
Then I notice the girl. My clippers freeze mid-clip.
Instead of walking on by, the girl has stopped in front of the Unnatural History Museum’s gate. She looks about my age, dressed in a gray wool coat and brown leather boots. Her hair, black as a rook’s wings, is neatly parted into two braids, one a little longer than the other.
She frowns. Just when I think she’s going to leave, she steps through the gate and opens the front doors.
The hinges screech in surprise. Or maybe that’s just me.
“Did she just . . . ?” I stammer.
Indeed, Shrunken Jim says, froggish eyes widening. I believe we have a visitor.
3
A visitor? A visitor! For a startled moment I just hold my clippers open. Whenever I imagine people returning to the Unnatural History Museum, it’s always with crowds and fanfare. Maybe a parade or two. Not a girl quietly coming on her own.
But it doesn’t matter. We have a visitor!
What are you waiting for? Shrunken Jim prods. Go and introduce yourself.
“Right,” I say, quickly tossing down the clippers. My shoelaces have untied, and I stumble over the threshold like some kind of clumsy mermaid. “Hello?”
The girl turns away from a bog-unicorn exhibit and smiles. Her teeth are silvered by metal wires. “Ah, good, you’re open! Elliott said this place was cursed or haunted or something, so I wondered—” She catches herself. “Sorry. Didn’t mean it like that. Of course there are no such things as curses! Guess I’m just excited. We didn’t have an unnatural history museum in Ontario.”
I blink. She sounds as though she swallowed up a song from somewhere distant, every word quick and musical. It’s pretty. It’s also the most anybody has spoken to me in ages, except for Oliver and Shrunken Jim. Suddenly my shirt feels very tight.
I cough the dust from my throat and mumble, “I’m Kess Pedrock.”
“Lilou,” she says. “Lilou Starling.”
“That’s a nice name.”
Her smile widens. “How much does it cost to go inside? Do I need to buy a ticket from you?”
Tell her it’s a hundred dollars, Shrunken Jim whispers from my backpack. No! Two hundred! Think of how many pickles you could buy.
But that’s the problem. I can’t think very well. My darned cobweb-brain barely remembers what I’m supposed to do when a visitor comes. I used to run the cash register when my parents were busy, but I can’t remember how much tickets cost. The register itself hasn’t worked in ages, stiffened up like a rusted spring. For some reason, the longer I look at Lilou, the sludgier my brain becomes—but it’s a pleasant kind of sludgy, like melted Popsicles in the summertime.
Focus, Kess, I think. Focus.
“Two dollars?” I guess. That’s about what a couple of chocolate bars cost. Seems fair.
Lilou counts out a handful of coins. “My birthday party was last week, so I have plenty of pocket money from my grandparents. I would’ve invited you if I’d known you existed. All my real friends are in Ontario, see, except—” She cuts off again, sheepish. “Sorry. You won’t care about that.”
I nod, although I’m sure I would care. She gives me the final coin, and it’s still warm from her pocket.
Rip-off, Shrunken Jim mutters.
“Would you like a guide?” I ask, tearing off a faded UHM ticket from a roll and handing it to her.
“No thank you. I’ll manage.” Lilou’s deep brown eyes linger on me for a second longer. Searching. Then she goes off toward the kraken tentacles, and I’m left with a stack of coins and a strange double-skip in my heart.
I would’ve invited you if I’d known you existed. I repeat the words over and over until they nestle somewhere deep in my rib cage, sunshine warm, filling a space I hadn’t realized was empty before.
Lilou said she wants to explore alone. But I can’t help worrying that if I let her go, she’ll fall through a rotten floorboard or something. So, I creep behind her as she walks through different rooms and frowns at the exhibits like they’re a puzzle she wants to solve. Sometimes she takes a small, flat device from her pocket and clicks what I think is a photo. Whenever she turns around, I duck behind a display case.
Why don’t you go talk to her? Shrunken Jim sighs. Skulls and vermin, Kess. I doubt she bites.
“I did talk to her,” I say, carefully avoiding a taxidermy fish with a missing glass eye. “Anyway, I don’t want to scare her off.”
Acting like a ghost might do the trick.
“Oh hush.”
My parents were great with strangers. Da could remember the names of everyone in Wick’s End, and Mam knew how to coax a laugh from the sternest schoolteacher. Even Oliver used to make friends wherever he went, before he decided to become a prune-hearted cockroach. It’s not that I’m shy or anything. But sometimes it feels as though I’m watching the world from behind display glass, like maybe I’m missing the half of me that understands other people. That’s probably why Shrunken Jim is my best friend. I never know how to act with real humans. Lilou is the first kid my age who I’ve spoken to in forever—I can’t mess it up.
