The Monster Museum Read online

  Feeling torn, I looked at the screens, the blobs of thermal and night vision imagery where I was searching for signs of a dead man, the audio speakers where I'd been listening for spirits in the static.

  I'd lost track of Anton Clay, and he didn't seem to be pursuing me. I wanted to take comfort in that, but I'd be deluding myself if I thought the threat was really gone.

  He was out there somewhere, on the loose, plotting something. And if it didn't involve me, it undoubtedly involved his usual favorite...burning down a house with a family trapped inside.

  Jacob had helped as much as he could, using his psychic abilities to help us study the sites most associated with Anton, but Anton just wasn't there to be captured.

  I played the videos and got drawn into them, watching the shadows, though there wasn't much to see.

  For a moment, I forgot that I'd made plans with Michael and failed to break them.

  When I remembered, I decided not to call it off. The thought of spending the rest of the night alone with my cat, thinking about ghosts from my past, was too much.

  I thought of how it felt when Michael embraced me—tall, strong, confident, wrapping me in warmth.

  “It's only coffee,” I murmured to myself, as I stood, stretched, and walked toward the exit.

  But we both knew it was more than that.

  It was lunch, bare minimum.

  Chapter Three

  Christmas in Savannah is a winter wonderland, full of sleighs and reindeer, like a big snow globe...

  Okay, just kidding. It's typically about sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit, though sometimes it slips below that and you have to maybe grab a jacket if you happen to think of it.

  Still, it's mad shopping season, plus touristing season for that demographic that likes to spend their vacation time riding in holiday-bedecked trolleys and touring elegantly decorated old mansions. So downtown is busy, merrily enhanced with matching and evenly spaced wreaths, red ribbons, bunting on ye olde-timey streetlamps, white lights in the trees like constellations of stars.

  Traffic was thick as I made my way home, and I found myself running late. I hurried to get ready, going to a lot of trouble but not wanting to look like I had. I settled on old jeans with a worn-out knee, which I normally just wore for house cleaning and quiet days at home with my books and cat. That should send a nice clear “I'm feeling iffy about this” message.

  But I wore the nice black blouse and jacket with that, and monkeyed with my makeup longer than usual, and I felt more nervous the closer it drew to time to go.

  Usually I'd have a case going, with a blurry, whirling mobile of disconnected clues and bits of historical background spinning through my mind, taking up some of the space and energy in the old brainpan there. Today, all I had to think about was my personal issues—mainly Anton Clay and Michael Holly, the arsonist and the firefighter, killer and savior, enemy and lover.

  I blushed and shivered, thinking of how it might be nice to end up close to him again, if things fell that way.

  He rang my bell.

  “You look great,” Michael said, giving me his broad grin when I opened the door for him, tall and broad and handsome as ever, and my stupid knees actually felt weak for a second, which is one of those things that should really only happen in stories, but it's real.

  “Yeah, you look all right, too,” I said, trying to play it casual. I stepped out into the dim evening air outside my old brick apartment building. I let him embrace me, and I put an arm around him. I let my cheek rest against his chest for just a heartbeat before pulling away. “I won't be embarrassed to be seen with you in public.”

  “Especially not after you see my karaoke rendition of 'Hard-Knock Life.' I've been rehearsing all day.”

  “Aw, but they don't have karaoke at the Bean. So sorry.”

  “Maybe we can go somewhere cheesier after dinner.”

  “Lunch.”

  “Sure. Lunch.” He glanced toward where the sun had last been seen, setting far down the street. It was so gloomy out that the streetlamps were stirring to life. “I hope we're not too early. They might still be on the breakfast menu.”

  “The breakfast menu's always available. That's one of the beauties of the place.”