Anyway, there’s a lot you can tell about someone who doesn’t know they’re being watched, same as you can drag stories from bones. Example: Lilou seems to be hunting for something. Her eyes scan every inch of the museum. She passes through entire exhibits without pause, then takes pictures of a framed Eelgrass Bog map from about a thousand different angles.
“What’s she looking for?” I whisper, craning my neck around a door frame.
A place to hide from you?
I flick Shrunken Jim’s jar. “Nope. Look, now she’s photographing another map! Can she even read Latin?”
Nefarious, I’m sure.
“Nefarious,” I echo. “Nice word.”
Lilou skips the Skeleton Gallery—I’m almost offended—then frowns at the Hall of Curses for half an hour. Sometimes she scribbles in a pink spiral notebook. Mostly she takes pictures. Her face stays focused and serious. I wait until she moves onward to the Bog Mummy Room, then tiptoe after her. Well. I try to tiptoe, but the floorboards creak when I step on them.
Lilou turns warily. “Hello? Kess?”
That’s you, by the way, Shrunken Jim says.
“Shut up,” I whisper.
Luckily there are enough rumbles and hisses in the Unnatural History Museum to cover for me. Lilou soon turns her attention to the Bowing Lion. It’s some kind of ancient mega-cat that got preserved in the peat of Eelgrass Bog, forever frozen in a twisted position like it’s bowing to a queen nobody else can see. Lilou raises her device. I gather my bravery.
“Ah, yes,” I say in my best museum-expert voice, sauntering into the room like I just so happened to be passing through. “The Bowing Lion. Almost ten thousand years old, that. Do you like mummies?”
Lilou hastily stuffs her device into her pocket. “Oh! Um, I—I guess so.”
I wait for her to say something else. “Bet you never had one of these in Omtrio.”
“Ontario.”
“Exactly.”
Lilou gives me a side-eye, like she’s waiting for me to pick up the hint and leave. I probably should. But then I might regret it forever. The warm, sludgy feeling makes my heart quick-beat, and I realize that I desperately don’t want Lilou to think I’m weird or cursed. I want her to like me.
Thankfully, Lilou seems to give up on waiting for me to leave. She crouches and looks at the plaque beneath the display glass. “ ‘Leo lustrum major, female. Discovered by Drs. Ellen-Jane and Hugh Pedrock, Eelgrass Bog,’ ” she reads. “Are you related?”
“They’re my parents,” I say proudly.
“How come the dates are scratched out?”
“Um, not sure,” I admit. “Probably an accident.”
“Can I touch it?”
I blink in surprise. “Oh. Um. Sure.”
Lilou reaches over the glass and carefully strokes two fingers along the Bowing Lion’s matted mane. She doesn’t seem disgusted like some people are when they touch dead things. More thoughtful. Bog mummies always make me thoughtful too, about what the mud takes and what it leaves behind. After ten thousand years, there’s so much we don’t understand about the Bowing Lion. But if you know where to look, parts of her story are written across her body. In her teeth and bones and skin.
“It’s actually real.” Lilou sounds impressed. “My dads warned me this museum was probably full of fakes, but it’s actually real!”
Her dads sound like wet socks, Shrunken Jim says.
“My mam thinks whole-wheat bread tastes the same as chocolate croissants,” I say. “You can’t always trust parents.”
Lilou cracks a smile. “Suppose not. But like . . . you also have kraken tentacles literally everywhere.”
“Of course,” I say more defensively. “We have lots of old megafauna in the museum, and they’re all real.”
“Megafauna?”
“Giant animals. Most natural megafauna went extinct after the last ice age, but my parents found our museum specimens on Eelgrass Bog—which is really special. Usually they only surface in faraway frozen places, so the bog . . .” I clear my throat. “Anyway. We don’t keep fakes.”
“Of course, I’m sorry.” Lilou pulls her hand out of the display case. “I didn’t mean to sound rude.” She pauses. “Where are your parents, by the way?”
“They’re in Antarctica,” I explain. “There’s an island where ice caps have melted and weird skeletons keep appearing, so they were asked to investigate.”
“They sound cool.” Lilou pulls a face. “My dads are real estate agents. Have yours been gone long?”