  He started toward his truck, a red 1949 Chevrolet pickup with a cute, bubbly, almost cartoony frame. He'd restored it himself, from apparent ruins. Restoring aged mechanical things was a talent of his, which he also applied toward the repair of antique clocks and music boxes that he resold to collectors online and a few of the pricier antique shops downtown. He might have been able to kick down the door to a burning building and carry unconscious guys over his shoulders, but I've seen him squinting under a table lamp, trying to adjust a tiny animatronic fairy's copper-leaf wings with tweezers so she could pirouette through a miniature arbor at the strike of three o'clock without catching her slipper on a little wooden rosebush.

  “Let's walk,” I said, nodding toward the north, toward the river.

  “You sure?”

  “We can cut through Forsyth Park and look at the Christmas lights on the way.”

  “Do they already have the Christmas lights on?” Michael asked, glancing at his watch. It's a wind-up mechanical kind, of course. “At lunch time?”

  “Yeah, they turn them on pretty early for some reason.”

  We started up the block, walking close but not arm in arm.

  The course took us right past the Sorrel Weed house, a huge Greek Revival mansion—think a temple where they'd sacrifice animals to old pagan gods—and Michael nudged me.

  “Ever been in there?” he asked.

  “Are you kidding? They'd never hire me. The ghosts pay the bills in that place. They have ghost tours, paranormal lock-ins...the place is brimming with entities.”

  “But did you ever go there for fun? My sister went once with her friends.”

  “That's not my idea of fun. Too much like work.”

  A line of tourists stood outside the house, waiting to be admitted for the evening tour while the last hints of sunlight died out of the sky. I shivered as I walked past, my instinctive revulsion to all things paranormal triggered.

  “So...you saw things?” I asked Michael. “Clay's memories?”

  He nodded slowly. “His victims. I felt like I was...trapped. Tied up inside myself. And set on fire, surrounded by flames, my skin burning. I could hear so many screams. Then faces, coming out of the fire, and I could see them burning up. They power him, the lives he's taken. Like he keeps little pieces of their souls. I saw people from different times. Lady in a lacy hoop skirt. And slaves, I think, in those kind of expensive servants' clothes from back then...uh...”

  “Livery?”

  “Sure, I was about to say that. Livery. And kids, so many kids.”

  “Did you see...?” I danced around the question I'd been wondering since he first mentioned this. “Anyone modern?”

  “Yeah.” He looked at me for a long time, then looked down. “Those were your mom and dad, weren't they?”

  “Yeah.” I felt disheartened. “He must have parts of their souls, too. I hate that. I hate that more than knowing he killed them. They're still with him, even after death, even ten years later...he still has a piece of them.”

  “Yeah. Ellie...” He took a breath and hesitated.

  We crossed the street into the park. A wide path led through the center of it, pointing straight toward our destination at the far end of the thirty-acre park. Clouds of little white lights glowed within the canopy of thick, moss-dripping branches overhead.

  A few tourists walked here and there, and a few elderly couples, plus an occasional elderly single walking a small dog. They mostly milled around the distant water fountain at the far end, which was lit by spotlights, the area around it decorated with ribbons and wreaths and such.

  “What is it?” I finally asked. “You kinda trailed off there...”

  “Right. I saw...I think I also saw you there. A young version of you. Like a teenager. Sca
red, stumbling through smoke. Lost.”

  I shivered. This thought had passed through my mind, too, and it was disquieting.

  “Did I have my giant ugly braces still?” I asked.

  “Not that I remember.”

  “It was just a memory,” I said. “Something Anton wanted you to see.”

  “Maybe,” Michael said. “You were as much there as anyone. Screaming. Suffering. I wanted to help you, but...I was useless. He had complete control over me. I only got occasional glimpses of what he was even doing out in the real world, with my body. Do you have any idea how scary that is?”

  “Pretty horrible, I would imagine. I'm sorry I ever brought you close to that situation.”

  “No, that's not my point.”

  “So what are you saying?” I stopped and looked at him under one of the park's many huge, gnarled old oaks that look like they've been standing there since Druid times. “You think Anton has my soul? Is that why I'm so soulless?”

  “You say these predatory ghosts, these murderers—when they kill someone, they keep a piece of them. That's what you were just saying. It makes them more powerful ghosts.”

  “Right. But he didn't kill me.”

  “I think he took something from you, all the same. A piece of you.”

  I fell quiet, letting this sink in. And as it sank in, I started to feel sick. “Are you sure?”

  “I'm no psychic like Jacob, so maybe I'm wrong. But I did have Anton Clay inhabiting me for a while, so I feel like I have a little insight into the guy now, you know?”

  “Yeah, that figures.” I felt myself growing angry. “I wouldn't be surprised if he does have a piece of my soul. I've always felt like I was missing some, really. Well, ever since...that night.” It was hard to encapsulate everything with anything more specific than that night. The fire in my house? The death of my parents? The loss of everything? Why not a sliver of my soul along with it? “What does it mean when a ghost has a piece of a live person's soul?”

  A stern-looking lady in a brightly beaded holiday scarf, walking a Yorkshire terrier wearing a matching scarf, cut us a look of revulsion as we passed her. She'd overheard what I said, and it seemed to offend her.

  “You're asking me?” Michael said. “You're the expert. All I know about ghosts I learned from you. Well, you and Patrick Swayze.”

  “Because you love that movie,” I said.

  “No, I'm just referencing...I don't...it's fine.” He looked ahead at the huge spotlight water fountain.

  “The clay sculpting part still melts you inside. Look, you're blushing. Just thinking about the Righteous Brothers.”

  “All right. Good thing this is only lunch and not dinner.”

  “Yeah, I've got other plans for dinner,” I said.

  “When? At midnight?”

  “I'm a ghost hunter. Midnight is when I start thinking about lunch. This?” I pointed up at the fully black sky overhead, the trees and city lights blocking out the stars. “This is breakfast time.”

  “So we're back to coffee, then.”

  “Not quite.” I slowed. The sign for Sentient Bean glowed ahead, just across the street from the park. “I'm glad you called,” I said, more quietly and with less confidence than anything else I'd said that night. It's almost like I don't like opening myself up and being vulnerable to people, ever, at all.

  “Me, too.” He took my hand as we crossed the street, and I left it in his fingers until we reached the glass door of the coffee shop.

  The place was packed inside, too; not as many art students as usual, because of the holiday, but also extra tourists for the same reason. We managed to find a tiny wooden cafe table near the back. The shop smelled like rich, fresh coffee, though with more cider and hot chocolate than usual. Hot holiday beverages, just the thing to warm you up on a day when you might want to bring a jacket just in case it cools off later.

  One nice thing about it being so crowded was that it created privacy; if our conversation strayed to the supernatural, there would be plenty of other conversations to drown us out. Not many people would be able to overhear our weirdness, or at least nobody more than two feet away.

  Though we were meeting for coffee-or-lunch, I actually ordered some green tea, since I wasn't going to be up all night watching somebody's creaky old mansion for ghosts. For a change.

  “How is Melissa?” I asked, by way of shifting to more normal, everyday conversation that didn't involve restless phantoms stalking the living. I was also testing the waters—she'd been angry with me, blaming me for Michael's injuries and comatose condition. Blame I fully deserved.

  “She's good,” Michael said. “Starting to act a little different, though. Ever since she got her early acceptance to Duke, she's basically decided she's an adult now. Curfew? What's that? She's always off with her girlfriends, out late.”

  “Doing what?” I asked, feeling a twinge of concern. The girl was on a steady track for the future—good grades, captain of her school's soccer team, and now accepted into a good college. But she was young enough to slip up in a big way. Going out and partying late was new behavior for her.

  “Just hanging out,” Michael said. “I don't know. She's kind of distant. I think my time in the hospital freaked her out. Made her think of watching Mom go, a little every day, for months. Withering in a hospice bed.”

  “She's realizing you're mortal, too,” I said. “That she could lose you. And that probably scares her. I really don't blame her for wanting me out of your life. I'm a threat to you. Both of you. We're opposites, Michael. You protect life. I spend all my time surrounded by death.”

  “You protect people, too,” he said. “We're the same. You didn't create all the danger out there.”

  “But I can avoid hurting other people by keeping myself away from them.”

  “Or you can avoid getting hurt by keeping yourself away from everyone.”

  “You broke up with me, not the other way around.”

  “Yeah.” He looked away, shaking his head. “But I'd like to issue a retraction on my previously reported thoughts and feelings—”

  “Sorry, it doesn't work that way.” My phone chimed, and I looked at it, grateful for a half-second distraction. “Aw, it's Grant Patterson. I missed his Christmas party.”

  “The Historical Association guy? What's he saying?”

  “He's calling, not texting.”

  “Sounds quaint.”

  “I'll be right back.” I answered the phone while threading my way through the chattering crowd. “Just a sec, Grant, I can't hear anything...okay, I'm outside now.”

  “Merry Christmas, my dear,” he said, his voice gentle over the phone.

  “Sorry about missing your whole holiday extravaganza. That case in Atlanta took several days.”

  “Ah, yes, the Pennefort Building. Quite historic. How was it?”

  “Haunted,” I said. “Very.”

  “Wonderful museums, Atlanta. The High Museum. Fernbank. The Center for Puppetry Arts. Which ones did you visit?”

  “Er,” I said. “Um.”

  “A wasted excursion, then.”

  “We did see the city's central library. It was okay. Kind of a dystopian prison feeling.”

  “You should have consulted me for a more enriching itinerary,” Grant said. “Alas, one cannot go backward and correct the mistakes of the past. Hence my living room wallpaper.”

  “Is everything okay? I'm out at...lunch...with someone.”

  “Lunch at this time of the evening? And I thought my lifestyle was decadent. I won't keep you from your midday repast. However, there is a situation that has reached me, grapevine-fashion, from a...well, I hesitate to use the term 'museum,' but an institution of sorts...well, perhaps we should celebrate any and all attempts to preserve and educate, however tawdry...”

  “I'm not following you here, Grant.” I looked through the glass window at Michael sitting alone, sipping his coffee. A cute blond girl in tiny black bicycle shorts was chatting at him, hovering over
his table with a perky smile on her lips. She'd moved in like a vulture when I stepped away. Michael was sort of half-nodding, looking toward the door.

  Grant sighed. “Are you, perchance, familiar with an establishment in the Great Smoky Mountains by the name of The Mountain Museum of Monsters, Curiosities, and Ancient Mysteries?” It seemed to pain him to say the name aloud. “As I indicated, perhaps not the most academic of institutions, but one that has, I understand, been in continuous operation for some decades.”

  “Okay. So they want to do an exhibit about ghosts or something?”

  “I'm afraid not. I gather the museum has been closed for some months owing to the sudden and unfortunate death of its owner. His family found the museum in disarray, and in addition reports problems of the...well, the sort you deal with, Ellie.”

  “Haunted museum. Gotcha.”

  “Apparently the trouble extends into the family home, which is on the same property, connected to the museum. They would like you to investigate as soon as possible.”

  “Okay, I'll give them a call. Stacey and Jacob will be back in about a week.”

  “I would urge you to call the unfortunate gentleman as quickly as is convenient,” Grant said. “To settle his fear a bit before the holiday. And his children's fears.”

  “There are kids?” I asked, gripping the phone a little tighter.

  “Yes, three of them. The man's name is Ryan Aberdeen. I'll send you his contact information.”

  “How old are the kids?”

  “I don't have that information, I'm afraid.”

  “Okay. I'll get in touch with the guy. And sorry again about your Christmas party.”

  “I assure you, the event was excessively drowsy. The grayhairs of old families, trying to stay relevant and aristocratic in a world grown indifferent to their ancestors' achievements. I only maintain the Patterson Christmas soiree tradition in honor of my mother, who surely smiles down on the occasion from her no doubt heavily brocaded cloud. However, the New Year's Eve affair is not to be missed. I would treasure your presence there—but then, surely you and your friends have your own exciting and youthful events in store.”